by Will Wight
Since when had Naberius been this concerned with his own security? He had taken a number of risks in this voyage already, including boarding this ship with no more protection than his own Silent One. He hadn’t even seemed nervous sharing The Testament after he’d killed Tristania right in front of Calder. What did a man with such unassailable self-assurance need with an overwhelming number of Guards?
Mentally, Calder pushed the question away. The Imperial Guards were notoriously enthusiastic when it came to protecting the Emperor. Even the old Emperor, whom everyone had considered immortal, couldn’t go anywhere without Guards hovering over him. It must be worse for them when their charge was an ordinary mortal.
Calder walked over to his cabin, where a scaled Guard stood with thick arms folded. “Excuse me, Guardsman. That’s my cabin.”
“Please stay on the deck until our inspection has concluded.”
Spreading his empty hands, Calder smiled. “I just need to change my clothes, I promise I won’t delay you. This jacket has never fit well. Five minutes, and I’ll be a new man.”
The Guard’s eyes flicked over Calder’s shoulder as though looking for permission. After a moment, the man stepped aside. “Don’t linger. We’ll need all the crew on deck soon for inspection.”
What do they expect to find? Calder wondered, shaking his head.
He stepped into the cabin and peeled his ill-fitting jacket off as soon as possible. If he never wore the tight, itchy thing again, it would be too soon.
He leaned over, flipping his clothes chest open. Ordinarily he could have just walked around without a jacket, but he suspected he would need every scrap of dignity and authority he could muster with Naberius and the Imperial Guard on his ship.
There was a girl in the chest.
Covered in a long black cloak, with white-blond hair spilling down her back, Bliss lay curled on top of his piled clothes. How had she packed herself in there?
While he was still staring in disbelief, Bliss rose, stretching, like a jack-in-the-box.
“You should invest in a more comfortable storage chest,” she suggested. “You never know when someone might need to stow away.”
Calder wasn’t sure why he was surprised. He should have expected something like this as soon as he heard that Bliss was on her way. “I try to discourage stowaways, actually.”
She raked her fingers through her hair, smoothing it out. “Why?”
“It’s...I’m sorry, I don’t have time to explain this. I need to return you to my mother.”
“I’ll go back to Alsa Grayweather at some point in the future, but for now, I expect she would want me here.” Bliss stepped carefully from the chest, one black boot at a time. When she was finally free, she began to stretch out her cramped legs. “She wanted me to tell you that we intercepted a void transmission from the Gray Island, shortly before the Children of the Dead Mother attacked you.”
Calder hadn’t been a member of the Blackwatch terribly long, though he suspected that if he had, then maybe he would have some idea what a ‘void transmission’ was. “I apologize, Bliss, but I don’t know what that means.”
“It means there is at least one member of the Sleepless in the care of the Consultants right now. And she contacted her comrades recently, which means she is likely still alive.”
She is likely still alive.
He’d gone from certain his wife was dead to filled with painful hope in one night. This felt almost too good to be true, as though Bliss were setting him up for some huge disappointment. “How do you know it didn’t come from one of the Consultants?”
“Of all the Guilds who might work under the influence of the Elders, the Consultants are among the least likely. Especially on that island, where they enjoy a certain protection. And they are culturally disinclined as well, according to many leading scholars on the subject.”
Bliss had finished stretching. Now she was staring at the seamless wood beneath her. She prodded it with her foot, as though testing it to see if it would collapse.
“So you think it’s Jerri?” The Guild Head’s implication was clear, but he had to be sure.
“That’s the most probable scenario, though I also considered the idea that the Consultants are collecting Sleepless for some reason. That seems like somewhat of a timely coincidence, though, so I consider it less likely.” She sat down on the bed, her eyes now wandering over the cabin. “We rarely get to interrogate a member of the Sleepless. I would be interested in talking with your wife, should Jyrine survive.”
