by Will Wight
Lindon waved again, walking off with Yerin.
“Where are you going?” Charity's voice rang again in his mind and his ears at once.
Lindon thought the Sage had still been speaking to everyone, so he glanced around, but Yerin had kept walking. When he stopped, she continued another step before looking at him in confusion.
He turned to see the Sage behind him.
Her young face clear of expression, Charity held out a hand. “I would like the axe back.”
Oh right, the axe.
Hurriedly, Lindon opened the void key and pulled out Harmony's axe. He was reluctant to hand it over, now that he could actually use it, but its power was a little unnerving. And giving up the weapon was better than having the Akura clan making him answer for Harmony.
The weapon vanished as soon as Charity laid one finger on it.
“Now, I have retrieved my gift to my nephew.”
Lindon started to sweat.
Nephew.
[Just to be clear: that's not too closely related, is it? For humans? I know if you left her son to die, she would be after you for bloody revenge, but a nephew isn't too bad, right? That's just, what, a harsh scolding?]
“I am sorry about what happened to Harmony,” Lindon said, keeping his voice steady. “I never had any ill will towards him.”
Not until the very end, anyway.
Charity's purple eyes were cool. “Whatever your intention was, you knowingly opposed a member of the Akura family. And in doing so, you cost us a potential competitor in the Uncrowned King tournament. You owe us a debt.”
It might have been the exhaustion, but Lindon's fear turned suddenly to anger. He kept his words respectful, but his tone had a bit too much of Orthos in it. “When the world began to collapse around us, I offered to take Harmony back. There was no feud between us. No reason either of us should die. He refused, and not only did he refuse, he said he would turn the resources of the Akura clan against me and not rest until my family was destroyed.”
He hadn't intended to tap Blackflame, but his eyes burned. “My family lives in territory owned by the Akura clan. Even so, I did not kill him. But I did leave him.”
He left out the part where Orthos had destroyed the portal.
Something flashed across Charity's face, but he couldn't tell if it was anger, grief, regret, or something entirely different. It was gone too soon, her voice as placid as ever.
“Even so, Harmony was my selection for our team. You owe me, and I collect on debts incurred intentionally or otherwise. I have been watching you, Wei Shi Lindon Arelius, and as of tonight, you have become qualified to pay me back.”
Far behind Charity, Mercy's eyes went wide, and her spirit shook. “Aunt Charity, no!”
“I do not select you as one of the three competitors from the Blackflame Empire,” she said.
Lindon hadn't realized how much he'd been looking forward to competing in the tournament. Nor how much he'd expected to be selected. The disappointment stabbed him through the chest.
Why? It didn't make sense for it to hurt so badly. He was still an Underlord, and he could still advance. No one had expected him to make it far enough for any of the best prizes anyway.
But Yerin would surely be selected, and Mercy as well, on a different team.
He was the only one not going. He wasn't sure if he would even be allowed to watch.
Mercy still looked horrified.
[Aw, cheer up,] Dross said. [That could have gone a lot worse. Imagine what else she could have—]
“Instead,” the Sage continued, “you will compete on behalf of the great Akura clan.”
At first, he couldn’t comprehend the words.
“I will take you with me to our headquarters, where you will be trained to compete to our standards. I am confident you will bring honor to our name, and if you do not perform up to my expectations, you will be punished.”
Lindon turned to Yerin, whose eyes met his. Her Goldsigns were extended, and she had a white-knuckled grip on her sword. She stared at him, silently begging him to say something.
His mind churned, searching vainly for a way out. “Honored Sage, I apologize, but surely I cannot perform up to the Akura’s standards,” he said.
“Not yet,” Charity said. “Training begins now.”
Shadows swirled around his feet, and he could no longer move them. He began to sink into the darkness.
He looked up to see Yerin staring at him helplessly, her eight arms hanging limply at her sides. What was she supposed to do?
He raised a hand to her. “Apologies,” he said.
Then the darkness closed around him.
Epilogue
Suriel dashed through the Way. The Abidan were under attack all across their border worlds, from Sectors Ninety through Ninety-Nine. Sector One Hundred had already been lost, and the others were soon to follow.
The Vroshir couldn’t maintain an attack of this scale for long, but the Abidan were likely to give out first. They were simply spread too thin.
She was not the only Judge to have flown straight from emergency to emergency for months; Gadrael and Razael had not stayed in one Iteration longer than it took to win a battle.
Wherever a Judge went, victory followed. But they could not be everywhere, and they were the only three Judges that could be spared.
Now, she hurried to Iteration 943. It was another nameless border world with a small, primitive population, but Sector Ninety-Four had not been able to evacuate it in time. She would probably have to revert an entire Iteration again, which strained both her mantle and the world’s connection to the Way. A handful of lower Abidan were defending it, so it should last until she arrived.
In the middle of endless blue, Suriel slammed to a halt.
It was as though a wall had appeared in front of her before she could slow down. She felt the impact in her mind, and for a moment she floated in pain, aimless and disoriented.
When her vision returned, she stared ahead, at the flow of the Way that would have led into Iteration 943.
