by Gage Lee
I’d only looked away for a second.
That’s all the time it takes to ruin a life.
Or end one.
“I tried,” I said.
I remembered dragging Biz out of the water. She’d been so cold, but she hadn’t shivered. Her eyes were open, but she couldn’t see. Her heart wasn’t beating. Water leaked from her gaping mouth, but I heard more of it sloshing in her lungs.
A man I didn’t know tore my sister out of my hands. He flipped Biz over his knee and slapped her back so hard every eye around the dock turned to him.
My mother’s scream drove me deep into the murky waters.
Because Cass, Biz’s twin, was still in the water.
Because I’d failed her.
“You let me die,” she cried. “You saved her, but I’m still down here, in the dark. It’s so cold, Kai.”
I couldn’t bear the pain in her voice. Anyone who caused a little girl to hurt like that didn’t deserve to live.
“That’s right,” she sobbed. “You should pay for what you did, for how much you hurt me. It was your fault. You failed.”
Her words ached like knives in my heart. Every syllable wrenched another tortured piece of my soul away. There couldn’t be much left. I’d done this to myself every night for years. I’d clung to that pain as a reminder that I could never let my sister down again.
But...
That’s what I was doing now. Cass was dead. I couldn’t change that.
If I let the pain consume me, that was another kind of failure, one that would devour everything in my life.
My sisters loved me. That’s not what they wanted.
And it wasn’t what I wanted for myself anymore, either.
I reached out for Cass and pulled her into a tight embrace.
“I love you, baby sister,” I whispered into the cold, slimy strands of her dead hair. “I’ve always loved you. I always will. I didn’t fail you once, I failed you a thousand times, in every memory of that day. I let the darkness eat all the good memories. I can’t do that anymore. It’s time to let you rest. I hope we’ll meet each other again in a better place.”
The black water drained away in a silent whirlpool and left us on a quiet, grassy hill, a blossoming cherry tree’s branches shading us from a bright springtime sun. Cass stirred in my arms, and we sat up together.
“That wasn’t me,” she said slowly. “In the water. I would never say those things to you, big brother. I never wanted you to hurt.”
“I know,” I said, and, finally, I believed it. Accidents happen, and sometimes no one’s to blame. Sometimes life is just cruel, and there’s no point in destroying yourself over the pain it splashes around like a toddler with a can of finger paint.
“Good,” she whispered and snuggled up against me, her soft hair tickling my nose, the smell of cherry blossoms surrounding us. “I want to stay. We’ve got a lot to catch up on. But I think it’s time for me to go.”
I stood up and eased my little sister to the ground. She held my hands and gave me a smile warmer than the sun.
“I’ll see you around,” I said, my voice breaking.
“Not soon,” she smiled. “You have a job to do, big brother.”
“Oh, yeah?” I clung to Cass’s fingers, but she slipped away. She had places to be, things to see.
She skipped up to the top of the hill. White flowers fell from the tree and encircled her head, nature’s crown.
“Kick his ass for me, Kai.” She giggled at the curse word.
A breeze plucked the flowers from my little sister’s hair, and Cass was gone.
Chapter Thirty-One
>>>AKASHIK NETWORK INITIATING final advancement phase.
Crucible ignited.
Final integration complete in three...<<<
Biz was shouting, her hexcaster blasting away. The metallic clangs told me who she was aiming at.
>>>Two...<<<
The smell of scorched metal and blood flooded my nostrils. I braced myself for a wave of pain that never came.
>>>One...<<<
I jackknifed up from the platform and sucked in a deep, cleansing breath. My hands shot to my chest and came away sticky with blood. I probed the hole in my shirt.
The wound was gone. The advancement really did forge a new body.
>>>Advancement from Neophyte to Student core is now complete. Please relax and prepare for conscious release. You will need approximately thirty seconds to adjust to your new physical form. Do not attempt any sudden movements until sensory stabilization has completed.
