The Reminiscent Exile Series, Books 1-3: Distant Star, Broken Quill, Knight Fall

by Joe Ducie

  And my friends suffered the worst. Sophie had driven that nail into my heart.

  Rusty red stains from where I’d started bleeding to death after destroying Morpheus Renegade had dried into the marble floor. Dead cherry blossom petals from the storm during my last visit gathered in the corners, shriveled. Tal always loved the cherry blossoms… The sky overhead was peaceful, blue, and yet I felt unnerved.

  “I don’t like this,” Sophie said. “It’s one of those ‘too quiet’ moments…”

  Nothing. Just an old bloodstain and a dead rose in the heart of a smooth, circular dais. I sighed and took a few steps forward, flicking my eye across the courtyard. The patterned walls and the pillared mosaics felt old. Something caught my eye, and I swung my head around to view the ruins of the Infernal Clock, just behind the crystal stem.

  “Oh, bother,” I said—and felt the bear trap spring closed around my ankle.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The Gambler

  Resting on the dais, as if the sword had been cast aside as useless or a cheap novelty prize, was the Roseblade.

  The Roseblade!

  I took an urgent step forward and then faltered, common sense catching up with my desire to recover the sword and behead one or two uppity gods with it.

  Shadowman had been right about my desire to kill the Everlasting. Simple, petty revenge drove that desire. They had wronged me, and I wanted to wrong them back before they gained a foothold in the Story Thread and plunged us all into war. But this was too easy.

  It’s a trap—has to be. A snare set to snap my bloody neck…

  I cast a quick subtle net of sensory enchantment with a few muttered words and a wave of my hand. The net shuddered across the plateau, invisible to the eye, searching for life or any unseen invocations. When I pulled the net back in, the amount of raw data cast through my mind as bright sparks of light and energy almost forced me to my knees.

  I swayed as if drunk. Atlantis brimmed and damn near shrieked with feral energy—something I should have expected, really. Enough to blend the Historian’s unique mind. Bands of Will, of hidden Origin, swam through the ether, coursing swift and unstoppable like a river turned to flood. The very stonework, glass, and marble, thrummed with Will.

  The city was a powerful reactor, layered with untold years of energy that had only grown stronger and wild in the ten millennia since Atlantis was lost.

  I severed my sensory net, broke the enchantment, and chuckled. No telling what retrieving the Roseblade would do. But only a few pieces were left on the board now. The game was all but over, and as was par for the course round these parts, those left standing would make their final moves in the city where the sordid mess began—for me, at least. There were not a lot of players left, either, which made those of us playing for keeps all the more dangerous.

  Oblivion was watching, of that I could be damn sure.

  Tal… Blimey, I should’ve just stayed in that memory with Clare, I thought, a touch wryly and only half joking.

  Sophie stepped up behind me and grasped my arm. “Is that what I think it is?” she whispered.

  “The Roseblade!” Ethan, on my other side, gaped. “We should—”

  “Don’t move,” I snapped. “Don’t take another step. This is a trap. Oh good grief, if ever I’ve seen one… You don’t leave something that priceless lying around. Particularly when you know that I’m coming after it. We’re expected.”

  Pick it up, whispered the insane voice in my mind. Trap or not, you hold that blade and nothing can stop you.

  I took a few steps forward, skirting around my bloodstains in the stonework, and glanced from pillar to pillar, dais to the empty space over the edge of the plateau, and finally to the shattered stem of the Infernal Clock. Where did you hide the rest of those petals, Emily? I could’ve brought you back, if you’d kept just one of those nearby.

  “Coulda, woulda, shoulda…” I muttered.

  I spiraled closer to the Roseblade, and the sky failed to fall. Nothing erupted in cascading sheets of liquid flame, and no Elder Gods made an appearance.

  Another step and I was on the dais, gazing down at the withered stem of the Infernal Clock. When I’d severed the Clock and shattered the rose, the stem had burst outward in thin strands of fragile crystal. A dark slot about the length of my hand and as wide as my thumb disappeared down into the heart of the stem. Curious… I looked past the Clock and at the sword of celestial illusion.

  The Roseblade had been tainted.

