Retribution, p.17
Retribution, page 17
She was flinging curved blades of ice at Viessa, one after another, each sinking into a shadowy shield before breaking and dissipating. She had a fierce, determined look as she simultaneously directed the attacks and flung spells of her own.
But I couldn’t shake the sense that something was wrong.
Looking more closely, I watched the way her spells moved, and felt the sensation of all that mana crashing through the air.
My pulse spiked.
Varay had no mana signature.
“An illusion,” I gasped, meeting Mica’s confused gaze.
“Wuh?” Mica’s eyes lost focus, then closed. “Oh, that feels bad. I’m just gonna…lie here and die, I think.”
I looked from Mica to Varay—the real Varay, wrapped in the guise of Viessa, being crushed under a wave of spellfire—and then back. With Melzri still prowling around, leaving Mica alone could mean her death, but Varay was losing strength, being torn down by her own friends and soldiers…
“Curse you all for giving me feelings,” I snapped, scooping Mica’s unconscious body off the ground and throwing her over my shoulder, then lifting up into the air. I kept the spear ready in case Melzri attempted another sneak attack, but none came.
As I flew, I attempted to rearrange my expression, putting aside my anger and letting very real fear come forward. I thought of Virion, who had gone into hiding since reaching Vildorial, and my family, and the tremendous amount of mana still surging violently in the direction of the portal where Arthur was, and the distant tombstone encasing Aya’s corpse.
And…I gave myself permission to feel it. To…break. Even for a moment.
Tears built up in my eyes and a knot of discomfort in the back of my throat. I flew slowly, taking a roundabout route to avoid coming between Varay and all the spells flying at her. Through the wall of shields, her Viessa form gave me a plaintive, hopeful look, and I could see just how close to failing she was.
I ignored her. I had no choice.
Instead, I approached the Varay I could see, the illusory skin wrapped around Viessa like a shield.
She looked at me warily, her eyes tracking across my face, lingering on the tears wetting my cheeks, and she relaxed. “She’s almost done. Hold back, if you must. I’ll finish this.”
“V-Varay,” I said, my voice catching. “It’s Mica. She’s dying.”
Varay-Viessa glanced down at Mica. “Ah. Most…unfortunate.” She squinted, looking closer. “She’s breath—”
I thrust with the asuran spear.
Her lips curled back from her teeth in an animalistic snarl, and she spun away from the blow, her attacks already turning away from the real Varay toward me.
The spear, aimed for her core, cut wide, barely catching the fabric of her robes.
She caught the haft with one hand and slashed across my torso with her other, drawing a black line across my armor. Blood sprayed from the gash, spattering the false Varay’s pale face.
I wrenched back on the spear and released a bolt of lightning along the handle.
Sparks jumped between Viessa’s fingers, and her hand twitched.
The haft slid through her grip, and the blade carved a thin line across her palm.
She hissed, and her eyes flew wide open. She clawed the air in wild panic.
The illusions vanished. Across the cavern from us, Varay was huddled behind shields of ice, bleeding from dozens of wounds, her mana signature trembling weakly.
“Stop! Cease fire!” Helen Shard shouted, but her voice was drowned out by the noise of combat. Spellfire kept pounding Varay’s position.
Viessa was falling, her mouth open in a silent scream. Defenseless.
But Varay needed me.
Despite the blood running hot and fast from the wound across my torso, I flew up into the path of the spells and released a bright flash from the end of the spear. All the mages focused on Varay threw up their hands or turned away, and the bombardment was broken, even if only for an instant.
“Use your damned eyes!” I yelled, falling back into a protective position in front of Varay.
Far below, Viessa’s body was still plummeting. I held my breath.
A white-haired figure flew from between two first-level structures and scooped the Scythe out of the air, and I let out my breath in a curse.
“This fight isn’t over!” I shouted to the confused mages, focusing on Curtis Glayder, who I knew better than the rest of them. I pointed to where the two Scythes were streaking across the cavern below. “We need to—”
I was interrupted by the shattering of stone as a portion of the cavern wall collapsed.
