CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Afterword

Connect with Isaac Keyes

Also by Isaac Keyes

Acknowledgments

1

Someone was sobbing.

I was moving. No, that wasn’t right. I was being moved.

I struggled to open my eyes, and when I did, I saw blue grass in the moonlight, very slowly moving under me. My senses gradually came back to me, along with a world of pain and aches that ran the entire course of my body. I was on someone’s back, being carried, and they were quietly sobbing with each slow, plodding step.

“Re-Revana?”

She fell to her knees, then forward on her hands, and we fell to the side, landing in the soft, pale blue grass, surrounded by trees. She took long, shuddering breaths, interspersed with groans and shaking sobs. 

I sat up and rolled her onto her back.

Her face was stained with tears and it seemed like she could barely focus her eyes on me. “Are…” Her voice was low and shaky. “Are you…okay?”

I gaped at her. “Me!? Are you okay? What happened?” I pulled her hands into mine and waited while she closed her eyes and gradually caught her breath. 

When she opened them, she seemed a little more alive, the edges of her mouth turning up into a fond smile. She squeezed my hands back and said, “You were knocked out by the royal. He came for us, but Vashe managed to get a shot off into his back, distracting him, and I was able to drag you out through one of the holes in the dome. I don’t know what happened to anyone else; I could barely see or think as he channeled at all of us.”

“No…” The enormity of what she’d done settled on me like a shroud. “You carried me out while being branded?”

“I did.”

“Oh no… no no no.” Tears stung my eyes as I bent down and wrapped her in a hug. “I’m so sorry you had to endure that. I’m so sorry. I screwed it all up. I should have listened to you and ran. I…I thought I could beat him, I really did. I’m so sorry.”

She pushed me away and took my face in her clawed hands. “You did not screw everything up.” Her voice was still soft, but very insistent. “Fighting him was a mistake, but what happened would have happened either way. Once he was there, there were no good outcomes. Okay?”

I looked deep into her glowing golden eyes and tried valiantly to forgive myself. I still felt like a complete idiot, though. I had been so sure I’d be more than a match for that royal bastard, that the power flowing through me would be far more than enough to end it quickly. I had been wrong. Incredibly wrong. She’d tried to tell me, and I hadn’t listened.

“Hey,” she said, “look at me. Michael, look at me.”

I looked at her.

“It’s not your fault. It’s the empire’s fault. All of it. We all did the best we could.”

I sighed and nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Okay. I understand.” She didn’t look like she believed me the least bit, but I didn’t believe myself, so I couldn't fault her too much.  “What now?” I tried to help her up, but only barely succeeded; we were both pretty beat up.

“We have to make it back to the portal and see who else managed to escape. If anyone did…” She took a long, slow breath and started walking. “We’re probably halfway there. We need to make it before the sun comes up, as I’m sure there are enforcers and Gorvani looking for us.” 

We began walking again with slow, tired steps. As we went, I became more and more aware of an odd feeling in my chest, an unpleasant, itchy and painful sensation. I looked down inside my shirt and my eyes went wide. “Uhh…Revana?”

She turned to regard me with half-lidded eyes. “Hmm?”

I pulled my shirt up, exposing a deep black mark etched into my skin with a faint miasma trailing away into the night air.

She wobbled on her feet and blinked at me. Then blinked again. “That’s where the royal struck you?”

“Yeah.”

“It looks as if the tenebrae has been imbued into your skin.”

I paled, my thoughts racing as to what the consequences of that were. “Like a brand!?”

Revana shook her head, though, clearly unconcerned. “Only the barest imitation of it. It should dissipate soon. Or…can you,” she hesitated for just a beat, “channel the shae. That should burn it out.”

“Ah, yeah, okay.” I tried to remember what I’d done after the sigilarium fell, pulling the energy out of the world around me and into my body. It was slow, and I obviously needed a lot of practice, but it started to work, the black mark on my chest started to react, almost spark, and while it was painful, the relief pulsing through my skin was wonderful. Eventually, all that was left was a soft golden glow where the tenebrae had been.

Revana’s eyes were wide, her gaze transfixed on the magic, tears just beginning to form at the corners. She glanced up at me and shook her head. “We should get going.”

There was probably something I should have said. I was living the dream she’d always wanted and had been forever denied: to channel the shae. I’m sure there was a torrent of emotions under the surface, but she just turned and kept walking, saying nothing. So I kept my silence and followed her.

All too soon, we had to stop; it was obvious. As much as we wanted to make it to the small base and the portal, our legs wouldn’t take us any further. She was the first to flag, dropping to her knees with a sigh, but I immediately and gratefully followed her, collapsing on the grass, and I did my best not to hit my face on any tree roots as I went down. We both sat there trying and failing to catch our breaths. If we’d have been found at that moment, it would have been over.

I didn’t remember how long we’d been awake, being knocked unconscious by evil magic notwithstanding, but it had probably been most of the earlier day and the night. Factor that in with the punishment and stress we’d absorbed, and it was all too much. We fell asleep, exposed and helpless in a dangerous, enemy-laden forest.

I had no idea how long I’d laid there asleep, but I could see a little light filtering through the trees when I was awoken by a snapping twig. I turned, expecting to see Revana, but instead, there was a Surini man holding a short sword up in both hands, ready to drive it down into me. Panic surged through me, and I scrambled to move, but before I could, Revana dove out of the shadows and collided with the man.

She ended up on top, slamming his hand into the ground until he dropped his sword, which clattered away over a patch of gnarled tree roots. She’d lost her own weapons during the battle in the sigilarium, but that didn’t matter. She raked his face, over and over, with her claws. I’d thought many times that even though they weren’t razor sharp, they’d be rather dangerous if she’d wanted them to be. And wow, they were. Her face was contorted in rage, her teeth pressed together as she snarled and kept up her merciless attack.

I had killed people in ways I would have labeled as horrible, but those paled in comparison to what she was doing to this man. Finally, she reached back and struck with a flat hand, plunging her straightened fingers into his neck, where they sank into his flesh up to the second knuckle. She leaned her weight into him, and he gurgled and jerked before falling silent. She pulled her bloody hand out.

I sat up and resisted the urge to vomit. “Holy shit, Revana.”

She looked at me and back down at the corpse, then wiped her hands off on his clothes before standing up. “There’ll be more close by. We should go.” She unbuckled the dead man’s scabbard, tying it around her own waist and went and retrieved the Surini’s dropped weapon. 

We resumed our walk in the woods, and I didn’t say any of the things I wanted to. There would be time for talking later, when we weren’t in mortal danger. My muscles screamed at every step I took, but I didn’t comment about that either. I was sure she was much the same. As with our journey to the sigilarium, I was completely lost, reliant on following someone else who either knew the way or was looking for signs I couldn’t see.

Eventually, finally, we found the tiny, hidden base that housed the portal back to civilization and safety. We squeezed into the camouflaged door and activated a small light, but we both groaned and sagged to the ground when we saw the portal. “No…”

It was intact, the looping arch of stone and its plethora of carved lines and angles unbroken, but there was no light, its stores of arcanae depleted.

2

We both just stared at it for a while, saying nothing.

I was the first to slump to the floor, and Revana quickly followed. “What now?” I asked.

She took a long, slow breath. “Either we find another arcanic battery, or we walk to the nearest city, which is very, very far away by foot through the forest.”

“If we go the battery route, we’d have to steal it from the imperials.”

“Yep.”

“Shit.”

“Yep.”

We wordlessly moved against the wall and leaned against each other. I knew I wasn’t capable of anything more at that point, and it didn’t seem like she was either, as she rested her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes.

I didn’t mean to, but I was asleep again almost immediately.

We woke to the sounds of the door opening and daylight filtering in. I reached for my sword, but it was pressed between us. It wasn’t the enemy, however; it was a man from one of the other teams that assaulted the sigilarium, whose name I couldn’t remember.

Revana perked up and said, “Marin!”

Yeah, that was it.

He was human, younger with long blond hair tied back behind him, and he looked like I felt. His leather armor was battered and covered in dried blood and dirt.

He blinked, looking around the tiny room. “Just the two of you?” His voice was terrible, low and gravelly. After he spoke, he went to a small supply closet and pulled out a canteen of water, which he guzzled in its entirety, not waiting for a reply.

After he was done and had belched loudly, Revana said, “Yes. I don’t know if anyone else got back and was able to use the portal, but it was inactive when we got here. Is there no one else with you?”

He shook his head. “Things went sideways pretty fast. The initial assault was fine, mostly according to plan, but then a fucking royal showed up and started screwing everything all to shit.”

“Yeah,” I said. “We met him.”

Marin shook his head and scoffed. “Things would have been fine if that bastard hadn’t turned up. But how can you plan for that? They never leave the capital. Even seeing one is considered an honor.” His grimace showed what he thought of that. “Anyway. I was able to get away, somehow. But I stuck around to see what happened.”

Revana leaned forward, her eyes wide, “Did anyone else survive?”

“Yeah.” Marin lowered his head. “Unlucky bastards. You know what the Gorvani will do to them. What they probably would have already done if their shit powers still worked here.”

“No…” Revana said, “they’ll definitely want to make examples of people over this.”

We were all silent at that statement. I’d never seen such a thing, but by what I’d heard, they were over the top in brutality. 

“If they don’t think they’ve captured enough,” she continued, “they’ll find more and butcher them for the spectacle of it all. We…we all knew it would happen once this began.” 

I was about to make a comment about breaking eggs to make omelets, but it seemed pretty inappropriate, so I didn’t. We’d discussed it before, what the empire’s reaction to this would be, and the short answer was no one knew because it had never happened before. But the Gorvani would do something, the only question being exactly how bad.

We stayed there, ruminating on that thought before Marin shook his head. “Oh yeah, one other thing. They’re keeping everyone in a temporary camp outside the building. I don’t know if it’s too smashed or they just can’t hold people inside or what. Anyway, they’ve been keeping Vashe in a separate cell, inside a little building they’ve constructed. Sometimes, there are gaps in the patrols, and if they stay consistent, you could get to her. The others,” he shook his head, “are probably a lost cause at this point.”

“Well that sounds a lot like a trap,” I said.

Revana made a sound in agreement. “It does…but Vashe…” She leaned back against the wall and let out a frustrated sigh. “Would we be stupid in going for it? We could try and steal a battery while we’re there.” She looked over to Marin. “Is the royal still there?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I can’t be sure, but I think he left the second it was over. Probably felt too good to stay out in one of the lowly provinces.” He groaned and laid down on the rough floor, resting his head on his hands. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be taking a nap. Please wake me up when you’re back with Vashe and a new battery for the portal.”

“Sure,” Revana said, “we’ll be right back with that.” She jerked her head towards the door and we went outside, but not before loading up on some emergency provisions and water from the supply closet. “Well, what do you think?”

I sighed greatly. “I mean, we’re gonna go, aren’t we? We need a battery and we can maybe save Vashe. Not that I think she’ll thank me for doing so. But…we’re not just gonna walk away, are we?”

Revana shook her head, her pale blue hair trailing down her back. “No. Not if there’s a chance. But…we stake it out and make sure the royal is actually gone.”

“Yes. Agreed. I don’t need to fight him again. Um, now may not be the time, but if the long term plan is to kill all the royalty, how are we, or am I, supposed to accomplish that?”

We started walking back out into the woods, towards the ruined sigilarium and possibly our own messy demise. 

“With time, your…powers should grow, and you’ll be able to do much more with the shae. But, if possible, we should find another relic for you to bond with.” There was a noticeable hesitance in her voice, a quietness and an unwillingness to look at me when she spoke. Surely this had been the plan all along, but perhaps there was a difference between knowing it was coming and actually having to see it. 

I elected to remain quiet about it for now. “How would we do that?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”

I grinned. “We could ask Isik where that one she claimed to have seen is.”

Revana snorted. “Yeah, let’s do that. Let’s do exactly that.”

This trek through the woods was much slower and careful than our first one had been. We stopped many times when we heard, or at least thought we heard, enforcers making their way through the trees. We deliberately took our time, being as careful as we could, but we also agreed that waiting until dark came around again would be our best bet, so we killed at much of the daylight hours as we could.

During the trip, we took out the ‘food’ we’d brought: little, brown, rectangular bars wrapped in what looked like strips of large leaves. It tasted like paper and was probably the single most dry thing I’d ever eaten. Even guzzling from the canteens with every bite didn’t help that much. Against my better judgment, I asked what they were made of.

“Dried and powdered roots, insects, and linmeal.” Revana side-eyed me with the ghost of a smile on her lips. “Very nutritious.”

I grimaced at her. “Ok. Roots, fine. Insects, not great. Do I want to know what linmeal is?”

“Probably not.”

I groaned. “No, probably not. But tell me anyway.”

She giggled softly at me. “Lins are these big birds that are raised for a lot of things like meat and decorative feathers and such, and every part of them gets used. Linmeal refers to, uh, their dried blood.”

“Blood meal. That’s…I’m pretty sure people don’t eat things like that on Earth. Reasonably sure that’s for fertilizer. But it’s in ration bars here. That’s…just amazing. I’m glad I asked.” I was not glad I asked.

Revana just laughed at me a little more. “It’s only a little bit in the bars! And yes, it’s used for fertilizer here too. Just…not always.” She smiled widely as we walked and looked over at me with crinkled eyes. “When this is all over, we’ll have to go riding lin together. It’s really fun once you get used to balancing on top of one.”

“I’d like that. It’s a date.” We walked a while in silence, the sun finally heading down towards the horizon again as the forest quickly darkened. “Once this is over, huh? Once…what? The emperor’s dead? Will that be the end of it?”

She nodded. “Yes. Once all the royals are dead, once the Tenebral Font is broken, and everyone is free. And everyone born after will live unbranded.” She unconsciously brought her hand to her stomach where the circular swirls of her shadowbrand lay on her skin. “One day, the last branded will grow old and die, and such a thing can finally pass out of history forever.” She looked over to me, smiling, and said, “But here I am getting all poetic about it.”

It didn’t take all that much longer before we reached the edge of the forest looking out over the clearing around the now defunct sigilarium. There was indeed a thrown-together camp outside of it that looked to have been cobbled together from hacked-down trees and pieces of the broken dome. There were patrols in the clearing, but many fewer than there had been before the assault. 

The sun was still barely peeking over the tops of the trees, so we waited and watched. There was no sign of the royal and we could easily make out the little temporary building that Marin had said Vashe was inside. Where we might find an arcanic battery, however, wasn’t nearly as obvious.

Marin had also been right about the noticeable gaps in the security of the camp, mainly around the side that Vashe was supposedly in, which didn’t make me feel great, truth be told. “This has just got to be a trap, right?” I asked.

“I don’t know. This is all so unprecedented. It’s possible the Gorvani don’t actually know what they’re doing in this kind of situation.”

We agreed to wait until the sun had fully set and then try to make our way to the little building. As we waited and watched, my apprehension grew and grew; this was all just too perfect. But what other choice did we have? We could try walking through a hostile forest with barely any supplies towards a distant destination and leave Vashe to whatever fate she was in.

We barely spoke during the wait, and once it was fully dark, I only nodded to Revana and we were on our way. Breaking out from the cover of the trees left me feeling naked and completely vulnerable, but we’d been watching the security patrols for a while now, and they kept a very regular schedule.

In no time at all, we’d crossed the grassy clearing and slipped inside the perimeter of the encampment. The wall that had been hastily erected around it was mostly solid but had a few small gaps, and it was through one of these that we slipped quietly through. 

The small, makeshift building stood before us, and we drew our swords before heading inside. I was ready to take down anyone I could as fast as possible, but after I pushed the unlocked door open and stepped quickly in, it was clear that no one was there, aside from Vashe, who was locked into a metal cage just wide enough for her to sit down in.

She was leaning back against the bars with her head down and she didn’t move as we crept closer. The blood thrummed in my veins, my eyes darting everywhere they could, looking for the obvious trap that this was, but the room was silent and empty, as if it had been made to hold the single cage. I glanced back at Revana, and judging by her own restless gaze, she was as uncomfortable with this as I was. I fervently hoped I could slice through the bars with little noise.

“Stop.”

3

We froze. The voice had come from inside the room, but there was still no one there but us.

Until there was.

Shadows in the far corner twisted and roiled, and before our eyes, a woman materialized from thin air. And it was Inquisitor Isik. Again. She wore her tenebrous armor, the design still unmatched except by the royal’s personal guard. She didn’t move or cry out. She didn’t attempt to channel the tenebrae. She just looked us up and down with a very self-satisfied smile. “Michael.”

“Isik.”

Revana stepped forward. “How…how did you do that? The tenebrae is broken here! Only the royals should be able to wield it anymore.”

Isik shrugged. “That’s mostly true, yes. But there are some tricks that can be used in a pinch, should one know what’s coming.” That smile was still plastered on her face and I found it more irritating each time I was forced to look at it.

“Why did you help us?”

“You can’t imagine how surprised I was to be called back to the twelfth so soon,” she said, and I knew instantly this wasn’t going to be a short answer and we were going to be prisoners to this speech. “Not because it’s uncommon to return, but because we’d received word that there was a threat to the sigilarium. A credible threat. Unthinkable.” She looked down in silence, seemingly lost in thought before she continued, “As far as I knew, there was only one real threat to the empire, and I already knew they weren’t behind this. Who, then, would show up?”

I could barely endure this speech any longer. “What do you want, Isik? Why haven’t you raised an alarm? Why did you help us in the sigilarium? None of this makes any sense.”

“I asked you once, Michael,” she said softly, “If you knew anything about the Dravizek Celestori. And you did not. Your confusion at the time was genuine, I’m sure. Have you learned any more since?”

Revana and I shared a look. “The dragon cult,” I said.

She laughed softly. “A crude name, but yes, the dragon cult. Once thought dead and gone, rumors started to filter into Telorn. A few at first, easily dismissed, but then they rudely and rather tenaciously kept coming.”

“That’s why,” Revana said, “you’ve been pressuring the Mulaq’Shae more and more in the past year?”

Isik nodded. “Yes. Many among the Inquisition wrongly believed that you were either in league or one and the same.”

“Wait,” I said, “wrongly?”

Revana and I looked at each other with wide, incredulous eyes, both of us having come to the same conclusion, but she was the one who voiced it. “If you know the Mulaq’Shae isn’t working with the Celestori…”

Isik said nothing in return, just stood there looking back at us, her insufferable smile back on her lips.

“It’s not possible,” Revanna said. “This has to be a trick.”

“For what?” I asked. “She’s already got us. What would she get from deceiving us now?” I said it, but I still didn’t really believe it. I was also pretty sure this was a scam of some sort, but I couldn’t imagine what.

We stood there, both unsure of what to say, when Isik broke the silence. “Once the rumors of the Celestori became persistent enough to warrant an actual response, many of the Inquisition were dispatched to trace them back to the source. And crush it, of course.

“It’s with no small amount of pride that I tell you I was the one that found them first. I caught a few of them unaware, branded and bound them, and forced them to tell me everything. Which, of course, they did.”

“Then what?” Revana asked. “You expect us to believe you joined them?”

“I did. And with my leadership and direction, they’ve remained hidden from the empire and my fellow Inquisitors. However, I don’t expect you to believe me right away, of course. That’s just foolishness. But think on this: summoning a dragon back into this world would require an immense invocation of the shae. I don’t have to tell you that such a thing can be accomplished with the right materials, but do you know what would make it much easier, simpler, and more likely to succeed?”

“A channeler,” Revana said. 

We still hadn’t said a word about it since the sigilarium. I was planning on staying quiet on the subject until she brought it up, and if she didn’t, I wouldn’t either.

“Michael can channel,” she said, “but the spells required for such a summoning would take years of study to even begin to grasp. Even if we believed you, which we don’t, Michael wouldn’t be what you—they— wanted.”

Isik shrugged. “Beggars can’t be choosers, you know. And perhaps the Celestori know things that you do not. Perhaps the Inquisition knows things that you do not.”

Revana’s jaw dropped. 

I didn’t know what she was thinking, but I knew what was in my head: If Isik really was a traitor to the empire, she would be the most powerful ally we could have never have hoped to have. “Prove it,” I said.

She waved a hand at Vashe’s unmoving form, and I was ashamed that during this exchange, I had completely forgotten about her. 

“In her pocket are instructions. They will lead you to where you need to be, and once you’re there, find the person in the note and tell them that you need shelter from the sweltering sun. Once you find your way in, I will be informed and will join you as I’m able. And as for now, you are free to go.”

We didn’t move. 

“I applaud your wariness.” A little portion of her dark armor melted away into nothing, and she reached into a pocket, pulled out a key, and placed it on the ground. “Here’s the key for your friend’s cell. You may only take her with you; the others imprisoned here are beyond your reach. And I make no more guarantees. You’re on your own to get out unseen.” She gave us a huge smile, turned and started to walk out the door.

“Wait!”

She turned and looked coolly back at me.

I threw caution to the wind. “We need an arcanic battery. If you really want to prove you’re telling us the truth, go get us one.”

“Is that all?” She turned and left.

Revana and I stood there unmoving for a minute, both completely floored by what had happened. She recovered first, stepping lightly to get the key, which she gingerly picked up with the end of her thumb and forefinger, as if it might explode. She looked at me and shrugged, coming back to Vashe’s cell. “I suppose you’re right. Why would she let us go just to trip some other trap?” She tried the lock, and it opened easily. 

Vashe barely stirred.

“Is she drugged?”

“No, they can induce this sort of thing through our brands. It takes a little time to do, so it’s not commonly used. It’ll wear off eventually, but not soon enough, I think. We’ll have to carry her out.”

“That’s…not convenient.” We briefly went through our options and decided I’d try a fireman’s carry, which was not called that on Vendira. I did my best despite never having attempted it before, but with Revana’s help, I managed to get Vashe up over my shoulders. 

The door clicked open and Isik came back in, clearly amused at the state in which she found us. True to her word, she placed a small, cylindrical object that glowed with a soft blue light on the floor. “One battery. I won’t even ask what it’s for.”

“Because you already know,” Revana said.

Isik chuckled under her breath, winked at us and said, “Shelter from the sweltering sun,” before she left again.

Revana turned to me with a curled lip. “I do not like this, Michael.”

“Nope. Me neither. Let’s get out of here.”

We stepped back out into the night, and I was pleasantly surprised not to find an army of Gorvani with weapons drawn. The moons were high and shadows were everywhere. It was impossible to tell if we were being watched or not, so we pressed on, winding through the same route we’d taken coming in. 

We were almost at the gap in the perimeter when I heard a gasp.

4

We turned to see a wide-eyed, lone human enforcer who’d just come around from behind a particularly large chunk of marble. He was steps away from us, but it was far enough. Even if I hadn’t been weighed down by Vashe, I still wouldn’t have had time to draw my sword and attack.

I saw everything that would happen as he drew in a breath. He’d cry out and there would be nothing we could do to stop him. My options then would be to drop Vashe and fight him, wasting time while more imperials poured in on top of us, or to run, weighed down, and maybe get stabbed in the back and overrun anyway. 

As visions of our deaths danced across my vision, something whipped through the air, almost faster than I could see.

The man’s cry never came, and he held a hand up to his throat. In the moonlight, I could see the blood pouring out over it. He took a few stunned steps backwards and collapsed. The black sword that had killed him spun in the air, throwing drops of blood to the ground, then zipped back from where it had come from, settling firmly at Isik’s side as she stood in the shadow of the little building. She gave us a rueful smile and shook her head before raising a hand and shooing us away. 

We went.

Neither Revana nor I spoke as we pressed through the forest as fast as we dared. The blood hadn’t stopped pumping in my veins, and I jumped at every little sound we heard. I carried Vashe most of the way, hoping with each step that she’d wake up and be able to walk herself, but that never happened. Revana carried her a few times when my legs just couldn’t take it. We took a few breaks when neither of us could go on, but we were quickly pushed along by our fear.

When we finally reached the hidden outpost, I collapsed on the ground, sucking in deep breaths, letting the adrenaline finally start to leave my veins. The entire, grueling walk had been a monumentally stressful experience, expecting imperial enforcers to be hiding behind every tree. We hadn’t met a single one, though, which I was grateful for. I didn’t think I’d’ve been able to functionally swing a sword had the need arose.

Marin was asleep when we got back. He jumped up, scrambling for his weapon when we loudly burst in through the door, dragging Vashe between us.

“Oh shit! Is she dead!?”

“No,” I said, panting. “Just sedated. We got a battery too.”

Revana held it out to him, her half-lidded eyes betraying the fact that she was likely as beat and exhausted as me.

Marin reverentially took the battery, looking at us like we were ghosts. “I can’t believe you did it. You got her back, you got this, and you didn’t even show up with a band of imperials on your tails. Amazing. How’d you manage it? Did you kill everyone there or something?”

“We didn’t kill anyone,” I said. “And I really doubt you’d believe me if I told you how we did it.”

He was already fitting the battery into the portal frame. “You can tell me all about it once we’re finally out of the place. I had already made up my mind to only wait a few more hours for you before I assumed you were dead. Was gonna load up on all the supplies I could and head out into the forest and hope I didn’t get eaten.”

Revana was sitting on the floor, leaning over onto her hands. “I don’t think anyone really thought things would work out this well, if you can even call it that.”

Vashe stirred, a small groan passing through her lips. My hopes jumped up that I wouldn’t have to carry her anymore, but she didn’t open her eyes or make any more noise. 

The portal flared to life, the bright arcanae pouring through the odd geometry of markings that were carved into it before a swirling vortex burst forth in the middle before calming down into a flat, seemingly solid wall of dark blue energy. I closed my eyes and relaxed my shoulders, the hours of tension finally releasing at the thought of being safe once again. Marin and I picked up Vashe between us and headed through the portal, and whether it was because I was so tired or not, I barely even noticed the pulling sensation before we were standing in the large warehouse building again.

Revana stepped through behind us and immediately deactivated the link from our side, the portal winking out with a crisp popping sound. She looked at us and said, “I don’t think anyone else is left to come back. No one who hasn’t been captured, anyway.”

We all went silent at the thought of those people. I didn’t want to imagine what the Gorvani would do to them. It was all well and good to say they all knew the risks and that the mission had been successful, but that wouldn’t save them from a grisly end. 

I caught Revana’s eyes and saw the sadness reflected in them. She shook her head softly. “This was never going to be easy. Or without a lot of sacrifice.” I knew she was right, but we all still just sat there in silence again until the door at the far end of the room opened.

“Revana! Michael! Marin!” Two Surini women ran into the room and stopped short when they saw Vashe.

“She’s okay,” Revana said. “Just sedated. But we should get her to a bed instead of laying her here on the ground. Michael, can you search her for…the information she’s supposed to have?”

I threw my hands up. “Nope. Nope. Not happening. I’m not risking her waking up the second I have my hands in her pants. I like being alive, thank you.”

Chuckling, Revana nodded and looked through Vashe’s pockets herself, coming up with a small, folded piece of paper. “We’ll look through this later.”

The others agreed to take care of Vashe, for which I was infinitely thankful. Revana and I made our way through the back alleys to the house we’d been staying at before, and it occurred to me that I had never actually met whoever owned it and had been thinking of it as Oronir’s place this whole time.

The back door was unlocked and no one seemed to be home, so we retreated to the basement, which was apparently our way now. Revana collapsed face down on the couch and said nothing. I assumed she wanted to sleep, so I let her lie there, trudging my way into the bathroom instead.

All my bones, muscles, and organs ached, if that was even possible. It sure felt like it was. My chest, while clear of any tenebrous magic, still felt weird and unsettled, but it was only a shadow of the weariness that had wormed its way into my very soul. I slowly stripped out of my clothes, glad to be free of the dirt, grime, and sweat that they were now imbued with. 

Even at the best of times, I had trouble with how showers worked on Vendira, and now I could barely get my brain to focus long enough to figure it out. I did, eventually, get warm water to flow from them, but I seriously considered laying down naked and dry on the smooth tile at least three times before I did. I did end up sitting down in the shower, just letting the water wash over me as what had happened flitted through my head. 

We’d done it. We’d actually done it. And we’d lived.

The sigilarium was destroyed, and we were back. It occurred to me that I’d never heard anything resembling a plan for what happened now. Was there a plan? I sure hoped so.

We would never have succeeded without Isik’s help. And as much as I distrusted her, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what possible con she could be running, aside from what she’d said. Did I really trust her word just because I couldn’t think of another angle? She was an Inquisitor; she’d spent her whole life working for the empire, manipulating people for nefarious purposes.

But…surely the empire wanted me and the rest of the Mulaq’Shae dead. Just dead, and nothing else. If she was working for them, she would have tried to kill us when she could. She surely wouldn’t have opened the massive sigilarium door for us and walked away, and she wouldn’t have let us take Vashe and leave. I shook my head, the water still splashing down directly on top of me, trailing down my body to the floor. 

Maybe Revana could see it from another angle, but for now, it seemed to me that we would have to trust Isik. The possibility that we could have the aid of the dragon cult, however big or small it might be, and an Inquisitor was just too much to throw away without investigating it.

My thoughts trailed off and I just sat, enjoying the water washing over me. A few minutes later, Revana came in. We looked at each other without expression or comment before she started to slowly take her own dirty clothes off and join me in sitting on the floor of the shower. We leaned against each other, saying nothing for quite some time. 

Eventually, she stood up and got a bar of soap. She sat back down and we scooted out from directly underneath the water and slowly lathered up each other’s bodies. Despite our weariness, we smiled, lazily running our hands over our slick skin. We rinsed off and washed each other’s hair in a similar fashion.

It would have been the perfect time to start something, if we hadn’t just escaped from horrific danger and been running for what seemed like days, all under constant fear and stress. I wanted it, theoretically, but I didn’t think I could physically do it with the bone-deep weariness suffusing my entire body. So instead, we just leaned back on the tile wall and let the water run over us, hand in hand, glad to have a moment to relax and forget everything that had happened.

5

After we dried off, we both fell into bed naked and were asleep within minutes.

Up until this point, I had tried to forget about the massive amount of information the relics had forced into my head when we’d broken the sigilarium. I’d been too tired, too overwhelmed, and certainly too exhausted to put any effort towards thinking about it. But once I was asleep in a safe bed, it all came roaring back, giving me the most vivid dreams I’d ever had. 

In dream after dream, I was a passenger in someone else’s body. Human, Dravini, Surini, but never Gorvani. I fought in battles, I trained with allies, and I practiced spell after spell, channeling the shae to give shape to complex rings of sigils and esoteric shapes. I’m not sure how long I slept, but I’m pretty sure that every single minute of it was spent reliving these old memories, which is what I was sure they were, not just my own dreams.

I woke to someone knocking loudly on the door.

“Revana! Michael!” Oronir’s voice was muffled by the heavy, carved door.

Revana was already awake and moving, pulling a robe around herself before she opened the door. “What is it?” No light came through the small window at the top of the wall, so it wasn’t anywhere near a reasonable hour, which did not bode well.

“Get dressed as quick as you can, take everything you’ll need. I’ll explain on the way.” And with that, he was gone, heading back upstairs for who knew what.

We didn’t waste any time or words; we just did as Oronir had told us and rushed upstairs to find him tapping his foot nervously. 

“Good, come, come.” We all exited through the back of the house, and while we weren’t exactly running, we covered the streets hastily. “The Gorvani are shutting down the entire twelfth province. Not just the lockdown - the entire region’s going to be quarantined within the hour. We only just found out from our spies that this is the plan, and they’re enacting it even faster than they normally work.”

“Quarantine…” Revana said. “You think they’re going to try and suppress what happened?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know, but either way, we need to get you out of here while it’s still possible. And there’s only the smallest window. Also, I’m sorry to say that it’s not going to be comfortable.”

I sighed to myself. At least I had gotten a few hours in a nice bed before everything went straight to shit again. “We’re not going through the caves again, are we?”

Oronir barked a laugh. “No, but I’m not sure this is going to be a better option. It’s the only one there is, though.”

I didn’t question him. I just followed along and hoped whatever it was was going to be a little less claustrophobic. We ended up at the warehouse again, but there was no sign of the portal from a few hours ago; it had been completely dismantled and taken away. I fervently hoped there really was no one else that needed to come through it.

In its place was a large assortment of cargo crates, stamped with a variety of markings. A sinking feeling settled in my stomach as I realized what would be happening. “You’re going to ship us out of the province, aren’t you?”

Oronir nodded. “Yes. There’s only one more shipment going out before the imperial army gets here, and we had to pull a lot of strings to make this happen; only very trusted people have been permitted to operate throughout the lockdown. A few of our friends put a lot on the line to orchestrate this.”

Revana put her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “Thank you. I’m sure you’re one of the people risking themselves for this.”

“I am, but,” he said, shrugging lighty, “I’m an old man. I’ve lived my life. I’m more worried about the younger generation. Be safe, you two.”

We said our goodbyes and were summarily packed into a very large crate containing bags of rice, or whatever Vendira’s equivalent was. They were arranged to form two low seats in the middle of the huge crate. The top was slid on and secured, putting us in complete darkness. In short order, the crate was moving, being loaded onto a golem, I’m sure. We then felt its plodding steps taking us out of the warehouse and across town.

We sat in dark silence while we moved, trying to keep the bags at our back from falling over. Eventually, we heard people yelling out orders and I assumed we’d arrived at whatever portal nexus we were bound for. We stalled there, though, our golem probably sitting in a line or waiting on a portal’s schedule. 

My dreams swirled in my head, and this seemed as good a time as any to try out one of the endless things I’d experienced in the night. I pulled the shae into and through my body, a supremely weird feeling, like there was a light breeze blowing under my skin. I held out my hand and concentrated, a soft glow building between the tips of my fingers. I kept it small, but we could easily see each other.

Revana’s golden eyes shone brightly even in the gentle light. She didn’t look at me or say anything; she just stared longingly at the magic.

“So…” I ventured, “are we going to talk about it?”

Her eyes flicked up to mine before she closed them with a sad little smile. “I was kind of hoping it would never come up.” She reached out a claw, passing it through the ball of light hovering over my palm. “I can’t feel it.”

“This was always the plan, wasn’t it? That I’d be able to do this?”

She nodded. “Of course, but…”

“Thinking about the future and seeing it in front of you are different things?”

She sighed and leaned back as much as she could. “What does it feel like?”

“Like a soft breeze, but under my skin, through my body. It’s…odd. It’s not like anything else I’ve ever felt.”

Her eyes were downcast and it was a little while before she spoke again. “I’m happy for you, I really am. But I’m sad for me, too, you know?” Her lips quivered and a tear slowly made its way down her cheek. “I’d give almost anything to feel it, to be able to use it. I’ve spent my entire life learning about the magic and how to wield it. I’ve performed my fair share of rituals, but only through outside reagents. And every time, I just looked at the golden light, wishing so hard it’d come from…me.” The tears were flowing freely now. She looked back up at me. “But you know all that already.”

I leaned forward and put my non-glowing hand on hers. “Yeah, but it’s good for you to say it again.” I reached out and pulled her shirt up, looking at her shadowbrand. “So, some of the things the relics crammed into my head are starting to make sense, and I’ve been wondering, in the last hour or so I admit, if your brand can be removed.”

She ran her hand over the brand. “No. That’s not possible. We’re branded at birth, the magic merged into our very essence. There have been many attempts to remove brands with a wide variety of methods over the centuries, but every one, every single one, resulted in immediate death.”

“Hmm,” I mumbled, leaning back. “If it can’t be removed, can it maybe be contained? Wrap it up in the shae so it doesn’t affect you anymore?”

“Oh, Michael,” she said, shaking her head. “It means a lot to me that you’re trying, but it’s not going to work. I’ve made peace with the fact that I’ll never channel the shae. The best I can do is create a world in which other people can.”

“That’s…” Tears were forming in my own eyes. “That’s not good enough. You, of all people, deserve this. I’m going to make it work. I’ll do whatever I can so you can live your dream.”

She gave me a big smile, but the look in her eyes said I was being naive. “That’s a beautiful thought, but I think you’ll just have to accept that it’s not realistic, eventually.”

I sighed. “If you say so.” The conversation dropped off from there while we still waited to be moving again. After a few minutes, we did start to move, but quickly stopped again. This repeated a few times and I got my hopes up, but after four or so small events, we stalled out again. I didn’t want to leave the conversation where it was, but there was nothing more to really say about the shae, so I asked another question that had been sitting in my head. “So, the plan has always been to destroy the sigilarium, but I don’t think I ever heard what we were going to do afterwards.”

“Well, there’s actually a lot of half-formed plans, but it’ll depend on what the empire actually does. Since something like this has never happened before, we couldn’t anticipate what their response would be. It’s usually overwhelming reprisal, but with something like this? They can’t honestly wipe out the entire province for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is they depend on the people they ‘govern.’”

“So we’re just waiting on them now?”

Revana nodded. “Yes. This quarantine is unexpected; it’s not something they’ve done, but it can hardly be their only response. So for now, we wait. And in the meantime, we’re going to investigate the dragon cult. Or I assumed we would. What do you think?”

“Yeah,” I said, leaning back, “I don’t think we can ignore that. I’ve been giving it some thought and we might as well trust Isik at this point. Not because she’s trustworthy, but because I can’t, for the life of me, figure out any other angle than that she’s telling the truth. Can you?”

Revana was silent for some time before answering. “No. I can’t. It’s been stuck in my head too. There’s just nothing I can think of to explain her actions other than taking her at her word. Which, to be clear, I still don’t like the least bit, but…I don’t know. Trusting an Inquisitor goes against everything I know, but I think we should. And by the time we do, we’ll probably be in a better position to plan our next move. Whoa!”

The golem lurched into motion, and before I knew it, I felt the odd pulling on my entire body that meant we were going through a portal. I thought our little journey was almost over, but we sat wherever this destination was for a while as well. I let my little light fade out and we sat silently in the darkness until we finally started moving again. 

I could hear the sounds of a city outside the crate and guessed we were heading down a road, and soon enough, we were sat down on the ground. Minutes later, the top was slid off and looking down at us with the biggest smile on her face was Irina. “Reva! Michael! I’m so glad you're both safe!”

