Retribution, p.52
Retribution, page 52
Arthur didn’t respond, but something in his posture changed, then he was gone, vanished into a bolt of amethyst lightning.
Regis jumped into action at the same time, his jaws opening and purple fire rolling out over the oncoming horde of terror leeches. Whatever the fire touched vanished, not even ash remaining.
My brother had reappeared above the hydra worm, his distant body wrapped in coiling arcs of purple lightning, a beam of pure violet energy in his hand. Although I should have been helping Regis, I couldn’t do anything but watch, all my focus on Arthur. His blade spun in an arc, severing several of the heads.
But the huge maw from which they all grew was still rising, and I could picture how those spinning rows of teeth were closing around Arthur.
At first I thought it was a trick of the light, but by squinting and focusing mana into my eyes, I realized the truth. Arthur’s sword was growing, lengthening into a huge two-handed weapon that rivaled Mica’s hammer in size. When he slashed again, several heads went tumbling away, including some of those just now regrowing.
Regis had spun to the other side and was unleashing another blast of purple fire that devoured any remaining terror leeches. Mica was out of sight, but Lyra, like me, was just staring up at the fight overhead.
As the heads formed and started to grow again, Arthur kicked off one of the trunks, hurling himself out of the way of the grinding mouth, then brought his huge blade over his head, swinging downward as he fell.
Where Mica’s hammer had done little to the hydra worm’s armored body, the aether blade cut effortlessly through the side of the gaping maw. As Arthur plummeted downward, he dragged the blade through the beast’s body, opening it up like a fileted fish. The humming screech came again, but as more and more of the towering body gaped open above the falling point of light that was Arthur, the noise died into a grotesque gurgle.
Then, feet from the acid pool around the hydra worm’s base, Arthur vanished in a violet flash, only to reappear back where he had been seconds earlier, wreathed in electricity.
Black blood and green acid rained down from the gaping insides of the hydra worm as it swayed back and forth, then it tipped toward us, the flaps of its opened body pushed out by the rush of wind. Lyra darted back past us, and Boo moaned as he turned around and trotted farther down the trail, putting more distance between us and where the body would fall.
Arthur and Regis didn’t move.
Dirt and acid exploded outward as the corpse struck the ground, crushing the trail we’d been following, the longest of the heads falling just at Arthur’s feet. Then I lost sight of everything as a wall of dust and yellow steam engulfed the zone with a noise like the world coming apart.
I closed my eyes against the stinging spray of acid and dust, feeling it prickling along my exposed skin wherever it touched me, despite the mana cladding my skin. Boo rumbled out a worried groan, and I patted his neck comfortingly.
A gust of wind kicked up and pushed the caustic mist away. Arthur and Regis were walking toward me, the fallen hydra worm behind them. Its stench was unimaginable.
I felt Mica approaching before I saw her. She drifted out of the cloud, flying wearily, her skin covered in blisters from all the acid she’d been splashed with. Parts of her armor were ripped open, and blood was oozing from several bite wounds.
Instead of landing on the ground, she settled onto Boo behind me, her back resting against mine so she was facing toward Arthur and Regis. “Mica thinks this place kind of sucks,” she said under her breath.
“You need to practice your mana rotation,” Arthur said as he reached us. “You didn’t use it at all that entire fight.”
I felt Mica’s head lean back onto my shoulder. “Yes, Professor Leywin,” she mumbled tiredly.
“And you were all distracted by what was in front of you, so you ignored what you couldn’t see. The mana fluctuations from the main part of the body—mostly still underground—that happened every time you cut off a head should have told you where to strike.” His frustrated gaze focused on me. “Ellie, you should have been the first to notice this. Being on the backlines doesn’t mean simply fighting from the back. You need to see the bigger picture and communicate with your allies.”
I acutely felt the sting of his rebuke but could only respond with a firm nod, not trusting my voice to speak.