  “Shit.” I knelt down on my haunches above the blade, about as close as I dared, and sighed heavily. The petals within the crystal sword had blackened, just like the ones in Myth. Oblivion had passed on his taint to both known weapons of celestial illusion. The Roseblade looked sick, broken, and I feared what using its power would do to me if I picked it up.

  “A strange hesitance in you, Declan Hale,” Lord Oblivion of the Everlasting said. “Times were, you’d have claimed that sword and wiped a few cities off the map before the sun was halfway across the sky.”

  I licked my lips, bared my teeth, and stood. Oblivion sat atop one of the four pillars that were at each corner of the courtyard. Tal’s legs dangled, and he swung them back and forth against the obsidian stonework.

  “Oh, Tal…” Sophie whispered.

  “You didn’t need to slaughter the Knights on the Plains of Perdition,” I said.

  Oblivion grinned and clapped Tal’s hands together. “I needed your attention, Declan.”

  “You’ve never lost it. One day you’ll regret that.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Scarred Axis sends his regards.”

  “Ah, I’d felt ripples in the ether… Another of us, set loose from his prison. And at your hand, no less, Declan! What is it you always say? Oh, yes. You’re a sad song stuck on repeat, baby.” The last he said using Tal’s voice, unblemished by the gravelly tone of his own. Sophie choked back a sob. “How is my clever brother?”

  “I sent him into the Void.” That wiped the smile from Tal’s face. “Did he really construct some sort of Will-driven engine?”

  “Yes,” Oblivion hissed. “He stole the fire of the gods and gave it to humanity. Traitor, I branded him, to our Family and our Father. The Origin Matrix gave your people teeth, Declan. All that you have achieved or ever will, you owe to the Everlasting Scarred Axis.”

  Axis was telling the truth… which means Will is failing. Annie’s eyes, violet and afraid, were just the start of something catastrophic. “Well, you got me here,” I said. “What is it you want?”

  “Fitting that we’ve come full circle to where we first met, Declan.” Oblivion gestured to the remains of the Infernal Clock. “Where you and Miss Levy bargained for the Degradation. I’m going to kill you and your companions today, Declan.”

  “Oh?”

  Oblivion smiled. “Unless you pick up the Roseblade.”

  The corrupted sword pulled at the corner of my eye. “You want me to have the sword?”

  “It’s a trick,” Ethan said. “Has to be.”

  “Speak again, and I’ll rip your heart from your chest,” Oblivion said, picking at loose strands on Tal’s blouse.

  I gave Ethan a warning glance, and in that moment when I looked away from Oblivion, the Everlasting blurred through the air and stood between my friends and me.

  He winked at me again and then slammed Tal’s hand into Ethan. I felt his ribs crack. He was hurled backwards, six feet into the air and out over the edge of the tower.

  Sophie did something quick, clever, and—I imagine—purely instinctual. Her palms blazed white, and a lasso of power whipped through the air and wrapped around Ethan’s waist like a belt. None too gently, she pulled him back onto the plateau before gravity could end his life.

  Oblivion snarled and used Sophie’s distraction to grab her around the neck. As Ethan hit the floor, the Everlasting drove Tal’s fingernails into Sophie’s neck, squeezing hard enough to choke her, and drawing blood in five little crescents. Sophie gagge
d and clawed at Tal’s arm, but Oblivion’s grip was unbreakable.

  Oblivion turned to face me, holding Sophie in front of him like a shield—or a lamb for the slaughter. “Pick up the sword.”

  I glanced at the Roseblade but made no move toward the sword.

  “One squeeze, and I’ll crush her throat.” Oblivion licked Tal’s lips and lifted Sophie off her feet. Her white sneakers kicked uselessly in the air as she struggled for breath. “I will tear her head from her neck, Declan, unless you pick up that sword!”

  “Boss…” Ethan gasped, cradling his broken ribs. He looked wildly between Sophie and me. “Please.”

  “What’s the end game here?” I asked, feeling Sophie’s pain as if it were my own. They always—always—suffer for your games…

  “The Atlanteans”—Oblivion spat—“sealed away more than just my brothers and sisters when they created the Infernal Clock. Our armies, our armadas and great weapons—vast resources garnered over centuries—were suspended in time, locked by the Clock. The Roseblade is the key, Declan, but only the blood of a willing Knight can turn the key in the lock. You see the recess before you?”