We climbed out of the box and she enveloped us both in the biggest, tightest mom-hug I’d ever received. She looked into the crate and moved a few things around. “Good, everything else I ordered is here as well. Now come on, let’s get you both out of here before anyone shows up and starts asking questions.”

I hardly thought twice about it when we stuck to the alleyways and avoided the main roads. I never really knew what, exactly, we were hiding from and I had never really thought to ask. At any rate, we were heading into the back door of Irina’s shop in no time, settling down in the little office we’d sat in before.

Revana perched on the huge, carved desk while I sank down into the plush chair that I had covered in cave dust and mud the last time we’d come through and was not surprised to find it spotless now. Irina left us without a word, and soon after she reappeared with a tray of tea and round, orange-glazed cakes. I must have made a face upon seeing them because she stopped and looked at me with a huge smile. “Your favorites?”

“Uh, yeah, you could say that,” I said, blushing. “I had some of them with Tiq, and so far, they’re the best things I’ve had since coming to Vendira.” I took one and bit into it, the flavor just as good as I remembered. I tried so very hard to eat it at a reasonable rate, but it was gone before Irina had finished pouring the tea. 

She just kept smiling and put another one in my hand without comment after she’d passed the tea cups and saucers around. My eyes wandered to her black horns and green scales; I hadn’t seen any other Dravini with her particular coloring. Wondering if it was acceptable or not to bring up, I just kept the thoughts to myself. She was wearing a pair of reading glasses that she hadn’t been last time, and on her dark horns were twined, golden rings. Horn ornaments? Hornaments?

“I really like your,” I waved my hands around my forehead, “jewelry.”

Revana snorted while trying to take a drink of tea. “They’re hornrings, although people mostly just say rings.”

Irina beamed at me. “Thank you for saying so. My son made them for me, before…”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

She waved my comment away. “Oh, no. He’s still alive, thankfully. But I only get to see him a time or two a year. He’s halfway through his mandatory working years. I keep telling myself that one day they’ll be over and he’ll come back home to stay, but it’s just so difficult to bear a lot of the time. I have my two daughters as well, and they visit regularly. And Reva here might as well be my daughter too. The one I worry about the most, I think.”

They shared and look and Revana said, “I wish there was an easier way, but—”

“I know, I know, Reva. What you’re doing is important. It’s what I want too, but I just…I hope it doesn’t cost you your life.”

Revana smiled and blushed, looking away.

I looked over to both of them and said, “Not that she needs it, but please know I’d do anything to protect her.”

“I’m so glad you both have each other,” Irina said. “It’ll help me to worry just a little less.”

In the interest of not having the conversation spiral into a storm of emotion, I asked, “So what are these orange things called, anyway?”

“Dulcet jumpers,” Revana said.

I blinked at her. “What kind of name is…No, no. You know what? It’s not any weirder than the kinds of names things have back home.”

The next twenty minutes or so was then spent comparing Vendiran desserts to what I knew, and while there were a lot of differences, there was actually a lot of overlap between our two worlds. I might have eaten four or five more jumpers during that conversation and then heavily regretted it for a while.

Eventually, we wound back around to more serious matters and Revana produced the note Isik had left on Vashe. We explained the entire situation to Irina, who went through a number of horrified faces as we talked, even though we left out most of the more life-threatening parts. 

“That’s…quite a story. Can I see the note?” Irina took it from Revana, looked it over, and said, “Seven-CU-one?” She looked over to me. “It’s the capital of the Seventh, one of the more central provinces. I’m not familiar with the street address it names, but it’s likely to be a pretty big place. You’re going now?”

“As soon as we can get some new IDs,” Revana said.

“Oh, yes, that. They’re being worked on as we speak. They’ll be ready tonight, but please, stay until morning. I’ll cook for you tonight.”

We readily agreed. As curious as we were about Isik and the dragon cult, the promise of an entire night without worry was too good to even consider passing up.

6

We spent the day doing odd jobs for Irina. Apparently no one had been to visit in a little while and the list of chores had gotten pretty long. I spent the day lugging boxes around, sorting various junk, and helping with minor repairs. It was by far the most mundane day I had spent since coming to Vendira, and I found myself thoroughly enjoying it. As exciting as being an adventurer was, there was really something to be said for a quiet day helping someone you liked. In no time at all, the sun was on its way down to the horizon and Irina sent us both off to shower before dinner.

When we came back out and into the upstairs dining room, the table was packed with an assortment of shockingly familiar things. They all had different names and weren’t quite like their counterparts on Earth, but there were mashed potatoes and peas and a variety of meat. If I hadn’t been looking, I might have been convinced I was back home eating regular food with slightly different spices. 

Revana and I stayed mostly silent, the only things we had to talk about being our fight with the Gorvani, so Irina filled the time talking about anything and everything. I heard countless stories about her children and her late husband, the places she’d lived and the things she’d done, and it all added up to what sounded like a pretty wonderful life, considering. She didn’t bring up the Mulaq’Shae or the empire, aside from some complaints about irritating local regulations that made owning a repair shop more hassle than it needed to be.

I just let her words wash over me, content to pretend, for a brief time, that I wasn’t a brandless hero from another world, but just me, sitting in a friend’s house, enjoying a quiet dinner. It was nice.

After we were done with dinner, Irina brought out cake and served us all huge slices of it. It wasn’t chocolate, but again, it was close, and it was packed with tiny slices of a bright blue fruit. After we’d eaten far too much of that, she poured us little glasses filled to the brim with a dark red alcohol. It was very strong and tasted sweet. After we all drained the glasses, we exchanged a wordless look and Irina filled them up again.

The sun had long gone down by the time we made it to bed. I thought about trying to start something with Revana, but we were both absolutely stuffed with food and booze, so we basically just face planted into bed and fell into a deep sleep.

The dreams came for me again, a long series of completely lucid memories, one shifting right into the next. The ones about fighting made the most sense to me; I could feel the ebb and flow of battle, the next motion my dream body making coming easily to me before it happened.

The dreams about the shae were much more incomprehensible, though. Spells and rituals rushed past my eyes, and while I was able to understand bits and pieces, much of it was esoteric nonsense. Even though my dream body, or the body of whomever’s memory I was experiencing, went through the motions and incantations without pause, so much was lost to me. I wondered how long it would take to make sense, if it ever would.

The night was long, but I still woke rested, my eyes opening naturally to the light filtering in through the drapes, and I very much reveled in the ordinary morning, instead of someone yelling about the calamity right around the corner.

Revana had gotten up before me and I came downstairs to find her and Irina chatting in the office again. 

Irina hopped up, promising a large breakfast before we left. “I’m not letting you two out the door until you’ve eaten your fill!” She didn’t wait for a reply and what she’d said sounded a lot like a threat, so I obediently sat down and waited.

“I found out a little more about our destination this morning,” Revana said. “It’s in one of the larger towers in the Seventh that houses a lot of the guilds’ headquarters. Apparently we’re to meet someone in the Carvers’ Guild.”

“Ah! I knew it!”

Revana gave me a wide-eyed look. “W-what now?”

I chuckled. “I’m sorry. It’s just that there’s so much stuff on Vendira that’s covered in really detailed carvings. I’ve been assuming that there was a guild or something. Probably a very important, influential, and rich one.”

She gave me a pained smile. “Uh, yeah. It is, actually. Very prestigious. Do you not have something like it on Earth?”

“No, not really. A few hundred years ago, rich people had things like that, but anymore, people like their straight lines and everything’s mass produced anyway. No one has anything like the stuff here. At least not people I know. And it’s just everything here, you know? Doors, desks, the outsides of houses. Honestly, it’s one of the things I like most about Vendira. There’s just so much effort put into making regular things look nice.”

She was still giving me a look like I was an idiot, so I tried to move the conversation along. “Are we supposed to meet someone specific there, or just bust in asking anyone we see about shade from the sweltering sun?”

She handed me the note, which had a name along with the address. “We’re supposed to ask for a Mephina Shorel, which is probably going to be an older woman, based on the name. Also I think it was shelter from the sun.”

“Sweltering sun.”

“Uh huh,” she said, giving me a wide smile. “Let’s go eat breakfast or Irina’s never going to let us leave.

We ended up in the dining room again, and in short order, a heaping plate of eggs, meat, and pancakes appeared. The pancakes were to be covered in a dark red syrup, and they were almost as good as the dulcet jumpers. 

Irina had her own plate, but was clearly more concerned that we eat everything on ours.

I did as expected, somewhat because I didn’t know when we were going to get to eat next, but largely because I thought Irina might try to fight me if I didn’t. Afterwards, for a few minutes, I seriously thought I might need to head out into the back alley to throw up, but the feeling subsided.

Irina finally left us and returned with fresh, fake IDs.

I looked at mine and back to her many times. “Really?” I said.

“What?”

I held out the little card as if she hadn’t already seen it. “Shum? My name is supposed to be Shum!?”

Revana tried not to laugh and failed pretty hard. She finally managed to stammer out, “It’s a real name.”

“It is? Wow, I feel sorry for all the Shums out there.”

Even Irina was laughing at me. “It’s an older name. Not a lot of people with it now.”

“Yeah, I can see why,” I said, giving them both a level look. “Oh well. I guess it doesn’t really matter. Hopefully I’m not going to be introducing myself to anyone.”

Revana leaned forward, a more serious expression on her face. “Irina, I know it’s early, but have you heard anything about the twelfth?”

“No, Reva. No one has. I only know about the quarantine because of our contacts. There’s been no word officially. All contact with the province stopped suddenly, so I can’t imagine what the Gorvani might be gearing up for.”

That effectively killed the conversation, so Revana and I mopped up the dregs of syrup on our plates with the last bits of pancake and left to get our things together. Back in our bedroom, I just had to ask. “You’re worried about what’s going to happen, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am,” she said while strapping on her weapon. “I’m not sure what I want more, for it to not be so bad, or for it to be so hideous that the population has to rise up against it. It’s going to be bad either way, and my biggest fear is that the revolution we planned stalls out here.”

I went over and hugged her from behind. “We’ll do whatever we have to. Hopefully the dragon cult can help.”

“One day at a time, right?”

“Right.”

Downstairs, Irina crushed us both in overly tight hugs and tried valiantly not to cry when we left. “Be safe. I know you know, but be safe, okay?”

We assured her we would, and then we were out the door, the weight of everything pressing down on us again. “So, what’s your new name, anyway?” I asked.

“Suri.”

I scoffed. “Lucky.”

7

The portal nexus was close by and not very busy. Luckily, I only had to show my ID twice and no one asked me to say my stupid new name out loud; I wasn’t sure I would be able to do so with a straight face. We only had to sit around waiting for a half hour before our portal was ready, and in no time, we were in the capital of the Seventh. We stepped out into the sun, and I was both impressed and disappointed. It was indeed a beautiful city, but it was only the barest shadow of Telorn. I’d expected a provincial capital to rival the empire’s capital, but it did not. The buildings weren’t nearly as tall and I thought I could see the beginnings of a forest down one of the long streets. Apparently we were close enough to our goal that we didn’t need to hire a golem taxi, which was also a let down. 

The building itself did not disappoint: the doors were two stories tall and the most intricately carved things I’d ever seen on Vendira, which was really saying something. They were a massive amalgamation of woodland scenes, towering cityscapes, and probably at least one of every single animal that existed on the planet. Revana humored me for a bit while I stood there, just staring like an idiot, trying to notice every little thing I could. I’m sure I looked like the stupid tourist that I was, but I didn’t even care.

Eventually, we went inside.

The huge foyer was almost as impressive, boasting swirling pillars and needlessly ostentatious benches. There was barely a straight line in the entire place except for desktops and the floor. Even the ceiling was a complete mess of gargoyles and scenes the likes of which I’d never seen. I followed Revana who, it seemed, wasn’t as uninterested as she tried to pretend; I caught her gawking at things nearly as much as I was.

We giggled and made our way to one of the front desks. “Hi,” I said, “we’re here to see Mephina…”

“Shorel,” Revana supplied.

The Dravini man at the desk looked lazily back at me, and for a second, I was worried that this was going to spiral into another break-in like seeing Tiq had been. But he just nodded and told us to take a seat, and we’d be called when Mephina was ready.

The bench we sat on was carved in the shape of flowing waves and was surprisingly comfortable for just being a wooden seat. I looked around at the people walking through the huge room and noticed that almost every one of them was Dravini. Many of them wore odd leather gloves that covered their fingers and little else besides a strap around the wrist to hold them in place. I asked Revana about them.

“A large majority of carvers are Dravini, and the guild actually didn’t accept other races for most of its history. The carvers sharpen their claws to a razor’s edge and do all of their work by hand. That is, of course, dangerous for day to day life, so they wear those gloves to protect everyone around them from accidents. Not to mention anything they pick up.”

I thought back to the horrific amount of damage Revana had been able to do to the enforcer in the woods by the sigilarium with her normal claws, and I didn’t want to imagine what a Dravini could do with a sharpened set. I shivered.

She saw me do so and said, “Yeah, it’s a big hazard to have them, but the masters take so much pride in their work and are willing to be inconvenienced in most other aspects of their lives.”

“What about non-Dravini carvers?”

“They just use tools, which some of the Dravini purists look down on, but most people aren’t jerks about it. No one else can match what Dravini claws can do. Even Surini claws aren’t suitable for carving. And humans…well, you know…”

I leaned away from her and raised an eyebrow. “Are you judging us for not having claws?”

“No, no! Of course not. Your soft, weak hands are…charming, after a fashion.” She was able to keep a straight face for about ten seconds before she started laughing at me.

I smiled back and punched her in the shoulder.

“Oh no,” she said, “you didn’t hurt your hand on me, did you?”

I groaned. “dammit. I walked into that one, didn’t I?”

We sat there for another half hour, talking about anything and nothing, waiting to see if this entire trip would pan out or not. 

Finally, an older, bent over Dravini woman walked up to us. “Hello there. You’re here to see me? I’m Mephina.” She had white horns, dark blue scales, and a long, white braid trailing down her back.

We exchanged greetings and I told her my name was Michael, not Shum. She led us into a long hallway that was just as over-decorated as the rest of the place, and into a small office that had, among all the expected things, a stone fireplace with a modest fire burning inside.

We sat on either side of a large desk piled with papers and various inkwells. “Now, what can I do for the two of you?”

I waited for Revana to say something, but she just looked at me and smiled. 

Great. She was going to make me say the stupid thing. I gave Mephina a big grin and said, “We’d like to commission a piece to shelter us from the sweltering sun.” Mephina just blinked at me and a huge sinking feeling dropped into my stomach. This was all a complete waste of time and I looked like a moron to top it all off.

Mephina slowly got up and made sure the door to the hallway was closed, and then she locked it before making her way to a random section of her office wall and pressed something in the flowing leaves of a carved tree. There was an audible click, and she effortlessly pushed a hidden door open.

I was a little disappointed that the fireplace didn’t rotate or something, but it was a relief to have this actually be going somewhere.

“I was told you two would be coming along. Please, come with me.” We followed her into the door, which led immediately to a long, descending staircase.

I whispered to Revana, “We’re doing this, right? We’re trusting Isik about all this shit?”

“We came this far. Might as well keep going.”

Mephina made her way extremely slowly down the stairs while excitement and anxiety blossomed in my chest. My mind wandered to the possibilities and I envisioned sweeping cathedrals dedicated to ancient magic or winding catacombs of monstrous bones.

We came out in a hallway a lot like the one outside Mephina’s office and were led to a small sitting room and offered tea while we waited for her to go get “the big boss.” We declined the tea, for once.

Revana and I sat there in silence. Eventually, finally, the door creaked open.

“Well, well. You made it here after all.” Isik stepped into the room, her usual haughty look plastered on her face. Her purple hair was loose, trailing down over her skin, and her bright orange eyes were filled with the pompous arrogance I was weirdly getting used to.

We both stood and my hand strayed to the hilt of my sword.

Isik didn’t move; she just looked down at my hand without a hint of fear. There was, however, a tightness to her expression, something I couldn’t quite place. “There’s no need for that, Michael. I didn’t bring you all the way here to fight you in a sitting room.” She closed the door behind her and walked into the room, but her movements were slow and measured, like she was being very careful with each step. 

I immediately thought of trapped tiles in the floor, but that seemed pretty stupid even to me. “Well, we’re here. Maybe you could give us some answers instead of more questions this time.”

She smirked and took a step towards us. “I can assu—” Her leg gave out, buckling underneath her, and she fell into my arms. I caught her purely on reflex. She tried to say something, but her face was contorted in pain, her breathing suddenly heavy.

Revana and I shared a bewildered look before I gingerly helped Isik down onto one of the couches. 

She gripped her leg tightly while schooling her face to neutrality.

We waited without comment while she got herself under control. Revana sat down on the couch across from her and said, “What’s…wrong with you?”

Isik couldn’t keep a grimace from passing over her face before she curled her lip and looked away in what seemed like shame. A moment passed before she said, “I suppose there’s no real reason to keep this from you, as much as it galls me to no end.” She sighed heavily, her hand running up and down her leg before her eyes flicked back up to us. 

“The Inquisitors present at the sigilarium were held accountable for its destruction.”

I sucked in a breath. “Oof.”

She laughed humorlessly. “You’ve really no idea.” She looked Revana in the eyes and said, “Anything I or anyone else ever did to you doesn’t really compare.” Isik held up a hand when Revana made to reply. “No. I’m not looking for sympathy, of course. I don’t deserve it and you wouldn’t give me any, and rightly so. Just enjoy the thought of it. You can think of it as a gift.”

“I take it they don’t know you opened the door for us?” I asked.

“No. Absolutely not. I’d be in the dungeons under Telorn, being slowly flayed alive if they even suspected it. Fortunately, the royalty is not the Inquisition, and they have no fucking idea how to conduct a proper interrogation, erroneously believing that the liberal application of pain will necessarily lead to the truth.”

“And what is the truth, Isik?” Revana asked. “Why are we here? Are the Dravizek Celestori actually real?”

“Oh yes, they certainly are. I’ve not lied to you, if you can even believe such a thing, which I’m sure you can’t.”

“Then what do you want, ultimately?”

Isik leaned back and looked us both in the eyes before answering. “The same thing you want, I should think: the destruction of the Gorvani empire.”

Revana gave her an incredulous look. “And why on Vendira would you want that?”

Isik smiled widely, but it didn’t touch her eyes. “I told you once, not so long ago, that you were all foolish for thinking that Inquisitors were a small step below the royalty. It’s a popular thought, I know. And if you’ve never met a royal but you’ve dealt with the Inquisition, I can see how it would seem possible. Inquisitors wield more societal power than the rank and file can imagine. 

“But what do you think now, having met, and fought, a royal face to face? Surely it couldn’t have escaped even your notice that his very body is suffused with the tenebrae, that he wields so much more than societal power. And keep in mind, you fought the Sixteenth Son, by far and away the lowliest of the royalty. By the accounts I heard, all you could manage was to limp meekly away from him while your compatriots were all captured or killed. 

“I understand that there is a world of difference between the Inquisition and the citizenry, but you can hardly understand the yawning conceptual gulf between the royalty and literally anyone else. They are ageless, functionally immortal beings, their power absolute, their every passing whim fulfilled on pain of death. You are aware it would be considered an honor for one to even be in your field of vision? It’s the same for us; we just receive such ‘honor’ more often than most.” Her lip curled, her anger rising the longer she talked. “We Inquisitors do indeed have much more freedom and agency than most, but only if we perform as we are meant to.”

“Huh,” I said. “Tiq said almost the exact same thing.”

Isik’s eyes went wide and locked on to mine, a crazed smile slowly coming to her lips. “Lady Tiquette.”

Horror washed over me as I realized how stupid I’d just been, Revana’s shocked expression not helping the overwhelming feeling of idiocy.

Isik laughed loudly, her mirth interspersed with grimaces, her elation clearly aggravating her injuries. When she was able to calm down and saw my face, she started laughing again. She waved away my expression. “Don’t worry yourself too much. I’ve no interest in pursuing her. I have suspected her for years upon years, though. Despite that, I’ve never once been able to catch her out doing anything improper, or at least not more improper than she’s allowed to be. It’s true, then? She’s Mulaq’Shae?”

Revana and I exchanged a look but said nothing.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Isik said, still chuckling to herself. “But back to the conversation: she’s right. She and I are both allowed our respective freedoms as long as we stay in line with the royalty’s expectations.” The levity trailed off her face, leaving only a ghost of a smile on her lips. “We are just as much slaves as everyone else, the only difference being that the consequences for stepping out of line would be even worse for us.”

Revana shook her head. “Bullshit.”

“Yes, I don’t expect you to believe that. I know very well what you’ve been subjected to, which brings me to one of my points.” Isik held out her palm and just looked at it for some moments before continuing. “When you look at me, you see a monster. And you see that because I am one. I have done unspeakable things in the name of the empire. And when I was young and stupid, I was as brainwashed as any Gorvani. Everything I did, I did for the empire, for justice. I sniffed out and routed rebels proudly; I executed our enemies for the good of society, and I believed, truly, that what I was doing was right and good and just.

“But you can only brutally kill so many families before you start to question your own motives. By the time I finally admitted to myself that what I was doing was wrong, I was in so deep; I was already in line to become an Inquisitor. I spent a lot of nights lying awake in bed, wondering what the best course was. I considered throwing myself off a building. I considered running away. Who knows where I would have ran to, though.

“In the end, I convinced myself that I could do some good if I continued to live. If I became an Inquisitor, I would have power. And I could use that power to spare some people that other Inquisitors would not.”

Revana scoffed. “You expect us to believe you became an Inquisitor out of altruism?”

“No, I don’t. If I’m being completely honest, which I’d like you to understand is an uncomfortable thing for me, I love the thrill of the chase. There are many parts of my life that I truly do enjoy. It’s just that killing is rarely one of them.”

“Uh, rarely?” I asked.

“Mhmm. As much as you might not want to hear it, there are people out there that do need to be removed.”

“Murdered, you mean,” Revana said.

“Yes, murdered. But back to the matter at hand. My choices have long been nothing more than this: serve or die. And I didn’t want to die. So I became the best Inquisitor I could be, enjoying what parts of life I could, and sparing a life or two when I was able.” She looked up into Revana’s rage-filled eyes. “I’d like you to at least try and understand. I don’t expect you to care. I am a monster, as I said. I deserve neither pity nor forgiveness.”

Isik stopped talking and we sat in silence for some time. Revana looked away, the anger still apparent on her face. I couldn’t imagine what sort of thoughts were going through her head. 

For my part, I could see why Isik had lived the life she had. Maybe it was because I’d never been branded or had to endure the empire’s wrath, but I felt my dislike of her slowly slipping away. I also had to admit to myself that I was just assuming she was telling the unvarnished truth; she could have been lying with every word and I wouldn’t have known. But I just kept coming back to the same thoughts: I couldn’t think of what her goals could be aside from taking her at her word.

Isik seemed content to let us sit there and process what she’d said.

Revana still looked pretty pissed off. It would be a while for her to get over those feelings, if she ever even could.

There was a knock on the door and Mephina poked her head in. “Revana? We’ve received a communication for you.”

We shared a look. “You go take care of that. I’ll stay here,” I said.

She nodded, glaring daggers at Isik, who looked coolly back and said nothing.

“Alright.” She stood and headed towards the door.

“We’ll adjourn to the balcony upstairs, Mephina,” Isik said. After we were alone, she slowly got up and motioned for me to follow her, which I did.

We made our way through a maze of confusing hallways and finally found a few elevators. “This will be a nicer place to chat than a stuffy, windowless room.”

I just nodded and we headed up, watching the floors zip by. A few more hallways later, we emerged onto an ornate balcony with a sweeping view of the city. Isik went to the railing, which was, naturally, thick and covered in flowing carvings made to look like blowing wind. 

“Do you trust me, Michael?”

“No,” I said. When she didn’t say anything further, I added, “I trust you to not kill me right this second. You’ve surely had enough chances to do that.” She just kept looking at me so I just kept talking, which is probably what she wanted. “I’m not sure you’re telling the truth about anything, but I can’t think of what you’d stand to gain if you weren’t. Do you really want to bring down the empire?”

She looked out over the city. “I’ll admit that it’s a new concept for me. For most of my life, I would have said such a thing was impossible. But then I found the Celestori, and then you showed up. A Brandless.” She shook her head and smiled. “It’s an odd feeling, having hope. I only ever expected that I could save a life or two, here and there, and that would have to be enough. But now? I still don’t know if it’s possible. But I think that there will be no better chance than this. You’re here, and if we can somehow pull off summoning a dragon back to Vendira, we’ll have momentum the empire will be hard pressed to stop.”

“That’s the next goal, then? To summon a dragon? And you’re hoping I can do it?”

She side-eyed me. “Yes, although Revana was correct: the spells to do so are incredibly complex. Despite you having the relics, I’m not sure you’ll be able to. But it’s still the best chance there is as far as I know.”

I took a long, deep breath. “How much do you know about the shadowbrand? Like, how it works and how to…manipulate it?”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Very much. Why?”

“Can it be removed?”

She scoffed. “No. The shadowbrand is absolute. Any attempt to remove it by magic or…cutting into the body where it resides always results in instant death.”

“I’ve heard people have tried a lot of things over the years.”

“Oh yes, but more than that, the empire is constantly testing it as well. I’m sure you’ll not be shocked to hear that we experiment on prisoners, trying to find any way to manipulate the brand before the populous would. And in all those years, even we have never been able to remove a brand. It’s as I said: it’s absolute.”

There was no real reason to hold anything back at this point in the conversation. “Is there a way to…contain it?” At her skeptical look, I plowed on. “Look, Revana has wanted to channel the shae her whole life. And now, I can.” I raised my hand and pulled on the magic, a soft glow appearing in my palm. “I want her to live her dream, and I’m willing to go to great lengths to see it done, including working with you. If anyone knows something that could help us, it’s you. And I…maybe with your knowledge and my abilities, we can figure something out. Besides, if you truly want to invoke the spells that could summon a dragon, Revana would be the perfect choice. She’s spent her life learning the magic.”

Isik had spent a lot of the time I was talking looking out over the city, and when I finished, she made no reply. Her eyes were flicking back and forth, so I stayed quiet, hoping she was working on possible solutions and not just how to nicely tell me I was a complete dumbass with ridiculous desires.

She finally said, “How skilled are you at channeling the shae?”

“Not very. When the sigilarium went down, a lot got dumped into my head, and I’m still making sense of it. I can do this, though.” I tried to summon the glowing golden armor. For a second, I wished I’d attempted it again after the one time I’d done it, because I thought I was about to fail and look like an idiot, but the power slowly came and wrapped itself around me, molding into a solid, if rather unadorned, set of armor. I held onto it for a few seconds and let it dissipate.

“You apparently don’t know this,” Isik said, “but it takes a lot of power and control to do something like that. Most tenebrous channelers can’t do after years of training what you’ve done rather easily.”

“Oh.”

“It is a matter of power, not finesse, though. However, that’s exactly what I was hoping for from you.” She looked me up and down. “I’ll not give you an answer now, since there are things I need to know and sources I need to consult. I agree that Revana would be a much better choice than you for the summoning ritual.”

It would have been an insult if it hadn’t been true.

Isik then left, presumably to make whatever inquiries she needed to. Although that was just an assumption; she hadn’t told me where she was going and I hadn’t expected her to. She left vague instructions on how to get to the lower floors, but I said I would wait for Revana and Mephina. 

8

The view off the covered balcony was nice, so I was content to sit on a couch and wait, letting the thoughts pass through my head as they would. I tried not to get my hopes up about Revana being able to become a channeler, but I wanted it so much for her. I could barely stand the thought of being able to live her dream right in front of her face. I knew she’d power through it, trying not to let me know it bothered her and we’d both just never acknowledge the obvious lie that it was. 

I jumped when the door opened and she came through, old Mephina right behind her.

“Hey, let’s get out of here and get something to eat.”

We were shown out a back door that was invisible when closed, blending perfectly into the outer architecture of the building, and we were told precisely how to knock on it when we returned so we could avoid coming in through the foyer. 

We wandered for a little while before we came to a sprawling outdoor cafe which had private screens around the tables and, most importantly, served hachi. I ordered a sandwich with an unpronounceable name and ingredients I’d never heard of. When my steaming mug came, I grinned like a moron, disproportionately happy to be drinking it again.

Revana sipped hers distractedly, looking around before saying, “So I’ve heard from the others.”

Oh. We were here to talk business, it seemed.

“It’s become clear what the Gorvani’s response to the sigilarium is going to be.”

A feeling of dread weighed heavily in my stomach, and I got ready for the worst. “Yeah?”

“Nothing.”

“Uhh…”

“Well, maybe that’s not the right way to phrase it. They’ve quarantined the twelfth, obviously, but more than that, they’ve suppressed any information coming out as well. They’re not making any move for retribution. They’re going to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“To what end?” I asked. “They can’t keep it up forever, right? Are they going to try and rebuild the sigilarium?”

She shook her head. “Such a thing would be a massive undertaking. They were all built centuries ago in a campaign that spanned the nascent empire. I’m not sure they have the infrastructure in place to do it anymore. Not to mention it would take an insane amount of time to correctly calibrate. This is all what made it a perfect target: once it went down, it would be impossible to rebuild in anything resembling a timely fashion. Word of its destruction would spread and the empire wouldn’t be able to disprove it.”

“So what’s happening in the twelfth now? Isn’t it obvious the Gorvani can’t channel the tenebrae anymore?”

“In the brief time we were there, all imperials were recalled and non-channeling enforcers took over. I can’t say for sure, but that’s probably what’s still happening there. The general population probably don’t even know anything happened.”

“Can I assume by your tone that this wasn’t one of the predicted outcomes?”

She laughed humorlessly. “It wasn’t. We were sure we thought of anything and everything, but this? Nope. We didn’t see this coming. And it’s exactly what we wouldn’t have wanted. The destruction of the sigilarium was supposed to be this huge symbol of defiance, to say to everyone that the Gorvani weren’t invincible, something to rally around. But…now? I’m not sure what to do, and the others aren’t either.”

I looked over my still hot but mostly empty cup of hachi and said, “We could summon a dragon.”

She bit her lip and took a long, deep breath, looking me in the eyes. “You…you uh, actually want to work with…her?”

“You hate her, don’t you?”

She looked away, a rueful smile on her lips. “You know, I really thought I could hold it in, for the sake of the cause, but sitting there, just chatting with her? It took so much willpower not to leap off the couch and rip out her throat. There she was, talking about how hard she’s had it?” The volume of her voice was steadily rising. “Oh, I’m so sorry you had to butcher all those people!”

I laid my hand over hers and she blushed.

“Sorry. But yeah, to answer your question, I do hate her. She might have never done much to me personally, but she’s an Inquisitor. She deserves any and all the hate I can give.”

“She did admit that exact thing.”

She leaned back and looked me up and down. “Michael, are you defending her?”

“I…” I drained the last of my cup. “Look, it’s probably because I don’t have the lifetime of horrible memories that you do, but I can see where she’s coming from. And I’m not saying she’s great! Just…she’d be an extremely useful ally. And for what it’s worth, I think she is telling us the truth. Although I’m not exactly great at sniffing out lies, admittedly.”

Revana bowed her head and closed her eyes. “You’re right; she would be a useful ally. But…to just set aside everything she and the rest of the Inquisition have done? I don’t know if I can.”

“Well, how’s about this? I primarily deal with Isik, but we throw in with the dragon cult—”

“Which we’ve still met none of!”

“Yes. Uh, that is indeed the case. But…”

“Are you sure you’ve thought this through, Michael?”

I threw up my hands. “Of course I haven’t! I’ve been winging literally everything since I got here. But in lieu of any better ideas, summoning a dragon seems like the next best step. Assuming we can. But…we succeeded at the sigilarium and it isn’t looking like it’s going to get us anywhere we wanted to be.”

We both leaned back, looking into each other's eyes with little smiles on our lips at how absurd this situation was. “I suppose you’re right,” Revana said. “All our plans revolved around reacting to whatever cruelty the empire dished out. That they would do nothing… It’s not like we considered it and discarded the idea — it never once occurred to any of us.”

The waitress came back and I asked for more hachi, and it was a while before either of us spoke again.

“I don’t like it,” Revana said. “But if you think trusting Isik will help…you can pursue that without me. I don’t think I can stand to be in her presence and keep my cool.”

I nodded. “If I stay here and do that, what will you do?”

Leaning back into her chair, she ran a hand down her face. “There’s a few things I could be doing. Looking into the prisoners taken at the sigilarium, how to get Vashe out of the twelfth, make contact with other factions.” She shook her head. “None of it seems important enough. We were supposed to be stoking the fires of revolution at this point.”

“This is just a setback. We’re still here. We succeeded! Just because things didn’t go to plan after that doesn’t mean we stop trying.”

She put her head on the table and groaned. “You’re right.”

Our sandwiches came and we ate them without more conversation. Mine was covered in a spicy, yellow sauce that was eye-wateringly good. As we sat there waiting for the bill to arrive, a young Gorvani man walked up to our table.

Revana tensed, her eyes boring into him.

If he noticed, he didn’t react, just looked us over and said, “I was instructed to give you this note, sir.” He handed me a folded piece of paper, bowed slightly, and left.

“Isik had us watched when we left,” Revana said. “I’m not surprised in the least.”

Neither was I. I opened the paper, which read, What we discussed might be possible, but I will need your assistance with procuring some material. It wasn’t signed or stamped with a shadowy seal. I tried not to look over to Revana as hope exploded in my chest, and I did a decent job of keeping my voice level when I said, “It’s from Isik, of course. She wants my help.”

“Oh, does she now?”

I nodded and looked her levelly in the eyes, keeping a neutral expression.

Her gaze narrowed as it bored into me. “What aren’t you telling me?”

dammit.

I took a deep breath. “Okay. She and I had a talk after you left. I…don’t want to tell you about it.” I couldn’t tell her she might be able to become a channeler when I wasn’t sure it was even remotely possible. To get her hopes up about that and then have them come crashing down? I wouldn’t do it to her.

“...Michael?” 

She looked hurt at my words and guilt immediately surged through my entire body. I took her hand in mine and squeezed tightly. “Please believe that I have a good reason. I…really can’t say anything more. It’s nothing nefarious, I just…”

She squeezed back, a concerned look on her face. “Well I sure don’t like this at all. Will you tell me what it’s about eventually?”

I nodded emphatically. “Yes, absolutely. Hopefully soon. But, I just can’t right now.”

“Well…okay. I trust you.”

The rest of our lunch was supremely awkward, if short. We parted ways and agreed to stay in contact with Irina at regular intervals. 

It wasn’t the first time we’d been apart, but it felt different this time. We weren’t headed towards the same goal, and who knew when we’d see each other again. We hugged tightly and shared a kiss right there on the sidewalk before I watched her walk away into the crowd.

I felt terrible. But I had hope.

9

I knocked on a portion of the wall outside of the Carvers’ Guild, fervently hoping I remembered where the door had actually been. I was very relieved when it swung open, almost soundlessly, a grinning Dravini woman holding it open for me. “Just down the hall,” she said, “and Mephina will be waiting for you.”

I went down the long hall and turned a corner to find just that.

“”Ah, how lucky to run into you, Michael,” Mephina said.

“Uh huh. I know Isik has people watching me.”

She chuckled and waved for me to follow her. “No point in denying it, I suppose.”

As we wound through the building, I had to ask, “So, is this the headquarters of the Celestori? I kind of expected there’d be…something more than sitting rooms and offices.”

“Oh my no,” she said. “This is merely a suitable meeting area for prospective members and a convenient place for the Inquisitor to make contact without alerting the empire to anything suspicious. There are some old tomes and artifacts housed here, tucked away in back rooms, but it’s mostly for meetings.”

“So where’s the actual headquarters, then?”

She shrugged. “Insofar as such a place exists, it’s not my secret to tell.”

She led me to a small room that was covered in bookshelves, and by the far wall, Isik sat at a table, looking through a few open tomes amidst more piled high. It reminded me faintly of Tiq, and I wondered how she was doing, not to mention when and if I would see her again. Mephina made her goodbyes and shut the door behind her.

I walked up behind Isik, who didn’t look up. “You found something?” I looked down at the books and could barely even make sense of them. Much seemed to be written in an old language I could hardly even read the letters to, and much of the pages were filled with diagrams and drawings of alien designs.

She nodded. “I believe so, although I can’t be sure.” She continued flipping through some pages. “If it is possible, and I’m not claiming with any certainty it is, then I’ve found the most likely way. These books contain a few of the experiments the Celestori conducted over a century and a half ago, where they were also trying to subvert or remove the shadowbrand. They were ultimately unsuccessful, but they made some headway.

“They did not, however, have two things that we do. First, myself, a master channeler of the tenebrae. And second,” she said, looking up, “is you. Your control of the shae is lacking, but that might not matter, given how much you can already channel.”

“Okay. What’s the catch?”

She smiled and turned in her chair to look up at me. “We’ll need a focus, a reagent to bind the superbrand onto.”

“Super…brand?”

“Mhmm. A brand to cover the shadowbrand, as it were. A melding of both shae and tenebrae. Would you like me to explain the particulars of how the magic would work?”

“Uh, would I understand anything you said?”

She laughed. “Likely not.”

“Yeah, let’s skip it, then. Except for one thing — both magics would work together? That’s not been my experience with the shae and tenebrae.”

“It’s an outrageously complicated design. However, most of the complexity will be needed for the tenebrous part that will anchor onto the shadowbrand. I believe even you will be able to complete the shaeous portion of the binding.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to absorb this, “but you still haven’t actually told me what the catch is. I’m gonna assume whatever reagent we need is rare or difficult to obtain.?”

She folded her hands across her lap and gave me a level look. “Rare? Obscenely. Difficult to obtain? Not really, not for me, but it will involve an extreme amount of trust on your part.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll get straight to the point. The item we need is housed in a secure vault with multiple layers of protection. I can walk through most of them, but the last line of defense is a tenebrous ward that not even I would be able to lift. However…”

“I could reach right through it?”