All physical and stamina damage has been recovered.
Your Neophyte-level core provides a minor stamina upgrade.
Your Constitution upgrade provides a twenty percent increase in available stamina.
You have zero reference points remaining.
You have one ability upgrade available.
You have one discipline upgrade available. Progression on the Path of the Piercing Gaze is available. You may add the Focused or Ominous specialization to your Gaze. Focused increases damage caused to marks. Ominous allows allies to see and benefit from marks you create with your discipline.
Your next advancement requires thirty additional reference points.<<<
“Let’s get Ominous,” I growled and leapt to my feet to take stock of what had happened while I was out.
Biz and the fuzzball raced around the garden, while Inphyr watched them with burning eyes. Hexcaster bolts hammered his armor again and again, with no more effect than raindrops splashing off a duck’s back.
I couldn’t have been gone for more than a minute or two. Biz was too worn out to stay on the run like this for any length of time. She’d distracted the Fell Lord just long enough for me to advance. And now it was time for me to end this.
I charged at Inphyr’s blind left side. I summoned the Blade of Burning Shadows at the last possible moment. The weak point in Inphyr’s armor no longer glowed, but the gap I’d created was as clear to me as a beacon. I clutched my weapon in both hands and drew it back to strike, then thrust forward as I planted my foot and leaned into the attack. The blade hissed as it speared through the air, an unerring reaper on its way to the harvest.
Inphyr twisted at the last possible instant. He couldn’t avoid the strike entirely, but he moved enough so the tip of my weapon skipped off his armor instead of piercing the darkness it contained. We both staggered away, off-balance for a second, and raised our swords into defensive positions.
“Why won’t you die?” he shouted. The weight of his rage crashed against me. For a split second, I nearly dropped my blade and ran.
No, I was done running from anything or anyone. Cass had given me her final wish, and she was going to get it.
Inphyr and I clashed again and again. Purple sparks rained around us with every collision between our weapons. His careful, measured strokes opened a wound on my shoulder and another across the outside of my thigh. My attacks chipped away at the hole in his armor, widening it one sliver of cracked metal at a time. Our feet ripped up the earth from the force of our blows and parries, and we carved hunks out of the walls when our strikes missed. We both put everything we had into the battle, and still, neither of us could shift the balance.
We were perfectly matched. I didn’t know how to beat him.
The Fell Lord took a step back and wove a figure eight with his blade as he sized me up. He feinted, judged my response, then attacked with the speed of a striking cobra.
I’d seen his feet shift a split second before he attacked. I pivoted my stance and brought my blade up to intercept the killing blow.
Our weapons clashed and sparks flew. I leaned into my parry to throw Inphyr off-balance. If I could get him to stumble just for a moment, the gap in his armor would be exposed. I could end this.
But the Fell Lord had anticipated that move. He let me push his blade away and sidestepped so I stumbled past him. He seized my right arm and whipped me around in a tight circle. I lost my grip o
n the Blade of Burning Shadows, and the handle flew away before I could banish it to my soul space.
“Now I will destroy you,” Inphyr roared.
He twisted my arm in the socket and used it as a lever to force me to my knees. He shifted his grip on his sword, raised it high overhead, and prepared to plunge it into my neck.
I activated the Ominous Material Gaze of Discernment on the Fell Lord’s armor. The mark glowed like a bonfire.
“Shoot him!” I shouted.
Biz and the fuzzball screamed at the exact same instant. Her hexcaster sent a bolt blazing into the Fell Lord’s side, staggering him. A blue streak shot across the garden, jumped onto my shoulder, then bounded up to Inphyr’s faceplate to claw at his eyes.
The little blue guy screeched at me and dropped something out of his satchel.
A long, thin spike of a weapon tumbled down as the little guy leapt off Inphyr’s head and escaped into the bushes.
