Reckoning, p.51
Reckoning, page 51
I spit on the floor. “Do you think you can get away with this? You are the reason my sons are dead. You—”
The man scoffed as he slowly descended the stairs. The wolf was stalking toward me from the door, its mouth hanging open, a dark hunger gleaming in its bright eyes.
“Even now, you try to use your family to justify your greed.”
“Who are you to assume my reasons?” I hissed, clutching my wife’s cold body tighter. “You are no god to know that, nor do you have any authority to judge me!”
The ascender walked toward me, unhurried as tendrils of violet condensed to form a shimmering blade. “You’re right, Granbehl. I’m no god, and I’m not a judge, either. I’m just here to keep my promise.”
Primal fear coursed through me like poison in my veins, but I refused to show this bastard any semblance of weakness. I jutted out my chin and chest so that the Granbehl insignia emblazoned on my collar would stare right back at the unblooded. “Go to hell—”
I heard rather than felt the violet blade slide into my chest. Raw coldness spread through me, seeping through every inch of my body as I slumped forward. The ground caught me as I stared up past my killer and at my home.
Everything that we had worked for to rise above everyone else—to become a highblood—had been for naught. Only Ada would remain as my legacy, the weakest of the Granbehls, a poor eulogy by which we would be remembered.
My thoughts blurred, losing all shape and form.
Then, the world went dark.
ARTHUR
The aetheric sword melted away as I released my hold on its form. Lord and Lady Granbehl lay at my feet, their corpses intertwined.
“Well, that’s done,” Regis sniffed, looking down at Titus Granbehl’s corpse before turning to me. “So…you want to grab some shawarma on the way back?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath; the smell of scorched flesh hung heavy in the air. “Neither of us need to eat, and I’m pretty sure that dish doesn’t exist in this world.”
Regis opened his mouth, paused, then slowly lowered his head. “I mean, yeah, sure, I guess you’re technically right, but it seems appropriate.” He wrinkled his nose. “Or maybe the smell is just making me hungry.”
“Regis,” I said slowly, “these are the kinds of thoughts you really should keep to yourself.”
The sound of soft steps echoed nearby, drawing my eyes to a narrow alcove in one wall. The familiar young girl who crept out of the servants’ stairwell was even thinner and paler than the last time we had met.
“Hello, Ada.”
Ada wiped a hand down her face, smearing dirt through half-dried tears. “You killed them.” The words weren’t an accusation, merely a statement. “I knew you would.”
“Maybe if your father had known…” I stepped away from her parents’ corpses. “It wouldn’t have come to this.”
She was so silent and pale, she could have been a ghost.
I thought about just leaving, not wanting to burden the poor girl further, but I needed her. “Ada?”
“Hm?” she mumbled, looking past me at the bodies. Although she stared, she made no move to come closer.
I withdrew the Rothkeller emblem. Using a decorative spike protruding from the bottom, I drove the emblem into the banister of the main stairs leading up to the second floor, where it stuck up like a flag of victory.
Ada flinched from the noise, but made no other movement.
“People are going to see this and assume the Rothkeller blood took retribution on your family. Do you understand?”
She took a few tentative steps around so she could see the scorched symbol of her family’s rivals. “I’ll tell everyone I didn’t see anything—”
I shook my head. “No, not everyone.”
Ada tilted her head in confusion.
“You’re going to tell the Scythe that will come find you the truth…” My eyes watched her for signs of understanding. “And that I’ll be waiting for him at the Victoriad.”
It was an abrupt transition between the second layer of the Relictombs and Darrin Ordin’s country estate in Sehz-Clar. It was still warm in the south of Alacrya, far from the mountains, and a sweet-smelling breeze was tumbling lightly across the rolling hills and rustling the low shrubs in Darrin’s front yard.
From Vechor, I had entered the Relictombs via the local Ascenders Association Hall, then used one of the second level tempus warp chambers to get to Darrin’s, where Sulla had told me my “drunk uncle” would be waiting.
We found Alaric sitting on a bench near the front door, staring down the path. Due to the delay between my appearance and his reaction, which was to belch loudly and lean back on his elbows, sticking his paunchy belly out in front of him, I assumed he was somewhat intoxicated.
‘You know, I’ve missed this old coot,’ Regis said happily.
“So,” Alaric said as I reached him, “I hear you’re once again in need of legal counsel.”
“Not exactly,” I said, sitting on the bench beside him. “What do you already know?”
“I know you’re in trouble,” he said with a scoff. “And that, as usual, you’ve bitten off twice what you can chew.” He peered at me with unsteady eyes. “The Granbehls tried to finish the job, but you finished them instead, aye?”
I filled him in on exactly what happened, but I left one important piece of information for last. “They were backed by a Scythe. Nico, of the central dominion.”
Alaric’s permanently bloodshot eyes went wide, and he heaved himself to his feet and stared disbelievingly down at me. “Sovereign’s sack, boy, why in the hell are we just sitting around talking? The professor identity is right and truly buggered then, and your connection to Darrin and myself compromises most of my usual contacts…”
He began to pace rapidly back and forth, careless as he stepped on one of Darrin’s carefully tended plants. He was speaking rapidly in a low mutter that I couldn’t follow. Instead of stressing him further by interrupting him, I let the old man go on like this for a minute.