“Precisely. It’s been so long since a brandless person existed that the empire has forgotten what might be circumvented by one.”

“So I have to let you walk me into this place, trusting that you won’t betray me and serve me up to the royalty on a platter, right?”

“Yes.” Her orange eyes bored into mine, and I wondered, not for the first time, what sort of thoughts laid behind them. “Not only that, but I’ll require you to leave your relic here. Taking it where we’d be going would be foolishness. It’s one thing to wear it around on the street, but taking it through the levels of inspection we’ll be going through would be nothing short of suicide. Even someone like me will be scrutinized. 

“Should you agree, I’ll secure your sword behind a ward only an Inquisitor would be able to open.”

“Or me.”

“Or you, yes.” She turned back to her books. “You need not decide right this second. I’ll—”

“I’ll do it,” I said.

She paused and slowly turned to look at me again. “Just like that?”

I leaned back against the bookshelf behind me and looked down. “Look, there’s one thought I keep going to, and if you give me time to think about it, it’s going to be the same. You could have screwed me over many times by now. If you wanted me dead, I’d probably be dead.

“It’s probably stupid and naive of me, but I believe your story and that you want to oppose the empire. It’s the only thing that makes sense, so there’s no reason to debate it if I’m just going to come up with the same answer. So yeah, I’ll do it.”

Her chair scraped across the floor as she stood. “Excellent. I’ve already made the preparations.”

“Uh, you have?”

She shrugged. “You were going to accept. I just didn’t think you’d do it so quickly. The prize of letting Revana live her dream is too much for you to refuse.” We looked at each other for a moment before she added, “You love her.”

My eyes went wide. “I…”

“No point in denying it. I saw your reaction when I held a sword to her throat in the sigilarium. I saw how you looked at her when we were sitting here chatting. I am an excellent judge of people, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to hear, and it’s written plain across your face whenever you so much as glance at her.”

I stood there, unsure of what to say, what to think, or how to feel.

Isik stepped up close to me, leaned in, and whispered in my ear, “She loves you too.” And directly after dropping that bomb into my head, she walked briskly out the door, calling for me to follow her.

Dazed, I did.

10

We descended into the building again, finally coming to a small room like many others, this one containing many wardrobes that lined the entire space. Isik opened one and waved a hand towards it and said, “Place the sword in here.”

Despite my words earlier, I paused. We shared a look before I shrugged and unbelted my sword and laid it in the wardrobe. After a beat, I shrugged out of my shirt and folded my tunic and laid it beside the sword.

Isik’s eyes were wide as I did so. “Two relics?”

“Yeah.”

She laughed loudly and shook her head. “I really did underestimate the Mulaq’Shae.” She closed the door and raised her hands, the inky black magic coalescing around them before seeping into the wardrobe.

I opened the door to see a wavy barrier in front of the relics. Just to be sure, I reached in, my hand passing through it without effect.

Isik opened another cabinet and pulled out what looked to be a uniform and handed it over to me. “Put these on. They’ll signify you as my personal retainer.” She also produced a nice looking sword. Not nearly as nice as mine, but I suppose that was the point.

The clothes consisted of a shirt and heavily embroidered tabard and boots to match. “I’ve never seen enforcers with actual uniforms before.”

“They’re very common in Telorn, among the higher ups, but no, you don’t see them elsewhere very often. I myself have rarely taken such people, as I prefer to work by myself.”

As I finished lacing up the boots, Isik’s opulent armor formed from the shadows, weaving itself around her body. We left the room, took a few turns, and were quickly outside under the sun again, emerging from another door that melded seamlessly back into the side of the building. “Where exactly are we going?”

“A very secure place.” Isik maintained a brisk pace, and people moved. I assumed that was why she’d summoned her tenebrous armor, to let everyone know there was an Inquisitor coming and they needed to get out of her way. Now. 

I walked by her side, her authority apparently extending to me as we cut a swath through the crowd. The odd person or two who hadn’t noticed our presence was quickly pulled out of the way by someone who did. Holding up an Inquisitor was probably a grave offense. Although honestly, what wasn’t?

In no time at all, we were back at the portal nexus. Doors were held open for us and the people inside parted just as readily as everyone on the street had. Isik strode up to what seemed like a random portal, ignored the line leading up to it, and eyed the attendant beside it, a young Gorvani man, until he moved away. She manipulated the controls and the portal winked out of existence briefly before spinning back into life, the bright blue energy of the arcanae pulsing in the stone archway. No one said a word.

We stepped through.

While we were traveling through it, it occurred to me that I should probably have relayed a message to Irina first, but Isik’s well laid plans had left me little time for thinking about anything. Not for the first time, I hoped I wasn’t making a colossal mistake. 

We emerged into another portal nexus that looked very much like the one we’d just been in, but the portal we’d come from was set aside from the others. I just assumed it was only used for official Gorvani business. “Where are we now?”

“The fourth,” Isik said. “Downtown, but our destination is rather far from here.” She set off with the same vigorous pace, ending up at a counter near the front doors of the place.

A tired looking human woman perked right up when she saw who was coming. “Inquisitor! What can I do for you?”

“I need transportation for myself and my man.”

“Of course!” The woman waved to another attendant and gave him a few quick orders. “A golem will be waiting for you out front immediately, Inquisitor.”

Isik nodded without really looking at her. “Thank you.”

Outside, the golem was much fancier than any of the others I’d seen; it was more a palanquin than a golem. The stone or clay or whatever part consisted of six fat legs underneath, a short, rotund body, and a wooden platform on top that was carved as ostentatiously as anything else on Vendira. Gold inlay and silver filigree designs covered a domed canopy that provided shade. The seats themselves looked overstuffed and way too luxurious for what was essentially a car. Or I suppose it was probably more akin to a limo.

We climbed on board and I did indeed sink into the seats. Isik channeled into it and off we went. The traffic on the street parted with just as much alacrity as the people on the sidewalks had, and before I knew it, we were leaving through a huge city gate, miles of farmland stretching out on all sides. 

Most of the fields contained short, purple bushes with long, orange fruits or vegetables or whatever they were. A few others had massive stalks as tall as trees that looked like blue asparagus that sported loads of little yellow berries. I was reasonably sure I’d eaten some of those berries before. Probably.

The sun was high in the sky with only a few clouds as we made our way away from the city, miles and miles of farm fields as far as I could see in any direction. We were sitting side by side, but Isik made no move to talk or even look around, and she didn’t seem to be paying all that much attention to steering the golem, her thoughts obviously elsewhere. The silence dragged on for a long time before I just couldn’t take it anymore.

“So, you hate your job, huh?”

She very, very slowly looked over to me, her eyes wide in an incredulous expression. After a moment, she said, “Are you…trying to make conversation with me? Is that what’s happening?”

I couldn’t help grinning widely. “Uh, yeah. Sorry. It’s just that that’s the only relatable thing I know about you.”

“Uh huh,” she said, the ghost of a smile on her lips. “Do you hate being the Mulaq’Shae’s hero, then?”

“Oh! No, not that. I actually like Vendira. I meant my old job back home.”

“And what was that?”

“Well, I was a store clerk.”

“And that was…worthy of hatred?” She looked down and apparently just noticed her armor was still there. She made no movement, but it rippled and faded away, tendrils of darkness trailing behind her. She pulled her braided hair around her shoulder and unbound it, letting it flow back in wavy strands.

I thought, not for the first time, that she was actually beautiful, if you could get past her personality, profession, and all the years of unspeakable horrors she must have committed. “Oh the job itself was fine. It was the people.” I went on a rant, rambling about customers and management and the unending, soul-crushing hopelessness of it all.

She said nothing, seemingly content to let me talk as much as I wanted, but even though she barely responded, she was listening. 

I tried to convey what it was like, working long hours for little pay, absorbing abuse because you had to, trying to eke out any tiny little happiness you could, however small and fleeting. I had no idea what she was thinking, but I just kept talking, telling one anecdote after another about shit I’d had to endure, glad someone was listening, even if it was her. After a while, I ran out of things to say.

“You felt inadequate in your world, so you cling to your newfound sense of purpose here.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, pretty much. I’ve never been what I could call useful or important. And I know I was randomly pulled here, but I’m going to give Vendira the absolute best I have.”

“And Revana.”

The blood ran to my cheeks under Isik’s gaze. “Um…yeah.”

“You should tell her how you feel, while you still have time.” Isik looked forward, any expression dropping off her face.

I wasn’t a good judge of character by any stretch, but this one seemed a little too easy. “Who did you not get to tell?”

She glanced over to me with wide eyes just briefly before she balled up a fist and curled her lip. 

“You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to,” I said.

“Of course I don’t,” she replied, all the haughtiness back in her voice. She didn’t say more and I didn’t force it, but it was only a few minutes later before she leaned back and groaned. “I don’t know what it is about you, Michael. Maybe it’s because you don’t have a lifetime of fear of the Gorvani instilled into you, but I find myself wanting to tell you things.”

“Then tell me things.”

She scoffed. “As if it’s just that easy.”

“It is.”

“Conceptually, perhaps. But I’ve lived a life of keeping personal things personal. It’s not only not done among the Gorvani, it’s a liability as well. This is on top of no one wanting to listen anyway.”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine Revana would want to hear.”

She laughed loudly. “Exactly. It was a pain earlier to reveal the things I did to the two of you. But I felt it was necessary, so that you might have even a modicum of trust in me. Still, I had to mentally prepare before that conversation. And yet, as awkward as I felt then, we sit here now and memories I’ve never shared with anyone sit so lightly on my lips.”

I almost moved to put my hand over hers, but immediately thought better of it. “Well, you really don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

She smiled and said, “That’s precisely what I would say if I really did want someone to tell me something.”

“I’m, uh, guessing you don’t get a lot of opportunities to be genuine with people.”

“None, actually. Which is why it took a moment of processing to understand what you were saying when you attempted to make conversation with me. It’s not a thing that’s done. No one just…chats up an Inquisitor. It would be a good way to get killed, I imagine. Or at the very least, thrown into an imperial prison, depending on the Inquisitor.”

She stopped talking, and I just watched the weird crops slowly drift by and waited for her to start again.

“Oh, why not,” she eventually said. “I was young once, and in love with a stupid man named Shorlin. He was so sweet, and every time we met, he had a new little gift for me, oftentimes things I had never even heard of before. Cute little trinkets or perfumes, they always impressed. For a low level bureaucrat, I had no idea how he came by these things, but he told me it didn’t matter, and like an idiot, I believed him.

“In those days I was little more than a jumped-up enforcer yet to make a name for herself, for all that I was a Gorvani from a loyal family. This was also when I still believed in the empire, so I fervently sought out any opportunity I could for advancement. 

“It happened that there were rumors of a small group leading a smuggling ring, selling illicit artifacts from before the empire’s founding. You can surely imagine what was thought of that. How they managed to get their hands on them, even I never found out, but I was able to root out the leaders of the operation. And do I need to say more? My darling Shorlin was one of them.”

“Oof,” I said. “What happened?”

“They made me execute him, of course.”

“Oh…wow, Isik.”

“And I did it. I was so closely associated with him, that even though I was the one that brought them to ‘justice,’ it was deemed necessary to prove I wasn’t in league with them. And it was also a completely normal test of obedience and loyalty to the empire. Are you willing to kill for the Emperor? Prove it.

“I cried while I did it. I tried to make it as quick as possible. But, he had also betrayed me and what I believed in. Can you imagine that as awful as it was, I thought I was doing the right thing?”

“It did, however,” she said, spreading her hands, “make me a much better Inquisitor in the end, and it was that event that put me on the fast track to the Inquisition. I trusted no one; everyone was suspicious until proven otherwise. I questioned the motives behind the most innocent of gestures.” She scoffed. “It wasn’t until years later that I began to question my own.”

I had no idea what to say to that. I opened my mouth to see what would come out, but she cut me off.

“We’re here.”

As we rounded a rolling hill, a huge, flat, box of a building came into view. It was surrounded by an extremely high metal fence with only a little decorative flow in its bars before ending with multi-headed spikes on top. The building itself was a white-marbled, smooth-lined cube, the only structure I’d seen on all of Vendira like it. It was oddly reminiscent of Earth in its ugliness. “Ugh. What is it?”

“Imperial Vault number three.”

11

We parked the golem palanquin beside a few others like it and went into the angular building, passing two Gorvani decked out in full, metal armor who held long halberds at the ready. They eyed us as we went in but said nothing.

The deference that literally everyone had shown Isik was not on display here; the guards inside barely moved as we went past. The room contained a central desk and many elevators set around the outer walls. The middle aged Gorvani woman sitting on the other side of the counter gave Isik a slight nod as we approached. “Yes, Inquisitor?” Her tone was level and respectful enough, but there was no fear or hesitation. 

“I need access to the seventh strata.”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “It’s not every day someone asks for the seventh.”

“No,” Isik said, “it is not.”

The two shared a long, unblinking look before the woman at the desk nodded and pulled out a large book, flipping it open and shoving it across. “Sign, please. And you, enforcer. ID.”

That meant me, so I took out my ID and hoped it would pass inspection. I doubted that whoever made it, if it was Irina or not, suspected it would be taken to a place like this. My pulse came fast as this dower woman looked it over for probably half a minute before she handed it back to me.

“Here you are…Shum.” There was only the barest upturning of her voice at the end as she said it, but she was clearly amused at my name. Her mouth didn’t budge, but there was a twinkle in her eyes.

I looked at Isik, but she thankfully seemed not to have been paying attention while she was writing in the logbook.

After that awful exchange was over, Isik and I headed towards the back elevator which was flanked by even more guards. Their unmoving, almost unblinking vigil as we waited was supremely uncomfortable. Finally, the doors opened, and we stepped into what looked to me like a normal elevator for once.

After the doors closed and we began to descend, Isik brought her hand to her mouth and snickered in a very uncharacteristic way. “Shum,” she said.

“Aw dammit! I was really hoping you didn’t hear that! I didn’t choose it.”

“Well,” she said, still laughing, “it is a real name.”

“So I was told. I was kinda hoping it would never come up.” 

We spent the rest of the considerable elevator ride down with me grumbling and Isik smiling. The doors opened onto an incredibly long hallway devoid of anything at all. It was a square hall with bright lights in the ceiling, made of the same white marble as the rest of the building.

“Well this is creepy,” I said. “Does it have to be this long?”

“There are numerous wards built into it that I imagine you can’t see. The entire hall is awash in thin lines of the tenebrae. If you had a brand that wasn’t supposed to be here, you’d already be dead, or at least wishing you were.”

I shook my head. “The empire is really sure there’s no brandless wandering around in the world, aren’t they?”

“Yes, very. Perhaps Revana told you about the lengths to which we go to make sure it’s that way? I myself have culled entire extended families for the crime of attempting to hide a newborn from being branded.”

“Oh…Revana said that such a thing used to happen, but doesn’t anymore.”

“Mhmm. Yes, that’s the narrative that the empire wants everyone to think. But it does happen, once in a while. Word of it is just suppressed.”

I laughed softly and without mirth. “I was told it would take days to list all of the empire’s sins.”

“Michael, you still truly have no idea.”

12

At the end of the hallway, which I almost didn’t think would come, was a big metal door, somewhat reminiscent of the one in the sigilarium. And like it, Isik poured in waves of the tenebrae, making its inner workings churn and vibrate before it ponderously opened.

Behind it lay an absolutely enormous room, so huge I couldn’t even see the ends of it. We began walking past rows and rows and rows of all manner of things. There were weapons and armor, machines, furniture for some reason, and a world’s worth of books. I didn’t think anything was going to be longer than the hallway, but I was wrong. White marble pillars formed endless rows into the place, and arcanic lights hung on each one, casting oddly shaped shadows in all directions.

Isik clearly knew where she was going, as we made a few turns during our trek. But unlike following the Mulaq’Shae through a strange forest, this place was extremely organized, cut off into a huge grid with large, obvious signs at every intersection.

“So like, what all’s down here?”

Isik shrugged. “Even I don’t know. The archivists do, but good luck getting them to tell you anything you don’t already know. This particular vault is the most secure in the facility, but I’m not sure what warrants a spot in it. I’m sure you saw the rows of furniture we passed?”

“I did.”

“I’ve asked why they’re here, only to get silence in return. My only guess is that the carvings on them depict something that either shouldn’t be depicted or pissed off one of the royalty at some point. A lot of things disappear into these places that the masses think are destroyed, but the empire rarely, if ever, actually destroys anything. It gets secreted away instead.”

“Hey, so you mentioned seeing a shae relic once, in a vault ‘we’d never find if we spent our lives looking’ or something like that. Is this…?”

She scoffed. “Oh no. Most certainly not. That was housed in the Emperor’s personal vault underneath the palace in Telorn. I’ve only been in it twice and I do not want to go back. Being inside means being escorted directly by a royal, and as you could guess, they do not like deigning to take part in such menial tasks.”

After what seemed like a mile of walking, Isik abruptly stopped next to a display that looked the same as the thousands we’d already passed. But this one contained a black metal housing with a shining, iridescent something. I leaned in closer, and through the constant light it was exuding, I could make out the shape of a  light blue scale, much larger than any I’d ever seen. “Is it, like, a lizard scale, then?”

Isik scoffed. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. You may try again.”

The glowing light was bright and golden, just like the shae. Belatedly, my slow thoughts finally caught up with the situation. “Oh. It’s a…dragon scale. Suffused with the shae.”

“Yes. An unbroken, unmarred scale pried from a nameless dragon during their extermination.”

“Are there any more like this?”

“I believe there are a handful of others in the vault under Telorn, but they’re not obtainable. I don’t know how this one ended up here, but it’s protected by a ward that would easily kill me were I to try and reach through it. Only the royalty could undo it.”

I squinted and watched, and I could barely see wavy lines of tenebrous magic surrounding the scale’s metal housing. “What would it do to you?”

“Course into my brand, burning my soul and body from the inside out.”

I looked up at her. “And you want me to reach in there?”

“Of course. The magic reacts to a person’s brand, just like countless other things you’ve circumvented, probably without even knowing it. This will be no different.” At my incredulous look, she continued, “I wouldn’t risk you unnecessarily; I need you for my own ends. If you can’t trust me for any other reason, trust me for that one.”

“Oookay. Well, here goes.” I reached in, and as my fingers touched the almost invisible ward, small tendrils of shadow trailed out, wrapping slowly around my hand. My eyes went wide as terror surged through my chest, but nothing happened. A few seconds later, they retreated back into nothingness. I slowly picked up the scale which was a bit smaller than my palm but much, much heavier than it looked, and I just as slowly pulled it out.

“Whew.”

Isik held out her hand, and I gave it to her. “Huh, heavier than it looks.” She channeled, wrapping it in a coating of tenebrae, cutting off its glow before she slid it into a pocket. “And that’s that. The Gorvani’s vaunted defenses completely broken. Although I suppose we have to actually leave before calling it a total success.” She looked in my eyes and smirked, “So, you want to lead us out?”

I looked around, not even sure which direction we’d come from anymore. “Yeah, sure, if you like starving to death.”

She scoffed at me and turned around, heading back the way we’d apparently come from and said, “We’d die of dehydration long before that.”

The walk back seemed quicker, but we took just as many turns as we had coming in. I really looked at the myriad things we passed, but I couldn’t make any sense out of the vast majority of them; they all seemed so mundane and unworthy of being in one of the Gorvani’s most guarded vaults. I couldn’t imagine what junk must have been stored in the others.

Once we finally reached the hallway and Isik resealed the door, we turned around to see tiny dots in the distance. “Are those…people?”

Isik squinted down the space. “I can’t imagine what else it would be, but it’s rather unlikely that someone else would be down here the same time we are. Access to this vault is heavily restricted.

We started walking, and eventually, the dots resolved into two people just standing in the middle of the hallway, hands on their hips and waiting for us.

Isik grumbled, and as we got closer, she cursed under her breath. “Well shit. This isn’t going to be fun. I know who it is and there’s only one reason he’d be standing there like an asshole. You’re going to have to fight.”

“I what now?”

“Isik!” the man bellowed. “How fortunate to run into you down here! What are the chances?”

“Hello, Rykan, what the fuck do you want?”

Rykan wore the fancy armor of an Inquisitor, and he stood there wearing the shittiest grin I’d ever seen, and a memory flashed in my head. I’d seen this man, his pathetic beard, and his stupid grin once before, at Irina’s shop, in what seemed like forever ago now. Standing beside him was a hulking Dravini man that was very likely his personal enforcer. “Now is that a way to greet a treasured colleague, Issy?” 

I looked over to Isik, expecting rage at a sentence like that, but her face was completely devoid of emotion. “Say what you want or get out of my way, Rykan.”

He just set his hands on his hips and laughed while we stood there, waiting for him to start talking again. “Always so stern, Issy! You need to learn how to lighten up, you know? Have a little fun! Or were you always this dower, I wonder? What was young Isik like? Surely you had a passion for your work once, didn’t you?”

Isik didn’t move or reply.

Rykan scoffed and threw his hands into the air. “Always such a killjoy! Fine, fine. If we must get right down to business.” He spread his hands wide and looked at me. “I showed up here and heard I’d missed you upstairs! But I was told you had a new, little servant! How unlike you, Issy! I’ve hardly ever known you to travel with anyone else. Getting a little up there in years, now? Need a little, you know, assistance to get the job done anymore?”

I had gotten the impression that Isik wasn’t young, but I could never pin down how old she apparently was. She still had smooth blue skin without a wrinkle and she moved like she was still in her youth. Rykan, though, was clearly somewhat younger — I would have put him in his late twenties if he was a human, but who knew if Gorvani aged the same way?

“Since we’re all here, we might as well have a little sport, right? Play a game, make a wager, maybe?”

“Do whatever you will, Rykan. I’m not betting anything.”

“Oh ho!” he said, clapping his hands together. “Afraid your new enforcer isn’t up to snuff? Well I can’t say I blame you; he does look a little soft around the edges, you know. Or is he not for enforcing, then? Maybe just for a little tumble now and then, yeah? Even sour old Inquisitors need some fun, am I right?”

Isik still hadn’t reacted, but she was taking slow, deep breaths. I didn’t know how she did it; this man was instantly one of the most annoying people I had ever met. And they clearly had a history.

“If you want a fight, say you want a fight, Rykan.”

“Well, I just don’t know! It wouldn’t be fair to sic Erenok on your little man, now would it?”

Erenok looked down at me. He was easily the biggest Dravini, or biggest person in general, I’d seen on Vendira, towering at least a head taller than I was. He had black horns and claws with dark blue scales and was covered in stiff leather armor. A rather large sword hung at his waist, and he gave me a huge, menacing smile.

“But you know what, Issy? I came all the way down here, might as well have a show, right? Be gentle, Erenok,” Rykan said, patting the Dravini on his arm. “By the way, Issy, what’s your little man’s name?”

Aw shit, please don’t let her tell him my name is Shum, I thought loudly.

Isik scoffed and walked to the side. “Stop talking,  Rykan.” She waved a hand at me and said, “Make it quick.”

Rykan laughed louder than ever, the braying laugh of an idiot, and I so wished I was fighting him instead.

Erenok drew his sword and so did I.

He stepped back into a common fighting stance which was mostly correct, but his foot placement could use a little refinement. Inwardly, I was surprised that that thought came unbidden to my mind, but apparently the dreams of old memories were starting to make sense.

Erenok grinned and slashed at me, wasting little time, but it was a feint. His eyes didn’t line up with the strike, so I didn’t react. He switched at the last second, swinging in towards my neck as I’d expected him to, and my sword was already in motion. I barely had to move to direct his attack up and over me, putting him off balance.

I kicked his shin, and he stumbled.

Rykan’s stupid smile faltered and he yelled, “What are you doing, Erenok!? Don’t just play with him!”

I was convinced, however, that that was exactly what Rykan had wanted: a show of me being toyed with to humiliate Isik. I wondered, too, since no one had said, if this was a fight to the death or not.

The huge Dravini tried various thrusting attacks, all of which I sidestepped with minimal effort or deflections. He was skilled, but there were many little gaps in his technique that he’d clearly never addressed because he’d used his strength to make up for them, as he was doing during this fight as well. With every missed attack, his smile slipped further and further away, replaced by a grimace and renewed determination. But his swings got wilder, more desperate, and he kept glancing over to his master.

The enraging smile was gone from Rykan’s face like it had never been there. A few veins began to stand out from his neck, and his light blue skin was turning a shade of pink. After I’d dodged under an attack and slapped Erenok’s ass with the flat of my sword, he just couldn’t take it anymore. “What are you DOING you idiot!? Kill him already!” Rykan’s voice echoed down the hallway, and it looked like he wanted to jump into the fight himself.

Despite what he’d said, I still wasn’t sure if this was meant to be a fight to the death, but it seemed like I should probably end it. I started counterattacking, leaving cut after cut on the scaleless parts of his skin. In minutes, he was covered in dripping blood.

Rykan was nearly vibrating with poorly restrained rage. After a few more cuts to his enforcer, he screamed wordlessly and channeled, an explosion of shadows emanating from his hands, which were held out towards me.

The only thing he could have been doing was trying to brand me, so I played along, gripping my side and curling inward with a grunt, but Erenok wasn’t affected and was coming straight for me with an overhand strike. My eyes went wide; I didn’t know Gorvani could selectively brand people and had assumed Erenok would be incapacitated as well. I didn’t have time to react; I was going to either take the hit or be forced to summon my shae armor.

Isik’s shadowblade whipped between us and buried itself into Erenok’s chin, driving up through his mouth, with the tip sticking out of his head behind his horns. It lifted him very slightly off the ground. His sword fell from his hands, and as Isik’s blade slipped down and out, twirling to throw off the blood, his body crashed to the floor with a resounding thud.

Rykan and I both stood staring at the newly made corpse for a moment before he turned to Isik and shouted, “You bitch!” He lunged at her, the tenebrae issuing forth from his hands again, but he’d barely stepped before she swiftly kicked him between the legs. As her foot came up, she channeled, banishing his armor just before she made contact.

He squealed, the shadows disappearing from his hands. He made a little choked sound before Isik drew back and hit him viciously in the throat. He fell as hard as Erenok had, gasping and writhing in pain as he slammed down onto his back.

Isik bent down and drove her knee into his sternum, leaning all her weight onto him.

He feebly tried to push her off, but was unable.

“Fair play, Rykan. You interfered in the fight, so anything I did was well within the rules of the game,” she said, leaning more and more into him, “that you started. You wanted this, you know?” She just stayed there for a few moments, smiling, letting him squirm. “And then, you attacked me. You know what that means, don’t you?”

She balled up her fist, raised it, covered it in a tenebrous gauntlet, and slammed it into his eye. I heard the bone crack.

Rykan made a noise I could scarcely call human, and I had to look away, a wave of sickness washing over me. 

Isik stood and made her way to the elevator, leaving the destruction behind her, and without anything else to do, I followed her. We stepped in and she activated it, the doors closing before the machine started its long ascent. Once we were moving, she burst out into the loudest and most genuine laugh I had ever heard from her. She had to brace herself against the wall to keep from falling over, her eyes pressed shut as she cackled endlessly. 

I stood there pretty uncomfortably as she enjoyed herself.

Once she calmed down a tiny bit, she put her hands on my shoulders and said, “Oh Michael! That was beautiful!” This was followed by more laughing as she used me for balance. Then, she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. 

I froze, shocked, aware of her body pressing up against mine. Underneath all the horror, I had to admit to myself that I kind of liked it.

If she noticed or felt any awkwardness, she didn’t show it. “That couldn’t have gone any better! Did you see how pissed off he was! You humiliated that brute of an enforcer too!”

“Yeah, and then you killed him.”

“I know!” she said, still smiling the widest, most joyful smile I’d almost ever seen. “You pissed off Rykan so much he intervened! And then he attacked me! Oh, Michael, it really, truly, could not have gone better. I’ve wanted any excuse to do that to him for years on end!”

“Yeah, you, uh,” I said, shuddering, “broke his orbital.”

I must have made a face because she stepped back and said, still giggling, “As if you haven’t done worse to people.”

I shrugged. “I mean, yeah, I have, but they’re dead afterwards. Anyway, was that all, like, normal for Inquisitors? And was I supposed to kill Erenok or not?”

“Oh well, you shouldn’t be aiming for a kill, technically, but it’s okay if it happens. And is it normal? Dreadfully, really. One of the many reasons I don’t often employ personal enforcers. Gorvani politics are a lot of posturing, and while fighting each other is not allowed, making your pawns fight is not only allowed, but often encouraged.”

“So, what Rykan did was pretty bad, then? Attacking you directly?”

“Oh yes. He’ll spend some time in Telorn’s dungeons, although the torture will be somewhat minimal, based on what I did to him. If he were to do it again, though, he’d be expelled from the Inquisition.”

“Just expelled?”

“Oh, no. I thought it was implied that afterwards he’d die a slow death of pain and misery.”

“Uh huh,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I actually should have assumed. So he’s not going to come after you for this?”

She snorted. “No. This will tarnish his status almost irreparably and boost my own. He’ll spend a long time recovering, physically and socially. I should think he’ll try very hard to not come into my sight again, which is even better. What a complete piece of shit.”

We finally made it to the top floor, and by then, Isik’s face was schooled back to her official neutrality. She said a few words to the guards who then split us up. I was grilled on what had just transpired, and the two men compared stories afterwards. We were told to wait while they went down and verified what we’d said.

We stood there forever, waiting as long as two elevator rides and a few minutes in between. One man came back up, gave us a nod, and we were out the doors soon after. Back on our golem with the cube of a building fading behind us, I asked, “So why didn’t we just portal there and back? No portals?”

“No. None of the vaults have them, for obvious security reasons.”

“Makes sense. Hey, can I see the scale again?”

She looked me up and down and said, “Why not,” while handing it over.

It was still wrapped in the tenebrae, preventing its golden shine, but it was there, in my hand: the thing that would let Revana be the channeler she’d always wanted to be.

13

The trip back seemed a lot shorter than the one out to the vault. Isik and I made some more smalltalk, but nothing as interesting as what I’d learned about her the last time. It did not escape me that she was willing to make smalltalk with me at all, which didn’t seem particularly on brand. 

I had to admit that I was actually liking her more and more, despite what I knew about her and her past. I only hoped Revana could end up hating her less, but even with what we were attempting to do, I didn’t know if that was possible. Maybe a cold civility would be a reasonable goal. Aside from that, what Isik had said earlier finally came back into my head. It was true: we’d known each other for such a short time, really, but I did love Revana, and she apparently loved me? Obviously she cared about me, but…

The thoughts tumbled in my head until we were passing through the gates into the city again; I hadn’t even seen it coming. We wound through the streets, dumped our golem, and in short order were traveling back to the seventh. 

We headed to the Carvers’ Guild and entered through yet another secret door. When we came at last to the room the relics were kept in, I breathed a sigh of relief. It had been in the back of my mind the entire time that we’d return and they’d be gone, either because Isik betrayed me or some other unnamed bullshit. But they were there, and Isik took the ward off the cabinet. Once I’d shrugged out of the enforcer’s uniform and slipped the tunic over my head and had the sword buckled back on my hip, I felt whole again, in a way I hadn’t realized I’d lost.

“So,” Isik said, “I have a couple things to attend to first. Where do you want to perform the rebranding?”

“Can it be anywhere? Irina’s shop is probably the best place I know of, aside from out in the wilderness or something. Do you remember it?”

“Of course. Take the scale. I’ll arrive shortly with the Celestori’s books.”

I found my own way out of the building for once. An hour and one teleportation later, I was pushing open the door to Irina’s repair shop, a little bell tinkling as I came in.

She was sitting behind the counter, her back to me, working on a large machine with a maze of gears and thin pipes inside. “Be with you in a second,” she said. She set a few tiny gears into the contraption, gripped with the very ends of her black claws. The thought of doing such fine, delicate work made my muscles tense. She let out a contented sigh and turned around, her eyes going wide. “Oh! Michael! You should have said it was you!” She shot around the counter and hugged me tightly, which I gladly returned.

“It looked like you were in the middle of something. What is that thing?”

“Boot scrubber. They work wonders but break a lot. Too many moving parts, you know? Anyway, Revana said you were off doing something secret?”

“I was, and it went really well. Actually, I—”

The bell above the door rang again. Irina looked over and paled. “In—Inquisitor… what…what can I do for you?”

Isik walked in with her insufferable grin, but I didn’t find it nearly as enraging as I once did. She had a bag over her shoulder with something angular inside, which I assumed were the old Celestori books.

“Oh, it’s ok, Irina. She’s with me.”

Irina looked at Isik, then back at me, then back and forth a couple more times. “Okay…” Her skin was still pale and she could hardly take her eyes off Isik.

I put a hand on her shoulder and said, “It really is fine. Isik’s proven herself to be trustworthy. She’s on our side.”

“If you say so…”

Isik laughed under her breath. “Well this is a new experience.”

Irina looked at me, clearly unconvinced. “You’re on a first name basis with an Inquisitor?” She didn’t wait for a reply, just shook her head and waved a hand at me. “I’ll take your word for it, Michael. Please show the Inquisitor to the office and I’ll put on some tea? Is that…okay?”

“I’d love some tea,” Isik said.

“Yeah, that’s great,” I said. “Could you also get in touch with Revana? There’s something very important we need to talk about.”

“Sure, sure,” Irina said as she walked away in a daze.

Once she’d left, I turned to Isik. “Sorry.”

“Oh don’t be, Michael. You’re asking her to put aside a lifetime of oppression just because you say I’m not a threat. The very concept of me terrifies her, I’m sure.”

I groaned. “Well, we’ll have to work on it, then.”

I led her back to Irina’s office where I took the large chair I usually did while Isik sprawled out on the old couch and threw her bag down. We sat there in silence, and after a few minutes it occurred to me that it wasn’t an awkward silence. Had I started to think of Isik as a friend? I should probably keep that to myself, I thought. 

  Irina eventually came back with a platter filled with a teapot, cups, and dulcet jumpers, which I was over the moon to see. She poured tea for us all, her eyes still barely ever leaving Isik. “I, uh, was able to make contact with Revana and I let her know to come as soon as she could. I…elected not to tell her who all was here. I didn’t know if such a thing was safe.”

Isik smiled. “As much as the empire wants everyone to think they’re being watched at all times, there’s hardly enough Gorvani to go around to accomplish such broad spying.” She got a faraway look on her face and added, “And now apparently I’m just saying out loud anything that comes to mind, regardless of the circumstances.”

I turned away to hide my own smile; it seemed like she had warmed up to me as well if she was becoming so open-mouthed about things. I was not about to mention it, though. I stuffed most of a dulcet jumper in my mouth so as to not inadvertently give anything away.

Irina and I made small talk for a while about anything we could think of, just to waste time. Isik said hardly anything more, but did eat a couple jumpers. 

After what seemed like an extremely long time, we heard the bell ring in the front of the store, and shortly after, Revana opened the door and stepped into the room. She beamed when she saw me, her arms wide as she was about to run across the room for a hug, but she skidded to a halt when she saw who was sitting on the couch in the back. “Oh.” Her lip curled, but she smoothed it down with an effort and said, “Inquisitor,” in a perfectly even tone.

Isik smiled widely as she reclined on the couch. “Hello, Revana. What a pleasure it is to see you.”

“Uh huh.”

Hoping to diffuse this situation, I stood and took Revana’s hand in mine. “Hey! So, you remember that thing I wasn’t telling you about?”

Her eyes flicked from Isik to me while a suffering look passed over her face. “Yes, Michael. I do remember that. In fact, I’ve been worrying about it nonstop since. Are you going to tell me what it is now? I do really hope that’s where this conversation is going.” She glanced over to Isik again, and I could only imagine she was wondering why we were having this personal conversation in the Inquisitor’s presence.

“Yes, and I think once I do, you’ll understand why I kept it a secret.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the palm sized scale, which still had an aura of shadows around it. I held it towards Isik, who made a shooing motion with her hand, dispelling the tenebrae. Once the darkness was gone, it dazzled with bright, golden light. 

Revana and Irina both stared at it wide-eyed for some time before Revana spoke. “It’s…a dragon scale. A real,unbroken scale, completely suffused with the shae. Michael,” she said, looking up at me, “it’s beautiful.” She held out her hand and I gave it to her. She turned it end over end, just staring into its light. “I never thought I would see such a thing. But…”

“Yeah?”

She laughed softly, “It’s amazing, but what’s it for?”

Well,” I said, “the reason I didn’t tell you about the trip we took to get this was—”

“Wait…who’s ‘we’? Did you and the Inquisitor get this?”

“We did. It was in one of the Gorvani’s most protected vaults. I posed as her personal enforcer.”

Revana looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Uh, okay. Anyway, go on.”

“Right, so the reason I didn’t tell you about this was because I didn’t want to get your hopes up for something that might not have happened. And, really, we’re still not sure it will, but it needed this scale to even be possible.”

She put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a pained smile. “Please get on with it, Michael.”

“Yes! Okay. So, between this, the two of us, and old research conducted by the dragon cult years ago, we think we might be able to contain your brand and let you channel the shae.”

Her eyes went as wide as I’d ever seen them and her jaw dropped. Her claws on my shoulder tightened painfully, and she just stood there, saying nothing. 

I kept my mouth shut, letting her process what I’d just said.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh.” Irina stepped over and took Revana’s face in her hands. “Oh Reva… Reva Reva Reva…” They stared into each other’s eyes, tears threatening to fall from both.

Revana shook her head, coming to her senses and looked pointedly at Isik.

“What Michael says is true, Revana. I believe this to be possible, although I can’t be completely sure; the Celestori made progress but were never successful. But they did not have a powerful Gorvani, a shae-infused reagent, or a shae channeler, having to make do with ritual circles as you have done.”

Irina’s hands were over her mouth and tears were falling freely down her cheeks. “Oh, Reva. I want this for you. Your dream…right here in your hands.”

She looked down at the glowing dragon scale. “Why, Isik? Why would you do this?”