She said it innocently, but Calder made a mental note not to hand Jerri over to the Blackwatch under any circumstances. He would kill her himself before it came to that.
“I would also like to visit the Gray Island,” Bliss said. “I get the impression that several forces will soon converge there, and I should be present for the sake of observation. Naberius might not like it. Then again, he is not Emperor yet. Hm. Should I listen to his orders, I wonder?”
Calder shivered at the thought of Bliss under the Chronicler’s control. “Honestly, I’m not sure why anyone listens to him. Of all the people who could become Emperor, why him?”
She looked at him curiously. “Do you know why the Emperor died?”
He had some suspicions, but he didn’t voice them. “I was never sure, no.”
“He was losing his mind,” she said. “He kept the Heart of Nakothi at bay for more than one and a half thousand years, but he could not resist the Dead Mother when she began to awaken. So he was killed. I suspect he allowed it, but I cannot prove that theory. However, the fact remains that with him gone, the Elders are more active than ever. If no one directs the Empire as a whole, civilization will disappear bit by bit.”
Not for the first time, Calder remembered Naberius’ expression as he cradled Nakothi’s Heart. “Surely there has to be a better choice.”
For some reason, she waved her arms in the air as though chasing away invisible butterflies. “Whomever we select for the throne is going to be taken by the Elders eventually, but better someone like Naberius than no one at all.”
Calder stood for a moment, absorbed in his thoughts. He was still having trouble picturing Naberius at the head of the global Empire, but when she put it that way, maybe he was the best man for the job. If the throne was really a sentence of insanity and death, then the Chronicler might even deserve it.
But he couldn’t escape the thought that he was missing some crucial piece of the picture. Why did simply being in charge of the Aurelian Empire make him so vulnerable to corruption? Wouldn’t it be the Heart? But Bliss spoke as though the authority itself put him at risk.
“It surprises me that you are so concerned about Naberius’ rule as Emperor,” Bliss said after a moment. “I thought you’d be more worried about his plot to have you killed.”
The words echoed in Calder’s mind, but it took him a few seconds to hear their meaning. “Please, go on.”
The Blackwatch Guild Head slapped herself lightly on the forehead. “Ah. That’s right. You didn’t know, because I was going to tell you.”
A fist hammered on the cabin door. “Time’s up, Captain,” the Guard called in. “Lord Clayborn needs you on deck.”
“Naberius Clayborn is going to call you and your entire crew onto the deck, where he will have you executed. He seems to think that he is preventing an eventual rebellion.” She pinched his blanket, lifting it up to examine it. “You should invest in some nice, soft sheets. A good night’s sleep is healthy for the human body.”
Calder stilled his shaking hands as he raced through all the possibilities. Urzaia. He needed Urzaia. If the Champion could keep the men off him, then Calder could eject them all from the ship. But they knew that—they would have taken precautions for the two known Soulbound on the crew. Maybe Foster could do something, or even Andel...
The Imperial Guard rapped on the door again, calling his name, and Bliss reached up to pat him on the head. “You should be calm now. I am here. Hush, baby,
hush.”
“…did you just call me a baby?”
“It is what mothers do to calm their children. Are you calmed?”
Not exactly. But he did feel a little better; he’d almost forgotten that Bliss was onboard. With her on their side, his crew had an actual chance of survival.
“I suggest you escape as soon as possible,” Bliss said.
“It would go much more smoothly if we had your help.” Rather, if she didn’t help, they might as well feed themselves to the Lyathatan.
She considered that for a moment. “That’s possible. Well then. Farewell until I see you again, Calder Marten.” She opened the chest again and started to climb in.”
Sweat crawled down his skin. “Bliss, please tell me that you’re going to take care of this. Bliss. Guild Head. Please answer me.”
She put a finger over her lips, signaling silence, and then pulled the lid of the chest shut.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A true Champion, of the Champion’s Guild, is more than just a Soulbound.