Alacryan soldiers protected by transparent barriers of mana began rushing through.
“To the breach!” Varay ordered, swinging around and gathering her mana.
Melzri and Viessa floated to a stop over the army pouring into the city. “You haven’t won!” Melzri screamed, her face pale and pained. “You’re just losing slowly, Lances!”
As if to drive this point home, both Scythes flared with purple-tinged black flames, and their wounds were wiped away. Dark eddies of wind were already beginning to reform around Viessa as her mana returned. Beneath them, dozens of battle groups quickly fell into formation.
Mica stirred but did not wake. Varay looked as if she might plummet out of the air at any moment. Our allies were pale and shaken as confusion gave way to horror at their attacks against Varay.
Distantly, I realized the signs of battle from the direction of the portal had ceased. I could not bring myself to hope for Arthur’s victory, however.
There was motion all around as Varay still fought to organize what troops we had. Some were shouting for reinforcements. A few dwarven soldiers turned tail and ran.
I floated forward through the chaos and met Melzri’s curdled-blood gaze. “Today, I saw fear in the eyes of a Scythe. That is enough.”
She shook her head, bright hair swaying around dark horns, and smiled. “At least you will die brave, Lance.”
“Alacryans.” Viessa’s voice cut through all other noise like a razor. “Advance—”
A purple flash lit up the highest level of the cavern. The entire world seemed to grind to a halt, all sound and motion ceasing.
At the high road’s edge near the palace, Arthur Leywin stood armored in gold-rimmed black scales with onyx horns curling down from the sides of his head like a Vritra. He blazed with purple light, his blond hair lifting up from his head as if charged with static, bright runes burning purple beneath his eyes.
He stepped forward, closer to the edge, and each footfall was the beating of a war drum. The sound of it swelled in my chest, setting my heart racing and blood pumping with adrenaline.
The enemy, on the other hand, shrank. The Alacryan mages pulled back, huddling close behind their shields, frightened eyes turning to the Scythes.
The Scythes seemed to dim. The cutting wind around Viessa slowed. The mana around Melzri’s weapons flickered and died.
The entire city held its breath.
Slowly, Arthur raised one hand. In it, he held a broad black horn that curled like a mountain ram’s. He tossed it over the edge, and it seemed to fall unnaturally slowly, turning over again and again.
“Agrona has exhausted my patience,” he said, his voice rolling like thunder through the cavern. The Scythes flinched backward, and a tremor ran through the Alacryan forces. “You have ten seconds.” A breath. “Nine.”
The Alacryans broke. Men shouted as they stamped and shoved, bowling over one another in an effort to retreat back through the raw hole in the cavern wall.
“Eight.”
Melzri and Viessa floated up slightly. Viessa was impassive, but Melzri struggled and failed to maintain her composure. Together, they bowed slightly, then turned and flew out of the cavern, over the heads of their retreating soldiers.
“Seven. Six. Five.”
No, I thought, sudden realization waking me from my stupor. “Why…are you letting them live? We need to kill them,” I wheezed, but Arthur couldn’t hear me.
It took longer than the promised ten seconds, but the rest of the Alacryans were allowed to flee in peace. No Dicathian moved a muscle to stop them. Most were not even watching their exodus but were staring up at the glowing figure of Arthur Leywin instead.
Then they were gone. Just like that—the battle won.
I let out a weary sigh and began floating up toward Arthur. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it, only that I needed to acknowledge him.
Before I reached him, his golden eyes rolled up toward the cavern roof, then back into his head.
He stumbled back a step, then collapsed to the ground.
392
SOVEREIGN’S QUARREL
CAERA DENOIR
Scythe Seris’s soft steps were entirely silent against the stone stairs in front of me while retainer Cylrit’s were barely a whisper behind, making my own echoing footfalls sound cacophonous in the long, winding stairwell beneath her Sehz-Clar estate.