Isik smiled. “You’re correct in thinking that this isn’t purely altruism. My goals are the Celestori’s goals: I mean to summon a dragon back to Vendira. While Michael is indeed a powerful channeler of the shae, his finesse would be sorely lacking in the face of the complexity required to actually reach a dragon on another world. But yours…after a lifetime of being a priestess of the Mulaq’shae, you would be much better suited for the task.”

Revana looked in my eyes. “You trust her, then?”

I nodded. “I do. At this point, I would and have trusted her with my life. And I’d trust her with yours.”

She took a long, slow breath. “Okay. If you say so, I’ll do it. I’m not going to get my hopes up until it actually works, though.”

“Fair enough,” Isik said. She opened her bag, pulled out the old tomes, and came over to open them on Irina’s desk. 

Revana flipped through them, making various noises and exclamations as she flipped through pages of magical research. “These…these are genius. They use geometries I’d never have thought of in a hundred lifetimes.”

“They represent the collected research of the dragon cult of a century and a half ago. Not only did they clearly include brilliant scholars, but they were all working under extreme duress, so their ideas branched wildly as they tried anything they could to combat the empire. Obviously, they failed, but these books lived on. While the shadowbrand cannot be removed, they came surprisingly close to containing it with a few of their more outlandish ideas. Ultimately, the shae cannot contain the brand without a conjoined layer of tenebrae underneath, anchoring it naturally to the shadowbrand. And such a pairing of magics would be calamitous without a suitable reagent to anchor the shae to as well. On top of that, said reagent would effectively become ingrained in the person’s very essence and would need to be compatible in a fundamental way. I don’t believe this would work if you were not Dravini; your draconic lineage gives you an affinity with the scale. Many things had to align for this to even be possible. If it does work, it won’t be something we could realistically recreate with anyone else.”

Revana was still flipping through the books while listening to Isik speak. “Do you really want to bring down the empire?”

“My early life was nothing but brainwashed fervor for it. Then, eventually, the doubts crept in, as they do with some Gorvani. Believe me, I’ve rooted out a decent number of traitors in my day. It took years, though, for those doubts to become anything more. I tried to put them out of my head, tell myself my beliefs were correct and just.

“When I finally, at long last, accepted the truth, there was still nothing I could do about it. I went right on culling whomever the empire told me to. But then I found the Celestori, and with them I began to hope. Although, if I’m being honest, I didn’t think they could actually destroy the empire. It was just something to hold onto.

“Now, though? I still think the odds of pulling it off are abysmal at best, but we won’t accomplish it if we don’t try, will we? And how much regret would I have if, at the end of my life, a real chance came by and I didn’t take it? I do think we’ll all be flayed alive under the Palace, but that’s a common enough fate anyway.”

Revana laughed softly. “Not exactly the answer I was looking for, but it’s a real one, I guess.” She tapped the book with a claw. “I’m going to start setting up these sigils. Irina, can I use the big room in the sub basement?”

“Of course, of course! I’ll help you make some room down there.”

They left, and I got up to join them, before looking back at Isik. “You coming?”

“No,” she said, still sipping her tea. “I’m fine right here. You come get me when I’m needed.”

14

Revana, Irina, and I spent the entire rest of the day and well into the night setting up the sub basement for the ritual. I moved so many boxes of stylish hats and replacement golem feet, stacking them all to the side after we pushed all the shelves out of the middle of the huge, stone room. 

Once we’d cleared out a big area, Revana set the books on a table and started laying out complicated designs on the floor, painting them on the concrete with off-puttingly colored paste of yellowish white which smelled shockingly better than it looked; it gave off an almost flowery scent with a very earthy undertone.

I curled a lip as she handed me a jar of it to stir.

She laughed at me and said, “It’s a mixture of ground up minerals and a combination of herbs, which is why it smells nice. But it’s not very appealing to look at, I know.” Her voice was level but I noticed a small quiver in her lip.

“How’re you feeling about this?”

“Oh…well, like I said, I’m trying not to get my hopes up.”

“Right. I hope you can forgive me for not telling you what I was up to when we went to get the scale. Who knew if it would even be there?”

“Oh, of course,” she said, smiling. “I understand. I didn’t then and was actually quite worried, but I would have done the same thing. I’ll be glad to get this done, either way. The tiny bit of hope I’m trying to suppress is almost torture.”

I gave her shoulder a squeeze, and we looked into each other’s eyes for a moment. I thought about telling her. Isik was right, I should just say how I felt, but she looked away to continue drawing on the floor and the moment passed, so I kept stirring the paste.

We went to bed that night exhausted and I fell quickly asleep, dreaming of old memories again. When I woke the next morning, she was already up, and I found her in the basement, still at work, consulting the cult’s old books. I showered and Irina had set out a bunch of things for breakfast, which I ate silently, hoping that this would all work out. In addition to being Revana’s lifelong dream, her ability to channel the shae would be invaluable in ways I probably didn’t even understand. The memories that were starting to make sense in my head showed me bits and pieces of what could be done by a skilled channeler, and the effects were astounding. However, most of what the relics were putting into my head involved up close and personal combat, and I wondered if there were other relics that could teach me other things.

The thoughts tumbled endlessly in my head until I blinked back to reality, sitting there with a fork halfway to my mouth with nothing on it. I got up and went back downstairs after pouring another reasonably warm cup of hachi.

Revana was standing in the middle of a complete mess of conjoined circles, angular lines, and probably

 thousands of runes. At the very least, hundreds. She looked up when I came in. “Well, for better or worse, I’m done. This is it.” I could see the tiredness in her glowing eyes and her blue hair was pulled back but still kind of a mess.

“Did you, like, sleep at all?”

“For a while, yeah. I woke up sometime in the night with nothing but runes dancing in my head. I tried to go back to sleep, but it didn’t work, so I came down here.”

“What’s next?”

She walked out of the circles and sat on a box. “Wait until the Inq…Isik gets back.” She gave me a sideways look and a tiny smile. “You really trust her, huh?”

I chuckled. “How many times are you going to ask? Don’t you, yet?,” I asked, gesturing around the room. “After all this shit?”

She leaned back against a set of shelves and stretched her hands behind her head. “I still won’t be super surprised if it’s all a huge trap.” She smiled widely, her eyes crinkling. “It would be a stupidly elaborate one if it was though, wouldn’t it?”

“Extremely.”

With nothing else to do, we found Irina, who had a long list of things to fill up the time. We moved some heavy machines, swept, replaced a couple cabinet doors, and took a lot of old boxes out to the trash. They were the most mundane things I’d done since the last time I was here, and I found myself enjoying them. Being a hero was certainly exciting, but there was a point where you just wanted a little break with something completely normal. We had lunch afterwards, talking about any number of other, normal things as we all conspicuously made no mention of the magic sigils waiting just downstairs.

As we were sitting there afterwards, drinking hachi that Irina had made just because she knew I liked it so much, the bell on the front door rang. I made to stand, but Irina waved me down. “Either it’s a customer who can wait until after the posted lunchtime, or it’s the Inquisitor and she’ll just barge in anyway.”

Very soon after, Isik barged into the room, sat down at the table, and poured herself a glass of hachi without asking. “Hello everyone,” she said after she’d taken a drink. She had her dark purple hair down, flowing around her face, and I thought again how attractive she was. Aside from the horrors.

“Hey,” I said when no one else replied, “what have you been up to?”

She eyed me over her glass and said, “Do you really want to know?”

“I sure don’t. Maybe we can, uh, get started?”

“Yes, yes. The sooner it’s done the sooner I’ll be gone.”

Revana was clearly trying to keep the distaste from her face, although a noticeable amount crept in. “Did you want to sit around and chat with us instead?”

Isik just smiled at the acidic comment. 

“Well!” Irina said, lightly slapping the table. “I’ll get these dishes cleared and you all can head downstairs if you want. Inquisitor, you’re free to refill and take your glass down with you if you like.”

Isik did just that.

She was the last to enter the basement, and an impressed, “Oohhhh,” escaped her lips. “I see you’ve been very busy since last night. I’ve read of the Celestori using pre-made guidance for their rituals, but I haven’t seen it in action.”

“It’ll help Michael perform his part of the ritual and allow me to guide him to what needs to be done.”

There were a few last minute preparations that Isik and Revana needed to make while I stood off to the side, nearly drowning in anticipation. Irina came down and gave me a nervous smile, apparently sharing my feelings on the matter. We just watched the other two make the last adjustments in silence.

When they were done, Isik was left standing inside a circular formation at one end of the mess of sigils and Revana was in the middle. She motioned for me to stand in another spot opposite of Isik.

“I know you’ve never done anything like this,” Revana said, “but it should be reasonably easy. The shae portion of the ritual is actually not that complicated, and the guidelines we drew will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you; you need only channel into the correct minor sigils at the correct times, which I’ll be helping you with.”

She held the dragon scale which still brimmed with golden light, and without warning, she took her shirt off and threw it to the side of the room. I stood there with wide eyes, but no one else reacted in the slightest. I had completely forgotten about Vendira’s total lack of modesty. I tried my best to focus on the matter at hand.

I pulled in the shae, feeling it coursing through my body, and a soft glow started emanating from my skin. 

The ritual began with Isik; she held up her hands and shadows burst forth, trailing down and away into the designs on her half of the floor. There was very clearly a pattern, some parts needing to be activated before others. I could barely keep up with what she was doing, the shadows from her hands leapt and crossed over each other, falling into the lines on the floor.

“Now, Michael, over here.”

I held out my hands, letting the shae issue forth from them into the place Revana had indicated. After that, it was a complicated mess, her guiding me through the complex list of what sigils needed to be activated before what others.

Once my side glowed just as much as Isik’s was drowning in shadow, a rumbling started under our feet. Revana was quick to rally us on, but as the earthquake grew in intensity, parts of the sigils began reacting on their own without my input. 

I started to feel the shae being pulled from my core as I tried to remain standing. The golden glow was being ripped out of me as fast as I could pull it in, the sigil drinking in the magic without end. 

Isik was apparently feeling the same thing; her face was twisted up as the shadows bled from her hands.

“Keep going!” 

The dragon scale lifted from Revana’s claws, floating in the air as the darkness and light formed a mini tornado around it, the ground still shaking under our feet. The pull from the ritual became painful; I tried to supply as much of the shae as I could, but as the sweat dripped down my face, I began to seriously worry that it wouldn’t be enough.

Isik was down on one knee, her teeth clamped together as she snarled, fighting to stay as upright as she could.

Finally, Revana reached out and took the scale into her hand and though it seemed to resist being moved from its place in the air, she pulled it close, centering it in the middle of her brand.

The magic boomed as it touched her skin, and she screamed.

Isik and I were both blown back to the ground and I saw Irina dive behind a pile of boxes. 

The two magics swirled heavily around Revana’s body, blocking her from my sight. All I could do was sit there and hope we’d done it right.

Eventually, the tremors subsided and Isik, Irina, and I sat up. The room was wrecked; things had been blown all over the place, boxes ripped open and the things they held strewn everywhere. Revana was laying face down in the middle of the room and the sigils were gone.

I scrambled over to her, turned her over, and pulled her into my lap. 

She opened her eyes slowly. “Are…you okay?”

I laughed at her. “You’ve gotta think of yourself first sometimes, you know? But yes, I’m fine. Are you?”

“Hmm…” She looked down, lightly touching the iridescent, blue scale that seemed to be partially buried in her skin. Her brand was still there, but it was surrounded by a golden ring of patterns that looked like a natural extension of the design that had always been there.

“Does it hurt?”

“No. It did during the ritual, but it just feels weird now.”

Isik had stood and brushed herself off before coming to stand beside us, looking down. “More importantly, did it work?”

Revana glanced into my eyes before we both stood. She closed her eyes and concentrated, and I did my absolute best to keep my eyes off her breasts and my thoughts on the supremely important event that was currently happening.

For a moment, nothing happened. But then the shae portion of her brand glowed softly, a split second before her whole body followed suit. Her eyes shot open and her jaw dropped. She held up her hands and just stared at them as the tears began flowing freely down her face. “Oh…oh…”

“YES!” Irina yelled from the side of the room. She shot over to Revana and wrapped her in a huge bear hug. “Reva! You’re doing it!”

“I’m…doing it.”

Irina let her go only to assault me with the same crushing hug.

Revana smiled at me as I endured it, her tears still flowing freely.

Irina let me go, and to my, and everyone’s, immense surprise, she ran over and wrapped Isik in a huge hug as well.

Isik’s entire body tensed up immediately, a look of terror writ plain on her face. If Irina noticed, she didn’t stop hugging for some time. When she finally did and turned back to Revana, Isik looked into my eyes with the most bewildered expression I’d ever seen. 

“Oh, Reva! What’s it feel like?”

“It’s…” she replied softly with a trembling lip, “like there’s a cool breeze, but in my soul. It’s… everything I ever hoped it would be.”

Isik shook her head, resuming her usual, hard expression. “What can you do with it?”

Revana held out her hand and concentrated. Golden swirls flowed down her arm and pooled at her outstretched palm before they flowed outwards to form a bright sigil in the air. It pulsed and collapsed in on itself, forming a glowing blade made entirely out of the shae. Revana closed her hand around its hilt and gave it a swing before it dissipated. “Oh…well it worked for a little bit.”

Isik nodded. “This isn’t common knowledge, but it takes some time for brands to stabilize. This superbrand is likely no different. Your ability to use the shae will also grow more powerful with time.”

Irina clapped her hands and exclaimed, “I’m so, so happy this worked, Reva! This calls for some ice cream! I’ll be right back.”

We all watched her go, nonplussed about her choice of celebration. Not that I didn’t want the ice cream, though.

Isik looked Revana up and down and said, “Let me try something.” Without warning, she channeled the tenebrae, her eyes on the brand.

Revana winced, her hands going to the designs on her stomach. “Are you…branding me?”

“I am. As I would normally do it. Are you not in pain at all?”

“It’s unpleasant, but no, it’s barely a shadow of being branded.” She looked up at Isik as she stopped channeling, and she extended a clawed hand towards the Inquisitor. “Thank you.”

Isik glanced down before taking her hand. “You’re welcome, Revana, but don’t forget, I didn’t do this solely out of altruism. You will be instrumental in furthering the Celestori’s goals.”

Revana smirked. “Not solely out of altruism? So there was a little bit?”

Isik shrugged. “There isn’t enough time left in my life to balance all my various sins. But yes, let’s just say that I wasn’t completely displeased that my goals aligned with a positive outcome for you.”

Revana smiled widely and said, “That’s probably the best I could get from an Inquisitor.” She tried summoning her blade a few more times, with varying levels of success. “It won’t be as potent as your relic sword,” she told me, “but it’ll be much more versatile than a regular one. Hey, summon your armor.” I did as she asked, and she held her hands up to my chest, channeling into more sigils that glowed and faded into my shae armor, which transformed from the drab, functional design I’d only been able to manifest into thicker, heavier, and more intricately designed patterns, mimicking Isik’s style.

“Whoa.”

I felt the effect fading and channeled my own energy into it, which held firm.

“It should protect you from much more this way.”

Isik nodded. “You might even be able to stand against the Sixteenth if you can hold onto that during a battle.”

I was about to say that I’d love to take that pompous asshole down, but Irina walked back into the room with a grave expression on her face. “Oh…what happened? I’m going to guess something worse than you’ve run out of ice cream.”

She smiled slightly and without humor. “I just received a communication from Lady Tiq. It only contained two words: Help me.”

15

“It’s suicide!” Isik yelled.

“We have to!” Revana yelled back.

“No! I won’t let you throw your lives away immediately after our success here!”

We had all been shocked by Tiq’s message. Isik explained that if she’d been taken by the Gorvani, someone of her stature would only end up in the prison system below the palace in Telorn, and that she was as good as dead. She said it in such a perfunctory tone, as if it had already happened, and she suggested we accept it and move on.

Revana, Irina, and I, of course, disagreed with her. Revana and I were ready to walk out the door that minute and assault the palace, but Isik threatened to brand Irina to get us to stop. 

“You idiots! Aside from the Font itself, the prison is one of the most heavily warded and guarded places in the entire empire!”

“Warded with tenebral magic?” I asked.

Isik cocked her head at me. “Yes, of course with tenebral magic.”

“The same magic I’ve walked through many times, probably without even noticing it? The same wards that the empire thinks are completely foolproof that have zero effect on me? And perhaps on Revana now too?”

“Ugh…” Isik buried her face in her hands. “Yes. Those wards. But still, the prison will be guarded by Gorvani at all times and you have no idea how to navigate it!”

“But you do,” I said.

“Oh for…” Isik started pacing the room. “No one has ever escaped or been broken out of the Imperial jail. No one! You’ll be walking straight into one of the strongest bastions of the empire’s power! If you think the Sixteenth Son was bad, you can’t imagine who might show up if you’re discovered down there.”

“We’re not leaving Tiquette to die,” Revana said.

Isik looked back and forth between us and saw the determination in both our eyes. She stopped pacing and deflated. “I think I must admit to myself that I’m at a severe disadvantage when I can’t brand anyone.”

“Mhmm,” Revana said. “I’m sure it’s quite a new experience for you. But since we’re going to save Tiquette, you might as well help us do it.”

“Fine. FINE!” Isik threw her hands up. “Although this is complete idiocy.”

“Do we know,” I asked, “that Tiq’s actually in the…superjail?”

“No,” Isik said. “We don’t. But I can’t imagine she sent you such a message without cause, and there’s almost no situation in which she’d be taken anywhere other than the Imperial prison, no matter what transgressions she made. What they will do to her once there depends wildly on the situation, but it’s almost assured she’s there.”

“Almost.”

“Yes.”

“So we should probably go to the Astrologia first, then, right?”

Isik nodded slowly, the disdain still plain on her face. “Yes. If nothing else, it will help to know what she was doing.”

Revana laughed. “With Tiquette, it could have been pretty much anything.”

Once we were all in tentative agreement, Revana and I planned to travel to the Astrologia ourselves and Isik said she would meet us there when she was able. Irina was a mess of emotions, still riding the high of the successful superbranding and suffused with dread at talk of the current rescue mission. Before we left the shop, she pushed a dulcet jumper into my hands.

“I know you will, but please be careful, okay? And bring everyone back to me alive.” Tears were threatening to fall from her eyes, but she seemed to be holding back a wave of emotions during our goodbyes. 

As we walked to the local portal nexus, Revana was completely silent with a decidedly neutral look on her face.

I took her hand in mine and she jumped, coming out from whatever thoughts she’d been mired in. “We’ll find her,” I said.

“Tiquette’s been pushing her limits for years now, requesting more and more exotic and illegal things to experiment on. She’s told me about some close calls, but she’s always managed to slip out of whatever problems she got herself into. I think the Gorvani were often willing to look the other way because of her genius; she’s developed a lot of things they’ve found very useful over the years. I can’t imagine what she’s done this time. It could be practically anything.”

“Yeah, remember what Isik said about suspecting her for a long time? She probably wasn’t the only Inquisitor to take an interest.” I saw Revana’s lips press into a thin line and regretted saying anything. “But it doesn’t matter; we’ll get her out. It’ll be fine.”

Revana gave me a soft, little smile. “I know you’re just saying that, but I’m going to hang on to it anyway.”

The trip through the portals and then the streets of Terlorn was uneventful, and before I knew it, we were standing there, looking up at the massive Astrologia. “So, last time I just walked in through some wards I didn’t even know existed. How are we going to get you in now?”

She bit her lip, following my gaze up to the top of the building. “I think I can shield myself from the relatively minor wards that’ll be placed on the doors.”

“You think, huh? What happens if you’re wrong?”

“Well,” she said, shrugging, “it won’t be able to brand me very much, but it will alert everyone around and we’ll be swarmed with Gorvani and enforcers.”

“That…doesn’t sound great.”

“We can always sprint out of there and hope we can be somewhere else by the time any actual response happens. But…either way, it’ll be a good test of my new abilities.” 

I wished we’d had more time to test her channeling or even just enjoy the success of it being possible, but here we were. “I don’t love this plan, but let’s do it anyway.” I led us back around the building to the same loading dock I had infiltrated the last time I’d come. There were only a few people milling about and it was easy to duck behind golems and piles of material to make our way to the small door. I had to look closely, but it did indeed have the same wavey mass of shadows lazily shifting across the opening. I stepped through.

Revana looked around one last time before she started glowing. A sigil of bright runes coalesced around her before spinning and morphing into a golden sphere that surrounded her whole body. Without any hesitation, she stepped through the door too.

We waited and watched, but nothing happened. 

She dropped the magic and let out a breath she’d clearly been holding. “Wow. It worked!”

“Uhhh…did you think it wasn’t going to?”

“Well I couldn’t be sure, now could I? I’ve never done any of this before.”

“You know what,” I said, giving her a long stare. “I’m glad you didn’t confide that in me beforehand. Anyway, there’s a locker room over this way. We can dress up like runners and everyone’ll just let us walk around wherever we want.” After she gave me a raised eyebrow, I added, “Seriously. No one’s even gonna look twice. We’ll be way below their notice.”

The locker room was empty this time and we easily stole a couple of outfits and were out in the hallways within minutes. Based on Revana’s pressed together lips and constantly shifting gaze, she was doubting my plan. “Well don’t look like that! Look bored and overworked. Pretend you’ve just pulled a long shift and someone told you you needed to do a couple hours of overtime. You’re super annoyed, but you can’t say or do anything about it, right? So you’re just gonna really half ass the job during the rest of the day. Your goal is to do just enough work not to get yelled at, so you can finally go home and enjoy what little of the day is left.”

She very slowly turned her head to look at me. “Michael, that was an oddly detailed explanation.”

“Maybe, but based on the other runners I saw when I was here, I think it’s pretty accurate. You’ll blend right in.”

She did a reasonably good job taking my advice, but she still jumped whenever someone unexpectedly came around a corner. Fortunately, we didn’t see many important people on our trip through the long halls, and the ones we did barely looked at us, if at all.

“See? We’re not even worth looking at.”

Tiq’s door was closed but not locked. A mass of dread sat heavy in my stomach as I turned the knob, and I braced myself for the carnage that would be waiting on the other side. The door swung open to reveal…the room exactly as I remembered it. “Oh. I was expecting this place to be trashed.”

Revana shook her head. “Why?”

“Oh I don’t know. Too many movies I guess.”

“...What?”

“Nothing. Let’s find what we came here for.”

We split up, each taking a side of the massive room. I walked down endless bookshelves and past so many tables littered with experiments that I couldn’t even begin to make sense of. We met each other in the little side room where Tiq and I had had tea. “I didn’t find anything relevant. At least not that I could tell, you?”

Revana shook her head. “No. Nothing.”

As we stood there uselessly, a thought popped into my head. “Oh, Tiq told me she had secret rooms here. One was behind a bookshelf and the other—”

“Oh! I’m an idiot! You’re right; she does have secret rooms. And I know exactly what you’re talking about. She only showed it to me once a long time ago, but I think I can still get into it.”

Revana led us into the bathroom and stood in the tub.

“Uh, you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Not really, but you wouldn’t expect a secret room here, would you?”

I sure couldn’t argue with that. I waited and watched as she fiddled with a couple paintings and wall sconces before she pushed in an otherwise unnoticeable portion of the wall, hidden just as masterfully as the exterior doors at the Carvers’ Guild had been. The wall swung soundlessly back, revealing a short hallway.

Revana stepped over the edge of the tub and into it. “She told me it was a hassle getting materials back here having to walk over the bathtub, but that was precisely why she hid it here; any sane person wouldn’t ever think to look.”

The hallway ended in a thick, heavily carved door that was thankfully unlocked. It opened into a reasonably well sized room with tables pushed up against every single wall. “Oh shit,” I said, involuntarily recoiling from the sight of a half-decaying beast sitting in a large tray to my left. It had too many mouths and I was still getting over the trauma of being chased by an angry hoard of them deep underneath the earth.

“One of the shadow korids!” Revana walked over and prodded it with one claw. Apparently she wasn’t as squeamish as I was after our encounter. The thing didn’t move, but it still trailed shadows that drifted lightly away from its carapace. “Why would she have one of these?”

“I think this might answer that question.” On the table next to the corpse was a mechanical arm holding a tiny yet brightly glowing shard of what looked like metal. It was positioned in a way so it could be easily poked into the korid’s body.

Revana looked at it with wide eyes. “Unbelievable!” She poked it as well, with almost more trepidation than she’d shown with the korid. “It’s a fragment of a shae relic.”

“Oh.” I looked at the piece and back to the korid, an idea forming in my head. “Hey, so royals are suffused with the tenebrae, right?”

Revana nodded. “Yeah. Remember Sixteen? His skin color was changed since he’s absorbed so much of it.”

“Do you think Tiq was trying to figure out how to kill a royal? Or at least how much energy it would take to do so?”

We shared a look and Revana said, “I think you’re probably right. And her obtaining even this tiny piece of a relic…I think she finally overstepped her bounds with this.”

“At least they didn’t find it.”

She shuddered. “Yeah. They probably would have just flayed her alive right here if they had.”

We were standing there, processing what we’d just found when the heavy door started to creak open.

16

I drew my sword, summoned my armor, and tried to channel as much energy as I could into the blade. It should have occurred to me, but hadn’t, that this place might be being watched. We were completely trapped in the little room.

Revana’s hands glowed and sigils formed around them, but she wavered on her feet and the magic went out.

Not now, not now! I rushed over to stand in front of her, my glowing sword held out before me, ready to cut down any number of Gorvani that stepped into the room. My head immediately went to exit strategies, and none of them were amazing. Even if we made it out of this room, we’d have to leave Tiq’s giant library, make it downstairs, and out of Telorn.

An Inquisitor in tenebrous armor pushed the door open and came into the room. When she saw what lay before her, she started laughing uncontrollably.

I let out a huge breath, cut off my flow of shae, and sheathed my sword. “You could have called out or something, Isik.”

It took her a minute to stop laughing at us. “Called out to the unknown people in the hidden room? I don’t think so. But you were both very cute, backed into a corner as you were. You really should have been more careful.”

I gave her a level look. “Uh huh. Thanks for the advice. Now that you’re here, take a look at this.” I gestured to the korid and the relic shard.

Isik’s eyes got very wide and she slowly stepped over to the table, looking at the things from every angle she could. She didn’t speak for a while, but after a thorough examination, she turned to us. “She’s trying to figure out how to kill a royal. And she has a splintered piece of a legitimate shae relic.” She shook her head. “Oh, Lady Tiquette. Even for you, that would be too much for the Inquisition to overlook.”

“Hey, you two? Come look at this.”

Revana had wandered to the other side of the room and was gently prodding a supremely weird, long metal device. The ends had circular ports of some kind leading into a few smooth, solid joints and the middle was a long series of scale-like, interlocked plates. The entire thing was made of shiny metal and it had grooves wrapping all over it that reminded me of the arcanic channels carved into portal arches. Next to it were long, glowing rods with caps of the same bright metal that seemed like they would attach to the first device. Somehow. “What could it be?” Revana asked.

Neither Isik nor I answered at first.

She picked it up, testing the joints and the flexibility of the middle, scaled section. “It’s much lighter than I thought it would be.” It was like a long snake with two sets of bones at either end. 

I gingerly picked up one of the rods next to it. This one wasn’t glowing like the others so I assumed it was safer to handle. “They’re colored like arcanic batteries.”

Revana turned around from a large, complex machine she’d been looking at. “Hey, give me that.” She took the rod and placed it into a port in the machine where it was clearly supposed to go. She gave me a look and a shrug before pulling a lever on the side of it.

Isik arched an eyebrow but said nothing as the contraption hummed to life. 

It grinded and whirred, and we all watched as the dull rod began to glow like the others that were laying on the table. After it was done, Isik ran her hands over the metal face of it, pulling open a door I hadn’t noticed. Inside were a few rows of regular batteries, all lines up in ports of their own. “I believe that this,” she said while taking out the brightly glowing rod, “is a new version of battery. And based on what I just saw, it holds as much as ten normal ones and is quite a bit smaller as well.”

“Oh my,” Revana said under her breath. “That’s been tried before, hasn’t it?”

“It has. There has been some progress made that hasn’t been released to the public, but nothing like this. It seems as if Lady Tiquette has beaten everyone to a working prototype. The implications to infrastructure are far reaching, but I’m guessing that that wasn’t her end goal.” Isik took the newly powered mini battery, and after quite a bit of trial and error, she fit it into the mystery device. The thing drank in the arcanae, its carved channels lighting up as it powered on. She set it carefully back down on the table and we all stood there looking at it. It didn’t do anything more, though.

Isik and Revana began guessing as to what it was, anything from a new version of boot scrubber all the way to a flying machine. 

I stood there and let them guess for a while. Perhaps it was because I was from Earth and knew enough about humanity’s long, long history with technological innovation, or maybe they had lived too long without hope of resistance, but I thought it was pretty obvious what it very likely was.

“Uh, maybe it’s a weapon,” I said.

They both turned to look at me, then back at the device, and they slowly stepped backwards. Isik said, somewhat breathlessly, “A true arcanic weapon. Such a thing has long been regarded as unstable and too reliant on power. Attempts have been made for large ones that spliced into a city’s power grid, but even then, they’ve never been functional enough to be a real consideration.”

Revana picked up one of the glowing battery rods. “I’ll bet that’s why she refined the design of these. And that’s on top of who knows what the actual device itself does.”

Isik shook her head, a dazed look on her face. “I think that Lady Tiquette’s genius is a magnitude higher than any of us had even surmised.”

“So,” Revana said, “this is all well and good, but we have what we came for, right? We likely know why they took Tiquette. Is that enough, Isik, to give us a probable location for her in the prison?”

Isik slowly looked around the room and at each of us in turn. “I was really hoping the two of you would’ve come to your senses by now. That you, now that you’re standing in Telorn, in the shadow of the palace itself, would have realized the sheer stupidity of your plan.”

“We have not.”

“Ugh…” Isik brought her hand to her face. “I really, really dislike not being able to brand the two of you. But since you’re so dead set on this lunacy, I suppose the best I can do is help you not get killed. If Lady Tiquette was suspected of procuring such severely illegal material as this, she would be subject to intense interrogation first, to root out any and all other details of the situation.” Revana winced at the mention of interrogation, but Isik said, “Oh, it will be incredibly unpleasant, but she won’t be tortured; the Inquisition is completely aware that pain does not produce truth. The truth will be discovered, and then there will be pain. We’re easily a week or weeks away from that, depending on how tough she is to crack. And I’ll bet it will take considerable time for even seasoned Inquisitors to accomplish that.”

“So how do we get in?” I asked.

With a faraway look on her face, Isik said, “You know, I was really hoping I could complete the Celestori’s work and summon the dragon before I overstepped my hand.” She sighed and looked at us in turn. “What I’m about to tell you is only known by the royalty and the Inquisition. I suppose it’s possible they’ll believe you found such things some other way, but it will be extremely suspicious. They won’t suspect me at first, but it’s going to stir the pot in a way I intensely dislike.”

“This was never going to be clean,” Revana said.

“Oh spare me. Anyway, there are maintenance tunnels running all through the palace and everything under it, except the royal vault. Some of these tunnels run along exterior walls and are not exceptionally well defended, besides the fact that they are indistinguishable from miles and miles of mundane stone. If you knew precisely where to cut, you would find your way into tunnels that could lead you into the prison proper. There are, still, numerous tenebrous wards to contend with, and they won’t be like the weak versions in the Astrologia. On that note,” she said, looking at Revana, “when I came in, your magic faltered, which is yet another reason this entire plan is essentially doomed. Should anything go awry and you try to defend yourself, a failed spell will see you dead. Or, more likely, in a situation where you wished you were dead.”

“Yes…” Revana said, her eyes wandering over to the tiny, shae-infused shard. “There might be a way to get around that for now.” She opened the mechanical arm that held it and took the shard, eyeing it warily. “Although it’s older magic, it should still work. Michael, I’m going to need you to help me channel, to make sure this doesn’t fail.”

“Uhh…”

“Oh my,” Isik said. “Is this what I think it is? The Celestori knew of such things, but they didn’t know how to perform them. I never thought I’d get to see such a thing.”

“Revana?”

She gave me a half-hearted smile. “Ancient blood rite.”

“Wow,” I said. “That sounds just stellar. Care to explain a little more?”

“Long before relics like yours, shards like this were the only things channelers of the shae could create. They can’t do anything modern relics can, but they could be used to bolster a channeler’s power.”

“Based on the faces you two are making, I’m gonna guess this isn’t a fun, easy event.”

Isik chuckled to herself.

“No,” Revana said. “The shard has to be implanted in my body, allowing its shae reserves to flow into me. I’ll be able to channel much more while it lasts, but there are some…downsides.”

“Of course there are.”

“Once the shard is spent, if it’s not taken out, it’ll start to pull shae through me, or if I can’t do that, it’ll take my life essence instead.”

“Oh, don’t forget that it might corrupt your blood,” Isik added.

“Right. It might do that too.”

I blinked at her. “This sounds like a pretty damn bad idea.”

“Finally!” Isik said.

“Well, it’s either this or Tiq dies,” Revana said. “Isik is right; without time to let my new brand stabilize, I might be more of a liability. When we came here, I was hoping it would be fine, but even this one failure tells me it’s not completely ready.”

I sighed heavily. “Okay. If we can make this work, how long will the shard last?”

“There’s no real way to know. But we only need a few hours at most, right?”

We both looked at Isik.

“Yes. Assuming this doesn’t all blow up in your faces, a successful extraction, which I still do not recommend attempting, shouldn’t take too long. I can direct you to a tunnel that will end up somewhat close to where Lady Tiquette is likely being held.”

“It’s settled, then. We’re doing it. Michael, place your hands on me and help me channel.”

It seemed that the time for conversation was over, so I did as she asked, pulling the shae into myself and pushing it out through my hands and into her skin. Her own power welled up and coalesced in her clawed fingers.

An extremely complex set of sigils appeared and centered around the shard. Seconds later, Revana held out her right palm and slammed the metal into it.

I was blinded by the resulting light and looked away. When it finally faded, Revana was down on one knee, her left hand grasping her right wrist. Blood trailed down from her palm, and the pain was plain on her face, but she had kept from screaming this time. “It’s…done. I can feel it. It will be enough.” Her words came slowly, but she stood and shook her head. “I’ll be fine. The clock’s ticking now, so let’s get going.”

Without another word or glance at us, she walked out of the room.

17

Isik shrugged and turned to leave.

“Wait, shouldn’t we take the…weapon thing?”

“Assuming that’s what it is, you don’t even know how to use it.”

“No, but Tiq does.”

“Good point. Might as well. I’ll make sure Revana doesn’t rush into anything stupid. Come quickly.”

I went out into Tiq’s rooms and found a suitable bag to put the device in. Aside from its pretty unwieldy nature, it wasn’t particularly big or heavy. I found Revana tapping her foot at the door to the hallway with an irritated Isik standing beside her.

“I’ve given Revana the best instructions I can for your little foray into certain death. I certainly won’t be walking you to the site itself; you’re on your own now. Should you survive, head to the Seventh and find Mephina at the Guild again. She’ll direct you to the Celestori’s headquarters, which is where we should all be going right now.”

“Last time I asked her about that, she barely admitted it existed.”

“She has different orders this time. But go. Now. Get this over with.”

7The trip out of the Astrologia was just as easy as the trip inside, and once we were walking down the streets, I said, “So, Isik told you where we’re going?”

“She gave me surprisingly specific instructions, yes. Like, so specific that she must have planned something like this before. Based on her description of the tunnels we’re after, no one would have such information just offhand without a ridiculously detailed map.” Her right hand was curled up and free of blood, and while I wanted to know how much it hurt, I elected not to ask.

“Is it a public place?”

“It’s near one, but the actual entry point should be hidden, which is yet another convenience that makes me think she didn’t just come up with this.”

“You think she knew we’d want to rescue Tiq?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m pretty sure her disdain for this is real. I think she wanted to bust someone else out a long time ago, but never went through with it.”

“She told me on our trip to get the scale about someone she loved that she had to turn in to the Empire shortly before she became an Inquisitor.”

Revana was quiet for a moment before she said, “That must have been difficult.”

“Are you…hating her any less?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I can’t deny what she just did for me, but it’s going to take some time.”

Isik’s directions were pretty easy to follow and we found ourselves at an outdoor market nestled under the looming walls at the center of the city that housed not only the Palace, but the prison, a fancy vault, and probably a thousand other things. We browsed a few stalls before slipping into a narrow alleyway that crept around a small building and exposed the bottom of the massive wall. It was filled with all manner of junk, which was lucky.

“Here,” Revana said, pointing to a seam in the huge stone blocks. “Cut here, and we’re in.”

I drew my sword, imbued it with the flow of shae, and cut into the rock. The blade didn’t slice stone quite as easily as it did armor and flesh, but it was still quick and easy. I tried my best to carve in at an angle so we could pull the newly hewn door ‘closed.’ Of course we piled up some boxes and large sheets of metal to cover our tracks as well. In no time at all, we’d slipped into a dank hall completely devoid of light.

Runes burst into the air around Revana’s hand, and instantly became a floating ball of light. She looked down at it fondly. “My hand still hurts but there’s no denying the power the shard’s providing. I’ll be sad to lose it.”

I looked at the glinting metal lodged in her skin and said nothing.

We turned right and followed the hall, which very, very slightly curved to the left. “So what now?”

“We follow this for a long time, until we come to an access port numbered 3321.”

“She knew the access port number we’d want. Wow, she really did plan this all before.”

“Right!?”

“And then what?”

Revana gave me a pained smile. “Well, that's when it gets a lot more messy. The area Tiquette should be in isn’t where we’ll come out into the prison. We’re actually going to end up in a cell, which shouldn’t be a problem, but we’ll have to go through a few areas that will be actively guarded. And Isik was very clear on one point: we are not to leave anyone alive or give them the slightest chance to react.”

“Stealth kills all the way, is it?” I imagined it would be worlds harder to pull off in real life than in a game, and there would be no resets.