The Champions are raised from an early age on an abusive regimen of training and actual combat. They are taught nothing but battle, raised to believe that victory is the only virtue. Along the way, they are subject to a battery of alchemical treatments to increase their physical and mental attributes.
Most of the children do not survive, but the survivors emerge with incredible gifts.
I doubt the ethics of such a system, but I cannot doubt its results.
-From the official report of the Witness assigned to the Champion’s Guild
Urzaia Woodsman sat in the hold of The Testament, surrounded by barrels, crates, and bundles of cargo. He should have been cooking, he knew—they were about to leave, and they had all these extra passengers onboard. If he were doing his duty, he would have food ready for them before they thought to ask for it.
But instead, he sat with his legs crossed and his hatchets in his lap, breathing deeply.
It had been a long time since he’d fallen into this habit of his: before each match in the arena, he had sat and calmed himself, focusing, stripping away hesitation and thought. A practice they’d taught him as a fighter of the Champion’s Guild. It was ingrained in him, after so many years—whenever he felt that he should prepare for a fight, he would sink into this state.
And now here he was.
A battle was coming.
The Chronicler, Naberius, he smiled too much. And the Captain hadn’t spoken of it, but Urzaia was sure that the man had killed his own Silent One. Now Andel and the Captain had been invited onto another Navigator’s vessel to meet with Naberius’ mysterious backers, and while they were gone, the Imperial Guard had begun to invade The Testament.
Urzaia didn’t hold a grudge against the Guards. They were trying to earn a living, same as anyone. But they were too tense, too off-guard, for this to really be an inspection as they claimed. He’d invited one of them for a drink, and the other man had brushed him off.
There were only two times where a Guard would refuse a drink: in the presence of the Emperor, or before a battle.
So Urzaia found himself in the hold, cross-legged and clearing his mind.
When the door crashed open, he was not surprised. He slowly opened his eyes and favored the pair of strangers with a smile.
“Welcome, my friends! Have you come to take that drink after all?”
These two were even bigger than the average Guard. One of them stood half a head over Urzaia himself, such that he had to bow deeply to slip through the doorframe. He had gray plates growing out of his skin, until it looked as though he were wearing an actual suit of dull armor. Urzaia recognized the plates of a Plainstrider from his homeland. His partner had replaced one hand with the claw of a strange Kameira—bright red and spiked like a venomous insect’s fangs. In his human hand, he carried a sack that clanked with the ring of steel.
The armored man wore a pistol and a Dylian hunting knife. The other, just a pistol.
Urzaia didn’t move from his seat. He’d lived through this situation many times before: the plated man would say something to get his attention, then the venomous one would slash at him to try and weaken him. If he intended to go for his pistol, then he’d have been holding the sack with the other hand. That meant he wanted his Kameira hand free, not his weapon.
To his surprise, the man with the red hand sighed and sat his sack down. It rang as it hit the ground, as though it had been filled with chimes. “We’re just supposed to keep you down here for a while,” he said, pulling out a flask from his chest pocket. “The Guild Head was worried that you would get fidgety and put us all in the ocean.” The Guard took a sip first, to show that it was safe, then handed it over to Urzaia.
Well, it would be rude to refuse. And the man had taken a drink for himself. Urzaia accepted, tilting the flask up to his lips.
They would have been suspicious if he didn’t drink at all, though it could easily be poisoned. Some Guards had a resistance to poison, and everyone knew it was easier to kill a Champion through assassination rather than in battle.
Well, of course it was easier. It was impossible to kill a Champion in battle.
“Now, why would I fidget?” Urzaia asked. “What is happening on the deck that would make me nervous?”
The plated Guard looked over at his partner, but the man with the clawed hand just took his flask back. “Nothing, nothing. I swear on the Emperor’s name. It’s just an inspection before Lord Clayborn comes aboard.”
“You are serving the Witnesses now, then?” Urzaia asked curiously.