The truth was, in that moment, Arthur didn’t even quite feel like my brother. Not here, in the Relictombs. The bond we had been reforming back in Vildorial had stayed there. Here, he was a cold and distant teacher, an emotionless protector…brotherly love was an obstacle, and so he was suppressing it.
I wasn’t sure how that made me feel. I don’t think I could isolate my feelings like that. My emotions are a part of who I am. Who is he, really, when he’s like this?
“We should leave this zone quickly,” Lyra said, just ahead of me. She was staring warily around at the surrounding pools. “We need rest, but this is no place to set up camp.”
Arthur gestured for her to lead the way, and she did so, continuing in the direction where I’d originally seen the distant glimmer of light.
“I’ve never seen such a strong mana beast,” I said into the following silence, trying to reduce the tension. “How did the ancient mages ever create such a thing? And why?”
“Alacrya’s most talented minds have been trying to figure that out for hundreds of years,” Lyra answered over her shoulder. “The ancient mages were a pacifist race, or so we believe. That they created things like this abomination…well, it seems contrary to our understanding of their nature.”
I was silent for a while, not having expected an answer to my rhetorical question.
“You did well, Eleanor,” she continued. “With practice, you will be able to increase the range and number of conjured creations you can maintain. With enough willpower, you will be able to make more complex and powerful manifestations as well, I am sure.”
I felt Mica shift behind me. “I thought this spellform thing was for handing off mana or something?”
“Oh!” I felt a wave of embarrassment roll through me. Half turning, I set a hand on Mica’s shoulder and focused on my spellform, pushing mana into it. That mana rushed out of me, following the course of Mica’s mana veins into her core. “Sorry, I almost forgot!”
Mica took a deep breath, relaxing against me. “Thanks, kiddo. That’s…better.”
Lyra had turned around to watch us, and I caught her hiding a smile as she faced forward again. “Most runes have multiple levels or phases of activation, becoming more powerful as the bearer grows stronger and gains proficiency in the provided spells. Emblems and regalia often have potent innate effects as well, which do not require activation to provide their benefit.”
Mica shook her head. “Something I still don’t understand, I guess. Why aren’t all the Alacryan soldiers rocking a full-body ink suit of these regalia and stuff then? If one little tattoo can nearly put a teenage girl into the silver core stage, why don’t you guys have entire armies of white core mages? Or even beyond white core—Integration stage mages.”
“Most bestowals do not result in a rune,” Lyra explained. “And when a rune is granted, it generally matches the capabilities of the bearer. Simply performing the ritual more times doesn’t result in more runes. It is said that, in the early days of Alacrya, the Sovereigns attempted to do as you suggested, forcing their subjects to undergo years of forced bestowments, over and over again, even tattooing or burning the marks into their flesh in an attempt to recreate the ancient mages’ powers.
“But this is little different than if your Dicathian mages were to inject ink into your cores. The color of a mage's core is a byproduct of a myriad of factors, such as lineage, talent, and insight, as is the reception of a spellform for an Alacryan mage.
“Which, of course, explains why these efforts were a dismal failure, and tens of thousands of people died. That, at least in part, led the High Sovereign to combine the bloodlines. The bestowment doesn’t work on asuras, but lesser physiology can be enhanced with asuran blood, creating a new race of beings capable of handling more and stronger runes.”
“That’s so creepy,” I muttered, a shiver running down my spine.
“An entire continent birthed as an experiment in crossbreeding,” Mica said, her tone suggesting she was thinking the same thing I was. “It’s no wonder you’re all absolutely psychotic.”
Lyra’s shoulders stiffened. “One must step beyond the swamp to understand its fetid nature. I promise my pride in being named retainer and regent was no less than yours when you were made a Lance, Mica Earthborn. But experiencing a life outside the iron grip of the Vritra clan, well…”
Her stride slowed, and she looked up into the gloom and mist above us. “At first, I thought it was you Dicathians who were mad. Your disorganized and ramshackle brand of magic, the way you bent the knee to lesser kings and queens like poor imitations of our Sovereigns…and all that freedom. How could anything ever get done when every man and woman was free to skitter across the surface of your continent like insects in the dark?