“Just so. However, I’ll bet there’s not a single person down here who honestly expects there to be trouble. As far as Isik knew, no one had ever broken in or out of the place. So anyone we stumble across is going to be just as, if not much more, surprised than we are. There’s also going to be a complete mess of wards, but with your power and my skill, we should be able to circumvent them pretty easily.”

That sounded nice, but I doubted anything about this was going to be easy. “How do we get out? Same way as we got in?”

“There are two options, apparently. The first is, yes, come back the way we came in. If we can’t do that, we can leave through the sewer system, which should be faster, although it would involve more wards and iron grates to cut through. Also I was told that it’s the way that the imperials have always suspected escapees would take.”

“Okay. Aside from that, why didn’t we come in that way if it’s faster?”

“Well, can you swim up a waterfall?”

“Oh. Unlikely. And that begs the question: does that option involve jumping down one?”

“It does.”

“Huh. Do you have a spell to slow our fall then?”

She gave me a huge smile that didn’t touch her eyes. “Well…no. What I can do is protect us with shields. So that when we, uh, slam into the ground or water at terminal velocity, we won’t die.” After a really long pause, she added, “Probably.”

I stopped and just stared at her. “Let's just come back this way.”

She nodded. “Yeah, let’s.”

It was a while before we found access port 3321, and the entire time we were walking there, I kept thinking about how stupid it was to have a person-sized area to crawl into if it was a prison, like so many air ducts in movies. When we got there, however, it turned out that this ‘port’ was about two inches tall and eight inches wide, tops. “Oh I see. I’m supposed to cut this open too.”

“Yeah, but let’s wait a few minutes.”

We laid down on the floor of the tunnel, our faces pressed to the tiny opening, waiting. The cell, such as it was, was pretty lavish compared to what I had expected. There was a bed and toilet, but the room wasn’t cramped and the bed had actual covers on it. There was not, I was relieved to see, a prisoner currently there. I wondered what we would have done had there been. In addition to that, there didn’t seem to be a door. Just an opening that really seemed like it should have a door in it. I mentioned it to Revana.

“Tenebrous wards, remember?”

“Oh, right. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to remember that. It just seems like there should be more than one layer of protection.”

“You don’t need that if literally everyone has a brand. This is why they’ve historically been so overwhelmingly brutal against anyone who tries to hide a newborn from getting branded.”

Eventually, a Gorvani guard passed by. We waited for a while longer, but they didn’t come past the cell door, such as it was, again. “We might as well go?”

“Let me try something first,” Revana said. She stood and channeled the shae, which glowed brightly around her entire body. She closed her eyes in concentration, and for a brief few seconds, she summoned shae armor of her own. It quickly faded away, though, the glow splintering into nothingness. “Oh well. I tried. Here, give me your bag. It’ll be weird under your armor. Not that you’ll need it, of course.”

“No, of course not. In and out. Easy.” I handed her the bag and started making cuts into the stone, and we slowly and quietly worked pieces out of the widening opening. I figured if I cut it all at once, it’d just fall into the room and we’d be off to a pretty terrible start. Once the opening was big enough, I slid down into the space with Revana coming close behind. We stood on either side of the door, listening, and after a moment, we heard footsteps coming.

We leaned back into the room, let the sound pass, and then I glided out the door, stepped up to the guard, and with the memories of hundreds of warriors and assassins flowing through my mind, I quickly and efficiently brought my sword up and cut into him at the base of the skull, wrapping my free arm around him as he started to fall. His tenebrous armor faded into mist without a sound, and with the shae flowing through my body, I found I could easily pick him up with one arm and drag him into the cell we’d just left. There was barely even any blood, and I’d left none in the hallway.

Revana gave me a wicked grin and said, “Yeah, just like that.”

At the end of the hall was a thick iron door, which I expected to be a huge hurdle, but it was unlocked. I stepped through and Revana covered herself in a glowing shield before she did, and I could see the ward curve away from her body as she came through. We emerged into a larger, central room with a high ceiling and doors all throughout the rounded walls. In the middle was a raised platform with a variety of cages and shackles, and looked to be a stopping point before prisoners were carted off into the other sections of the prison.

There were three Gorvani, two women and a man standing around, and I really hoped luck was on our side, because once we’d come out of the hall and into the room where we could see them, it was too late to go back.

However, luck was not on our side.

One of the women looked up and exclaimed with wide eyes. “I—es…escapees!”

Shit.

I summoned my armor and drew my sword and sprinted at her.

Her eyes were still huge as she brought her hands up and channeled, dark shadows swirling around her hands. She held them out at me, but I didn’t slow down, bringing my sword up through her body, severing, among other parts, her head, which rolled sickeningly on the stone floor.

I felt Revana’s shae whirling around me, bolstering my armor seconds before a weight slammed down into my back and I turned to see the man wielding a massive warhammer composed of the tenebrae. His face was just as shocked when I turned to face him, unharmed. I cut through his weapon and into his chest. He stumbled back as I stepped forward and took off his head. The horror of what I was doing again washed over me without emotion. I didn’t know if it was the relics or if I really was getting used to this.

I heard footsteps running away from me and saw the last woman running for the edge of the room where a group of levers were set into the wall, which were almost certainly an alarm. I bolted after her, knowing I wouldn’t be able to catch her in time.

Tiny runic rings appeared in front of her face before exploding into a huge flash of light. She stumbled and fell, one hand over her eyes. Within seconds, I was on her, and with a quick slash, her head rolled like the others.

I stood there looking around at the carnage. “That…did not go as well. We’re not going to be able to hide any of this.”

Revana stood beside me, glowing with the shae. “No, but they couldn’t raise the alarm. We need to be fast.”

Finding the section of the prison we wanted turned out to be extremely easy, and we came into another small hallway with one more guard, standing away from us. I dispatched him with the same ease as the first. It didn’t feel quite so satisfying after the last bungled room, though.

I looked into the cells here and wow, this was certainly the place for higher status prisoners; they were huge and had lots of amenities and looked quite comfortable. “Why would they bother with this?”

“I don’t actually know,” Revana said, “but if they wanted to extract information, torture and misery aren’t the best ways to do that. At least according to Isik. I’m not sure how much I believe that, given the Gorvani’s penchant for inflicting as much pain as possible at all times.”

“True, but that’s for making an example, I think.”

She grimaced. “You’re probably right. But instead of thinking about that, let’s find Tiquette.”

It took no real amount of searching before we found Tiq, who was sitting on her bed, up against the wall with her head lowered into her hands. She wore a formless, gray dress and nothing else, although she still had all of her piercings it seemed. I stepped into the room and she stirred but didn’t look up. “Oh, here you come again. How quaint. What will it be this time? Another promise of release? You can barely give those to me with a straight face; I can tell.”

I smiled down at her. “They might not have meant it, but we do!”

She looked up sharply and broke into a huge smile just before she launched herself off the bed and into my arms. “Michael! Revana!”

I let my armor go just before she slammed into me, and I hugged her back as tight as I could.

“I didn’t know if my message would actually make it to you or not! I’ve been sitting here fretting, wondering how I could get out on my own.” She let go and stepped back, still beaming. “I’ve come up with no less than a dozen theories, but honestly, not a single one of them seemed like they would have had any real probability of success.”

She turned and hugged Revana, who had a few tears running down her face. “Don’t cry, Revi; I’m fine! They barely had time to begin their overtures.”

Revana wiped her face and sighed. “I see that. I was just so worried.”

Tiq looked her up and down, her brow furrowing when she saw her hand. She grabbed it and pulled Revana’s palm up for a closer inspection. “What on Vendira is this?” Revana started to answer, but Tiq cut her off. “No! No, don’t tell me.”

I wasn’t sure we had time for Tiq’s guessing games, but I didn’t have the heart to stop her.

“You accessed my hidden chambers I see. Before you ask: no, my tests on burning the tenebrae out of the royals had not yet yielded results,” she said, grimacing. “But you have the shard…in your flesh…” She shook her head and narrowed her eyes. “Almost like…a blood rite. But that would only be effective if…” Without warning, she pulled up Revana’s shirt, exposing her new brand.

Tiq froze, her eyes as wide as I’d ever seen them. Her mouth worked soundlessly as she stared. “No…impossible. But…clearly not.” Her hand traced the outer edges of the dark part of Revana’s brand. “A functioning superbrand! Held in place with an extension of the shadowbrand…” Her eyes flicked over to me. “And a shae ring, anchored to an intact dragon scale surrounding…”

She stood up, her hand over her mouth and tears of her own working down her cheeks. “Oh, Revi, does that mean…can you!?

Revana smiled and began glowing. “I can.” 

Tiq squealed and hugged her tight again. She rocked back and forth before releasing Revana, with a concerned face. “If that shard is indeed embedded as a blood rite, then we should get moving.”

I’m not sure why I thought we would need to explain anything to her, but I was still impressed by what she knew and what she could immediately figure out. “One thing before we go, though. We brought something I thought would be helpful.”

“I was kinda dubious,” Revana said, “but Michael seemed to think this is a weapon and that you’d be able to use it.” She pulled the silvery contraption out of the bag and handed it to Tiq.

“OH! Yes! I can’t believe you brought it! Yes, this is indeed an arcanic weapon,” she said, her voice filled with obvious pride. “So many of my contemporaries said it couldn’t be done! Well I sure showed them! I wish I hadn’t been captured and stripped of my station, otherwise I’d be shoving this into their pompous, smug faces at every opportunity! I will admit, though, that it has not been field tested, but this is the perfect situation to fire it up!” She wrapped it around her shoulders, the scaled, flexible part curving around and laying close against her skin while the rigid, jointed sections matched up exactly with her arms. She’d clearly modified it for her own body. “Okay! Oh, wait, one question first.”

“We, uh, kinda need to get moving, Tiq,” I said.

“I know, I know, but we might die and I just need to know.” She gestured to Revana and said, “You needed a tenebrous channeler to make that work. And a highly skilled one at that. How did you accomplish it?”

Revana and I shared a look before she answered, “Isik performed it. And she procured the dragon scale as well.”

“Inquisitor Isik? That Isik?”

“Yeah,” I said. “And she’s pretty much the boss of the dragon cult from what I understand.” 

Tiq’s jaw dropped and she just stood there, dumbfounded. 

“But we really need to get going.”

“...Okay. Okay. I’ll process all that later.”

I left the cell, and Revana took Tiq’s hand and summoned a bright shield that covered both of their bodies before coming through the ward. Just like the other times, it parted like oil and water around the shae and they were safely through. They repeated that for the ward into the central room, which didn’t seem to have changed in the last few minutes; the bodies we’d created still lay still on the floor and no one else had shown up in the meantime. I faintly allowed myself to hope that we’d get out smoothly.

Of course, that was stupid.

18

Tiq stepped on a seemingly unremarkable place on the floor, and a whirlwind of dark magic flew up and enveloped her. She doubled over in pain, her eyes wide, but she didn’t cry out. 

With no help from anyone, all the doors that had been open around the room slammed shut while tendrils of the tenebrae raced over the floors and walls, while some slipped up invisible channels into the ceiling.

“Well, shit.” I ran to the door we’d come in through and found it impossible to budge. I drew my sword and pressed it in, but there was a heavy resistance from the tenebrae. The magics sparked and pulsed against each other, and while I knew I could cut the door open given enough time, it seemed pretty damn likely that we did not have said time. I looked back at the others in a panic.

“dammit,” Revana growled. “Only one way out now.”

I resummoned my armor and rushed to Tiq, picking her up easily and throwing her over my shoulder. 

She grunted but said nothing, her eyes still shut tightly.

Revana sprinted around the room until she found a staircase leading down and waved me to follow. The stairs wound downwards in a soft curve, and I was terrified we’d run into another magicked door I wouldn’t have time to open, but that never happened, and before I knew it, the stairs opened up into a massive, circular room. The entire thing had a mesh grate for a floor, sitting above a huge pool of water that was rushing away down an enormous pipe, probably leading to the waterfall we were heading towards. Despite being a sewer, the smell was not overwhelmingly bad.

Tiq gave me a tap and I set her down before we all began bolting for the other side. I looked back, expecting more guards hot on our tail, but there was nothing. When I looked forward again, I groaned. A free standing cloud of dark shadows had appeared in the center of the room, between us and our escape.

It fell into itself and with a huge crack and wave of power, and after the shadows cleared, there was a man standing there.

“VERMIN,” he yelled.

“Oh for fuck’s sake. Not this asshole!”

It was indeed that asshole, Gor’drelar, Sixtee—

“I AM GOR’DRELAR, SIXTEENTH SON OF HIS MOST GRAND MAJESTY, THE EMPEROR OF THE GORVANI EMPIRE AND YOUR DOOM!” He threw his hands to the side, and like last time, he was only garbed from the waist down, his pristine white robes billowing away from his body.

I glanced at Revana. “Okay. This time?”

She nodded, a bit of fear creeping into her eyes. “I think we have to, but yeah, we might be able to take him.” While Sixteen was still monologuing about us being vermin or something, Revana channeled into my armor, solidifying it more than she had before, covering it with spikes and making it much heavier. 

I pulled the shae into my body, allowing me to easily carry the weight. I pushed it out through my sword which gleamed brightly, the shae extending a foot beyond the tip of the blade. I had one last thought, summoning a helmet for the first time. As I’d seen happen in someone else’s memories, I made the faceplate completely solid, but I was still able to see through it from my side.

Tiq raised her arms and activated her device, sending out blobs of pure arcanae that looked like, and might actually have been, ball lightning. They slammed into the walls high above Gor’drelar and were probably just test shots. Tiq had a viciously pleased smile on her face.

Sixteen stopped talking and just slowly turned and looked at the crumbling holes Tiq had left in the wall, before shaking his head. “YOUR TOYS WILL NOT SAVE—”

“Oh will you just shut the fuck up?” Revana screamed as she lifted her right hand, summoning a huge sigil on the ground centered around Gor’drelar. A second later, it exploded, and he cried out in his amplified voice.

When the light faded, he looked at all of us with complete bewilderment. I couldn’t imagine anyone had ever spoken to him in that way, let alone hurt him. I knew I had barely scratched him with my own power the last time we’d met.

Shockingly, he actually did shut the fuck up. He raised his hands and channeled the tenebrae with a look of strained determination. If I’d had to guess, he was scared of us, which brought a smile to my face. 

I didn’t waste any time; I rushed for him, my blazing sword ready to strike.

He tensed, and just before I made contact with him, he vanished into a mist of shadows, reappearing across the room. When I ran for him again, another ring of runes sprang to life under his feet. He summoned a shield of darkness, akin to Revana’s shae, as the sigil exploded. I leapt into the light, hoping to strike him down, but he’d teleported again, this time next to Revana, who was now on the other side of the room as I was.

“Shit,” I muttered, running back towards her. This was probably his plan; kill the other two who weren’t wrapped in armor first.

He opened his hands at her, releasing a tidal wave of blackness, but I caught a glint of shae before it collided, and while it shoved her away and left her on her back, she didn’t seem to be harmed. He turned to me and four jet black circles opened in the air above him.

I skidded to a halt, unsure of what was happening, but it became quickly clear when magical spears began shooting out of them in rapid succession. I cut as many as I could into trailing tendrils of energy, but one after another slammed into my armor. It protected me from any serious damage, but the endless rain was knocking me down and wearing through my strength to resist.

Tiq’s device fired, and two back-to-back balls of arcanae crashed into the side of Gor’drelar’s head. 

His spear-throwing portals vanished and he was thrown to the ground, where he immediately vanished, reappearing beside Tiq.

“No!”

Revana’s tiny blinding spell burst in front of his eyes, giving me just enough time to get to him. I thrust my sword into his lower back, and it sank up to the hilt, the blade protruding from his stomach. 

He screeched and turned just enough for me to see his terror-filled eyes. I was just about to carve my sword out through his side, but he disappeared again.

“Stay together,” I said. “He’s trying to pick us off.”

He appeared on the other side of the room, on his knees, panting. I didn’t notice any sign of the wound I’d just inflicted on him, but although he’d clearly healed it, it had taken a toll nonetheless. “This…” he said in a normal voice, “isn’t possible! Vermin like you…you shouldn’t be able to…” He shook his head and stood, calling more shadows to him, although judging by his pained face, it was an effort to do so.

Blobs of darkness swirled on the ground, shooting up and out before morphing into six shadowy copies of Gorvani with long, wicked looking claws at the end of their hands.

They started running for us when Revana clapped her hands over her head, and with an effort, she opened four glowing portals of her own. She cried out, and two of them immediately fizzled, but the other two began spewing out golden spears. 

Tiq’s device rang out, sending out balls of arcanae one after another.

Even with all that, two of the shadow copies came close. I sliced at one, separating it through the middle. The second one managed to dodge a few of my strikes until Revana trapped it with a circle of shae, where I cut it apart.

After they were all gone, the two women began pelting Gor’drelar with all they could, keeping up a consistent barrage of projectiles.

If his constant growling and screaming were any indication, he was pissed. He attempted more portals, but between the constant bright explosions and nonstop hammering of Tiq’s device, he couldn’t concentrate enough to keep them open. 

He teleported again, appearing behind Tiq this time, but the three of us spun as a unit, putting me toe to toe with him. The tenebrous strike he’d planned for Tiq boomed against my chest, but I barely felt a thing under the armor. With a snarl on his lips, he tried a double-fisted, overhand strike bursting with black magic, but I spun out of the way, my sword gaining momentum as I twirled around, and it sliced cleanly through both of his outstretched arms below the elbows.

He screamed, his face a rictus of terror. Dark purple blood flowed from both stumps and he stumbled away from me. “You…can’t…you…” He teleported away, but only to the far side of the room where he collapsed in a heap on the floor.

I started towards him, ready to end it.

“Michael, wait.” Revana grabbed my arm, shaking her head.

“What? But he’s—”

The air around Gor’drelar twisted and reality warped, making an otherworldly sound. Afterwards, a tall woman with flowing black hair stood over him, and she wore the same half-robes as he did, although much of her neck and chest were covered in bright, silver jewelry that contained countless, multi-colored gems. Her skin was even darker than his, the magic of the tenebrae trailing visibly from her body. 

“Mina…help me…please”

She looked down at him and started laughing. Softly at first, but then into a full-throated cackle. “Pathetic,” she said, kicking him savagely in the side. “You can’t even beat a few rats.”

“Please…Mina…”

She turned to look at us and smiled. “Greetings, rats. I’ve been watching your fight and you’ve amused me to no end. To think such things were possible now, after so very long; it thrills me. Not just one, but two channelers of the wretched shae,” she said with a condescending smile. “Finally, something interesting is happening after an eternity of boredom.”

She laughed softly to herself. “Your accomplishments deserve a reward; you should know of the unparalleled honor you receive by standing in my presence.” She held out her hands and looked upwards with closed eyes. “I am Gor’mina, The Fourteenth Daughter.” She opened her eyes and smiled. “I see you are not in awe, but that is no surprise. Ones so lowly as you could scarcely conceive of my majesty, even though I stand before you.”

Her speech apparently done, she turned and walked back to Gor’drelar, who could only really groan and look up at her. She looked down at him but said to us, “Thank you, little rats, for in addition to providing the most amusing entertainment, you’ve also given me the barest excuse I needed for this.” 

“Mina…no…”

Her smile and eyes were wide, a look of insanity in her expression as she reached down and grabbed Gor’drelar by the face. She effortlessly picked him up high, his feet dangling above the floor.

He moaned and weakly thrashed to no avail.

“AND THEN,” she yelled with the same voice amplification he was wont to use, “THERE WERE FIFTEEN!”

She crushed his head in her hand.

We could hear his skull breaking. I had performed some brutal kills in my time, but that was particularly barbaric.

Dark magic started flowing out from his corpse, but then it reversed and began flowing right back into Gor’mina. She just laughed and laughed as the power siphoned into her.

Unsure of what to do, I took a step forward.

Revana pulled me back with a terrified expression. “No, Michael, we can’t fight her!”

“But…she’s just number fourteen?”

Tiq shook her head, “Their power isn’t sequential. Gor’drelar just got unlucky in being the last and also weakest of them. She’s overwhelmingly stronger than he was!”

I looked at both of them in turn. The last time I’d been in this exact situation, I’d ignored Revana and fucked it up. I sure wasn’t going to be that stupid again. “Alright, let’s get out of here while she’s distracted.”

We bolted towards the end of the room and I sliced through the grate leading into the massive pipeline. 

Revana covered herself and Tiq in glowing shields as we jumped into the waterflow.

Booming through the air behind us came the Fourteenth Daughter’s words, “SCURRY, LITTLE RATS, SCURRY. I LIKE IT WHEN THEY RUN.”

19

We sloshed through the pipes, just blindly following the water to wherever it took us. Revana shielded both her and Tiq through a truly ridiculous amount of shadowy wards considering we were in sewer pipes of all things. I also cut through various grates along the way, shocked at how far theGorvani had gone to make this entrance inaccessible since it was apparently at the top of a waterfall.

With every ward we went through, Revana grunted, and I could see the strain really beginning to show on her face.

“You gonna be alright?”

She nodded, her lips pressed tight. “Yes, but we’d better be close to getting out of here. I’m not sure how much more I can do.”

We just kept running, following the water, our way lit by a glowing ball of shae that Revana was maintaining on top of everything else. I kept looking back, expecting Gor’mina to be hot on our trail, but she was probably too good to follow us into a place like this. 

Soon after, I saw a light at the end of the pipe, and then we were there, at the edge of a waterfall that plummeted down a sheer cliff face. It seemed Telorn was built on a huge slope, and I could see for miles beyond, over forests and hills where the ground was much lower.

Revana looked haggard, but there wasn’t much I could do. “Let’s go. Hold my hands.”

We all held onto each other.

We jumped.

I’d never been skydiving or bungee jumping, and in the first few seconds of our fall, I knew why. It was absolutely terrifying.

Revana grunted, glowing with the shae. It wrapped around all of us for a few seconds before it trailed off, leaving her gasping for breath. She tried again with the same results.

“She can’t do it,” Tiq yelled over the rushing air. “You two have to survive! Push me away!”

I looked down at the rocks and water below us which were coming up so fast. “Wow, fuck that, Tiq!” I yelled back. 

I kicked the two of them away, their hands unable to hold onto me.

“NO! MICHAEL!”

Revana looked at me for a split second before she wrapped the two of them into a brightly glowing shield that solidified over their skin.

I scrunched up into a ball, channeling as much of the shae as I possibly could, pushing every last bit into my armor. I did the best I could to protect my head and neck while fervently hoping it would be enough.

I could just barely see the others through my arms and legs, and it looked like they were going to hit the water. I, however, was coming down straight onto nothing but jagged rocks. I braced for the impact, but it still knocked me senseless, the wind leaving my lungs in a rush. The first hit was the worst, but it wasn’t the last. I kept falling, kept hitting more and more rocks as I felt my armor denting and cracking, small pieces of it falling away.

The world spun and pain came from all directions, but finally, it ended, and with one final thump, I was on the ground, falling no longer. I let my armor go, or what was left of it, at least. But it had done its job; I was completely battered and bruised, but I was alive and didn’t seem to have any noticeably broken bones.

Once my head stopped spinning, I tried sitting up. 

Out in the river that the waterfall emptied into, I could barely make out Tiq’s bobbing head, struggling to stay afloat in the failing light of the evening.

I would have said I had nothing left, but I was up and moving instantly, all my muscles screaming at me to stop. I dove into the water, swam out to Tiq, and pulled her into my arms to find that she held onto Revana, who was under the surface.

I pulled in what shae I could, brought them both up as best I was able, and between Tiq and I, we managed to make it to shore.

Revana gurgled and coughed, bringing up the water she’d swallowed, but her eyes were unfocused and she babbled nonsense.

“She’s overdone it,” Tiq said, leaning over her. “The shard’s spent, and it’s sucking the life out of her. It needs to come out.”

“How do we…? Is there some counter-ritual or something?”

Tiq shrugged. “Probably. But we don’t know it. There’s only one thing to do. Hold her down and channel as much shae as you can into her, okay?”

I nodded. “Uh, yeah. What are you…?”

“Just hold her down. Oh, put this between her teeth,” She handed me a broken piece of driftwood from the shoreline and set her butt on Revana’s right elbow, her clawed hand laying between Tiq’s knees.

I did as she asked, setting it gently between Revana’s teeth before I straddled her and held her left arm down. I knew what was coming and I didn’t like it one bit, but there was nothing to be done, so I channeled what little of the shae I could and pushed it to her.

Tiq was still wearing her device, and with a couple clicks, a blade opened out at the end near her hand. “Here we go.” With a look of grim determination, she pushed the wicked end of the weapon into Revana’s palm.

Coming instantly out of her torpor, Revana bucked and growled, the wood cracking in her mouth. 

Tiq’s movements were slow and precise. She had one hand on Revana’s wrist and had put all her weight onto it while she moved the blade with her other hand. 

I couldn’t look away. I expected her to just go in under the shard and slice it out, but Revana’s skin had begun to blacken around it, and Tiq was carefully cutting the dead flesh out with it. Although to make sure she got it all, she had to cut into living tissue. Revana’s face was a mask of agony, and it was an awful sight to see; I wished I could make it end sooner, but there was no rushing what Tiq was doing. I just kept channeling more and more, as much as I could, even though I was about ready to collapse myself.

Finally, after an eternity, Tiq said, “It’s done.”

I looked back over to Revana’s hand and paled. Most of her palm had been cut out and I could actually see through it. 

“More, Michael. More shae.” She turned to Revana, who had a river of tears flowing down her face. “It’s done. It’s up to you now, Revi. I’m sorry it was so bad. It kept getting worse as I went.”

I was about three seconds from passing out, but I did what I could, pushing the last of the shae I had in me to Revana.

She growled, her eyes narrowing through the pain. A bright glow enveloped her hand, a complex web of spinning runes, spinning faster and faster into each other until they imploded in a flash.

I had to look away, but when I could see, Revana’s hand was whole again without a trace or scar.

Her eyes fluttered and her head lolled to the side.

“Is she…” Through no doing of my own, the ground came up to meet my face, but I barely felt it as we collided. 

“Aw shit,” was all I could hear Tiq say.

20

I tried to open my eyes, but couldn’t. All I could do was exist, face down in the rocky dirt by the side of the river. As I laid there, I heard footsteps from multiple people slowly coming down the bank.

Tiq gasped, and I heard her say, “Who are you? Get away! Get—”

There were sounds of a struggle, and then silence. The Gorvani had made it down here and we were being taken after all the things we had to do to escape! I was roughly picked up and loaded into a cart. I assumed Revana was as well, and I heard muffled sounds from Tiq. In very short order, the cart started moving, and though the terror coursed through my bones like electricity, I still couldn’t move at all. Overchanneling of the shae had left me drained in a way I’d never felt before.

No one spoke a word I could hear, and after a supremely bumpy ride, we must have come out onto a real roadway because the cart evened out. I expected to hear the sounds of Telorn, but as we kept going, any noise from the city faded away and was replaced by the low nighttime call of owls and insects. Or at least Vendira’s versions of them.

There was no real situation where we’d have been taken by the Gorvani and not taken directly back to the prison we’d escaped. Or maybe just killed. I kept trying to think of what was happening, but I got nowhere; I just listened for anything I could, but there was nothing useful. Eventually, I must have fallen asleep.

I jolted awake and was, for a few seconds, completely confused.

I opened my eyes and it all came back to me as I saw Revana’s unconscious body next to me, and beside her was Tiq who’d been tied and gagged. Craning my head around as best I could, I noticed we were in a covered cart filled with an assortment of boxes, and perched on top of one sat an old, blue-scaled Dravini woman. She noticed me looking and smiled down at me.

“Me…” My mouth was dry and speaking took an effort.. “Mephina?” I finally managed to say, impressed with myself for remembering her name. 

She nodded and said, “Yes, and I’m pleased one of you is awake. Can you tell this one we’re not your enemy?” She gestured to Tiq, who struggled uselessly against her bindings, an angry look in her eyes.

I blinked, not really understanding what I was seeing. “Why’d you tie her up?”

“Oh well, she was making quite a fuss and we didn’t have time for any of that. I thought about untying her once we were on our way, but you see that look in her eyes? I thought it best to let one of you come back to us first.”

Tiq was tilting her head at me the best she could, an incredulous look now on her face.

“She’s telling the truth, Tiq. She’s part of the dragon cult.”

She grunted against the gag in her mouth, her eyes flying back and forth between us.

“Yeah, really,” I said. “Please untie her. I don’t know if I even have the strength for that.”

Mephina chuckled at me and slowly moved to Tiq, untying her bindings with wrinkled but deft hands. She stepped back afterwards warily, apparently not convinced Tiq wasn’t a threat.

“You’re part of the Dravizek Celestori?”

Mephina smiled widely and said, “Yes. Yes, I am. I’m one of the oldest members now, and I can’t tell you how it warms my heart to think that we might actually be close to fulfilling our goal. So many years spent with either incremental progress or none, and now, things are happening so quickly indeed.”

“How did you know to find us where you did?” Tiq asked.

“The Inquisitor told us to be in the area should we be needed, and thank goodness we were. You can imagine our surprise when we saw you lot tumbling down the waterfall. I was so frightened that we’d all been seen; it took us some time to get to where you ended up by the river.”

“The Inquisitor. You mean Isik, right?” Tiq glanced at me. “Inquisitor Isik. Who I’m told is the boss…of the Celestori. I heard that right?”

“Yes,” Mephina said, nodding, “she leads the Celestori. And how lucky we are that she found us. Of course, we all thought we were dead at the time, but instead of that, she joined us. I’ve never seen a more unlikely thing in all my days.”

Tiq sat there, nonplussed, saying nothing else.

“So, where are we going?” I asked.

“Up into the mountains in the Second. You’ll see when we get there. It’ll take all night and most of the morning, so you might as well get whatever sleep you can until then.”

It wasn’t much of an answer, but I was still only able to sit up and talk for a little bit at a time, so I just did as she suggested after a quick check to make sure Revana was still breathing. To say I slept, though, would be a pretty big overstatement. I was never one to sleep much in cars, and trying to do so on the hard wooden floor of a moving cart pulled by a lumbering golem was nearly impossible. I dozed here and there, each time hoping hours had passed, but it was probably only chunks of fifteen minutes at a time, at most. 

I was asleep, however, when we passed over the border from the first province and into the second, which I was thankful for, since it would have been an anxiety-ridden affair. Mephina provided water and we stopped a few times so anyone who needed to could relieve themselves, during which I noticed we were part of a small caravan now, comprised completely of Dravini.

Once the sun had started to rise, I jolted awake again to find Mephina gone, Tiq asleep, and Revana awake. She was leaning back against a large box and had bags under her eyes. “Hey,” she said weakly.

“Hey. You okay?”

“I guess. We did it, huh?”

“Oh, well, barely, but yes. Do you…remember what happened after we fell?”

She held out her right hand and looked at her perfectly healed palm. “I sure do. Would you believe me if I said I’d prefer to get branded a hundred times rather than go through that again?”

I shivered at the thought. “Oh yeah. It was brutal enough to watch. I can scarcely imagine having it happen. Lucky Tiq was there, though.”

“Very. By the way, do you know where we’re headed?”

“Somewhere in the mountains, but I didn’t get much more than that.”

She smiled wanly. “I had to pry it out of her, but Mephina finally told me we’re going to the cult’s headquarters, where, among other things, they plan to perform the actual summoning.”

“You mean where they plan to have us perform the summoning.”

“Yeah, but either way, it might actually happen.” I looked her over, trying to gauge any reaction, but there was only tiredness in her eyes, so I just asked. “How do you feel about a real dragon being back on Vendira?”

After a long, slow inhale and exhale, she said, “You know, I’ve really been trying to not get my hopes up about it. My whole life, I wanted to see one, to know what it was that the Dravini came from, but they were all dead and that was that. But now…” She lightly touched her abdomen where the dragon scale lay. “Impossible things are happening. I will admit, the thought that I would be the person to summon, or even help summon, a true dragon is almost as exhilarating as being able to channel at all.”

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, and I found myself doing the same to valiantly and uselessly try to get a little more sleep. 

I’m not sure why, but I was able to sleep for a couple hours that time, and when I awoke, I was listing to the side as the cart was being pulled up a steep incline. I poked my head out of the covering at the back and saw we’d made it pretty high up a mountain road, the tops of Telorn’s spires looming just over the horizon.

Mephina was back with us and the other two were awake, if you wanted to call it that. They’d apparently slept as well as I had for the duration of the trip. “Well, you’re all finally awake! I’m glad you’ll get to see Skyshard Manor in all its glory!”

Tiq cocked her head. “Skyshard? Like the booze?”

“Oh yes, just so. It’s the primary distillery for Skyshard spirits. The Inquisitor purchased it after she discovered us, and we’ve moved the bulk of our operations and materials there. In addition to being well out of the way, it produces very reliable income, so for the past few years we’ve been able to acquire so much more than we ever did before. Also, we can cite ‘trade secrets’ as a reason for never allowing anyone in. And because the Inquisitor herself owns it, no imperials come sniffing around.”

As we rounded a bend in the switchback road, she gestured us up to the front of the cart where we all peeked out at the unfolding view. 

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was impressed. The manor house itself loomed high among the peaks, standing five stories tall and covered in some of the finest carvings I’d ever seen, which was really saying something for Vendira. Stretched out around it were endless tiered farm fields growing a variety of things in a complete rainbow of colors. Beyond the manor sat a huge complex of buildings and machines and the entire place bustled with people, almost all of which seemed to be Dravini.

“Is everyone here,” Tiq asked, “Celestori?”

Mephina nodded. “Yes, every single one. But we really do operate the distillery. In addition to the profit, it’s our best cover. Who’d expect a shadowy group of rebels to be producing the realm’s finest spirits? And they are the finest; I won’t hear otherwise.”

We sat back inside the cart and waited to finally stop moving. We ended up in a warehouse where Mephina shooed us out and it felt absolutely amazing to stand on solid ground again. Bonus that we weren’t being actively chased by something or someone that was trying to kill us. I stretched every muscle I could because they all ached, but I felt much better overall and was able to stand under my own power. Given the “sleep,” I was dubious as to how long that would last, though.

Tiq seemed fine, but the bags under Revana’s eyes had gotten worse, if anything. She gave me an unconvincing smile and I wondered if I’d have to help her walk.

As we stood there unsure of what to do, we were approached by the tallest man I think I’d ever seen. He was Dravini, probably seven feet tall and extremely wide, but not with fat. His horns, claws, and tail were bright gold like Revana’s, and that combined with his black scales, which contrasted with his lighter skin, gave him a supremely regal look. He wore a closely cropped beard and long flowing robes with a leather chestpiece, all very reminiscent of Tiq’s Astrologian robes, except his were a dark red.

“Greetings, honored guests. I’m Osaarin, chamberlain of Skyshard, and it’s my pleasure to welcome you to our home.” He gave us a wry smile. “But you don’t seem like you’re ready for the tour just yet. Can I interest you in a meal while we have some rooms made up for you? Once you’ve recovered, we can discuss what comes next.”

Tiq stalked up to him and took a bit of his billowing sleeve between her fingers. “You’re a scholar, then?”

“I am, Lady Tiquette.” His voice was low and deep, but very friendly. “These robes are not just for show, I assure you.”

“Hmm…” She tilted her head. “I have a thousand and more questions, but I suppose they can wait. At least until I get out of this atrocity,” she said, gesturing to the formless dress she’d been wearing the entire time since the escape. 

Osaarin showed us into the manor, and once we were inside the doors, I stood there, gaping like a moron. If I thought I’d seen opulence before, this blew it clean out of the water. The foyer of the house reached three stories high and there were all manner of colorful plants hanging and trailing around. Most were Vendira’s soft blue, but there were spots of other vibrant colors, and of course there were endless flowers of all different shades, some with multiple colors on the same blossoms.

The carvings were ever present, naturally, but they were actually more subdued here. They were far more intricate than what I’d seen except at the Carvers’ Guild, but there were a lot of straight lines that did more to accentuate them than if they’d been everywhere. 

Osaarin stood politely while Revana and I just stared. Tiq had wandered over to one of the larger plants and had her face almost pressed up against one of its bright orange flowers. “This species is outrageously difficult to grow in this region. More difficult than any reasonable person would want merely for decoration. I’ve heard rumors that the roots can be ground into a very sweet mixture, which coincidentally is very close to the flavors in your ‘Cloudberry Brandy,’ one of Skyshard’s more popular flavors.”

Osaarin, with a studiously neutral face, basically shoved her along towards the massive staircase that dominated the room. “Right this way now, Lady Tiquette.” He cleared his throat loudly and said in a higher pitched tone, “That will be quite enough sussing out trade secrets… which that particular plant has absolutely nothing to do with. The spirit you mention is flavored with local berries and honey and nothing else please let’s go oh don’t look at me like that please Lady Tiquette.”

He showed Revana and I to a large formal dining room, and shortly after, Tiq came back down from upstairs wearing much more appropriate clothing, but I still found it odd that she wasn’t in her Astrologian robes.

We were shortly presented with some of the finest food I’d ever eaten, either on Earth or Vendira, although I was a little admittedly disappointed none of it included hachi or dulcet jumpers. 

Tiq ate slowly while her eyes darted everywhere, and I couldn’t tell if she was looking the place over or lost somewhere in her head. 

Revana stuffed as much food as she could in her mouth with little to no decorum, but I didn’t comment. I assumed she needed to recover from the blood ritual and the…ending of the blood ritual. Afterwards, there was still a tiredness about her, but she looked much, much better and seemed more alert. 

After the meal, we were presented with shot glasses of a dark purple liquid. Osaarin had joined us again, standing beside the table and holding his own glass. “This is our finest spirit, Night’s Caress. I thought it only fitting that you try the best we have to offer.”

Revana slammed hers back immediately with a contented sigh. 

Tiq sipped hers slowly, probably trying to figure out where all the flavors came from.

I wondered if it was wise to take a shot in my current state, and I briefly wondered about being poisoned, but I was far too tired and full and worn out to even really care, so I went Revana’s route and just upended my glass. 