‘I think you just knocked the buzz out of the poor drunk,’ Regis noted, a hint of concern in his voice.
Alaric stopped suddenly and glared down at me. “How the hell did you get on the wrong side of a Scythe anyway?”
“We’ve got history,” I said, deadpan. “As for why he’s out to get me now…”
Alaric shook his head and sat back down, resting his head in his hands as though he were utterly exhausted. Voice muffled, he said, “It doesn’t matter, boy. It doesn’t matter how you’ve managed to get a Scythe on your ass, only that you have.”
“Whatever got you into this,” he said after a minute, “it won’t be easy to go into hiding. Not with so much power sniffing around behind you.”
“That’s fine,” I said, leaning back as well, “because I won’t be hiding. I’m here to secure a couple contingencies in case I might need to escape Vechor.”
“Vechor…? You don’t mean to—”
“I’m still attending the Victoriad,” I answered firmly.
He looked at me with a wry grin. “Now, I know you’re joking, because only a moron would think of doing a thing like that.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re not kidding. You moron. What the hell are you thinking?”
I leaned back, putting my hands behind my head and crossing my legs as I stared up at the blue sky.
“I’m thinking of killing a Scythe.”
367
THE VICTORIAD
SETH MILVIEW
It was freezing! The winds had turned, bringing icy mountain air down to Cargidan and giving us a chilly sendoff as we prepared to leave.
My breath frosted in front of me, rising and intermingling with the icy fog around us. I pursed my lips and blew out, watching it rise up and vanish.
It was such a small and stupid thing to do, but even being capable of this meant so much to me. Just a few years ago, a few cold breaths while playing with Circe—the two of us pretending to be dragons billowing fire instead of steam—was enough to get me bedridden.
I forced my lips to smile, tricking myself into thinking of these memories as happy ones, before turning my attention back to the scene around me.
It was early in the morning on the first day of the Victoriad, and we were all lined up outside of the tempus warp chamber, a small octagonal building at the heart of campus. A lot of other students, both those who would be competing in other events and those who had come to wish us good luck, hung around the courtyard, huddled into groups and wrapped in heavy cloaks. I even noticed a few who had dragged their bed blankets out here to stay warm.
There were a lot of students going to Vechor, too many to use the tempus warp at once, and our class was last in line to be teleported. Inside, Professor Abby of the Redcliff blood was in charge of teleporting each class in turn.
I looked around and noticed a figure hurrying through the crowd. The person was bound up in a furry parka with a hood so deep and padded that it completely hid their face. They got in line behind us and adjusted the hood slightly.
“Oh, hey Laurel,” Mayla said, giving the other girl a cheery wave. “Chilly, isn’t it?”
Laurel peeked out through the fur lining of the hood and her eyes squinted around in an apologetic smile until she found Professor Grey, who was standing off to the side with the two assistants. Her voice was slightly muffled as she said, “S-sorry, Professor. I had to find my coat. I h-hate the cold…”
“Now that we’re all here”—the professor dismissed Laurel with a wave—“I have a couple of things you each need to have.”
“Oh, presents!” Laurel said, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“Not exactly,” Professor Grey answered as he withdrew a bundle of items from his dimension ring and split them with Assistant Aphene and Assistant Briar.
Each student received two items. The first was a cloak made of velvet in the azure and black of Central Academy. The second was a white half-mask that covered my face from my hairline down to below my nose. A pattern of dark blue lines was painted over it, sharp and angular like runes, although more artsy. Small horns protruded from the top of each mask.
Mayla held hers up to her face. It was identical to mine except for the patterns, which were more natural and smooth, like gusts of wind or flowing waves. She stuck out her tongue and made a silly growling noise.
“I shouldn’t have to remind you,” Briar said disapprovingly, her focus on Mayla, “that Sovereign Kiros Vritra will be in attendance at the Victoriad. Since this is likely a first for all of us—being in the presence of a Sovereign—you need to understand a few things.
“While these items identify us as representatives of Central Academy, the mask in particular should be worn whenever you are within sight of Sovereign Kiros Vritra—which, for us, means at all times. Our behavior at the Victoriad represents not only the Academy, but, since we are from Central Dominion, the High Sovereign himself.
“Your victories are not yours, but his. You do not do this for your own glory, but for the High Sovereign’s. Any insult you may make, purposeful or inadvertent—such as going without your mask or looking Sovereign Kiros in the eye, will also reflect on the High Sovereign, and will be punished severely.”
The class was quiet as the rest of the attire was handed out. Laurel took hers and left us to join Enola at the front of the line.
Marcus, who was standing just in front of us, was staring down at his own mask with a strange, kind of distant expression. His fingers traced along the heavy, angular blue lines painted on it.
Mayla must have noticed his expression too. “What do you think your markings represent?”
He glanced up at her, his face tightening nervously for just a second before smoothing out into his usual at-the-ready sort of expression. “I can’t imagine the patterns are matched to us personally in any way, can you? After all, they’re to limit our personal identity before the Sovereign, not make us stand out as individuals.”