The armored man’s eyes widened behind the plates covering his face. “You don’t know? Naberius Clayborn will be the next Emperor.”
Urzaia had kept a fake smile all this time. Now it became genuine. The battle was almost here. If the Guards believed Naberius was the next Emperor, then there was nothing they wouldn’t do to protect him.
And Naberius had no particular reason for trusting this crew.
Urzaia reached out his left arm toward the red-clawed Guard. “You may scratch me,” he said.
The two Guards froze.
“Your job was to poison and bind me, wasn’t it? And then perhaps to kill me after?”
None of them moved.
“I accept your terms. Scratch me.”
Tentatively, the Guard extended one red claw and drew a bloody line down Urzaia’s forearm.
“Very good,” Urzaia said. “Now, take your chains and tie me.”
He nodded toward the abandoned sack.
The armored Guard slowly pulled the chain out of the sack, followed by a padlock. “These are invested, you know. They will keep down your strength.”
Urzaia snorted. “I hope so. Otherwise I will snap them like...like I would snap ordinary chains.”
The poison was already swimming through him, he could feel it. And he could feel the heat flowing through him, from the tips of his fingers through his chest, tingling at the back of his neck. The familiar strength, as the forces bound within his body rose to the fight.
Emperor’s name, how I’ve missed that feeling.
He sat without resistance as they wrapped chains around him and took away his hatchets. He almost broke out right there, when he saw them take his weapons, but he forced himself to relax. The armored Guard treated the weapons with respect anyway, carrying them each in a different hand and placing them reverently on top of a nearby crate.
Very well. He would live.
The red-clawed Guard let out a breath of pure relief as he snapped the padlock shut. Then he backed off, his hands shaking. It seemed that he had believed Urzaia was going to attempt to break out.
He was wrong. There would be no attempting.
Urzaia smiled at the two of them. “So what is the plan now, my friends?”
They exchanged a glance, hesitating.
“I saw you in the arena,” the red-clawed Guard said. “You fought like a madman.”
“Yes, I did,” Urzaia
said.
The two Guards drew their guns, and Urzaia rolled chained shoulders. The poison fuzzed his vision at the edges and clouded his thoughts. The chains seemed unnaturally cold wherever they brushed his skin, drawing the energy from his muscles. The wound on his arm seemed to itch and burn.
He looked up into the two barrels and thought, At last. A fair fight.
“I’m sorry,” the Guard said.
Focusing on the gold-scaled hide wrapped around his arm, Urzaia unleashed his Vessel. The strength and fury of the Sandborn Hydra filled him, blinding him entirely, filling him until he felt that his skin would pop, tightening his muscles as though they would tear themselves apart. The wood under him creaked under a sudden weight.
The Guards both pulled their triggers.
The rage boiled out of Urzaia in a wordless roar.
Two bullets stung him, one in the left of his chest just below his heart, the other at the base of his neck. Like stinging insects, they inflicted a little annoyance but no pain. Vaguely he noticed crumpled balls of lead falling away from his undamaged skin.
But they had tried to hurt him. They had tried to kill him. They had dared to lie to him, and they hadn’t even bothered to lie well. They deserved their pain, and he wasn’t going to let anyone take it from them.
And now, now at last, he would finally get his hands on an enemy. The Consultants were the ones who had truly earned his wrath, some part of him knew that, but the anger of the Sandborn Hydra didn’t care.
Two enemies were within his grasp, so those were the enemies that would pay.
The armored Guard opened his mouth to shout for help, but Urzaia’s hand snapped up and through the chain, tearing it like a cobweb. His hand closed over the man’s mouth. One of the links from the torn chain struck against the boards overhead and fell to the ground.
“No screaming,” Urzaia said, still smiling. He raised his second hand, grabbing the other side of the Guard’s organic helmet and slowly squeezing his fingers together. The Kameira plate armor squealed and stressed beneath his grip.