To say that it was the best thing I’d ever tasted would be an understatement. It was by far the smoothest booze I’d ever had, but it was a complete explosion of a thousand complementary flavors and spices. Even dulcet jumpers were a distant second.

Osaarin, who’d emptied his own glass, must have seen my expression because he chuckled and said, “Another, then?”

I just dumbly nodded.

Revana held out her glass.

He poured for both of us from a gold-embossed, crystal bottle. “It’s not our strongest drink at all, but perhaps two should be the limit at this time of day.”

The second shot was just as good as the first.

21

After we were all stuffed and slightly tipsy, we were offered a tour of the facility. The fields were a marvel of engineering this high in the mountains, and the machines they used to process everything were massive and complicated like nothing I’d seen before. In one of the highest plateaus, instead of a field, there was an enormous set of sigils carved into the very rock. I thought Revana’s scale-binding had been complex, but this was a few orders of magnitude more complicated. I was instantly relieved I wouldn’t be the one trying to activate it on my own.

Afterwards, we were given some time for ourselves. Tiq, naturally, had an endless slew of questions she wanted answered, but Revana and I parked ourselves on an ornate balcony. It was built into the edge of one of the peaks that overlooked an extremely sharp cliff that faced away from the First province and Telorn.

“So, this is the plan now?” I asked. 

“Hmm?”

“We’re here to summon the dragon. I highly doubt that was part of the Mulaq’Shae’s original plan.”

She shook her head with heavily lidded eyes. “Well, after the empire’s completely unexpected response, or lack thereof, to what we did to the sigilarium, we’re at a loss. We’d expected word to be racing across the realm by now, stoking the fires of rebellion. At this point, I think bringing a dragon back into the world is our best bet to accomplish that. And I’ll admit that…I just want it. For me.

“Anyway, everything since the sigilarium has been this frantic mess, led pretty much completely by Isik; we’ve just been dancing to her tune.” She absentmindedly set her hand on her abdomen. “Not that I’m complaining, I guess. It’s turned out well, shockingly. We’re here. Tiq’s here. All alive. I can only hope this works out, because if it doesn’t, I don’t know what we’ll do. Target another sigilarium? I doubt we could pull it off a second time for a lot of reasons. We need something that will change people’s hearts and give them the courage to resist, because even though we have a lot of great allies, we can’t do this alone.”

I laughed softly. “I’m just glad you’re here. There was no realistic way I was going to pull off that summoning up there on the plateau.”

“Hmm…” She narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips together.

“...What?”

“Oh, well, about those sigils…”

I waited. “Uh huuuuh?”

“They didn’t look like the configurations I know for summoning.”

“Maybe it’s different for a dragon?”

“Well,” she said, shrugging. “Maybe? I don’t see why they would be, though. They’d just be bigger and more complex, but not as different as they appeared up there.”

A little anxiety began to creep into my decent mood. “Could they be planning something nefarious? Is this all a ruse or something?”

“I don’t think so…I couldn’t imagine what it would be, but I think there’s definitely something we don’t know yet.”

“We should ask Tiq what she thinks.”

Revana laughed at that. “She’ll either figure it out instantly or be so off in the clouds that she won’t even hear us. No inbetween.”

We sat there for a long time, just looking out at the view in silence. It was so nice to be able to sit down again, and to feel relatively safe. What she’d said about the summoning circles concerned me, though, and I had trouble putting it out of my mind. After the sun had crossed most of the sky, the wind changed and I caught a whiff of myself. “Ugh.”

“Hmm?”

“I stink. Have I this whole time and everyone was just too polite to say anything?”

“I hadn’t noticed, but I went through the same things you did. You think they can smell all three of us and just think we live this way?”

We both laughed at the thought. “I hope not. Either way, I’m going to see if our rooms are ready and get in the shower. You wanna come?”

“Not just yet. You go ahead.”

The shower was amazing, as so many on Vendira had been, and I realized what a luxury daily showering had been. Not that I wanted to go back to Earth in the least, though. My room came with a wardrobe full of clothes, so I picked out some reasonably subdued colors and put them on. I left the tunic I’d been wearing for so long sitting there on the bed. I buckled my sword around my waist, but I didn’t think I needed the soiled shirt for now. After a second though, I folded it and pushed it underneath the bed so it wouldn’t be quite so obvious for someone to steal. 

There was a knock on my door, and I opened it to find a young Dravini man there to tell me dinner would be served shortly. It didn’t seem like it had been all that long since we’d eaten, but I was already incredibly hungry.

In the dining hall, I found Tiq having an animated conversation with Osaarin about botany. Or something that sounded like that. I suppose it really could have been any number of things. I wanted to ask her about the weird summoning circles, but Osaarin was ever present and more people eventually filed into the room, including a freshly showered Revana.

We were given places of honor at the table, or so we were told — we were sat in the middle of the long room, which was apparently honorable. Somehow. Dinner was just as good as lunch had been, and it ended with more shots of Night’s Caress, which I was thrilled about. Revana slammed down three or four. Maybe five? I was too engrossed in my own, as they were still the most delicious thing I’d ever had.

After her shots, she said goodnight to everyone and scooted her chair back. She looked at me with heavy eyelids and leaned in to give me a kiss on the cheek. “Have fun tonight,” she whispered in my ear before winking and leaving to fall into bed, I assumed.

I watched her go, wondering what she was talking about. Although, I did have to admit that I was very much looking forward to sleeping in a real bed, but that didn’t seem like what she meant. I asked for another shot.

Shortly after, we all said goodnight and headed up to bed. The room was somewhat small, containing just a bed and a wardrobe, but there was an attached bathroom off the side. The windowsill was carved to look like a forest’s canopy and was covered in brightly colored plants.

Alone and slightly tipsy, I stripped off most of my clothes, threw them to the side and collapsed into bed. The moonlight shone in through the window, illuminating the room rather well. I thought sleep would be on me in seconds, but there was a knock at the door.

“Uh, come in?”

The door opened a crack, just enough for Tiq to slip in, before she closed it quietly behind her. She wore a thick, purple robe and most of her rings, which reflected the moonlight as she slowly stepped over beside the bed.

She smiled widely as she threw a leg over and moved to straddle me. “Otherworldly warrior, came to save a damsel in distress.”

I laughed softly. “I’m not sure you qualify as a helpless damsel.”

“Of course I do! I’ve lived most of my life cloistered in a tower, and then I was kidnapped by evil’s minions, only to be rescued by my hero. And I was certainly in distress at the time. I’m pretty much the textbook definition of one!”

“Well that’s true, I guess. But you probably shouldn’t leave Revana out of the story.”

She nodded. “You’re right. You did have your plucky sidekick to help.”

“Ohh…Don’t let Revana hear you call her that!”

A giggle escaped her lips. “True. She’d probably beat me up for that one.” She opened her robe, and just as I’d hoped, she wasn’t wearing anything under it. She leaned down and kissed me, her tongue slowly pressing into mine.

I brought my hands up under her robe, caressing her incredibly smooth skin. “So…this time, can we…?”

“Oh yes, we sure can. I’ve taken some precautions since last time, so anything goes.” She sat up and slowly walked her way up to my face. 

I hadn’t noticed last time, but her labia was pierced, because of course it was. I slowly ran my tongue against her wetness as I reveled in the sight of her beautiful body. As she groaned and moved against me, I reached up and pinched her right nipple, hard.

She gasped, smiling and bucking against my face.

I kept one hand on her ass and the other on her nipple, pinching harder than I thought was reasonable, but she loved it, moving and grinding against me.

She brought her hand up on her other nipple, her breath coming faster and faster.

I focused on her clit, licking and sucking, riding the movements of her body, staring up at her as she squeezed her eyes shut tight, and a minute later, her legs trembled and her body shuddered. She rattled off a number of what had to be swears in a foreign language as her toes curled and she struggled to remain upright.

After a lot of jerks and spasms, she laughed and scooted back and laid down to kiss me.

I was rock hard, but still content to lie there, our tongues pressing together in the moonlight.

She got up and threw off her robe and motioned for me to move over, which I did. She laid down flat on the bed, face down, and gave me a smile.

I practically ripped my underwear off and positioned myself behind her. I leaned in and pressed my cock against her, and she turned, biting her lip, and said, “Do it. Oh, please do it!” I slid slowly inside her and we both moaned as a shudder went through my body.

I laid down on top of her, slowly thrusting, feeling the electricity surge through my entire body. I kissed her back and cheek, then reached my hands under her. She raised up just enough for me to slide in and squeeze her nipples again.

Her hands gripped the sheets tightly and she closed her eyes and turned to moan loudly into the pillow. 

We’d started slowly, but in no time, I was pounding faster and faster into her, encouraged by the way she moved and writhed, sometimes looking back at me with nothing but desire in her eyes. We settled into a rhythm, and I got lost in the sensation of her body and the sounds she made.

Her moans started to crescendo, and she looked back at me and said, “Oh fuck, I’m almost there!”

“Fuck, Tiq, me too!”

A few more thrusts and I groaned as her eyes went wide.

“Shoot it in me while I come!” she yelled.

I exploded into her as she squirmed and writhed, my arms wrapped tightly around her, our shared orgasm the only thing I could think or feel. I shuddered and jerked, shooting the biggest load of my life deep inside her.

Sorry, Revana.

It was minutes later before the last tremors settled down and stopped. 

We laid, still together, on the soaked sheets as she panted and said in a small voice, “Fuck. Just…fuck.”

My face was buried in her dark hair and I replied, “Yeah. Fuck.”

It was some time before we moved and slowly sat up. She pushed me back down on the bed and kissed me hard, and I was a little worried she was going to immediately want a round two, which I was not currently up for. In theory, sure, but I had serious doubts about my ability to stay conscious in the near future.

Thankfully, she sat up and put her robe back on while smiling brightly at me. “Was that reward enough for my daring hero?”

I laughed. “Oh, definitely, although if there were to be future rewards, I wouldn’t say no.”

“I should hope not,” she said, running her hand over the sheets. “Well, you can sleep here, in this…damp bed if you want, or you can share my room and we can profusely apologize to whomever does the laundry here tomorrow. 

I got my clothes and we moved to Tiq’s bedroom, which was the same as mine. We nestled under the covers and I expected to be asleep in seconds, but despite my exhaustion in more ways than one, I stayed laying there awake and looking at the ceiling.

“Hey, you still awake?” I whispered.

Tiq turned back over towards me. “Yeah. I always have trouble falling asleep. Too many thoughts that never stop, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that sometimes. Can I ask you a question?”

She scooted in close to me and wrapped an arm across my chest. “You know you can.”

“It’s something I’ve wondered a lot since coming here. To Vendira, I mean. Why is there magic here but not on Earth?”

“Oh, I’m sure there’s magic on Earth.”

“Really? What makes you say that? There’s a ton of it in myths and legends, but they’ve all pretty much been disproven with science. And a lot of it was just trying to explain things before we had a good system to explain things.”

As she pulled the covers up over her shoulder, she laughed softly. “I’m sure a lot of your legends were based on fact that got lost over time. But even if they weren’t, all living worlds have magic. There are bits and pieces from ancient lore left over from the time of dragons and their travels detailing so many different places. They all had magic, but they didn’t all have people that could use it. Dragons were the first on Vendira to channel the shae; they’re uniquely attuned to it for whatever reason. And the Dravini share that connection. Knowledge of such things led the Gorvani to search for other types, and they were, of course, ultimately successful, to the detriment of the world.

“But if humans are the only intelligent race on Earth, and they have no special attunement to its magical flows, it could be that they never developed the ability. I believe that the advent of channelers on a given world never, or exceedingly rarely, happens without an affinity at first.”

“Huh,” I said, rather shocked at this revelation. “So if I could go back as a channeler of the shae, it might be the beginnings of real magic there?”

There was a hesitation before she replied. “Yes…do you want to go back?”

“No!” I turned towards her and laid my hands on her shoulders. “I sure don’t. That’s not something you have to worry about. Not that I think it’s possible based on what Revana’s told me, but even if it were, I love my life here, even if it’s dangerous. I’m here to stay.”

“I’m glad.”

She turned away and shimmied in close, so I wrapped my arms around her, and eventually, we fell asleep.

22

I woke to sunlight filtering in through the windows, having slept soundly through the night with no dreams I could remember. 

Tiq was facing me, still asleep, her hair a mess half hanging over her face and she was drooling on the pillow. 

I smiled and tried not to laugh before I gently shook her. Then I shook her a little harder. And then harder to the point I thought it might be too much, but she snorted and her eyes fluttered open.

“Wha…”

“It’s morning now.”

She looked up at me and down at the wet pillow, closing her mouth. “Ugh.” She sat up slowly, turned the pillow upside down and laid right back down against it. “Nope.”

“I’ll come get you in a little bit, then?”

“Mmm.”

I took that as a yes, so I got up, used the bathroom, and got dressed just before there was a knock at the door. I opened it to a surprised young Dravini woman with bright blue horns who looked at me and back at Tiq a couple times. She blushed but only said, “There’s a…situation downstairs. No one knows what to do… We were hoping one of you could help.”

“And you came to me? Well, okay. What is it?”

“The High Inquisitor arrived this morning, and she and your friend Revana have been talking…and it’s, uh, not going well at all.”

I groaned. “Oh, wow. I’m not sure what I can do, but I’ll head down.”

The relief on her face was instantaneous.

I went back to tell Tiq where I was going, but she was already asleep again, so I just left, heading back to my room to get dressed.

As I entered the dining room, the tension in the air was palpable. Isik sat at the head of the long table and Revana was a few chairs down from her. Neither of them spoke, but their faces were both in permanent frowns.

When Revana saw me, she stood and said, “Oh, good! You’re here. You can tell the Inquisitor what a load of shit this is!”

“Uhhh…” I managed to say.

Isik rolled her eyes. “Yes, very eloquent. What she’s attempting to say is that she believes I deliberately withheld information from you, whereas the truth is that there was never a particularly good time to bring it up.”

“Never a time?” Revana yelled. “Maybe, oh I don’t know, during literally any conversation we’ve ever had about summoning a dragon? Any of those times? I’m pretty sure those would have been fine times!”

Isik scoffed and waved away her sentiments. “As if we needed to discuss the details of it all before now! Would you have liked me to draw out the sigils for you too? Discuss dragon anatomy? There were more pressing things to talk about! And I’m not in the habit of vomiting out each and every detail in every conversation!” She glanced over to me and said under her breath, “Although that seems to be changing.”

“Oh don’t bullshit me, Isik!” Revana was leaning over the table now, pointing a claw into the Inquisitor’s face. “This isn’t some trifling detail!”

“Hey, hey, hey!” I said, walking slowly towards the two of them. “Can one of you clue me in to what you’re even talking about?”

“The dragon summoning isn’t a summoning,” Revana said in a high pitched tone.

“It… what now?”

“If you could calm yourself for a moment,” Isik said, her voice dripping with disdain, “you might be able to actually convey some real information.” She turned to me. “The summoning is not a summoning, per se, yes. Dragons are too powerful and attuned with the shae to be summoned directly. Also there’s the problem of moving something’s physical body across all that space. For you, just your spirit was summoned, and a new body was constructed on Vendira.”

I supposed that was true, but I’d never really given it much thought; there had been too much happening then. I’d have to ask Revana later, since now did not, at all, seem like the time.

Isik continued, “In order to bring a dragon back to Vendira, it would have to willingly open its own portal. The sigils laid out on the plateau above are to open a pathway for you to travel to where we believe a dragon resides, and then you will need to make contact and convince it to come back. The power required to open a portal for such a being is beyond our ability. Even opening the portals for you to travel to another world strains what we’re capable of.”

Revana gestured wildly towards Isik. “You see!? Is this not pertinent information?”

“Hang on now,” I said. “You believe a dragon is at…wherever you’re planning on sending us?”

Isik’s head fell into her hands. “Yes,” she said through gritted teeth. “I just knew this was going to come up.”

“You see,” Revana yelled, “She’s trying to embroil us in this half-baked plan that she’s just now really telling us about!” She turned back to Isik and said, “What other bullshit have you been hiding!?”

With a growl, Isik suddenly stood, her chair scraping across the tile and falling over. She slammed her hands, which burst into black shadows, down on the table and said through clenched teeth, “I have had just about enough of you.”

“Oh that’s right, JUST BRAND ME, ISIK! It’s all you Gorvani know how to do!”

Isik’s eyes went wide and a vein stood out on her forehead. The magic at her hands flared.

Revana flinched and smiled viciously. “Oh look! You can’t! And you have no fucking idea what to do if you can’t torture anyone!”

Isik looked seconds away from exploding, and to my horror, I saw her shadowblade begin to materialize by her side.

Revana began to glow.

“ENOUGH!” I yelled, and they both froze, turning slowly towards me. It was the first time I remembered yelling at anyone at the top of my lungs, and I certainly had never done so at the two of them. “You,” I said, pointing at Isik, “put that damn sword away and stop being so condescending!” I jabbed my finger at Revana in turn, saying, “And you! Stop provoking her and maybe try giving her the benefit of the doubt!”

Isik’s sword puffed away in a mass of shadows, and while she tried to school her face to neutrality, apparently the best she could do was a curled lip aimed at Revana, who folded her arms and looked away, muttering. 

“Look,” I said, “Isik should have told us about all this before, yes, but can you at least try and believe she didn’t withhold it out of maliciousness?”

Revana’s bright eyes flared at me. “I can’t believe you’re taking her side!”

“I’m not,” I said, exasperated. “But try and think of the Mulaq’shae’s plans! Your plans for summoning me. They weren’t rock solid from the get-go, were they? Did everyone communicate everything at every turn? All of us that are fighting the empire are just doing our best, right?”

Revana’s gaze flicked back forth between me and Isik before she shrugged dramatically and said, “Well, I guess.”

That was probably the best I was going to get, so I turned on Isik and said, “And you need to stop being such a condescending asshole.” The second the words had left my mouth, I regretted them. I was trying to diffuse this situation and that was not the way to do it. I had to admit to myself though, that while I was really starting to actually like Isik, I was feeling somewhat protective of Revana in this situation, even though I was trying to talk her down as well.

However, to my immense surprise, Isik just started laughing. “Oh, but Michael,” she said with a smile still on her lips, “it’s the Inquisitor way.”

Revana immediately looked away, and I could see that she was trying to suppress a smile of her own.

I chuckled softly. “So it is. But for the purposes of this conversation, maybe you can, like, just try a little?”

She sighed heavily. “Oh, I suppose.”

“Good. I won’t ask that anyone apologizes to anyone else, but maybe we can start this all over with a little more good faith?”

Belatedly, I noticed that a small breakfast spread had been set out, and it included some dulcet jumpers, so I took a couple and sat down across the table from Revana. I was about to say something else, but Tiq stumbled into the room in her robe. I wondered if she was wearing anything under it this morning, but given Vendira’s attitude towards modesty, she probably wasn’t, and what’s more, no one would even bat an eye.

Her hair was still a mess and her eyes still heavy with sleep, but she jumped a little when she saw who was sitting with us. “Inquisitor Isik.”

“Lady Tiquette.”

They eyed each other for a moment before Tiq plopped down beside Revana. She brightened a little and said, “Oh, jumpers, alright.” She proceeded to stuff one in her mouth as she looked around at all of us. “Shit. What did I miss?” she asked with a mouth full of pastry.

I briefly explained the situation, leaving out most of the angry parts.

“Oh, that makes sense,” she said, starting in on the second jumper.

Revana stared daggers at her after this easy acceptance, but Tiq either didn’t notice or did a really good job of pretending. Revana stalked out of the room, and instead of sitting there awkwardly with Tiq and Isik, I went after her.

I caught up to her in the middle of one of the terraced fields, which I assumed she’d chosen at random just to be out of the manor house. “Uh, hey.”

She turned, and after clearly wrestling down her anger, she said, “Yeah, so, I’m sorry.”

“Oh, you don’t need to apologize to me.”

“I do, though. I got out of hand in there. I was just so surprised at the whole thing, and I might have let my emotions get the better of me. I’m really trying to do better with Isik, but, I don’t know…”

I put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay. You’ve got a lifetime of horrible memories to overcome. No one’s asking you to be her best friend or anything. But maybe don’t antagonize her so much. You came a little close to getting skewered in there.”

She scoffed. “I’d have blocked it.”

“That’s, uh, maybe not the point.”

She groaned loudly and put her face in her hands. “You’re right, you’re right. But this whole dragon thing just got way more complicated.”

We started walking through the field, which was filled with clumps of waist-high, bright red grass with yellow tips. I reached out and ran my hand through a bit of it, and it was incredibly soft. “It is, but that doesn’t change the fact that we’re still going to do it, right? We busted up a sigilarium. We broke Tiq out of a prison that no one’s ever broken out of! We’re gonna summon this dragon, assault Telorn, and kick the emperor in the balls until he’s dead.”

Revana burst out laughing and almost tripped over some of the plants. “Is that how we’re gonna do it? Just…kick him in the balls…over and over, until he dies?”

I shrugged. “I mean, he deserves it, right?”

“Oh, wow, yes he does. I had just imagined like, cutting his head off, or blasting him to pieces with the shae or something, but this ball-kicking idea does have some merit, I have to admit.”

“I’m sure he’s completely up his own ass, you know? Totally self-important, probably thinks of himself as a god, right? So how humiliating would it be if we not only beat him, but beat him like that. It’d go down in the history books. ‘Ruled for so many centuries, eventually assassinated by scrotum kicking.’”

It was good to see her laughing after the last few days and this morning. I gave her shoulder a tight squeeze. “We really will do it. We’ll summon this dragon, or convince it to summon itself, or whatever.”

She turned and hugged me, burrowing her face into my neck. “I always knew the road would be hard. But now that we’re walking it, I…I just doubt that I can do it. We’ve been so lucky so far; no one close to us has died, and I still worry that I won’t be able to handle it until the end, that I’m not good enough.”

I squeezed her tight. “Now that’s just crazy talk. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”

She laughed softly, without humor. “That’s nice of you to say.”

I took a step back, my hands on her shoulders, and looked into her beautiful, golden eyes. “I am not just saying that. You risked so much to summon me here. You’ve endured excruciating pain many times over even just since I’ve met you. Remember all those korids we fought through? Remember that time you saved me while being branded? Remember all that other stuff I just brought up that we totally did? You’re fucking amazing, Revana, and don’t let anyone, least of all you, tell you otherwise!”

Her lip trembled, and tears started their way down her cheeks.

I took her hands in mine, thinking back to what Isik had said, and if I was ever going to say it, now was the time. 

“Revana, I—”

“I love you.”

My brain stopped working, and I just stared, expressionless back at her for a moment before I could move again. I smiled and said, “I love you too.”

23

We walked through the terraces for some time, not really saying anything else, just enjoying each other’s company before we had to go back to the manor and deal with reality.

The dining hall was empty, but after asking around, we found Tiq in a very richly appointed study on the fourth floor, showered, dressed, and poring over a huge desk covered in scattered maps and what almost looked like blueprints. 

She didn’t look up when we entered. I had to clear my throat before I think she was even aware anyone was there. “Oh, yes, hi! I’m looking over the cult’s celestial calibrations.” She said that like I knew what in the world she was talking about.

Revana glanced over at me and smiled. “She means that the summoning, or whatever we’re gonna call it, needs to target a very specific place, unlike your summoning, which just reached out over a broad area to find anyone it could. This is all going to take orders of magnitude more power, and zeroing in on the target will reduce the energy needed.”

Tiq, without looking up, pointed at her. “Just so. I’m actually really impressed with the work the cult’s done here, but of course, their math could use some refinement. I’ve already located a few small errors and places where sigils can be overlapped to a greater degree and engage in some synergy. Should make the whole thing take less from the two of you, but also take fewer materials in the first place.”

The door opened behind us and Isik stepped in. She eyed the room briefly before walking up to us. “Michael. Revana.”

“Hi, Isik.”

Revana gave her a completely expressionless gaze. “Hello, Inqui—Isik. I, uh…I’m…sorry…about this morning.” She sounded like she was forcing out each word.

Isik gave her a dubious look in reply for a moment before she looked away and said, “Well, perhaps…both of us…could have done better. I suppose.” After they shared a long, tense look, she continued, “I will attempt to be less…Gorvani.”

Revana gave her the smallest smile, but a smile nonetheless. “I’ll try to be less distrusting.”

“Must you all have this conversation right here?” Tiq asked. “I’m doing math.”

“What have you found?” Isik asked.

“They’ve done very good work, but there’s room for improvement. I’ve already identified many areas that could be altered.”

“Of course you have,” Isik replied. “I’d have expected nothing less.”

Revana and I made our exit and once we were away from the door, she laughed. “Oh, those two. I knew they were going to love each other.”

“They…were?”

“Oh come on, now. Both methodical, both love solving mysteries. They’ve got a lot of differences, but they’re so much alike in a lot of ways. Now come on, there’s a lot of things we could be helping with.”

The next few days after that were spent preparing for the ritual. Osaarin had many tasks even I could help with, and they almost all involved carrying heavy things around, but it was nice to be useful, and to feel like we were getting close to actually pulling all this off.

Revana and I sat down with him one evening to talk about what would actually be happening.

“Isik was correct. Directly summoning a dragon could only be accomplished by another dragon; we couldn’t even come close to having enough energy to do so. Instead, we will open a portal to the world on which the dragon resides—”

“Where you think it resides,” I said.

Osaarin nodded. “Yes, just so. However, it is a highly educated guess. We have been scrying out into the cosmos for many years now, and it is extremely likely that our efforts have pinpointed a dragon. Everything we know of them from the ancient Dravizek Celestori’s work is consistent with our current findings. If you would trust Lady Tiquette more than me, you are free to ask her as well; she has reviewed our findings and concurs with the results.”

Revana and I shared a look, and she said, “Well, that is actually very reassuring.”

“However, if we are indeed wrong, all that will happen is nothing. Should the world you travel to be the wrong one, you will just return empty-handed.”

“What if this other world doesn’t have a power like the shae?” Revana asked.

“Your connection to the portal will allow you to draw the shae from Vendira. There is a limit in how far you can travel from it, but our calculations should put you very close to your target.”

“How long do we have once we enter?” I asked.

“Once the portal is manifested and stable, we have supplies here to sustain it for…months, if it comes to it. I can’t imagine such a thing would ever be necessary, though, so you need not worry about it closing and stranding you there. The largest concern will be making contact with the dragon and convincing it to return.”

“And if it just says no?” I asked.

Osaarin spread his hands and grimaced. “There’s little you or anyone could do in such a situation.”

We all sat there in an awkward silence for a few moments before Revana asked, “Are there other dragons, should this one not be willing?”

“We have found traces around the cosmos, but admittedly, they could be other phenomena. The one we’re aiming for now is almost certainly what we seek. Should it prove to be unwilling, or perhaps not even what we think it is, there are other options, but they would require a lot of…”

“Exploratory portals?” I supplied.

Osaarin nodded. “Yes. And given the monumental effort this one we’re attempting is…it wouldn’t be prudent to try the other options until this one is proven to be unworkable.”

The day after that, we all spent it putting the finishing touches on the sigils laid down on the high plateau. All the people in the place came and went, and there was a noticeable excitement in the air as their long plans were finally coming to fruition. Revana and I were treated like minor celebrities, which she enjoyed but I was still somewhat uncomfortable with. 

I had grown accustomed to being Vendira’s hero, but again I was riddled with doubts about what would happen once we began the ritual. Tiq told us she was as confident as Osaarin about there being an authentic dragon on the other side of the portal, but she expressed some concern about our ability to power the ritual. 

“Doing it with only materials is not only prohibitively expensive in all likelihood, but there probably are’t enough catalysts that could be procured anyway. And since there are no records of shae channelers — the Gorvani destroyed or tucked any they had away in their vaults — there’s no way to measure your abilities as channelers against using the catalysts without extensive testing. So no, I can’t tell you that you can do it.”

She said all that in a clinical tone and while I appreciated her honestly, I probably could have used a pep talk instead. But there was nothing to be done but try, so the night before I got as much sleep as I could, which was…some.

24

The morning of the summoning, or portaling?, almost everyone had gathered on a terrace below to watch the proceedings.

I found Revana in high spirits: today was going to be the day she was going to meet a dragon in the flesh. Her mood made me feel much better about our chances, and I did my best to remain positive.

Isik stood off to the side. There was no expression on her face, but she tapped her foot rapidly while her gaze flitted from one thing to the next while Tiq, Osaarin, and a few other people were making last minute adjustments to the ritual sigils. When she saw me, she walked over. “There wasn’t a good opportunity to bring it up before, but congratulations on murdering one of the royalty, even if it was only the Sixteenth Son. News has been suppressed, of course, but it’s been filtering through the higher echelons of the empire.”

“Oh, right, that! Well, actually, it didn’t quite go down that way.” I explained the situation with the Fourteenth Daughter and how she’d finished him off instead of us.

Isik’s expression immediately soured. “Oh. Well, I can see why that story didn’t get out. I’m sure no one knows it besides the lot of you and her. More to the point, her involvement at all isn’t in the gossip making the rounds, so she must have control of the narrative.

“The fact that you’ve got her attention is worse than you know. She’s a complete psychopath,” she said, shrugging, “even more so than the rest of the royalty. However, while she’s as pompous as they all are, she’s not stupid. Her direct involvement makes everything much more dangerous.” She looked around at the buzz of activity surrounding us. “I hope this works. We might not be as safe here as we think if she’s looking for you.”

Our conversation was cut short as Osaarin walked to the edge overlooking the rest of the Celestori below and raised his hands. “Today is the day we’ve worked for for many long years. I appreciate all you have done for the cause, and I hope you have as much pride in our efforts as I do today! But this isn’t the end; it’s only the beginning. Today, we bring back to our home one of the races the Gorvani tried to exterminate, and with it, we bring back a symbol of hope that will race across the land, striking fear into the Emperor and his children and bring hope to everyone that suffers under his rule. For Vendira!”

The gathered crowd cheered, and then it was our turn. I tried to put what Isik had said out of my mind. Revana and I took our places on opposite sides of the sigils drawn out on the stone. She nodded to me, smiling, and I nodded back. It was time.

I pulled in as much of the shae as I could, and I saw Revana glow at the same instant. We pushed the magic into the patterns below us, and one by one, the sigils started to glow, bright and golden. From the sides, standing outside the ritual area, Osaarin and Tiq directed us on what needed to be done next.

I thought the spell to extend Revana’s brand had been complicated, but this was layers and layers of patterns, interlocking and overlaid on each other, some needing to be done before others, some needing to be done at the exact same time. I focused solely on channeling as much as I could and left the thinking to the others; I just did what I was told and when, and after what seemed like hundreds of layers, the entire thing began glowing faster than we channeled into it: it was starting to power itself.

A tiny light appeared in the air above the center of the spell, trailing curving tendrils of golden light. Slowly, ever so slowly, it grew and grew, making the strangest sound I’d ever heard. It was an otherworldly tone that was low and high pitched at the same time, and as the light grew, it became louder.

Once the nascent portal was big enough, I began to see things through it. At first it was just darkness, but then light came through, colors and shifting vistas, and I could just start to make out what looked like landscapes through the still expanding portal.

I kept channeling as hard as I could, although I was starting to really feel the strain of pulling all the shae I could at once.

The view inside the now very large gateway solidified into a land of green grass and blue skies, and for a second, I got homesick in a way I never thought I would.

But that only lasted for a few short seconds before it blurred, and what I saw started to shift rapidly, from one alien world into another.

Osaarin began yelling, directing Revana and I to bolster certain sections of the sigils, but as I pushed energy towards them, they seemed to resist. “No! It’s becoming unstable! Channel directly into the portal itself!”

I did the best I could, and I saw Revana’s gaze raise up as she did the same. For a time, it worked, although the world I saw through it wasn’t the same as the first. 

The weird tone that had been more or less consistent throughout began to fluctuate, and when it became too loud and wild, the portal would shift violently. It opened up onto what looked like a snowy mountaintop, and frigid winds assaulted me along with a barrage of ice and snow. It was cold enough to be painful, but I powered through and kept channeling.

It shifted to somewhere under an ocean, and Revana took the brunt of a massive spout of water that rushed out over her. She was washed to the edge of the plateau, but there were fences in place to keep her from falling off, and she kept glowing the entire time.

The gateway was getting larger with each shift, and I had no idea if that was good or bad. Another deafening peak in the tone and another shift, and I looked up in horror at the black void of space pinpricked with a thousand tiny stars. It began sucking everything towards it. I turned and dove to the ground, wrapping my fingers in the shallow channels that had been cut in the rock to fill with ritual material. It was barely anything, but it was something. Screams erupted from around me, but all I could do was hold on.

Thankfully, the portal shifted again, getting even bigger, and I was able to turn and see that no one had gotten sucked into it during the brief time it was open into the depth of space. This time, it looked into a massive, metal room filled with cages with thick bars. Thinking it was at least less dangerous than the others, I let my guard down a tiny bit, which was, of course, a stupid thing to do.

An enormous creature slammed into the portal and was ejected onto the plateau where it landed roughly before immediately righting itself. It was easily two stories tall. It was covered in thick, white fur, had three tails and two sets of feathered wings, and it stood on four legs, which ended in feathered feet capped with three huge, vicious-looking talons each. Its most noticeable feature, though, was one massive eye in the front; it had no neck or head, just the huge eye, which looked oddly human but bright, neon orange. It reared back up on its hind legs and a sharp-toothed, sideways maw opened up on what I would have called its chest, and it roared, which sounded like a very deep elephant’s trumpeting. It was only the second weirdest sound I’d heard that day.

I drew my sword and reflexively summoned my armor, which naturally cut into the amount of power I could provide to the ritual.

Before I could manage anything, though, Isik was running full speed at the creature. She was covered, head to toe, in tenebrous armor and she had two shadowblades at her side. They both whipped up at the monster, straight into its one huge eye, but they bounced off without a single cut. I think she was as surprised as I was, since she stopped short.

The creature looked down at her and swiped.

She barely avoided it by rolling underneath.

I ran in, my sword held high, and I thrust it into the beast’s leg, where it only sank in a few inches before it batted me away. I soared and rolled on the stone, my armor taking all of the impact.

Revana opened one of the portals she’d used against Gor’drelar, and was able to launch a few shae spears into the back of the monster. They, like my sword, penetrated, but only slightly, before they faded away. She fell to a knee, panting from the effort of all the channeling she was doing.

Isik tried ramming her swords unto the underbelly of the thing with similar, lackluster results.

It hopped back, much, much faster than I would have thought possible, and swiped at Isik again with uncanny speed. Its giant talons raked straight through her armor, which dissipated in a puff of shadows. 

She screamed and was thrown back to the ground with deep gouges in her abdomen that were covered in an orange fluid. I looked up to look at the claws, and they dripped with the vile substance.

Tiq yelled at me, “Cut off a piece of its talons! Cut off the end!”

I didn’t hesitate; I ran full speed at it. I couldn’t remember any memory-dreams that involved fighting huge ass monsters, but the calm of battle fell over me all the same, and I rushed in close, trying to cut it as best I could. I avoided blow after blow, my focus on dodging since it seemed my armor might not be enough to defend against it.

Finally, I saw my opening, and I pushed all the shae I could into my sword, even dropping my armor, hoping Revana could keep the portal open herself for a few seconds. My blade sliced cleanly through this time, and I cut off a piece of its talon about as long as my forearm.

It reared back and screamed its otherworldly scream, and seconds later, bright balls of arcanic lightning slammed into its open mouth. It stumbled back, and I diverted all the magic I could back to the portal. 

Tiq continued hammering its mouth with her device, and seconds later, the beast hopped backwards, directly into the gateway. It was dumped into a dark place, lit only by sporadic blue lights. It wasn’t where it had come from, but I didn’t care.

“Stop!” Osaarin yelled. “Close it! Shut it down! Stop channeling and let it go!”

I did as he said, letting the pull of shae in me fade away. 

Revana stopped glowing as well, and the portal collapsed in on itself with a thunderous boom.

The sigils stopped glowing.

I fell to my knees.

I looked around, assessing how bad things actually were.

Revana was sitting on the ground, panting. Tiq was still standing, her device around her shoulders. Osaarin stood there with a bewildered expression on his face.

Isik was on her back, unmoving, a pool of blood growing around her.

25

I ran to Isik, dropping to my knees.

She looked weakly up at me, grimacing in pain. Her abdomen had two vicious gashes running all the way across her body, both of which oozed with strange, orange fluid.

“W-what, what do I do!?” I stammered.

Revana rushed up to my side and Tiq was yelling orders, but I couldn’t pay attention to what she said.

“Revana…can you heal her?”

She shook her head. “I can heal myself, but healing someone else is infinitely more complicated. Besides which, Gorvani might not even be susceptible to shae healing; they might need the tenebrae.”

“Idiots,” Isik said softly. “Just let me die. Why trouble yourselves over me?”

“No!” I said. “You shut up. You’re going to be okay.”

Tiq shook my shoulder hard. “Pick her up. Follow me and bring her to the warehouse.” She set off, and although I was still in a daze, I did as she said, slipping my arms under Isik and picking her up off the ground. She cried out in pain, but I didn’t stop; I followed Tiq under the hopes she knew what she was doing. I also belatedly noticed she held the severed piece of talon in her hand, wrapped up in a cloth.

Isik looked up at me as we made our way down the terraces. “Michael, just set me down. It’s alright. I deserve this.”

“Shut up.”

She smiled. “But I do. This is a better death than I ever thought I’d receive. It’s almost…a gift.”

I didn’t reply; I just kept moving. Once we were at the facility’s warehouse, Tiq commanded a few bystanders to make space, and I sat Isik down on a table they cleared. 

Revana showed up seconds later with a pair of curved scissors. “Tiq said to cut her shirt off and to staunch the bleeding.” The blades slipped right through Isik’s clothes, exposing her chest. I looked down at her wounds and saw that they weren’t nearly as deep as I had thought, but snaking out from them in all directions were wavy, orange lines. 