  I looked down at the ruins of the Infernal Clock. The Roseblade would fit quite nicely in the slot I’d noticed earlier in the stem. Shit.

  With a weary trepidation, I grasped the hilt of the Roseblade and raised the sword. As always, the crystal blade felt far too light for its size. Through the handle ran jarring shocks, singing the same old song of unfathomable power, but on a piano out of key.

  “Declan Hale, Shadowless,” Oblivion said. “You will unleash the Peace Arsenal, or I will snap this whelp’s neck.”

  The Peace Arsenal? “I… don’t think I’ll be doing that.”

  Oblivion growled. “You’d let her die?”

  A ball of fear rose from my gut to my throat. I swallowed hard. No. “Yes.”

  I was stalling, searching for a way out. But in my heart, I knew…

  “You have been groomed for this, Hale,” Oblivion said. “From the moment you were born, the Everlasting have tied you to this path. You think it coincidence you’ve met four of us, while the masses think us nothing but myth? I own you, boy. You live only at my sufferance.”

  He cut Tal’s hand down through the air and snarled. “Now dance, puppet. You severed the Infernal Clock and shattered the bars on our prison. Finish the job and use that cursed blade to unleash the Peace Arsenal!”

  Dumbest fucking name... I held the sword at the ready and didn’t know which choice I was about to take.

  Sophie stared at me. Ethan looked grim and offered me an uncertain shoulder shrug. Tal, hidden behind eyes of blood, could give me nothing. But then, did I really need their guidance at this point?

  A puppet, was I? Bound to this course because I’d always sacrifice my friends and the people I loved for the greater good? The greater greed…

  “Perhaps you don’t know me as well as you think you do, my lord Oblivion,” I said carefully. For the sake of my sanity, there was only one choice to be made that day. And, really, it wasn’t much of a choice.

  Oblivion squeezed Sophie’s throat. Her eyes bulged, and she choked, bucking in his unnaturally strong grip. “I will break her, Hale. And then I will make her sister drink her heart’s blood.”

  “No doubt,” I said. “You’re the big bad. You’re the nightmare and the thing under the bed. Shit, we’ve all been so afraid of you for over ten thousand years. Dark thoughts of you exist in every culture across the millions of worlds dangling from the Story Thread. And yet…”

  “And yet what?” Oblivion snarled, turning Tal’s beautiful face ugly.

  “And yet I’m not afraid of you.” I laughed and took a seat on the edge of the dais. I used the Roseblade for support, tip digging into the marble and ethereal crystal glowing softly in the half-light. “Perhaps you had my number years ago, even as far back as my birth, but your plans and machinations cut both ways, asshole. After all I’ve done and all I’ve seen, you think I care about one more death?”

  Ethan swore. “Declan, no…”

  Sophie’s nerve broke, and she wept.

  “Oh yes, I’m afraid so.” I pointed a finger at Oblivion. “So listen closely, because I’m through being a pawn. You need me, do you hear? You’ve always needed me. I don’t know why it had to be me, but okay, I can take it. Luck of the draw, you ken? Someone had to be the universe’s favorite fuck-up.” I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. “So as I see it, I’ve got something to sell—and honey, it ain’t going to be cheap.”

  Oblivion absorbed my words, and given the look on Tal’s face, he didn’t find their taste to his liking. I could see him weighing his options—the mind of a god, painted clear on the face of a young girl. My girl.

  After a long moment, he asked, “What… is your price?” His voice was low, dangerous.

  I swallowed hard and steeled my resolve, but for the first time, I could feel the true ire of the creature inside Tal. It wasn’t a lie when I said I didn’t give a fuck. After so long and the stakes always so high, I was just tired—and there were miles to go before I could sleep. But that low voice, the crimson glare… I was trying to outfox the Devil, and he knew it.

  I stood, walked around the dais to the recess in the Infernal Clock, and rested the tip of the blade against it. “My friends go free in the cruiser. Your word, which I know better than most and from the old accords, is binding. I’ll have your word that you will not harm them so long as I unleash this… arsenal.”