I snatched Baylo’s stolen dagger out of the air. It felt good in my hand. I straightened my back, pushed with my legs, and heard my right arm snap in at least two places as I fought against the pain to regain my feet. My left arm shot forward and plunged the dagger straight at the gap in the Fell Lord’s armor.
With one hand holding his sword above me and the other still wrapped around my wrist, Inphyr had no defense.
The knife disappeared through the hole I’d punched in Inphyr’s armor. Inky black shadows erupted from the opening. Inphyr’s sword clattered to the stone platform we’d battled on, and he released me with an agonized wail. The red light in his eyes dimmed but refused to die even when his knees buckled and he collapsed, his legs twisted beneath him and his arms flung wide.
“You...can’t...” He gurgled. Thick black fluid sloshed from under his faceplate. “...kill...me.”
I flipped the dagger over in my hand. The blade still shone bright and clean, as if the vile ichor of the Fell Lord couldn’t bear to touch it.
“Maybe not,” I said. “But I think I know something that can.”
I activated the lift and stepped away. It plunged into the darkness until even the red light of Inphyr’s eyes vanished.
I issued a mental command to the interface.
>>>Level-three access granted to the Academy’s defenses.
Reclassifying the Academy guardian’s target to Fell Lord Inphyr.<<<
The pain from my arm had finally beaten back the adrenaline. I sat down on the stones, cradling my wounded limb as I listened to the Fell Lord’s agonized screams.
They went on for a very long time.
Chapter Thirty-Two
WE FOUND MY STRIKE team laid out in the great hall, unconscious, the sacks of ghostlight ore stacked neatly on the surrounding floor.
Xin wasn’t with them. She’d left a hastily scrawled note pinned to Darok’s chest, though.
“I had to run an errand,” it read. “We will meet again.”
I frowned at the message. When we met again, we had a lot to talk about, starting with what errand could have been so important that she left me to face Inphyr on my own.
We roused the team and question them about what had happened, but they didn’t have much to tell us. They’d been crossing the road to the Academy’s open gate. And then...
“No idea,” Darok said, his face twisted into a perplexed frown. “We woke up here.”
The mystery troubled me, but it couldn’t dampen my spirits. Nothing could.
Not even the stupid ham and turkey sandwich Reesa had insisted I eat.
“Eat, or your arm won’t heal,” the scribe chided me. She’d set my broken limb and wrapped it in sutras after we’d found the rest of the school’s students hidden in the refinery room with the Tribunal. In the hours since, the pain had dwindled to almost nothing, and I was sure my arm would be in perfect condition by the time I went to bed that night.
Reesa had used the antidote I’d taken from the shaman to cure Biz, and I had enough ghostlight to repair the gate and activate it. And as soon as I finished my sandwich, that was exactly what I planned to do.
“Thank you,” I said. “All of you. For everything.”
My feelings about my experience were surprisingly complex. I’d thought all I really wanted was to go home, but maybe that wasn’t enough anymore. I’d learned so much, about myself and Biz, about the strange world we’d found ourselves in. Anaheim seemed sort of drab in comparison.
Our trip to Hokendai Tower had brought in almost two hundred pounds of ghostlight ore. Sadly, everything around that tower was so badly corrupted we only netted eight thousand blades. That had been enough to fix all the damage the school had suffered during my battle with Lord Inphyr, as well as the table that I’d busted myself. The fires were out, but the soulforged armor was a total loss. Maybe someone could fix that now that there weren’t any scrats breathing down the Tribunal’s neck.
Or maybe not. Hard to say.
“I can’t believe you fed Inphyr to the guardian,” Baylo said with an amazed chuckle. “And stabbed him with my knife! I’d forgotten that little thief stole it.”
“You can have it back.” I retrieved the weapon from where I’d tucked it through my belt and handed it, pommel first, to the warrior.
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “It’s yours now. You fulfilled its purpose when I couldn’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. “Its purpose is stabbing things. You’re telling me a warrior who fought against the scrats during the invasion of Incaguloth never stabbed anything with it?”