Her cuts went straight through her brand, which was different than any I’d seen before. It was just as big, but the lines were much more angular and spaced out. What that meant, I had no idea, but the places where her flesh had been cut, the shadowy lines of her brand still persisted, floating in the open air. 

“Wow,” I muttered, “you really can’t cut the brand out.”

Revana shook her head. “Nope. It’s been tried.” She and I did our best to press a series of bandages over Isik’s wounds, but I flinched each time she groaned out in pain. Finally, though we were bloody messes, the bleeding seemed to have stopped for the moment. Revana left to help Tiq with whatever it was she was doing across the room while issuing a constant slew of orders, some for materials, some for equipment, and some for people to get out of her way.

Isik’s eyes were unfocused and her blue skin looked so pale. I took her hand in mine and said, “You’re going to be okay,” as much to myself as to her. Tears started to fall from my eyes, and it wasn’t until right then that I realized how much I had come to consider her a friend, and how much I didn’t want to lose her.

Her eyes fluttered as she tried to turn towards me. “Idiot,” she said in a whisper. “No one cares about an Inquisitor.” The orange lines were even more prominent on her skin, snaking ever further away from under the bandages.

I squeezed her hand tight. “I do, dammit. I care. I don’t want you to die.”

She smiled wanly. “What…a beautiful thing…that I…never thought…to receive.”

“Michael, get out of the way.” Tiq hurried over and I moved swiftly to the side. Without preamble or hesitation, she raised a large needle in her hands and slammed it down, straight into Isik’s heart.

I’d expected her to sit up abruptly, or shake and convulse, but she didn’t do any of those things, just continued to lie there as Tiq injected whatever she’d just made. 

“Is that…?”

“An antivenom, yes.”

“And you…just like, made it? This fast? On Earth I’m pretty sure it’s a long procedure.”

Tiq finished and pulled the needle from Isik’s chest. “Oh, no, you can synthesize one immediately here as long as you have enough of the venom.”

“Is there anything you can’t do? I didn’t know you were a doctor on top of…pretty much everything else.”

She smiled. “I’m not a doctor. I’m an alchemist. Here come the real doctors.”

We made way as a few Dravini came in with what looked like a portable surgical suite and began to work on Isik’s wounds.

Tiq, Revana, and I stood to the side and watched. I said, “So, is she…?”

Tiq shrugged. “Like I said, I’m not a doctor, but she’s lost a lot of blood. Of course the antivenom will work, though. I made it.” She gave me the ghost of a smile before heading back over to help in whatever way she could.

Revana looked at the scene with a complex series of emotions passing across her face. I raised an eyebrow at her and she said, “It’s weird. My whole life, I’d have loved to watch as an Inquisitor died. Morbid, I know, but still. And here we are, and I just don’t know how to feel. The old me still thinks she has it coming and should have been in worlds more pain. But…” She glanced over to me and looked down. “I know you think fondly of her now, and I don’t want you to be in pain. And, oh I don’t know…maybe she’s not the worst person I’ve ever met.”

She chuckled and ran her hands over her face. “A couple days ago I was ready to fight her to the death for a perceived slight. Well, okay, a real slight. But now? I don’t know. I don’t know what to think or feel. And, well…” She gestured upwards and said, “We failed. We couldn’t open the portal.”

Right. The portal. I’d actually forgotten about it.

I backed up to a wall and slid slowly down it, looking at the people working on Isik. Revana sat down beside me and I said, “It’s been a little while since everything’s gone to shit.”

She laughed softly. “Guess we were overdue.” She took my hand in hers and squeezed. “She’ll be okay.”

“What are you basing that on?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, really.”

“I’m still going to take it.”

We sat there for a little bit before it became somewhat clear that we were in the way, so we stood and stumbled out. We headed up the terraces to where we’d failed to create the portal. I’m not sure why we went there, but Osaarin was standing there alone, looking out over the mountains.

He turned when we approached and asked, “How is she?”

Revana held out her hands. “Tiquette created and antivenom, but the doctors are working on her other injuries. Honestly, I can’t say, but she’s in good hands, and I won’t be surprised if she makes a full recovery soon.” She sounded like she meant it, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she was saying it mostly for my sake.

Osaarin nodded and looked out over the ritual markings. “I suppose it could have been much worse, considering, but as far as the portal goes, I think we can safely say it was a rousing success.”

We both stood there just staring at him for a moment before I said, “Uh, really? I’m pretty sure we failed. Spectacularly.”

He turned and cocked his head at me. “Why would you say that? You two were able to create a legitimate portal! One big enough for that hideous beast to not only come here, but leave again! Do you not see how incredible that is? We were worried that it would be difficult enough to have the two of you cross through.”

“But,” Revana said, “even with both of us channeling as much as we could, we didn’t even come close to stabilizing it. Without another channeler or two, I don’t see how it’s going to be possible.”

He just smiled at her words and said, “Oh, don’t think the Celestori are out of tricks just yet. There is indeed a way to bolster your ability. Well, Michael’s at least.”

“Aaaand you didn’t bring this up until now because?” I asked.

“Ah, well,” he said haltingly as he spread his hands, “the item in question is not…it will be difficult to obtain.”

Revana stepped towards him with a determined look on her face, “Don’t tell me you know of the location of another shae relic?”

Osaarin inclined his head. “Just so. And it will allow Michael to access the power you’ll need for our next, successful attempt. However, there is a complication, which is why we didn’t retrieve the relic this time. We had hoped not to need to send anyone into danger unless it was necessary.”

“This’ll be great,” I said. “Is it in the Emperor’s back pocket? On the moon? In the center of the world.?”

“It’s…” he said with a pained expression, “ensconced in an ancient ruin in the ninth.”

Revana recoiled, her eyes wide in horror. “Fuck,” was all she said.

I waited for one of them to tell me what that meant, but after a few seconds, I had to say, “You two know I don’t know what you’re talking about, right? What’s so bad about the ninth?”

“Oh, right.” Revana shook herself out of a trance. “Do you remember me telling you about the yargeth?”

“I sure don’t.”

“Well, they’re massive creatures, easily ten or twelve or more stories tall, and the ninth is where most of them reside. The whole province was carved into the shape it is because it’s their territory. The empire apparently tried to move or kill them, and even with all their power, they weren’t able to do anything.”

“Wow, these things are that strong?”

Osaarin nodded and picked up the explanation, “They’re covered in fur and scales, and no magic or weapon has ever done more than the smallest scratch. Combine that with how incredibly aggressive they can be, and it was decided long ago to just leave them alone. The ninth is almost completely undeveloped land because of them.”

“If you want to know more about them,” Revana said, “I’m sure Tiquette would be more than happy to tell you all about them. I can see her face now when we tell her we’re going there. She’s going to come and nothing we say is going to dissuade her, since not much is really known about them, and you can imagine what she thinks about a mystery.”

“I sure can. So, can we just sneak by or something? How many of these things are out there?”

“There are methods,” Osaarin said, “of baiting them away and evading them, all of which you’ll need to use to come out of the ninth alive. As said, the yargeth are incredibly aggressive, and couple that with very keen senses, and you’ll be hard pressed to just ‘sneak by’ them. As for how many there are out there? No one has been able to get a good count, but there will be enough that you won’t be lucky and just not happen upon any.”

“This is, uh, the only holy relic there is, right? Not one locked away in some Gorvani vault?”

Osaarin smiled and spread his hands. “Afraid not. And this one was ensconced where it was because even the empire fears to enter the ninth.”

I took a long, deep breath. “Outstanding. Before we deal with any of that, I need to go lie down for a while. Maybe eat something. Maybe have one or eight stiff drinks.”

26

I slept soundly that night and woke late the next morning. After an extremely healthy breakfast that consisted of dulcet jumpers and an entire pot of hachi, I went to see Isik, who’d been placed upstairs in her own room, which was about four times as big as the bedroom I’d been put in.

The doctors had told me that she’d pulled through remarkably well, considering, but she would be in bed for some time. When I entered her room, she wasn’t moving, so I pulled up a chair and sat by the side of the bed, just letting my mind wander wherever it would.

A while later, she stirred, and when she rolled over and saw me there, she scoffed. “Don’t tell me you’ve been sitting by my side this whole time.” Her purple hair was a complete mess, all tangled and laying in all directions, a stark contrast to her usual prim and proper appearance. 

I chuckled. “No, I've only been here for a little bit. Came up after breakfast, but I didn’t want to wake you up. How are you doing?”

She looked into my eyes, unblinking, for some time before she leaned back and said, “I’ll live. I’m not sure why any of you went to the trouble, but I’ll live.”

I wasn’t exactly sure how to respond to that, so we sat in silence before I eventually asked, “Is being an Inquisitor really that lonely? Don’t you have, you know, any friends?”

“Friends? That’s rich. I have colleagues and enemies, and there’s a significant overlap between those two groups, and both of them would just as soon see me dead, either for political advantage or vengeance. Or both.” She didn’t move, but her eyes wandered over to me. “You know…Michael…” She seemed pretty uncomfortable with wherever she was going with this. “I’ve given a lot of thought lately as to why I seem to be so…forthcoming with you. It goes against all my instincts and better thoughts, but when you ask me questions, I find myself rambling like an idiot.”

“It’s because I’m just so likable.”

She snorted and laughed, then grimaced and held her stomach. “Oh, don’t make me laugh.”

“You’re…gonna be okay, right?”

She nodded. “Yes. The danger has largely passed. And Revana was correct at the time; the Gorvani cannot be healed by the shae, only by the tenebrae. The royals do it almost automatically, but the rest of us must channel. Unfortunately, my ability to do so is minimal at best right now, and couple that with the fact that I, personally, am just plain unskilled at healing…It will be some time before I recover fully.

“But back to what I was saying. I have not, since my adolescence, had anyone I felt comfortable speaking with, but I do with you. And it’s not just because you asked me questions about myself whereas no one else would. Well, not just that. It’s that…you don’t have a lifetime of hate and fear of the Gorvani. Imagine Revana asked me about myself. No, no, just imagine it, even though it would never happen. Would I just casually rattle off to her all the things I say to you? Of course not.”

“You have been pretty forthcoming in her presence, though.”

“Well, I wanted the two of you to trust me. I still don’t know that she does.”

“She’s trying.”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “I suppose that’s the best I could hope for. Although I can’t say I helped the situation the other morning. It’s just…she was being so obstinate! If she could have just shut her mouth and—”

I held up my hands. “Uh, this is the kind of attitude that’s still not helping.”

She sighed again, running her hands over her face. “You’re right. I’ve spent years upon years branding people for even slightly questioning me. Not because I love doing it, but because it’s how things are done.”

I arched an eyebrow at her. “You don’t like doing it at all? I’m supposed to believe that?”

“Oh, fine. But please understand it’s not that I like hurting people, but yes, I do like them immediately shutting up.”

I thought back to thousands of shitty retail situations I’d been in, completely unable to do anything but stand there and absorb abuse, and the thought of being able to brand those people was really, really appealing. “Yeah, I can only imagine that it’s a really convenient thing to be able to do.” She cocked her head and stared at me after this, so I asked, “...What?”

She shook her head the tiniest amount. “The way you respond to me is so bizarre sometimes.”

“How so?”

“I was talking about essentially torturing people for minor offenses, and instead of telling me I’m a monster, you just…agreed with me.”

“Uh, well,” I said, shrugging, “I can relate to dealing with people being…frustrating. I find some of the things you say to be pretty relatable, and I don’t know, I guess I kinda gloss over the…the horrors. I’m not sure why. I suppose I just want to like you…because…um…”

“Just say it.”

“Because nobody else does. And that’s sad.”

Her smile didn’t touch her eyes as she said, “It’s alright, Michael. No one’s supposed to like monsters, although it means a lot that you’re trying.”

I reached out and took her hand in mine. 

She looked at it, and up at me, but didn’t say anything or pull away. 

“I’m not going to tell you you’re not a monster. I’m sure you’ve done a lot of pretty awful things. And you’ve talked before about ‘balancing the scales’ and such, but I think that’s a bad way of thinking. Maybe you won’t ever be able to do enough good to balance things out in your head, but that doesn’t mean any good you do from here on out is less good, you know? So you’re a monster, but so what? You can always just…stop. It’ll be hard to change, but it’s always a choice you have. And all the good you do from now on is still good, no matter what you did in the past.”

We sat there in the morning sun, hand in hand, for a long time before she moved or responded at all. “Even if I try, who will believe it? Who will see me as anything different? Even the Celestori here, with whom I’ve worked for some time now, still guard themselves around me. I hear jovial conversations around a corner and they fall away the second I come into view. They know what I am.”

“You’re not going to be able to convince everyone.” I gave her hand a tight squeeze and looked into her bright orange eyes. “But there’s someone else you really need to convince first.”

“And that is?”

“You. You need to stop hating yourself.”

She opened her mouth, and I could tell there was some flippant quip on the end of her tongue, but it never came. Her lips worked soundlessly and began to quiver, very slightly. She looked away and pulled her hand out of mine. “Please go, Michael. Thank you for your kind words,” she said, her voice trembling, “but go. Now. Please.” She was clearly holding back tears, and I couldn’t imagine she’d cried in front of anyone for maybe her whole life. It might also have been the first time I’d ever heard her say please.

I stood and said, “We’re leaving soon, but I’ll come see you again before we do.” I didn’t wait for a reply; I just quickly left and shut the door quietly behind me.

Later, Tiq and I were in one of the manor’s many sitting rooms, underneath a huge set of stained glass windows. She’d been reading a book, but when I asked her what it was about, I couldn’t understand a single sentence she’d said. 

“We’re going to yargeth country!?” she exclaimed after I had barely broached the topic. I hadn’t even mentioned that she would be coming, but it looked like Revana was right; she was going to invite herself. Or not even that: she would just assume she was coming along. And I guess she was right.

“I’m going to need some time to get ready!” She was up and out of the room before I could mention that we had no intention of leaving right that second.

Revana was coming in at the same moment and almost got plowed over. She sat down next to me and smiled. “I see she took it like we knew she would. Also, Osaarin gave me the details on the location of the relic, and it’s not particularly good news.”

“Well why would it have been? Is it up a yargeth’s ass or something now?”

“Nothing quite so colorful, no. Long before the empire and before the yargeth claimed those lands, there was a Surini city in what’s now the ninth. The ruins we’re looking for used to be the catacombs underneath a small castle. Unfortunately, there’s nothing left above ground. The buildings naturally crumbled, of course, but they were then just smashed flat by centuries of the beasts walking through. So what we’re looking for isn’t going to be noticeable until we’re pretty much right on top of it, and most of the area is grasslands filled with rolling hills, so there’s not going to be much to go on.”

“Great. So we’re looking for something we can’t see until we’re there. How in the world are we supposed to pull this off?”

“We’ll be traveling mainly by night, because the stars are the best way to figure out where we’re going.”

I assume you know how to travel using the stars? Because I sure don’t.”

“I do, but Tiq’s even better. Because she should be; she’s an Astrologian primarily.”

“Oh, alright,” I said. “Are the yargeth asleep during the night?”

“Uh, no. They don’t actually sleep in the way you mean.”

I gave her a level look, and in that moment, Tiq walked back in. Revana asked that she try and explain.

She smiled brightly, obviously pleased at the chance to talk about them. “They have seven heads—”

“Of course they do.”

She continued as if I hadn’t interrupted her. “And we’re reasonably sure they all have their own brain, because some heads enter a state of lowered activity, but the animals never seem to actually lie down and sleep completely, so it’s theorized that all the heads can independently control the body.”

“Uh huh. So what you’re telling me is that there’s never a really safe time to move.”

“Precisely.”

I sighed inwardly. Then outwardly. The old me would have been completely overwhelmed by this stupid plan, but we’d pulled off so much crazy shit already, that this was just one more thing to add to the pile. “Alright, fuck it. Let’s go get ready. How do we even get to the ninth anyway?”

Revana said, “Well, we’ll take the portals as close as we can and then it’s just walking into the woods from there. No one patrols the border to the ninth because all there is to do there is get eaten or stomped on by yargeth.” Suddenly realizing what she’d just said, she made an obvious attempt to change the subject. “We got a few more fake IDs, and good news! You’re not Shum this time!”

“Uh huh,” I said, neutrally. “Is it better than Shum?”

“It’s, uh, Tem. Tem Tuli.”

I blinked. “Well, you know what? It is better than Shum. Not by a lot, but some. Maybe. I guess.”

27

The next day, we’d gathered what we could and I’d spoken to Isik one last time. Apparently the dragon cult had long awaited just this day, because it turned out that they had a full complement of materials to deal with the yargeth prepped and ready to go. They handed each of us a small but packed-full bag and I was assured that Tiq had already read all the instructions and could brief us both on the way. 

We were dressed in clothes suitable for hiking and sleeping out under the stars, as that’s what we would be doing, and for some reason, Tiq had dyed her hair a bright, neon pink, and she had swapped her big round glasses for smaller, ovular ones.

“I’m a high profile person, and we’ll be traveling through the regular portal system, so I did what I could to change my appearance without going overboard.”

I smiled and took a lock of her hair in my fingers. “I love it.”

She blushed, smiling widely.

I was told our adventure into Monsterland would last a couple days, minimum, so that was just great. I was very much looking forward to being stressed and looking over my shoulder for the entire duration.

We also loaded up with regular hiking packs filled with food and water for the trip, and I was happy I was stronger now than when I’d come to Vendira, since I could’ve probably carried it for an hour or two maximum at that point.

The golems that would take us to the nearest convenient portal nexus that wasn’t located anywhere near Telorn were huge and comfortable, so at least part of this adventure would be somewhat relaxing. Once we got underway and the Skyshard distillery was behind a bend in the mountains, I turned to Tiq and asked, “So, how are we actually supposed to deal with the yargeth?” She still looked odd to me in clothes other than her Astrologian robes, although she was wearing her arcanic device, which was becoming more and more familiar. We were all wearing a mixture of white and bright blues, which looked pretty dorky to me but would actually be pretty effective camouflage in Vendira. At least the clothes were comfortable.

“So, yargeth can’t see, so they rely on smell and hearing, and we suspect, vibrations in the ground.”

“They’re blind?”

“Yes. But that won’t stop them from zeroing in on us with terrifying alacrity. Despite their size, they’re quite fast. The best technique for avoiding them is to leave small, smoldering pouches of pungent herbs behind us as we go, and that will lure in any yargeth to where we were instead of where we are. As for noise, it’s really up to us to do the best we can, but if we’re careful, any noise we produce should be drowned out by the wind sweeping through the grasslands. I highly advise a low speaking voice, or not speaking at all if not necessary.”

“Okay, so traveling at night just makes it harder for us to see, but doesn’t hinder these beasts from sensing us in any fashion.”

“Yes, that’s correct. We can travel a little during light hours with the help of compasses, but most of the time, we’ll be moving at night, and the yargeth will be just as dangerous then.”

“Oookay,” I said, my sense of self preservation having been thrown away a long time ago. Despite what anyone said, I couldn’t imagine the yargeth were more dangerous than infiltrating an imperial prison.

For the rest of the golem ride down the mountain, we were all lost in our own thoughts. Before I knew it, we were coming into the gate of a village like so many others I’d seen, and the portal nexus was a smaller, but similar building to any I had been in.

Tiq and Revana had gotten off earlier in the ride, near the village’s gate and were going to browse some local shops to kill some time. We had no idea if the Gorvani were looking for us, or if Gor’mina had even gotten a close look at our faces, but she could probably have at least discerned what races we were, and if two humans and a Dravini waltzed up to a portal all at once, it would be more suspicious than if we came alone.

I found the one I wanted and there was a small wait until it was scheduled to activate, so I used the time to, of course, buy myself a steaming cup of hachi. I drank it slowly and tried to calm my nerves. I’d been alone once before during all this madness, but that had turned out to be the worst time I’d spent on Vendira, impersonating an enforcer and having to choose between killing innocent people or fighting my way out. As awful as the whole thing had been, I was proud of myself for refusing to kill those people, even if it might have ended up as a mercy kill. I idly wondered if I’d ever see the two people I’d help get to safety. What were their names, now? Sera and Bairn, the latter of which might or might not even still be alive.

The portal I wanted flared into life, and the people around me lined up for it, which I joined at the end. The Gorvani attendant had the quintessential face of an overworked, underappreciated cog in the machine. She looked at everyone’s IDs, but only a perfunctory glance. Until she got to mine.

She took it and looked at it, and I held out my hand for her to give it right back, but she hesitated, brushing a dark strand of hair out of her face as a little bit more life came into her eyes. 

Shit.

“Name?”

She could clearly read it, but I said, “Tem Tuli.” What a stupid ass name. 

“Where are you going, Tem?” If she thought my name was dumb, she was doing a good job of hiding it.

“Off to a research trip into the ninth province.” At her incredulous expression following that, I added, “Not deep into it or anything. Just some geological samples from over the border.” This was the story we’d concocted if anyone asked, which I was sure they wouldn’t, but here I was.

“Research for who?”

“Astrologian Quintel Forj.” This was one of Tiq’s contemporaries, and the eclectic type of man to have research like this conducted.

“Wait here.”

She left, heading towards a raised area in the center of the building with other Gorvani, where she had a long conversation with a gruff, fat man who looked to be in charge. The blood really started to pump in my veins, and I did my best to keep calm and not start sweating in an overwhelmingly suspicious manner. The two returned, both with unfriendly looks on their faces, and the man had a file in his hands.

“Tem, is it?” This man sneered up at me, clearly amused by the name. “Tem Tuli?”

“Yep.”

“Doing…‘research,’ now, are you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What type of research?”

“Geological, sir.”

He scoffed. “I know that. For what purpose?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the Astrologian’s research, sir.” Wow I hoped that was an acceptable thing to say to a Gorvani, but I was pretty sure someone like Tiq would outrank this man by a few orders of magnitude.

A huge scowl twisted his face, but he didn’t challenge me on it. “You know what’s in the ninth, don’t you, boy?”

Boy. I just let that go. “Yargeth, sir.”

He poked me, hard, in the chest with a meaty finger. “You don’t look like you can handle a yargeth, son.”

I kept my expression as neutral as I could and looked him in the eyes. “No one can, sir. But I’m hoping to not have to deal with them; I’m just going over the border and that’s it. Either way, I’m bound to do as my superiors ask, no matter what I think of the matter.”

He cooled a little bit, stepping back and grumbling. He knew about following shitty orders. “What did you say your superior’s name is?”

“Quintel Forj, sir.”

He finally opened the file he was holding and flipped through a few pages. Apparently he found what he was looking for but didn’t like it. “Huh. Well…” He eyed me up and down, and I got the distinct impression he’d really wanted to exert what little power he wielded to ruin my day. “Get out of here,” he finally yelled, throwing up his hands and storming off.

The Gorvani woman just shrugged, handed me the ID back, and pointed me towards the portal, and I wanted to be out of her as much as she wanted me gone. Just as I was about to leave, I caught her looking at me with an odd expression.

I went through the portal.

On the other side, I got out of the nexus as fast as I could, power walking down the road and constantly looking behind me. If I was being followed, I couldn’t tell, but I still hurried as fast as able without drawing any attention. I left the city and followed a roadway for a while before diverting just before a crossroads and ducking into a forest to wait on the other two.

I kept my eyes peeled the whole time, watching for anyone else suspicious coming down the road. An hour went by, my stress through the roof until finally, I saw Revana walking down the road as well. She also turned off before the crossroad, and I emerged from the trees long enough to flag her down.

I explained what had happened to me in the nexus.

“I can’t say that it’s a good sign, but it could just be Gorvani being Gorvani. They sure like to lord their power over anyone else.”

“Maybe,” I said, unconvinced. “I think the guy sure did, but the look the woman gave me as I was leaving…I don’t know. I’ll feel a lot better once we’re out of here and into…monster country.” Ugh.

We waited and waited, but Tiq continued not to show, and the stress ramped up even higher. “She should be here by now,” I said.

Revana clenched her jaw but said nothing.

We waited.

And waited.

Eventually, I saw Tiq’s new pink hair bobbing down the road, and all the muscles in my body unclenched at once. I went out to wave her down.

She showed up with a worried look on her face and it didn’t escape my notice that she’d been checking behind her as she’d come down the road. “I can’t be sure, but we might have a problem.” She related her story, which was strikingly similar to mine, except they’d actually detained her for a while, bringing her into a room to ask endless questions. “They weren’t Inquisitors, so they didn’t really know what they were doing, but they just kept hammering me with questions. Our cover story involves a lot of true things, so it wasn’t hard to keep to, but I was sure I’d be followed afterwards.”

“Yeah, same here.”

“Oddly enough, they didn’t seem at all taken back by the device. I told them it was a research tool and started talking about soil composition in the various provinces and they were more than happy to not ask anything else about it.”

We watched the road for a little longer before we all agreed we should leave as soon as possible, so we turned into the woods and began walking. Getting away from civilization was good, but it felt worse not being able to watch our backs effectively. I kept feeling like we were being followed. 

“The forest extends for some time,” Tiq said, “and the technical border of the ninth lies inside it, so we’ll be well inside by the time we hit the grasslands, and the odds of anyone else being out there is practically zero.”

I could hear the waver in her voice. I wanted to believe it too, but I wasn’t sure I did. Still, I reasoned, there wasn’t any great way for anyone to track us this far. It could be done, but no one had seen where we’d exited the road. And maybe, just maybe, no one was following us anyway and we were getting all worked up for nothing. 

Maybe.

28

The sun was making its way down towards the horizon by the time we left the trees, so we decided to make camp there and get a little bit of sleep before setting off again once the stars were out. I was assured that there was little chance of yargeth this close to the border; the empire gave their territory an extremely wide berth.

“So no yargeth here, but is there anything else we need to worry about? Getting swallowed whole sounds bad, but so does getting ripped apart by six-mouthed wolves.”

“Whatever those are, there’s nothing like them out here,” Tiq said. “Anything bigger than a house pet stays as far away from yargeth territory as it can. There are the usual complement of insects and rodents, but that’s all. And nothing venomous, so you can sleep without worrying about that.”

“So the only real danger here is other people.”

Revana nodded. “Just so. We should set a watch on the off chance we’ve been followed all the way out here.” 

Not that there was going to be an overwhelming amount of time for sleep, but we each agreed to take a short watch while the other two slept. I took the first, and I tried valiantly to stay calm, and when it was my time to sleep, I did my best to put my fears out of my head.

I was awoken in total darkness, immediately assuming the worst, mostly because anytime I’d been woken up on Vendira, it was because the next calamity had hit, but nothing had happened this time.

Tiq had a sextant out, and I remembered what it was called only because I asked. We’d also been given a map I was happy to see, although my elation faded when I saw the quality of it. I think a toddler with some crayons could have done better. But it was better than nothing. Probably.

Vendira’s blue grasses shone in the moons’ light, waves passing through them from the soft breeze that blew by. They were waist high but easy enough to move through, and we made what seemed like pretty good time. A couple hours in, Tiq told us we should really be on the lookout, which was driven home when she stopped to deploy the first of the safety measures. 

She opened the little bag we’d all been given, took out a small pouch, tore it open and lit it on fire with a small sparking tool. It burned blue for a few seconds before she blew it out, wadded it back up, and laid it on the ground.

“That’s it?” I asked.

“That’s it. Yargeth sense of smell is extremely strong, so any scent of us will get overpowered by this, because for whatever reason, they can’t seem to stand the smell these burning herbs put off. They’ll come stomp around over here if there are indeed any out there.” 

I looked around for any sign of giant monsters or hostile people, but saw nothing except an endless expanse of waving blue grass from horizon to horizon. 

We kept walking for some time, and every once in a while, Revana or Tiq would take new star measurements or one of us would light a tiny bag. I was finally beginning to relax just a little, maybe beginning to hope that we’d get through this entire plan without anything stupid happening, but during one of our breaks, Tiq took out a spyglass and peered off into the distance behind us.

“Aw, fuck.”

I spun, expecting to find a massive monster charging towards us, but I couldn’t see anything in the darkness. “Fuck?”

She looked over to me, her lips pressed into a worried line.

I took the spyglass and scanned around where she’d been looking, and instead of a yargeth, there was a group of people, probably fifteen or so, and three of them were dressed in the bare-chested style of the royalty and sitting on personal golems, with the rest being a mishmash of armored Gorvani and heavily-armed enforcers. “Aw, fuck,” I said.

I handed the glass to Revana who, after seeing what we were dealing with, just said, “Oh. I see. Aw, fuck indeed.”

Wordlessly, we all scrambled to get our things together and started moving quickly away from the hunting party. “What do we do?” I asked, once we were moving. “I don’t think any of them are Fourteen, but we can’t fight all those people, can we? And if they tracked us this far, I doubt we’re getting away from them. Can golems run?”

“Not really,” Tiq said. But they don’t need to run if they can track us this effectively.” 

Revana had a grim look on her face, but she seemed more angry than scared. “What can we do, then? It’s unlikely we’re going to be able to pick them off. If we stop, they’ll surround us. Should we charge in and try to kill the royals quickly and demoralize everyone else?”

“That sounds like a low probability of success, but it’s better than getting run into the ground.”

“So…” Tiq said, “There is something we can do.”

I did not like the tone she was taking there. “This isn’t going to be fun, is it?”

“Fun? Well, I don’t know. Maybe.” 

I was kinda sure I knew where she was going with this, but I let her say it anyway.

“We could get a yargeth’s attention and hopefully lure it into them.”

There it was. “So we all get eaten?”

“Well, if we attract one, uh, or more, the three of us will have a much better chance of slinking away than their huge group will. Honestly, I’m a little surprised they haven’t made enough noise to call one over yet.”

“I’m not sure what other choice we have, except to just fight them.”

“Let’s do it!” Revana said, slamming a fist into her palm. “I wanna see one of those fuckers get eaten whole!”

“Alright,” I said, “How do we do it?”

Tiq abruptly stopped running. “It’s really, really easy,” she said with a huge smile. She closed her eyes, breathed in deeply, and let out the loudest scream I’d ever heard.

I took the spyglass out of her pocket and looked back towards our pursuers. I thought they might have taken that as a queue to charge us, but they were all looking around, clearly flustered. They must have known what was coming.

We ran again, but it was less than a minute before I saw it coming over a particularly tall hill. At first, I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing, which was a mass of white, snake-like forms. At the end of each was a mouth that contained a huge set of disturbingly human-like teeth and apparently no lips, and that was it. No eyes, noses, or anything at all — just the mouths. The creature’s body came into view, and the heads, of which there were seven, were lined up on its body in two rows, one with four and one with three. These heads and necks were more than half of the thing’s height. The rest of it was like a massive hippo or elephant, bulky and round with big, flat feet with a few toenails. It was mostly covered in gleaming, white scales, but some places had patches of fur in the same color.

It didn’t make any noise or cry out, just ran in an earth-shaking gait, but its steps made enough noise all on their own. The heads swiveled this way and that, so that it was “looking” in all directions at once.

I hadn’t given any real thought to how high a ten story building is; I’d just accepted the fact that they were that high and moved on, but the image I’d conjured in my head was probably only three or four stories high. This thing was legitimately massive, and a bolt of pure, animalistic terror ran through my body at the sight of it. I tried to say something, but a strangled grunt was all I could manage.

It was running directly for the place we’d been when Tiq had screamed — the place the Gorvani were just walking into.

We all stopped to watch. It was stupid; we should have kept going. I knew it. I’m sure Revana and Tiq knew it. But we didn’t. We just stood there and gaped at it all like idiots.

The hunting party broke apart immediately, scattering in all directions. I didn’t know if that was cowardice or good strategy, or both. Two of the royals stood their ground, summoning tenebrous magicks and hurling them at the incoming monstrosity. Some of the Gorvani followed suit while running, and I heard the twang of crossbows being fired.

“They’re just gonna piss it off more,” Tiq said.

Some of the yargeth’s heads slammed down into the group, their huge maws open, seeking anyone they could. I couldn’t be quite sure in the chaos, but I thought I saw an enforcer or two get swallowed. Poor bastards. 

The group had fanned out, flanking their enemy, but for all they tried, every single attack just bounced off its scales; even the massive gouts of shadowy magic seemed to be completely useless.

As we stood there, one of the heads turned towards us and just looked while the rest of the creature’s body kept up the assault. 

“Uh, that’s probably bad,” I said, pointing it out.

As if on cue, we heard the amplified voice of a royal barking out orders, and as a unit, they all started heading our way with the monster following behind.

“Tiq, run!” Revana shouted as she began to glow.

Tiq didn’t hesitate for a second, just turned and bolted directly away.

I drew my sword and summoned my armor, and seconds later, I felt the flow of magic as Revana bolstered it. I looked down at the swirling designs and sprouting spikes and hoped it would be enough. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Revana had a blazing sword made of golden light and was wearing her own version of shae armor, and while it wasn’t as bulky as mine, I was happy to see that her abilities had begun to stabilize.

I’m not sure the Gorvani had a plan. I know we hadn’t had one when we decided to call the yargeth. They crashed into us, and all I could think about was slowing them down so Tiq could run and killing as many as I was able, hopefully the royals.

As much as I wanted to protect Revana, there wasn’t really anything I could do but trust her to take care of herself. I launched myself at the nearest enforcer, sliding under his blade and bringing my sword up through his face and chest. I didn’t stop to look at the carnage, just turned to face the next opponent, a Gorvani wrapped up in tenebrous armor. He apparently thought it would be effective, as he whipped two magicked blades at me, leaving himself open. His weapons bounced off my chest, and while I could feel the impact, they were little more than annoyances. I leapt and brought my sword down on him, cutting off an arm and passing through his armor like it wasn’t there. Another swing saw his head rolling in the grass.

I barely had time to dodge one of the yargeth’s heads as it came in from beside me, raking across the ground. A split second later, however, I was careening head over heels, having apparently taken a massive ball of tenebrous magic from one of the royals.

I slammed into the ground hard, but my armor took the brunt of the force, and I used the momentum to roll up onto my feet with only just enough time to get my weapon up to block another wave of magic. Well, sort of, since it wasn’t a shield.

As soon as that attack had passed by, a shadow came over me, but it wasn’t magic; one of the monster’s massive feet was coming down straight on top of me. There wasn’t time to do a thing, so I channeled as much of the shae into my armor as I could. It stomped directly down on me and everything went black.

I’d been driven into the dirt, but thankfully, my armor had held. I laid there in complete darkness, idly wondering what would happen if the thing just never moved until I was out of air, but it soon stepped off of me, and I extricated myself from the me-shaped hole in the ground.

An augmented scream ripped through the air, and everyone turned to look up at one of the royals, a woman, struggling inside one of the yargeth’s mouths. Shadows fired this way and that; I saw one of the spear-throwing portals Gor’drelar had used open up, but it was just as useless as everything else. The beast was trying to swallow her, and while she tried to claw her way out, she was sinking out of view. After one last scream, the beast opened wide and clamped its huge teeth together. One of her arms fell to the battlefield as we all looked and saw muscles moving in the monster’s long neck as she traveled down to her doom.

“Yes!” Revana yelled from across the fight, “Suck her down! Grind her bones!”

I looked around, and there were many fewer people than there had been at the start, and while I know I’d made a few corpses, there weren’t enough bodies to account for that, even considering that Revana must have killed some people by now. That left the only option of them all being in the monster’s stomach as well.

I turned and rushed over to Revana, dispatching another enforcer without slowing down on the way. I grabbed her arm and yelled, “Let’s go! We’ll be the only ones left if we don’t!”

We exited the fight as best we were able. Oddly enough, the royals didn’t seem to be focusing on us. We clearly weren’t the biggest threat, but I had assumed they’d try to kill us and run, but they just kept fighting the yargeth, apparently convinced they could eventually win. I wanted to see it kill the other two, but I wasn’t going to stand around gawking twice.

One of the Gorvani tried to follow us, but Revana blasted him with a spear portal of her own, and he fell. Whether he was dead or not was irrelevant. 

We sprinted as fast as we could across the grasslands. My muscles were burning, but we didn’t stop, and I assumed we were running the way Tiq had gone, but I wasn’t completely sure. After we’d put a few of the rolling hills in between us and the battle, Revana gestured for me to stop. 

Hurriedly, she pulled her own sextant out of her pack and took some rushed measurements. “This way. Probably.” 

We ran into the night until all we could hear was the muffled thuds of the yargeth stomping on the ground.

29

We resumed lighting the herb bags on fire. Not because we thought the same yargeth was after us, but because there might be more in the area. I was told that since they couldn’t be safely studied, no one really knew how many were in a given area since the answer was always at least enough to kill you. And that could mean one or eight, but no one could really report back after they were dead.

Revana still took readings and adjusted our course, and we walked throughout the night. I was terrified that we’d come across Tiq’s body, but we never did. I was not comforted by the additional thought that there probably wouldn’t be a body.

After the battle and the hours of walking that followed, I could barely keep my eyes open. Revana seemed to be flagging as well, but we didn’t stop. After a brief conversation earlier, we’d decided to make it to the ruins before we attempted to rest more than a few minutes at a time. 

Finally, when the horizon was just beginning to show a little light, Revana stopped and nudged me excitedly. Before us was a massive ruin of stone. It was mostly tamped down into the earth with grass growing in between, but it was still recognizably what was left of an archaic castle and a small number of buildings around it. The floors of them, anyway. 

Based on what I’d heard before we left, I thought the thing would be impossible to find, but it seemed the directions we were given were actually better than advertised. At least one thing was going our way. I wanted to rush the rest of the way, but my legs wouldn’t carry me faster than a staggering walk. 

We found a few entrances that led below the ground, but the first couple only proved to be smaller basements or storage areas, but we finally found a somewhat more ornate staircase leading down into the dark.

Revana was about to summon a light ball for us when I held her back. “Here, let me try.” I’d been taking mental notes when anyone else used magic and comparing them to the sparse memories I did have that weren’t strictly battle related. 

The shae was, as always, like a cool breeze under my skin. I let it flow to my hands and tried to coax it into a ball. It took me a couple tries to get it to stabilize, but I eventually got it. I let it float upwards proudly, and Revana’s answering smile was wonderful.