Dark gray stone pressed in around us, making the narrow stairs feel even more cramped and claustrophobic. It was as though I could feel the weight of the cliffside compound looming above us, tons upon tons of rock, soil, and sandstone all supported at the top of these impossibly long and narrow stairs…
“Your silence surprises me,” Scythe Seris said over her shoulder. “I’m sure you have questions.” Her composed presence seemed at odds with the rushed, furtive nature of my visit to Sehz-Clar, which only enhanced the sense of anticipation and worry building in me.
“Too many,” I replied quietly.
Despite having had nothing but questions wheeling like a deranged flock of halcyons through my head since the Victoriad, all of them were knotted together, and I found it difficult to untangle one from the next to ask them.
What do I need to know? I asked myself. Which of my questions are more than mere curiosity?
“Is Grey really from the other continent?” I asked finally.
“He is,” Scythe Seris answered nonchalantly.
I bit my lip as I considered this fact. It was the answer I had expected after everything my blood had discovered, but it only served to further confuse my many other questions.
“Did you know the entire time?”
“I did,” she said simply.
“Doesn’t that put you—all of us—in danger?” This wasn’t really the question I meant to ask, but it slipped out nonetheless, my tone one of disbelief with no small amount of trepidation.
“It does,” came the deadpan reply.
I barely managed to bite back a scoff. “Are you going to answer any of my questions with more than two words?”
“We’ll see,” she said, an edge of humor creeping into her voice.
Behind me, Cylrit stifled a laugh, and I shot him a thinly veiled look of annoyance over my shoulder. Despite this exchange providing absolutely no new insight, it was clear that, despite her goading, Seris had no intention of divulging any real information yet.
I could only assume I was present in Sehz-Clar for a reason, and so I chose to be quiet and patient until she revealed her purpose.
There were no more interruptions as we wound down into the depths. Eventually, the stairway ended in a large square of iron inset in the wall at its base. It looked like a door, but there were no handles or hinges, only a dully glowing mana crystal on the wall. Scythe Seris wasted no time, raising one hand to the teal crystal and pushing mana into it before Cylrit and I had even stepped off the bottommost stair.
The wall hummed, then gave a clunk that was more physical impact than noise, and finally the door began to lift up from the ground and recede into a gap above it with a mechanical whir.
I stepped up beside my mentor and stared into the room beyond.
A series of floor-to-ceiling glass tubes filled a massive industrial space. The tubes each glowed electric blue, their light reflecting off the white walls, floor, and ceiling of the room to give the entire chamber a surreal air.
Scythe Seris walked into the room and approached the closest tube. As I followed, I saw that, in a grated trough around the tube’s base, it was heated by piles of glowing orange rocks that gave off a sulfurous stink and enough heat to keep me well back. Translucent bubbles rose through whatever liquid was inside.
Glass tubes as thin as my pinky finger left the artifact in a dozen different places, some connecting to identical adjacent artifacts, others running up into the ceiling or the walls, a few tracing along one wall toward a panel of devices midway into the room: gauges, projection panels, and mana crystals, the purpose of which were a mystery to me.
One thing was quite clear, however.
“So much mana…” The bright blue liquid radiated mana more intensely than the orange rocks radiated heat. “Is it some kind of…storage device? Like…liquid mana crystals?”
“Yes, that is exactly right,” she said with no little pride. “Only, these batteries are infinitely more expandable and can be manufactured en masse with the appropriate resources.”
I closed my eyes and let my senses wander, basking in the glow of the compacted mana swimming within the devices. “It’s amazing.”
“It’s…important,” Scythe Seris started, a note of hesitancy in her voice.
My eyes snapped open, and I stared at her in concern. She met my eye for a moment, then shot Cylrit a glance and made a small gesture with her hand. He bowed, turned on his heel, and marched out of the room.
A moment later, the door clunked again and slowly slid back into place.
Scythe Seris clasped her hands behind her back and began slowly maneuvering around the outer edge of the room. I followed, watching her carefully, the creeping nervousness I’d been feeling since arriving in Aedelgard City returning with a startling suddenness.