“Oh,” Mayla said, frowning. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”
Yannick, usually quiet, scooted a little closer to Marcus and leaned toward us. “The Vritra care about your utility, that is all. It is foolish to think otherwise.” He slipped on his mask—a pattern of jagged, wild cuts that looked kind of like claws—and tied it around the back of his head before moving away again.
The line began to move again as the class in front of us entered the tempus warp chamber, and the crowd broke up as people headed back to their rooms. A few people waved in the direction of our class, but I knew no one was waving at me.
I didn’t let this fact bother me, though. The truth was, even though I’d lost a lot, this season at the academy had been better than I ever could have imagined, and mostly due to Melee Enhancement Tactics. I was stronger physically than I’d ever been, even before I got an emblem. The sickness I’d lived with my entire life, which I had always expected to kill me, was almost entirely gone.
Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined I would be an emblem-bearer. Even Circe had hoped only that I wouldn’t end up an unad with a sickness likely to kill me before my twentieth birthday.
And I was good at something. Maybe I wasn’t as strong as Marcus, as fast as Yannick, or as powerful as Enola, but after training under Professor Grey, I knew I could get in the ring with any of them and give them a fair fight. But more than that, my classmates all showed me respect, even Valen…maybe not Remy or Portrel as much, but at least Valen kept them from beating me up anymore.
If they even could, I reminded myself, unable to suppress a silly grin.
I glanced at the professor, who had turned away from us to watch a blue-haired woman approach.
I really didn’t understand him. Even though he always seemed reluctant, he taught all of us how to be passable fighters. I knew he didn’t really like us, especially me. Actually, that’s a pretty huge understatement. Sometimes, the way he looked at me, I thought he must hate me. But I had no idea why.
Mayla elbowed me sharply in the ribs. “Ooh, do you have a crush?”
I flinched and stared at her in confusion. “What?”
“You’re totally staring at Lady Caera,” she teased, and I realized I must have been looking at Professor Grey for a while, lost in thought. “She is awfully pretty, but she’s a little old for you, isn’t she?”
I opened my mouth, no idea how to respond to Mayla’s teasing, but Professor Grey started speaking and I kept quiet to hear.
“You’re late.”
Assistant Professor Caera looked behind her, then back at him, one hand on her chest. “Excuse me? Have you already arrived in Vechor, Professor Grey? Because if not, it seems I am perfectly on time.”
“Besides,” Mayla murmured, leaning in toward me, “I think she’s already taken.”
I blushed and turned away, super uncomfortable even thinking about the stern professor’s love life. I was saved from any more teasing as the line started moving again, and we were all invited into the warmth of the tempus warp chamber.
Once we were all inside, Professor Abby arranged us in a circle around the device, which was humming gently and putting off a warm radiance. A few of the students shuffled closer, putting their hands out to warm them.
A breeze kicked up out of nowhere, and I realized that someone was casting wind magic. Mayla giggled and pointed: Professor Abby’s hair was dancing lightly around her as she led Professor Grey by the arm to an open place in the circle. “I’m really looking forward to this, aren’t you, Grey?” she asked, her bright voice carrying in the small chamber. “The Victoriad is so exciting, and there is so much to do! We should get a drink while we’re there.”
Some of the other students burst out into muffled snickers so that I couldn’t hear the professor’s answer.
Whatever it was, Professor Abby pouted as she moved to the anvil-like tempus warp artifact and began to activate it.
I took a deep breath to steady myself, feeling my nerves start to flare. Not so long ago, I would have come up with any reason to keep from doing this, but now…I was ready. I was excited even. I was going to have fun and do my best, and even if I got knocked out in the first round, it didn’t matter, because I got to go to the Victoriad.
There was a feeling of warmth and the sudden smell of the sea.
Thousands of voices came together in a chaotic roar, and I realized we were standing on a massive stone walkway in the middle of a ring of black iron posts topped with lighting artifacts. A dozen identical platforms lined the walkway.
Before I could take even a second to look around, a man in a blood-red mask that was made to look like some kind of monstrous demon swept into the center of our group. “Welcome to Vechor and the city of Victorious. Professor Grey of Central Academy and the Melee Enhancement Tactics class, correct?”
“Right,” Professor Grey answered, not looking at the man but staring around at the streams of students in different styles and colors of masks that were moving steadily by.
“Please make your way to the staging area,” the man said, pointing after the trail of students from all over Alacrya. “Staging area forty-one, on the south side of the coliseum. From there you’ll be able to watch the other competitions as well as prepare for your own.”
The professor thanked the man and gestured to Assistants Briar and Aphene. “Don’t let anyone wander off.”
Reminding me of the veteran drill sergeants I’d read about in stories, the two assistants herded us into two lines and guided us into the river of students and teachers coming from the other platforms. I was separated from Mayla and found myself walking between Valen and Enola instead.
High steps led down from the stone path and into a sea of brightly colored tents and canopies. Aside from the noise of the students and their teachers, there were also the shouts of dozens of merchants all fighting each other for attention through the chaos, the braying of mana beasts, ringing of forge hammers, and the random pop of distant magical explosions.