“Look at it, smart aleck.” Baylo rolled her eyes.
>>>Hokendai’s Fang
This weapon was forged from the bones of the corrupted varm warchief Hokendai Carxinag. It is said the blade will one day strike down a powerful evil when its true master wields it once more.
Hokendai’s Fang inflicts crippling blows against all creatures aligned to darkness. The severity of this blow is proportional to the strength of that alignment.
Value: Five thousand blades
Rarity: Epic<<<
The fuzzball grinned at me when I turned my attention from the weapon to him. He winked, gave me a little shrug, then curled up around Biz’s shoulders and hid his face in her hair.
I shook my head in disbelief. It was impossible to deny that the voices from the ghostlight had guided my path while I was here. But how had they also directed the fuzzball? The answers felt tantalizingly close, but I couldn’t bring them into focus. If I had more time, more resources, maybe I’d figure it out.
“Can I bring him with me?” Biz asked. “I’m afraid if I leave the little guy, Ylor will kill him.”
“I should,” the eldwyr said with a frown of distaste. “But in your honor, I will not.”
The last bite of my sandwich disappeared down my gullet.
“It’s time,” I said quietly. “Ready, sis?”
“Yep.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “I’m taking some souvenirs with me.”
She’d found a small satchel somewhere and had draped it over her shoulder. She opened it to show me the rest of the beads we hadn’t needed for food or water.
“I wonder if they’ll work anywhere else,” I wondered aloud.
“I hope so,” Biz said. “They’re neat.”
The Tribunal followed us to the gateway chamber. It was on the second floor on the north side of the Academy, behind a pair of enormous golden doors sealed with locks so massive I doubted even I could hammer through them. They opened as we approached, revealing a raised metal disc surrounded by a spherical cage of steel rings.
“Constellations are all aligned?” I asked Reesa. While I could activate the gate through the interface, setting it up to open on Earth was beyond my skill level.
She nodded and smiled at me, her eyes dancing with merriment. It was good to see everyone happy. Well, everyone but Ylor. He was still grumpy that we didn’t find any salt to cleanse his chapel, and there wasn’t enough ghostlight left over to b
uild him a new one. At least he had the common courtesy not to bring it up during the meal. Maybe he was all right, after all.
“Okay, Biz,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“One at a time, please,” Reesa said. “The gate will remain open for several minutes. No need to rush.”
“After you, sis,” I said.
Biz took my hand and we crossed the room to the platform. When we reached it, she snapped her fingers, and the blue fuzzball dropped off her shoulder with a sad whimper. My sister stepped into the cage, took a position in the center of the platform, and gave me the widest, happiest smile I’d ever seen.
“Fire it up, bro,” she said, tears of joy twinkling in her eyes.
The blue fuzzball sat just outside the cage, rubbing his hands together, tail twitching on the floor behind him. It made a sad little cooing noise, then scampered over and climbed up to perch on my shoulder.
I reached out to the interface and opened the gate.
One moment, there was nothing behind Biz but a blank wall. The next, a strange landscape swam into view. Trees the size of skyscrapers rose from the horizon. Animals that looked like a cross between manta rays and eagles soared through a blue sky so clear it was almost hard to look at.
“That’s not Anaheim,” I shouted. “Biz get out of there.”
“I’m sorry, bro,” she said quietly. “Anaheim doesn’t need me anymore. Take care of my brother, Blue.”
“Wait!” I shouted. “Mom will lose her mind if you just disappear. You have to go home, Biz.”
My little sister gave me a small, sad smile and fixed me with eyes much older and wiser than her years.
“I’ll find a way to tell Mom we’re fine. Maybe Narsk Alaush can let her know,” Biz said with a flash of mischief in her eyes. “But the Academy needs my help. You need my help. I’m going to the League of Explorers to put these glowy-death fists to work. I’ll be back, brother, with help. I promise.”
Biz stepped backward and entered the strange landscape. With a final wave, she turned and walked away.