“But the longer I stayed in Dicathen, the clearer it became to me…which of us was mad.”
We walked in silence for a minute or more, growing close enough to the edge of the zone that everyone could see the curving stone wall and the gleaming arched portal that Arthur would use to take us on to the next one.
“How many Dicathians d’you think you’ve killed?” Mica asked suddenly. I could feel her body tense against my back.
“By my own hand?” Lyra asked without hesitation. “Hundreds, I imagine. On my command? Tens of thousands, at the very least.”
Already tired and on edge, my stomach soured at the thought of all that death. So many people were killed in this war, and for what?
I glanced over my shoulder at Arthur, expecting him to intervene, to stop Mica and Lyra from falling into another fit of bickering. He was looking away from us, his profile clear against the dim backdrop of the zone, and I realized he wasn’t really listening to this conversation. I could see in the set of his shoulders, his stiff gait, the slight frown on his sharp features…
My brother was a million miles away. I wondered which of his many adventures was on his mind now. With the hydra worm’s corpse still visible in the distance behind us, it seemed impossible that anyone could be thinking of anything but that fight, but it seemed to be consuming only me.
Arthur had been through so much, and although he’d told me plenty of stories, I knew there was more he was leaving out. Was this talk about the war and all the unnecessary deaths making him feel guilty? It probably is, I thought. He blames himself for not being able to come back sooner. Not being strong enough.
“And what about you, Lance?” Lyra asked. “How many Alacryans have you killed?”
“Not enough,” Mica shot back, hostility oozing from those two simple words. Then, after a second’s hesitation, she added, “Or far too many. I won’t know, I suppose, until this is all done.”
“We’re here,” I said as the zone wall rose up in front of us, the only breach in the dark stone a single carved arch. The portal inside the frame was softly luminescent, but wherever that portal led, I knew it wasn’t where we were going.
Arthur seemed to come back to reality, marching ahead of us and drawing a metallic half-sphere from his dimension storage. “The path forward isn’t completely clear,” he said as he activated the device.
The opaque portal became translucent, like an open door, and several images melted in and out of focus in quick succession on the other side.
“I have a map in my head, but it’s just pictures. The way to the next djinn ruin—the next keystone—is confused. It might take us a few tries.”
“We’re in this together,” I said, immediately embarrassed by the childish optimism that came out in my voice.
Mica slid off Boo’s back, her gaze moving from Lyra to me, then to Arthur. “Hopefully the next zone or whatever smells better than this place, yeah?”
Lyra shook her head, her flame-red hair tumbling around her shoulders. “Rarely do the zones become more pleasant as you ascend farther.”
Mica rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. “So my hopes of us finding a resort complete with hot springs and honey wine are out the window?”
With a humorless smile, Arthur gestured to the portal. “Only one way to find out.”
415
THROUGH SMOKE AND SPIRITS
ALARIC MAER
I reread Lady Caera of Highblood-bloody-Denoir’s letter for the third time, unsure if it was the alcohol that made the words so insensible or if it was just what she was asking me to do. The bar below was quiet—a sign of the times—which actually made it harder to focus, if anything. I needed noise, movement, action—distraction. I missed the boy, although I would have never admitted it to anyone out loud. He was good for a distraction.
Heaving a great sigh that ended with a foul-tasting belch, I turned the parchment over and leaned back in the rickety wooden chair, glaring around the small room as if it had been insulting toward my mother.
I was back in Aramoor City in Etril, only having narrowly escaped from Itri in Truacia, where I’d been helping to organize the smuggling of weapons and artifacts along the coast and up the Redwater.
A task much more aligned to my skills and interests, I thought darkly, glancing at the back of Lady Denoir’s parchment.
But our smuggling efforts had been successful enough to draw the attention of Bivran of the Dead Three, new retainer to the Dominion of Truacia, resulting in a sunk ship, dozens dead, and me running like my life depended on it.