  Oblivion stared at me, licked Tal’s lips, and I knew his eternal mind was searching for a loophole or a hidden snare. “Agreed.”

  Was that a note of eagerness in his tone?

  “And one more thing,” I said. “Just a little thing, really. You will give Tal back to me—her mind, body, and soul. I would bargain with you, Lord Oblivion, for Tal Levy. An arsenal for just one girl and the lives of my friends. Hell, I’ll even throw in a coupon for a bottle of house wine at Paddy’s with any full-price meal to sweeten the deal.”

  “You do not have enough to bargain for both,” Oblivion said. “Choose—your friends or your lover.”

  “How about I throw in seventy-five percent of a free Subway sandwich?” I spat at the ground and swiped the Roseblade down through the air. A reverberating thrum echoed across the courtyard and out into the open air. “Never in life. That meatball sub is mine, and my bargain is for both, Oblivion—or I swear by the Everlasting that I will use this sword to cast Atlantis into the Void.”

  “I will find another host,” he said. “You condemn someone else to this fate. Do you think this woman will love you for that? She, who knows best my touch?”

  “I don’t care if she loves me,” I lied. “I’ve always loved her—and I’m willing to hand over an armada of warships and god knows what else to my enemies for that love. Like I said, I don’t give a fuck about the game anymore. I’m tired of playing. I want… I want the little things to matter again. I don’t want to gamble with the fate of the fucking cosmos hanging in the balance.”

  “The contract will only bind me so long as you keep your word,” Oblivion rasped. “You fail to unlock the Peace Arsenal, and she is mine forever. And I will make her suffer for your broken promise, Hale.”

  “You’ll have your weapons,” I said. “Honestly, I couldn’t care less after all these years. Just give her back, give me that—a victory, however selfish or small when weighed against the damage you’ll do… I just want to win, for once.”

  Oblivion used Tal’s mouth to smile, her eye to wink. “Then enjoy your victory, Shadowless. From what I have seen of your future, it will not last long. You have my word—your friends are awarded safe passage and I will abandon my host. Our bargain is struck.”

  I didn’t expect fireworks, thunder, or lightning and I didn’t get them. An invisible weight seemed to fall around my shoulders, however. Another shackle to my soul. Nothing for it…

  With no more moves left to make, I plunged th
e Roseblade into the recess and unleashed the Everlasting’s Peace Arsenal.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Future Soon

  The blade sank into the stem of the Infernal Clock as if it had been made for that purpose. The handle of the weapon splintered and a metal barb exploded through my palm and out the back of my hand, pinning me to the sword.

  No stranger to injury, I grunted and bit back on the pain, but I couldn’t have released the sword now even if I wanted to. My blood flowed down the sword, mingling with the crystal, and strange light shone up from the remains of the Infernal Clock.

  For a long moment, nothing happened.

  And then the tower shook to its foundations, and wind howled across the plateau, buffeting me like a sail in a storm. I gritted my teeth and bore the gale as the corrupted petals in the blade began to shine with a sickly black light.

  Oblivion smiled through Tal and spread her arms wide, casting Sophie aside. She rolled across the plateau, her neck bruised and bleeding. Ethan swooped in and grabbed his girlfriend, pulling her close and hunching himself against the wind. He’s a good kid…

  Tal’s head snapped back toward the sky, and a slick oily mist, crackling with energy, bled from her mouth, nostrils, and eyes. Bargain struck… The essence of Lord Oblivion abandoned Tal, and after hanging in the air for a moment, dispersed into the ether with a thunderclap of power.

  Oblivion was gone.

  Tal moaned, clutching her head, and fell to her knees as the whole wide world started to tear apart at the seams.

  The great parapets encircling the plateau splintered and fell away, nearly crashing into the hovering cruiser, as great cracks ran like spider webs through the old stone floor. The tower was coming down—and I couldn’t release the blade.

  “Take Tal and run!” I cried above the wind and the oncoming devastation. “Back to the cruiser! Leave me!”

  Sophie crawled across the courtyard toward her sister. Tal had fallen to the floor, rocking back and forth, and she flinched and looked up when Sophie’s hand came down on her shoulder. Their eyes met—so much was said in a glance—and they embraced. Blood gushing down the Roseblade from my punctured hand, I still managed to smile.