“Do you know what the Wraiths are, Caera?”
“Half-blood Vritra warriors secretly guarding Alacrya from the other asura clans,” I answered immediately. “I’ve always assumed they were just a scary story for children.”
Scythe Seris gave me a rare smile. “They are quite real, I’m afraid. Agrona’s secret army, the children of Vritra clan basilisks and Alacryans with fully manifested blood. Their reputation as boogeymen is intentional on Agrona’s part. Not to scare Alacryans, no, he has no need of that to keep order on this continent, but to build a wall of uncertainty between him and the other asura.”
At first, I didn’t understand how these Wraiths could possibly strike fear into the hearts of full-blooded asura like the Sovereigns or Agrona himself. Even a Scythe like Seris was no match for a Sovereign—she’d told me so herself—so how strong could these Wraiths be?
And then I registered her words. “A wall of uncertainty? You’re suggesting that they really are scarecrows, then? Boogeymen, as you put it. A force meant to scare off the other asura, not necessarily fight them.”
“They even take their name from ancient asuran legend,” Scythe Seris mused, her eyes drifting to the bubbles rolling up through the electric-blue mana containment tubes. “A little on the nose of Agrona, if you ask me, but effective. Don’t mistake this for a lack of strength, however. The Wraiths are trained asura killers. A strong squad is capable of taking down even an accomplished asuran warrior.”
I felt goosebumps raise across the back of my neck.
Scythe Seris stopped in front of the panel of devices and glass tubes. “And Agrona has sent one such squad to Dicathen—to hunt down and capture Grey if possible, or kill him if not.” My heart sank, and I looked at my mentor in dread, but before I could respond, she added, “But they failed. And then, because he’s nothing if not showy, he appeared via portal in the heart of Vechor and obliterated an entire military base, killing a few hundred battle groups and several battalions of unads.”
I leaned into the wall and rested my head against it, coming to the realization just how thoroughly I had overestimated my own understanding of the world I lived in. It had seemed a near impossibility when Grey had defeated not one but two Scythes before immediately escaping the High Sovereign himself. But to slay five Wraiths…
“If Agrona is trying to capture Grey, then he must want answers of some kind. About aether.” This thought was instantly confirmed by the dire look on Scythe Seris’s face.
“But Agrona will not let his greed for knowledge interrupt his other plans,” she said, flicking one of the small tubes, setting the glass to ringing and the little bubbles wobbling. “He is growing tired of the conflict in Dicathen and is ready to abandon his initial plans to subdue and utilize the continent’s population.”
“So he’ll wipe them all out,” I said, staring down at my feet. “And Grey with them.”
There was one thing I couldn’t puzzle out for myself. It was a question I was afraid to ask, but so much else hinged on knowing my mentor’s purpose. “Why risk certain and horrible death by hiding Grey’s identity, working with him? You are directly opposing the High Sovereign himself. Isn’t this…treason? Betraying Alacrya?”
Scythe Seris let out a bitter laugh that startled me. “We are saving Alacrya, child. Which is why you’re really here.”
I gave her a questioning look, and she reached out and took my hand.
“It is my turn to pose a question to you, Caera. Knowing now who Grey is, can you still support him? If he stood here now and asked for it, would you offer him your allegiance?”
I hesitated. The truth was, I wasn’t yet sure. My feelings toward him were already complicated, and knowing he had lied about who he was for the entire time I knew him didn’t help that. But…I wasn’t exactly sure what it really changed, either.
“My allegiance is with you, Scythe Seris,” I said after a long pause.
Some difficult to parse emotion flashed across her face—gratitude, pride, surprise, I wasn’t entirely sure—and she squeezed my hand. “Then listen carefully. If we hope to help Grey and Dicathen, we must keep Agrona’s attention in Alacrya. Very shortly, Sovereign Orlaeth of Sehz-Clar will arrive to inspect this machine I have built. But it is not what I’ve promised him.”