“Just like the old days, huh?” a shadow said from my periphery.
I didn’t look straight at her, so she moved around the edge of the room and leaned against the wall right in front of me. “You used to live for this kind of thing.”
I scoffed, looking everywhere except at the vision of the woman, whose golden hair framed her sharp face and the hardened brown eyes that seemed to look into me.
Still, I saw as her lips turned up wryly. “You should acknowledge your commanding officer when she’s speaking to you, soldier.”
“Not my commander anymore,” I mumbled, closing my eyes and leaning forward to rest my head on the small desk. “I’m no soldier, and you’re dead.”
She laughed lightly. “All those years trying to get yourself killed in the Relictombs don’t change who you are, Al. You’re still an operator. That’s why you can’t stay out of the fight, no matter how hard you try. Sides may have shifted, but your purpose remains the same.”
I rocked my forehead back and forth, enjoying the feel of the cool wood on my hot skin. “You’re wrong. I have changed. I’m not the man I was when you knew me.”
She snorted. “And who could know you better than me? I’m in your head, Al. All that remorse and regret, that hatred and rage that burns like the core of Mount Nishan and makes you feel like if you don’t do something your bones might just vibrate to dust—I can feel all of it.”
I opened my eyes as I straightened up and glared at the vision. “You know what they did. You know why I walked away. I’d string Vritra guts from Onaeka to Rosaere if I could, but neither of us could ever be more than a part of their machine. Even as an ascender, it was all for their benefit at the end of the day. The murderous lizards even got you, didn’t they?”
She strode across the room, moving like a shadow, and put her hands on the desk, leaning down to pin me with her steely gaze. “I made my choices. What happened changed my life just as much as it did yours, and you know that. But…” She hesitated, then stood, turned around, and leaned against the edge of the desk, her back to me. “We both could have done better.”
Another figure appeared in the shadows at the corner of the room, beyond my old commander. No, not a single figure. The silhouette of a woman holding a child in her arms…
My hand trembled as I scrambled for a half-full bottle of amber spirits from one of the desk shelves. After clawing at the cork for a few seconds with weak fingers, I gripped it in my teeth instead, pulling it out and spitting it onto the floor. My eyes closed as the cold glass touched my lips. “Get out of my head, ghosts,” I muttered into the open bottle, then tipped it back.
The satisfying burn of the alcohol trailed down my throat and into my belly, where it radiated out to warm the rest of my body.
I focused on that comforting feeling for a long moment, then half opened one eye, peeking out at the small room. The visions were gone.
“Must be getting old,” I mumbled, giving the bottle a shake. “Sobering up too quickly these days…” Tipping the bottle back again, I drained the remainder of its contents, then set it down heavily on the floor behind the desk.
But I barely had time to do more than sigh with relief before someone was knocking lightly on the door.
“Damn,” I grumbled, grabbing Caera’s letter and stuffing it into an inside pocket of my coat, carelessly crumpling it.
“Sir, your…guests have arrived,” a growling voice said from the other side of the door.
“Yeah, yeah, send them in,” I grumbled.
With a moan, I stood and stretched out my back, which ached from spending too much time in rickety old chairs like this one. I rubbed my hands vigorously over my face and through my beard, then placed them on the desktop, copying the vision’s pose from only a few moments earlier.
The door opened, and a handful of cloaked figures slipped in before closing it once again.
The first stepped forward and pulled back his hood immediately, revealing a carefully groomed noble with dark hair and a goatee. My brows rose of their own accord.
“Highlord Ainsworth. I hadn’t expected you to come personally—”
“What in the abyss is happening out there?” he snapped, puffing up like an angry bog hopper. “We’ve received nothing but assurances from Scythe Seris, who is still holed up behind her shield in the south, while the rest of Alacrya remains vulnerable to the High Sovereign’s reprisals. I have yet to see any tangible benefit of the risks my highblood have undertaken.”