Instead of a smooth sapphire passage, she stared into a ragged black gash. It was fuzzy at the edges, as though the Way had been severed completely. The World had been cut off.
[No barrier detected,] her Presence told her. So it hadn’t been sealed away.
She pushed into the dark hole, which was as difficult as digging bare-handed through packed earth; without the Way to lead into the Iteration, there was no easy path for her to follow.
But she managed it, determined to rescue any surviving fragments of 943.
She found nothing. She floated in endless emptiness, the pure void. Even the distant swirls of color that she usually saw in the void, wild fragments of broken worlds, were so distant that she couldn’t see them. This was a pure lack of existence.
It frightened her more than anything she’d seen in years.
[Warning: the Way has begun to repair itself. Recommend immediate return.]
She could survive in the void, but not forever. It would begin to corrupt her, breaking down the influence of the Way, turning her into an incomprehensible Fiend. At that point, if she didn’t find an Iteration or a fragment to latch onto, the void would continue to break her down until she no longer existed.
She stepped back into the Way, the endless power of order comforting her, but she still shivered internally at what she’d just seen.
Iteration 943 had been erased.
“What could do that?” she asked her Presence.
[Request denied,] her Presence said. Without her permission, the ghostly doll formed in front of her, looking at her with its featureless face. The construct couldn’t truly disobey her, but it could act independently when it needed to.
This time, it sensed that she was looking away from an uncomfortable truth, and it met her with a gaze that had no eyes. [You already know.]
There was only one weapon that could erase a world so thoroughly.
The Reaper’s Scythe.
~~~
Yerin sat with her forehead on the table next to a bowl of soup. All around her were the sounds of celebration and the smells of expensive food.
It was the Emperor’s celebratory feast. She sat at the head table, in a place of honor.
One of her sword-arms dangled in her soup.
The seat next to her was empty, the old Underlord next to her having risen to go speak to someone else, or to relieve himself, or to die in the corner as far as she cared.
Someone else sat down. Someone in a shimmering pink outer robe.
Eithan’s hand patted her on the back. “I’ve never been good at consolations, but do cheer up. You’ll see him again at the tournament!”
“He’s gone,” Yerin muttered into the table. “He took Dross and Little Blue with him. Mercy’s gone. Even Orthos is gone. Everyone I talk to is gone.”
Eithan cleared his throat.
She turned to glare at him without lifting her head.
He cleared his throat again.
“You got a chicken bone in there?” she asked. She raised the Goldsign out of her soup, its tip glistening. “You want me to get it out for you?”
He leaned closer to her. “Did you hear? Akura Charity announced our team.”
Yerin sat bolt upright, Eithan dodging a blade to the face. She grabbed his collar. “When?”
“It was a private address to the Emperor last night,” he said. “Very private. No one could possibly have heard anything.”
Yerin shook him. If she wasn’t selected for the tournament, she’d be the only one left out.
“You’re in it!” Eithan said, his teeth rattling.
She sagged with relief. Her master had reached Underlord at about the same age she was, but he had competed in the Uncrowned King tournament years later. She would have settled for fighting in the next one, if not for Lindon. And Mercy too.
But soon, the pall on her spirits returned. “It doesn’t matter,” she muttered. “Do we even have a team left?”
“Oh, I think we’re okay,” Eithan said. “We have you and Naru Saeya, the Emperor’s sister. She distinguished herself in battle against the Seishen Empire. Fought with great skill against two Underlords at once, while you were sneaking around in that vault. It was very impressive, and it’s always nice to have a teammate with wings.”
Yerin waited. He was leaving out the final competitor intentionally, she was sure.
“And, of course, there’s the team leader,” Eithan said casually. “The captain, if you will. The Sage’s first choice. The one who will lead the team into battle against the enemy.”
Yerin waited.
Eithan smiled.
“Who?” she asked.
He smiled wider.
“…who is it?” She was starting to worry that she knew the answer.
“What?” he asked innocently. “I’m thirty-four. How old did you think I was?”
~~~
Information requested: preparations for the eighteenth Uncrowned King tournament.
Beginning report…
The favored young Underlords of the Akura clan are lined up. For some, this will be their first time seeing the Monarch in person. Each Underlord and Underlady drops to their knees as Akura Malice emerges from shadow, her favored daughter at her side once again.
More than five thousand miles to the northeast of Akura territory, dragons of every shape and color fly around a volcano. Their roars fill the air and shake the earth as a small figure hikes closer and closer. In the form of a cloaked human boy with golden eyes, he approaches: Seshethkunaaz, the wandering King of Dragons.
Sha Miara, Luminous Queen of the Ninecloud Court, throws a tantrum. She wants to fight in the tournament. Her tutors have reached the end of their patience; there is no sport in sending a Monarch to do battle with Underlords. She’ll keep her power veiled, she insists. She will compete fairly, and no one will recognize her. When they continue to deny her, her wails conjure a storm indoors.
One at a time, the Eight-Man Empire call up would-be squires from all over their territory. For those who want to join the Empire one day, this tournament will be a good test.
Emriss Silentborn, the Monarch Remnant, watches gravely over the Wandering Titan. The massive Dreadgod, like a mountainous statue, has stirred earthquakes in its sleep. It is beginning to awaken, even before the Bleeding Phoenix has gone fully dormant. Emriss must choose her champions carefully; it is likely that this next generation will inherit a world at war. They must be ready.
Northstrider walks the boundary between Akura territory and that of the dragons. He has no family and leads no sect. He is the Monarch of unbound sacred artists, those with no master or home. He goes into the Wasteland, where he seeks out the Beast King. The Herald might have an eligible student who can bring honor to the name of Northstrider.
The Arelius clan, in the ruins of their ancestral home, is still in mourning over the loss of their Monarch. Their clan has as deep a foundation as any, so they are invited to participate in the Uncrowned King tournament, but there is fierce debate. This could be nothing more than another blow to their reputation. Grimly, they determine that their fate will be even worse should they try to hide.
Reigan Shen looks out over those he has newly recruited to his cause. Redmoon Hall, with their Blood Shadows in a thousand different forms. Abyssal Palace, their faces concealed beneath hoods and stony masks. The Silent Servants, whose mouths are bound, and the Stormcallers, who ring their arms in scripts that crackle with lightning. The cults of the four Dreadgods look to their new Monarch, who raises hands of benediction over them all.
Suggested topic: connections between the Arelius family’s fallen Monarch and Eithan Arelius.
Denied, report complete.
~~~
Wei Shi Kelsa crouched in the underbrush of the orus groves, keeping her breath slow. Night had always been bright in Sacred Valley, but Samara's Ring cast harsh shadows. She waited in those shadows now, silently begging the heavens to keep her hunters away.
A figure walked boldly through the trees to her right, holding a lantern of bright green madra. He was doing nothing to conceal himself as he searched for her. She pressed lower against the ground, sliding under a bush as far as she could without rattling it and giving away her presence.
The Fallen Leaf School had glimpsed her stealing fruits before, so they had increased security. She tightened her grip on the bag of fruit that she'd managed to fill before tripping a hidden security script. Even if she got caught, she couldn't leave without this food.
Her pursuer swept his lantern from side to side, searching for her. Summer had begun, but the ground was still cold as she pressed against it. She kept herself from shivering. Even the slightest motion could catch his eye.
Fallen Leaf elders wouldn't lower themselves to personally hunt for a thief, so this man wouldn't be Jade. Probably Iron, like her. She would have a chance to fight her way free.
But she couldn't afford to antagonize another School. As it was, if caught, she wouldn't be killed on sight. Instead, they would turn her over to Heaven's Glory.
Which might be worse.
The Fallen Leaf guard raised his lantern as a signal and called out a greeting. She flinched at his sudden voice, but he was looking past her hiding spot. Behind her.
Another green light approached from within the forest.
She had to move.
Slowly, so slow that it was agonizing, she inched out of the bush, sliding the bag of fruit along with her. While the guards were focused on one another, she could slip away.
If she opened her Copper sight, she could have seen the haze of dream aura around their heads. She was a Ruler on the Path of the White Fox, and could send them a distraction.
But then they would know for sure she was around. For the time being, it would be better to slip out unnoticed.
Her spirit shivered.
It was a Jade's spiritual sense. She'd been scanned.
The scan felt like
a curtain of icy water passing over her, and the shock was so sudden that her body jerked. Her elbow snagged on the edge of the bush, which shook like a squirrel had passed beneath. In the quiet night of the grove, she might as well have rung a gong.
The two Fallen Leaf guards turned toward her.
Kelsa bolted.
She ran all-out, bag slung over her shoulder. Fear brought every detail of the run into focus, from the harsh scrape of her breath to the pounding of her feet on the earth. The Fallen Leaf guards raised a cry and sent up a signal as soon as they saw her, running after her.
She was tall, with long limbs, and she ran as part of her daily training. She would be able to outrun most other Irons, as long as none of them were an Enforcer.
A quick glance behind her showed her that the heavens had abandoned her. A young Fallen Leaf woman with an iron badge had cast aside her lantern, dashing after Kelsa with coils of green light around her legs. An Enforcer technique. She would catch up in seconds.
Kelsa kept a grip on her rising panic, forcing her breath into the right patterns, twisting her White Fox madra into a technique.
When the sound of footsteps grew close, Kelsa turned again, reaching out with her madra to the aura around the woman's mind. The Fox Dream settled around her head like a cage.
The Fallen Leaf woman slid to a halt, eyes wide, glancing around her. The specific illusion was born from the target's mind, so Kelsa could only vaguely shape what she would see. In this case, Kelsa didn't care what it was; anything that would attract the guard's attention was good enough.
In that opening, Kelsa started running again.
By now, she could hear cries coming from all over the grove, see sparks of green moving through the shadows. She would have to dodge all of these Irons and Coppers to escape Fallen Leaf territory, but that wouldn't be the end. She couldn't lead them directly back to her camp, so she'd have to run in the wrong direction to lay a false trail, then hide out for the rest of the night.
She gripped the bag of fruit as though it contained goldsteel treasures. Even if she had to crouch in a wet, freezing ditch for another day, it had been worth it. She had food.