“I’m impressed! It seems like it would be a beginner spell, but it’s really not. Holding anything away from your body is much trickier than you might think.” She looked up suddenly, an annoyed look on her face.

I followed her gaze, and from the other direction from the one we’d come, there was another yargeth’s set of heads peeking over a hill and coming this way. “Well, good thing we’re here. I hope it doesn’t cause an earthquake and seal up the place while we’re down there.

“If that hasn’t happened yet, it’s probably not going to. But let’s get down there and hopefully it’ll forget us soon.”

We walked down into the gloom, down a winding, circular staircase. At the bottom, a hallway led off into shadows with many doors on either side. We’d barely taken a step off the stairs when there was movement from the first room on the right, and before I knew it, I was looking down the end of Tiq’s device, a mass of arcanic energy ready to sail straight into my face.

I raised my arms and bolstered my armor reflexively, but the blast never came.

“Oh, shit, it’s you!” She powered down the device and as I dismissed the armor, she threw her arms around me. “You’re okay!” Revana also got a crushing hug, which she returned just as fiercely. “I’ve been sitting here assuming the worst for a while now. I barely stopped running once the battle started. I’m so, so glad to see you both unharmed.”

We filled her in on how the fight had played out, and she winced but had a satisfied smile on her face to hear about the royal that had gotten eaten.

As we talked, I could feel faint tremors running through the stone. “Oh yeah, there’s a second one up above us now. It’s not gonna wait us out, is it? No, wait. Don’t tell me. No one knows, huh?”

“Yep.”

I sighed. “Oh well. Let’s find what we came here for then.”

The place didn’t look like catacombs as I’d seen them depicted on TV, and if they’d ever housed any bones, they’d long crumbled to dust. The designs in the stone and the numerous archways had held up pretty well, but it was clear that no one had been here in a long, long time. After we found and descended a few more sets of stairs, we ended up in a curving hallway that was clearly mostly natural and there wasn’t a single cut stone block to be seen.

“So we’re in a cave again? That’s just wonderful. The last cave wasn’t all bad,” I said, glancing over to Revana, who smiled, “but I’d just as soon not run into any more magic crabs.”

“Oh, right!” Tiq said. “I have a theory on that. Not that it’ll make you feel good right now, but it’s interesting at least.”

“Okay…”

“Those tenebral korids you fought were probably living directly in the magical streams under the world for a long time, and I think it was your holy relics that they sensed and that directed them towards you. Your bond with them is important as well, since Revana carried them through the caves on her way to summon you without incident.”

“You’re right, Tiq,” I said. “That doesn’t really make me feel better about this cave right now.”

“Keep in mind,” Revana said, “that we’re much more capable and dangerous now than we were last time. If those things show up again, all three of us will just blast them to pieces.”

“Oh, that’s a good point. And now’s a good time to bring up that I saw you summon your own armor during that last battle! How long have you been able to do that?”

She laughed, blushing. “Right then, actually. I’ve been trying it for a while now, but I hadn’t had any good, stable results. I think the rush of fear with the yargeth towering over us helped. I’d heard how big they were but, still, the reality of seeing one was a lot different than what I’d expected them to be.”

“Wow, same here.”

The cave was mostly natural, but it had some obvious cuts made where it had been too narrow to comfortably walk through. The striations on the walls came in a lot of vibrant colors that I don’t think happened on Earth, and they all shimmered in the light I was still holding aloft. Eventually, it opened up into a massive chamber; my light couldn’t reach the ceiling or far walls.

“Here, let me,” Revana said. She concentrated, glowing brightly, and with a cry, she summoned and pushed away a swarm of shaelight balls. They drifted through the air, and we all stood staring at what they showed.

A proper road winded down into a little valley of stalagmites, in the center of which was a stone building that looked a lot like a temple. It was carved with the same amount of skill I’d seen on countless doors and walls of Vendira, but it was leagues ahead of the ruins we’d come through to get here.

“The shit is that?” Revana said under her breath. 

Tiq stood there with her head cocked to the side. “I have absolutely no idea. The ruins above are Surini and everything about them is consistent with the era, but this…this is something completely different.”

We all walked slowly down the path, transfixed by this unexpected turn of events. I only vaguely noticed the sound of running water, an underground river that was slowly trickling by. The temple, or whatever it was, looked almost like it had been carved out of solid stone, but upon closer inspection, it did have seams, just incredibly well hidden ones.

Tiq, naturally, wanted to know everything about it, jumping from one carving  to the next while muttering to herself all the while. 

Revana stood at the front doors staring up in awe. 

I came up beside her and said, “You look like you know something about this place.”

“”It’s…uh…”

“How elucidating.”

She shook her head. “It has a lot of the same designs, or at least similar, as a lot of the most ancient texts about the shae.”

“It’s possible,” Tiq called out, “that the dragon cult of centuries ago built this place. It does have some architectural elements from that time period.”

Eventually, the two were done examining the outside in excruciating detail, and we finally went inside. The thing was one big room, but it was covered in inscriptions set directly into the stone. On the left, there were runic rings that were obviously sigils. On the right, a huge picture with long, irregular lines connected by weird symbols.

But in the middle of the back wall, there was a raised dais and a small, stone pillar that was topped with a necklace of gleaming gold, set with a few bright blue gems. I looked up, but the others had gone to opposite walls.

I figured the relic could wait, so I wandered over to Revana, who’d gravitated towards the sigils, naturally. “Can you tell what they are?”

“I’m…not sure. I’m familiar with all the pieces, but I can’t tell what the whole thing is supposed to do. The spell this is detailing seems to pull something with the shae…but I’m not sure what. Also it seems to be pulling this mystery object, I dunno, downwards, maybe? Towards the channeler?”

“Does it summon meteors to crush your foes?”

She giggled. “No, I don’t think that’s quite it. If it did, it looks like it would crush whomever was attempting the magic, which doesn’t seem ideal.”

We shared a laugh before I left her to ponder and walked over to Tiq, who was standing there with her usual head tilt. At this point, it was about the cutest thing I’d ever seen, and she did it all the time. I thought about bringing it up, but I wasn’t sure she was aware of it and I didn’t want her to stop if she ended up being embarrassed. “So what’s this?”

“Oh, it’s clearly a map of Vendira, if crude and out of date. Some earthquakes in the past century have made a couple small sections obsolete.” The thing was covered in two types of lines, one set wavy and the other straight. At the points they intersected, there were little symbols that looked like tiny sigils, and the wavy lines had other points marked, but the straight ones didn’t.

“What’s it all for? Can you tell?”

“Not yet, but give me some time. I’ll figure it out.”

I went over to the relic, which was just as nice as my sword. I was about to pick it up, but I thought I should ask an expert first. “Hey, Revana! Can I just pick this up? Will it explode, or might there be booby traps or something?”

She half turned, still engrossed in the sigils on the wall. “Huh? Oh, yeah, it should be fine.”

I thought they were pretty underwhelmed by the thing we’d come out here for, but I knew how interesting a new mystery could be. I picked the relic up and glanced around, but nothing happened, so I put it over my neck.

Power exploded inside me, and I gasped and stumbled back. “REV—” I fell to the ground, the shae buffeting at my soul. Whereas before it was a cool breeze, once the relic had touched my skin, it turned into a raging torrent inside me, wracking my entire body with pain. I was dimly aware that light was radiating out of me as I moaned and writhed on the ground. Revana ran up to me, yelling, but I couldn’t tell what she was saying over the cacophony that assaulted my ears from the inside.

She turned me over and took my hands in hers. I could feel some of the power leech out of me, flowing into her, and she screamed as she glowed brighter than I’d ever seen. Her hands tightened on mine and I could feel her channel as I saw the sigils form around us.

“Shut your eyes tight!” She yelled.

I did. But even with them closed as tightly as I could, I saw the blinding light that spawned around us, and I understood what she was trying to do: she was summoning as much light as she could to burn off the power, so I did the same.

The light got even brighter as I channeled, and I thought I might go blind even with my eyes closed, but gradually, so very slowly, the pain started to ebb. I kept channeling as much as I was able, and finally, panting, we both let the light fade.

The shae was still swirling inside me, so much more than I had ever been able to channel, but it was manageable. I opened my eyes.

Revana knelt over me, her own eyes just cracking open. “Shit,” she said.

“Shit,” I agreed.

“Is it safe now?” Tiq called from outside the door. Apparently she’d retreated when things started to get out of hand.

“I think so, yeah,” I said. “But wow…I was not expecting that.”

Tiq came back in and did a quick medical check up on me. Despite her insistence that she wasn’t a doctor, I assumed she still knew a lot of things, at least in an academic way. “Well, you seem fine. How do you feel?”

“There’s a tornado of shae inside me right now. A couple times stronger than I’ve ever felt.” It occurred to me then why we’d come all this way. “And I’ll just bet we can pull off the dragon portal now.” It was difficult releasing the energy, but Revana talked me through it, and I was able to return to normal. “I’m gonna have to get used to that.”

They both were worried about me after that, but I told them I was fine and just needed to sit down for a little bit, which is exactly what I did, trying to get my nerves and pounding blood under control.

They both wandered back to their mystery walls, but Revana kept giving me glances over her shoulder. 

I might have dozed off for a little while while I was sitting there, probably from pure exhaustion from what I’d just done, and I awoke to Tiq exclaiming at her wall. 

Blearily, I went over to stand by her side. “Progress?”

Her eyes were wide and dancing all across the map. “I think so. I believe these symbols,” she said, pointing to the ones linking to the wavy lines, “are where the sigilariums are. Not all of them are on this map, but it is, at the very least, a hundred and fifty years old if the original dragon cult built this place, which I’m now certain they did.”

“So what are the lines, then?”

“Flows of the tenebrae. The sigilariums are all set on ley lines where the magic coalesces the strongest, and that’s mainly what this map details.”

“What are the other lines? Different magic? The shae?”

“Yes, I can only imagine you’re right. And where they intersect are…” The points she was referring to all contained little symbols that looked like sigils. We both glanced across the room at Revana. “Let’s go see what she’s figured out.”

Revana smiled when we approached. “You two look like you’ve found something over there. I’m afraid I’m not getting anywhere more than I did before. I still can’t figure out what’s supposed to be pulled with the magic, and why it would just go downwards.”

Tiq explained what we’d found out from the map and that this was certainly related.

The three of us went back to it, and Revana said, “Yeah, as far as I know this does seem to correlate to what the Mulaq’Shae knows about the flows of the magic, not that there are any maps I’ve ever actually seen. But what could it all mean?”

Again, maybe it was because I was from Earth and everything seemed to get weaponized, but I thought it was a little obvious what should be happening here. “This thing essentially says to use the spell from the other side of the room where the two magics converge, right?”

“I guess,” Revana said, “but they don’t actually converge. The currents of the shae travel through the air and high above, but the tenebrae is a deep magic, the currents only existing far below the ground.”

“Uh huh. Well, here’s what I think. I think that spell over there uses the shae to assault the tenebrae. And I don’t think it pulls something else down, I think it’s to use the shae directly, pulling it down and attacking the tenebrae’s currents.”

Both of their eyes slowly widened as the implications of this settled into their minds.

Revana slowly said, “It attacks the currents themselves.”

Tiq glanced up at the map. “It would break the Gorvani’s power without even getting close to the sigilariums. The shae could theoretically disrupt the currents of the tenebrae, and while such a thing might not be permanent, if you could actually pull it off, it would take quite some time for the natural order to reassert itself.”

“During which time,” I added, “you destroy the empire.”

Revana sat down, hard on her butt, a faraway look on her face. “This must have been the cult’s original plan. To best channel such a spell, you’d have to be high up in the air, which you could do,” she looked up at us, “if you had a dragon.”

30

After the big revelation, we decided it was probably best to camp out for the night and wait for anything happening on the surface to die down. We found the little stream that trickled by between the stalagmites and stalactites, got a little fire going, and laid our bedrolls out around it. 

After we’d eaten some of the dried food that we’d packed, Revana went back to the temple to record the sigils, even though she was pretty sure she’d be able to just remember them. Tiq had admonished her; not writing something down was akin to heresy.

I tried to get my floating ball of light to hover over the fire with limited success; I had to keep resummoning it, since the second my attention wavered, it would go out. The fire, however, was good enough on its own.

As I laid down on my bedroll, Tiq made her way over to the stream. “It’s probably cold, but I need to get out of these clothes for a little bit.” 

Shortly after, I heard her softly splashing around in the water, and I waited all of two minutes before I got up. I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity, since our lives probably weren’t going to slow down anytime soon. Her pale skin was just barely visible in the light of the fire and she flashed me a big smile when she heard my footsteps. 

I took off the foolish Vendiran camouflage clothes and tentatively put a foot in the water. It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected. Tiq had a small cloth and a bar of soap, which she’d just started to use. I took over as she stood knee deep in the light current, starting with her legs and working the soap the rest of the way up her body, taking a little diversion to pinch and roll her pierced nipples. I went harder than I tended to start with and she bit her lip and squirmed, clearly pleased with the force I was using. 

After she was covered in soap, she took it from me and started up in the same manner. I was already pretty hard at this point, and she stopped and looked in my eyes as she slowly rubbed up and down my shaft, before moving upwards.

Once we were done, we pressed closely together and I pushed my tongue between her waiting lips, and we kissed while sliding our slick skin over each other, writhing slowly together. I wrapped my arm around her and squeezed her ass and cupped her breast with the other while she rubbed hers over my chest and down my arms.

“What’s all this!?”

We both turned our heads to see Revana with her hands on her hips and an irate frown on her face. For a brief second, I was afraid she was serious, but she just threw her hands into the air and said, “You didn’t even tell me!”

She quickly peeled her own clothes off and added them to the pile before splashing into the water beside us. 

I picked up the soap and cloth from a nearby rock and started lathering it again while Tiq bent down and took a few handfuls of water to rinse off my cock. Just as I was starting to soap up Revana, Tiq took me into her mouth, and I had to pause what I was doing and close my eyes.

Revana took my chin in her claws and turned my head towards her and pressed her lips to mine, our tongues quickly meeting and pushing against each other. 

I did my best to soap her up, but was only really able to concentrate enough to get her breasts, which I cupped and squeezed while trying to remain standing upright as Tiq sucked and licked my now extremely hard cock.

Revana’s huge breasts squished against my chest as she flung her arms around me and pulled me tight. She moaned lightly into my mouth as my hand trailed down her body and between her legs to find her already wet. I gently rubbed her before spreading her lips and sliding two fingers inside. Her hips moved against me and she pressed her tongue even deeper into my mouth.

Tiq stood and turned around, her long, wet, pink hair trailing down her back. She reached between her legs and guided me in, pressing herself slowly back against me. We both moaned loudly, the sound echoing around the cave.

Revana opened her eyes and looked down, saying, “Hey! I was supposed to be first!”

Tiq reached back to hold my hands in hers as she slowly moved back and forth. “You didn’t say a thing! How was I to know?” She looked back with a smile on her face before she closed her eyes and moaned again.

“Rude!” Revana said as she smacked Tiq’s ass, who jumped in response, and we all shared a laugh. She bent down and washed the soap off her breasts and pulled my head down to suck on her nipple. 

I groaned and had to slow Tiq down; it was almost too much.

A few minutes later, Revana pushed Tiq away from me and said, “That’s quite enough. It’s my turn.”

We washed what remained of the soap off and went back to the bedrolls. I laid down on my back and Revana stepped over me, pulling me up and sliding down onto my cock. It was all I could do to not finish right there.

Tiq stepped over me as well, bending down to sit on my face.

Revana had clearly been incredibly aroused; she started riding me slowly but picked up the pace quickly.

I had one hand on her ass and one on Tiq’s, trying to focus more on what my tongue could do for Tiq then what Revana was doing for me.

I wanted that moment to last forever, but it was over in short order, which it was always going to be. Revana went harder and faster, and I tried to do the same for Tiq, everyone’s moans and cries echoing off the cave walls.

Revana screamed and I couldn’t hold it anymore; I jerked and shuddered along with her as I shot it deep inside her. Seconds later, Tiq’s thighs pressed in on my face and she screamed as well, and we all writhed and moaned together, letting the sensations race through our bodies.

They both rolled off to different sides and we laid there for some time, catching our breaths and trying to cool down. Eventually, we got up and stumbled back to the river and washed off in a very perfunctory manner. Afterwards we dressed and sat on our bedrolls, the exhaustion of the day catching up with everyone.

“Hey,” I said, “it didn’t occur to me until just now but apparently caves are our thing.”

Revana laughed loudly. “Well, they are really sexy. Totally. At least this one doesn’t have korids in it.”

“Oh, don’t say that. They didn’t show up until after we went to sleep.” The humor fell off our faces as we really gave that statement some thought. “Uh, should we keep watch then?”

They both groaned at the thought of it, but it was the better idea, so I agreed to take the first watch. I regretted it the second the words were out of my mouth, but the others agreed so fast and were already turning over in their beds that there wasn’t time to take it back, which was obviously intentional.

Nothing happened, though. I woke Revana for her watch and was asleep the second my head hit the pillow, and I slept deeply and without any remembered dreams until I was woken up in what was probably morning. Tough to tell with caves.

Tiq had apparently transcribed everything from the temple walls as best she could while they let me sleep for a little longer.

We ate a small breakfast and figured it was time to head up and hopefully home. There weren’t any tremors once we got closer to the surface, hopefully implying there were no yargeth in the vicinity, not that one was patiently waiting at the top of the stairs to eat us. As we got closer to the exit, we heard a soft noise that seemed to be coming from one of the rooms off the central hall. 

Revana and I both summoned our armor, and I could instantly tell the difference in my power while wearing the new relic. I channeled an immense amount of shae and molded the energy around me into thick, bulky plates that somehow still allowed me total freedom of movement. I felt like a walking tank, and judging by Revana’s raised eyebrows, I looked like one too. Tiq hung back while we investigated the noise. I drew my sword and stepped into the room, and there in the corner, huddled up against the wall and shuddering, was a fucking royal.

He glanced up when he saw me and raised his arms, yelling, “No!”

I glanced back to Revana, pretty confused. “This…is a royal, right?”

She nodded, the same befuddled expression on her face that I knew was on mine. She didn’t need to reply, though; it was obvious. This man’s skin had the dark tones of someone infused with the tenebrae, but unlike every single other royal, and pretty much every Gorvani I’d ever met, he wasn’t lording his existence over us. He was terrified and it showed.

I took a step towards him, uncertain of what I should do.

He whimpered and rolled into a tight ball. “No! What are you doing? Kill that thing outside!”

I looked back at Revana again, and Tiq had peeked her head around the doorway as well. I shrugged, completely clueless as how to handle this. It was one thing to kill someone like Sixteen, the most arrogant person you’d ever seen, who was more than happy to kill you, but this guy? Could I just cut down a whimpering, terrified man?

He looked back at us and made a shooing gesture. “I said go! Kill that monster!” When we didn’t move, he seemed to get even more agitated. “Now! What are you waiting for, you worthless trash! I said go now! I command you!”

Well okay. That made things a little easier. I shrugged and took a step towards him, but stopped when I felt Revana’s claw on my arm.

“No. I want to do it.”

Her face was neutral, her eyes locked on the royal. She summoned her shae blade and said to me, “Give me your power. Channel into me.” I did, and her sword glowed brightly. She stepped up to the man who stared back with wide, frightened eyes, his lips working soundlessly. 

I stood ready in case he tried something, but she didn’t give him any time.

She crouched and brought her sword up with two hands, ramming it under his chin and out through the top of his head.

He flailed, his magic keeping him alive even through this.

Revana took all the power I was giving her and focused it into her sword, concentrating it in the blade lodged in his head, and the blinding, golden light issued forth from forming cracks in his skin and shone out of his eyes.

He just sighed and fell limp. When we stopped channeling and her sword vanished, all that was left of his head was a darkened skull, still trailing little tendrils of shadowy magic.

Revana closed her eyes and clenched her claws tight as a small tear began working its way down her cheek.

There didn’t seem to be anything I could think of to say, so I just wrapped one of her hands in mine.

Tiq came up and did the same thing with Revana’s other hand, saying, “I’m pretty sure that was the Eighth Son, Gor’shura. He was a little more powerful than Sixteen, but not by much and I never heard any tales of any of his exploits, as it seems because there weren’t any. The one who got swallowed yesterday was likely the Seventh Daughter, Gor’yen.

“I’d love to say that we’re striking fear into the heart of the Emperor, but we’re probably not. I doubt he sees his children as anything more than tools, which is how he sees everyone and everything by essentially all accounts, except the ‘lessons’ we’re taught when young, which are obviously propaganda. If he feels anything for the deaths we’re causing, it’s probably annoyance, but that’s irrelevant; once word gets out that royals themselves are dying, the revolution will be shortly behind. Especially once there’s a dragon in the skies again.”

I leaned in and planted a small kiss on Revana’s cheek. “We’re gonna do this. We’re gonna win.” And because I just couldn’t let the moment go without making a joke, I added, “We’re gonna march right into the Font and kick the Emperor in the balls until he’s dead, just like we planned.”

She tried not to laugh for a moment, but doubled over anyway.

Tiq looked at me with a wide smile and questioning eyes. “That’s…the plan, is it?”

“Yeah, we came up with it a couple days ago.”

Revana pointed a clawed finger at me, “You came up with it a few days ago!”

I shrugged. “Yeah, but you liked the plan. You even said he deserved it, and we all know that’s true, so yeah. That’s the plan.”

“Dammit,” she said, wiping the remnants of tears from her eyes. “Let’s get out of here already.”

31

“Wasn’t there a third royal?” I asked.

“Yes,” Tiq said. “I can’t imagine a good fate for him, though. Since the Eighth Son was down here, I doubt the last one survived. We can’t be sure unless we see a body, of course, but I think it would be a good bet to say he’s not a threat anymore.”

Once we were almost up the stairs and as I could see the first rays of daylight, an awful sound drifted down to us on the wind. We all stopped, just listening. It sounded like a bunch of things, all at once, repeated over and over, and it had cracking, crunching, mushing, wet, snapping parts all at once. It was deeply, deeply unnerving.

There was nothing for it, so we went up the stairs, myself in the lead, and once I could see over the ground, I looked around and was completely horrified. There were two yargeth, some distance off, but one was dead and the other one was…eating it. All seven heads just ripping and tearing and crunching muscle and skin and scale and bone, taking huge bites and swallowing down without chewing.

I turned away, trying valiantly to not be sick.

Revana followed me up and had the same reaction.

Tiq came last and said under her breath, “No way…It makes so much sense!”

We retreated down to the bottom of the stairs and while Revana and I tried to settle ourselves, Tiq was practically dancing with excited energy. “No one’s ever even seen a yargeth corpse! You’d think…we all thought…that creatures that big would leave massive skeletons, but they just…didn’t. There are many competing theories, but this…this makes so much sense! Also why finding discarded scales is nearly impossible! I’ll bet the living ones eat their own scales when they shed them! OH!”

She bolted up the stairs before we could stop her.

Once we quietly walked into the sunlight again, I was horrified at what I saw: Tiq was slowly creeping towards the monster. There wasn’t anything I could do at that point that wouldn’t just make more noise, so I just stood there like a moron, my hand in Revana’s, and we clutched each other tightly as we watched Tiq do the dumbest shit I’d ever seen.

In less than a minute, she had what she’d wanted and came back, and we practically yanked her back down the staircase.

“The fuck, Tiquette!” Revana waved her hands and was barely holding herself back from strangling her friend it looked like. 

Tiq beamed and held up the scale she’d stolen. “Well, all of its heads were busy chowing down—”

Gross.

“—so it was probably perfectly safe. But look, look!” She held it out, and it was white and reflective and pretty big, but she held it like it weighed nothing. 

She tossed it to me, and even though I’d just been thinking it, it really did weigh almost nothing. “This is super great and all, but this isn’t just for research purposes, is it?”

“Oh my no! Hold it up like this…” She raised my arm and made me hold it up as she positioned the scale on it…like a shield. “So, you can make weapons with the shae, but no one’s ever, as far as I know, been able to mold magic into an actual shield. But with this? You won’t need any magic like that. I’ll affix handles on it with some alchemical adhesive when we get back, and you’ll have a completely invulnerable shield! That protects,” she said smiling proudly, “against the tenebrae. Completely. So! Tell me again how not worth it it was for me to go out there!”

“Shit,” I said.

Revana crossed her arms and pressed her lips together. “I still think it was too risky, and I wish you’d said something before rushing out there.”

“You would have stopped me,” Tiq replied, matter-of-factly.

Revana sighed. “Dammit, Tiquette.”

“Well anyway,” I said, “if that thing really is completely focused on…what it’s doing, then this is a good time to get the fuck out of this place.”

Tiq strapped the scale to her backpack, and in short order, we were out under the sun soon, moving as quietly as we could, and I didn’t breathe easy until the yargeth was lost over the horizon. “Should we start leaving out the scent packs again?”

Tiq shook her head. “Not just yet. We will, but let’s get further away first. I imagine any others in the vicinity would be attracted by the corpse.”

“Do you think the royals were able to kill one?” Revana asked.

“Highly unlikely. Based on what you told me of the fight, they could barely scratch it. I think it’s much more likely the two creatures were both alerted to all the things happening and then had a territorial fight. If only I could get some of their teeth, since they seem completely capable of crushing through their scales and bones…they’d be invaluable…”

We just let her talk, but I was going to start carrying her if she sounded the least bit serious about trying something stupid.

We did start using the scent packs again, but we didn’t see anymore yargeth on our trip out of the grasslands, which took most of the day. Once the woods were in sight, I thought it was time to bring up a question that had been in the back of my mind since our journey out here. “So, we’re not just going to go through the portals like normal, are we? They were obviously looking for us last time, and I can’t imagine they’ll have all forgotten this fast. Also I think that scale’s going to be super suspicious.”

“No,” Tiq said. “I’ve been giving that some thought while I could out here, and I think our best bet is to break into a smaller nexus during the night and override one of their portals, travel to an adjacent town to where we came from, and just make our way on foot or by golem back to Skyshard.”

“Do you know how to override a portal?” Revana asked.

“Theoretically.”

“Wow, that’s not reassuring, Tiq.”

“Well I’ve never tried it! But the technique should work in theory. I know how they operate. I just need to circumvent the normal lockouts and I should be able to set it to go wherever we want.”

We camped out in the woods that night without a fire, and it was uncomfortably cold, but I still managed to get a little sleep. We kept watch again, of course.

The morning came too fast, and we were on our feet again, walking for hours. We made it to the road soon enough, but since we weren’t going to dare return to the town we’d come in through, we took the road the other way, and while I was assured the next place wasn’t all that far, that turned out to be a lie.

We crept in the city gates just as night was falling and my feet felt like they were going to fall apart. The relief of just sitting down beside a building was one of the best things I’d experienced in a while, almost including the recent sex.

It worked out for the best though, since the local portal nexus was set to close pretty soon, so we took what time we had and just found a small public park area and sat down on the first bench we could find and tried very hard not to fall asleep.

Once we were sure the nexus had closed and all the people working there had left, I cut a tiny slice in a side door’s lock and we were in. The building was dark, but we didn’t risk creating any light, so we fumbled our way through a back hallway until we emerged in the main room that was lit by moonlight from huge skylights. 

We were about to head towards a portal tucked away in the back when I noticed some movement. There was a Gorvani man making slow rounds of the room. He didn’t look like a guard, just a bored employee that had to stay because someone had to stay. “Do we…do we kill him?” I asked.

As much as the Gorvani were the enemy, I didn’t like the thought of killing some random person who just happened to be the one there. But all the same, we couldn’t be seen.

“I’ve got this one,” Tiq said.

I really hoped she wasn’t going out there with the intent of blowing this guy’s head to bits with her device. 

She took some cord out of her backpack and looped it in her hands, and I just assumed we were about to watch her strangle a guy. I couldn’t help but think that me cutting his head off would be a lot faster and probably a little kinder of a kill. She snuck up behind him with quite a bit of skill I thought, and she snaked her arm around his neck and executed a perfect choke from what I could see, silently dropping the guy to the ground. She quickly tied his hands and feet and gagged him before motioning us over.

“Quick, just dump him in a side room before he comes to.”

He already was, but Revana and I were fast, leaving him around a corner in a little room. 

We came back out to Tiq already working on the portal. “I’m impressed. How’d you learn to do that so well?”

She didn’t look up from the machine she was elbows deep in and said, “I used to sneak up on my runners all the time. They’d come into my rooms and try to find me in the maze that I’m well aware it is.”

“And you’d…assault them?”

“Well I didn’t actually choke them unconscious! Just got to where I could, you know. It was something to do. I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to use it in real life. I can’t fight, you know, so this was something else that might come in handy one day. And you didn’t have to kill that man. It’d have been better if we could have just avoided him, but we’re leaving a trail whether he’s tied up or a corpse.”

The portal flared to life and we wasted no time getting through it. The nexus we arrived at was much the same as the rest, and we were able to slip out the side before anyone saw us. By the time anyone found the man we’d bound and figured out where the active portal went, we meant to be long gone. We debated stealing a golem, but eventually elected to just move out on foot.

Skyshard was apparently not too far; we were already in the foothills, but the lack of sleep was really beginning to catch up to me. That didn’t matter though. We just kept walking, ducking off the road during the rare times when someone else was coming the other way. I took it all step by step, and an eternity later, once the horizon had started to brighten, our destination was finally in sight.

We knocked on the gates and were quickly let in, and moments later, a groggy Osaarin came out to greet us.

“You made it! Wonderful! Did you find it?”

I held up the necklace for him to see.

“That’s not all we found there.” Revana briefly explained about the temple and the spell it had detailed.

Osaarin listened, nodding, but when she was done, he gestured towards the manor. “That’s incredible news, but please come in. I’m afraid we might not have nearly as much time as we thought.”

32

“Inquisitors who are not Isik have come around recently, and we’ve given two of them complete tours. I don’t know what’d tipped them off, or they’re just canvassing the area, but we had to scramble to take up the ritual circles on the plateau.” We were sitting with Osaarin in one of the manor’s many comfortable lounges, although the mood was anything but comfortable.

Tiq had run off somewhere, saying she’d get caught up on the story later. 

I desperately wanted to sleep, but that could wait.

“I doubt the activity will die down anytime soon, so our best bet is to perform the summoning as quickly as possible.” He gave us a once over from top to bottom and inclined his head. “But perhaps that won’t be right this second, I fear. The two of you are welcome to return to your rooms for a few hours, but I wouldn’t want to wait much longer than that.”

Revana and I nodded at each other, and I saw my own weariness reflected in her eyes, and while I wanted to sleep for a couple days, a few hours was better than nothing, so we retreated to our rooms and collapsed.

I slept the sleep of the dead.

“Hey, hey! Wake up!” Tiq was shaking me pretty hard, and it still took me a few minutes for my brain to start working again. “It’s time! And also, I have a present for you!” She pulled me out of bed and had apparently not slept herself, so I couldn’t imagine how she was not only functional, but fully awake and excited. Way too excited, really.

I quickly changed clothes and followed her downstairs and outside, where she led me to one of the outbuildings she had clearly converted into a makeshift workshop and laboratory. On the table sat the yargeth scale with leather-wrapped metal handles firmly attached. She had me try it on and it fit like a glove. “I’m impressed!” I waved it around, and it still amazed me how light it was. 

I turned to see Revana stumbling into the shop. “I guess we’re up now. Tiquette, did you even sleep at all?”

“Of course not, Revi! There were too many exciting things to do! Did you see this?” she said, gesturing towards the shield.

Revana blinked at it. “Very nice.”

“I also adjusted my arcanic device to deliver two modes of attack!”

She started talking about the science behind the modifications, but I couldn’t pay attention to most of what she said and didn’t understand the bits that I heard. “I’m gonna…” I started to say, but she’d already turned away and was working on the next thing, so I went inside the house and asked one of the kitchen staff for the biggest pot of hachi they had.

A little bit later, Revana and I were sitting in the dining room drinking it and eating more dulcet jumpers. “Anyone know why they’re called jumpers? Or dulcet?”

She drained her second glass. “Not that I ever heard, no. Just one of those names that probably stuck from somewhere random.”

After all the hachi and sugar, I felt reasonably more alive and Revana seemed to as well. “So, are you excited? You’ve always wanted to meet a dragon, right?”

She smiled softly and shrugged. “Yeah, but I’m trying to temper my hopes about this too. I know the channeling thing worked out, but I still don’t want to be too disappointed if this doesn’t happen. There’s so much that could go wrong, you know? Portal doesn’t open at the right place, or there’s not a dragon there at all anyway, or we find one and it’s a complete asshole or something.”

I chuckled. “That would be a pretty big let down, huh? We rock in there like, ‘Mighty dragon, hear our pleas,’ and it’s just sitting there like, ‘Wow, fuck off outta my face already.’”

Revana nearly spit hachi all over the table, but managed to keep it in. Once she’d recovered, she said, smiling, “Indeed that would be pretty disappointing, yes.”

We ate another jumper each and finished off the pot before we headed back outside to find Osaarin, who was at the high plateau. He was overseeing the reapplication of the sigils, but his nervousness showed through in a constantly tapping foot and a shifting gaze, always looking over his shoulder and down the mountain cliffs. “Good. You’re here. We’re nearly ready to begin, and I’d just as soon get this done before the Inquisition comes calling again. I’m not sure what we’re going to do if they show up while you’re inside the portal.”

“Fight them,” Revana said.

He grimaced. “We are not channelers, or brandless. But…we will do what we can in that event. Should you find and convince the dragon, it should be able to overwhelm any Gorvani that might appear. Except possibly the royalty, but I can’t imagine that will occur.” His tight lips and too-quick breathing said that he could absolutely imagine that occurring, but I didn’t want to say it out loud either.

The preparations were nearly done when Osaarin yelped and quickly turned, his hands held up for protection.

“Wrong Inquisitor, Osaarin. Do calm down.” Isik strode up to us and gave me an appraising look, her eyes settling on the necklace. “You were successful. Of course you were. There have already been whispers of a few royals that left Telorn and then…never returned.” She smiled viciously and asked, “So what happened to them?”

“Well, the one Tiq thinks was Gor’yen was swallowed by a yargeth.”

“Deserved it. You saw it happen?”

“We did. It bit her arm off before she went down.”

Isik laughed. “I never thought I’d live to see such times. The Sixteenth Son, dead. The Seventh Daughter, dead. Who else?”

“We found one huddling and cowering for his life. I thought all the royals would be completely sure of themselves, but that guy wasn’t. Scared shitless. Revana killed him. Magicked sword up through his head. I might have helped with some of the magic.”

“Gor’shura, the Eighth Son, undoubtedly. Always an embarrassment, never sent anywhere for any reason. I can’t imagine why he was out there. Maybe they thought it was a suicide mission to venture into the ninth and they could finally be rid of him.”

“Brutal. There was a third, but even though he fought the yargeth, we didn’t ever see what happened to him or any sign of a corpse. But since Eight was alone, we just assumed there was no one left. All the enforcers and Gorvani that went out died, I’m sure.”

Isik was quiet for a little while as she gazed out over the horizon. “The royalty dying and soon, a dragon will be summoned back to Vendira. Oh, no. Don’t object. You’ll pull it off. I know you will.”

It was probably the most positive, reassuring thing I’d ever heard Isik say. I didn’t really know how to reply, but she just kept talking anyway.

“And then the revolution will well and truly kick off. I hope it’s enough. I wonder what kind of world it will be once the empire’s crumbled away.” She closed her eyes and smiled a faraway smile. “I only wish I could be there to see it.”

Before I could ask her what she meant by that, Osaarin started yelling at us all.

“The preparations are done! Gather everyone we need to and let’s get this going!”

We all scrambled to get in our positions as Osaarin’s nervous energy seemed to seep into us all. Revana and I stood on either end of the sigils, and once everyone was where they were going, we began to channel.

With the necklace, I could pull in easily four times as much energy as I had before, and the sigils started lighting up quickly, and in no time, the portal burst into existence between us. I immediately started pouring as much of the shae into it as I could, trusting Revana to keep the sigils balanced and everything working as intended.

For a second, the gateway warped and shuddered and electric terror ran through my body, but it quickly stabilized and as we watched, an image began to form inside of it. The portal grew in size and suddenly we were looking into another world. And even though I’d already traveled between two of them, I was blown away by the sight of a completely new planet right in front of my eyes.

Revana glowed bright as she channeled into the ritual, tying off the spell and sealing the pulsating magic inside the glowing sigils. She came to stand over by my side and she took my hand. “Okay, I’m excited now,” she whispered.

I smiled back at her. “Well, let’s do it.” Louder, for everyone around us, I said, “Wish us luck, everyone! We’ll be back soon, and we won’t be alone!”

With everyone’s cheers at our back, we stepped into another world.

33

I thought traveling to the new world would be like using one of Vendira’s regular portals, and it was, in the same way that drowning was like taking a drink of water. The pulling sensation was overwhelming and felt like my entire body was being stretched from the Earth to the moon. My head spun and my vision went black, either because eyes can’t see properly when they’re pulled as long as a planet or maybe because we were being yanked through the void of space and there was nothing to see anyway.

Either way, we were dumped into the bright sun, but I couldn’t make sense of anything as reality was spinning without cease. 

Judging by Revana’s moans, she was in much the same state that I was. 

I laid there with my eyes shut tight until the barrage of unpleasant sensations started to diminish. I was about to attempt opening them when Revana gasped and shrieked. I looked blearily up to see her scrambling back and forth, her huge, terrified eyes darting around at some horror I couldn’t see.

“Wha…?”

She looked up at me, the horror still plain on her face. “The…the…the grass!”

It looked a lot like Earth’s grass. “Um…is it poison or something?”

“I don’t know! Maybe! It’s…its…” She looked on the verge of screaming again. “It’s green!” She flailed around, but there was nowhere to go; we were in a clearing of nothing but grass. “It’s disgusting! Who knows what it’s doing!”

I got slowly to my knees. “You don’t like that it’s green?”

She looked at me as if I’d asked her if fire was hot. “It’s revolting! I hate it!”

“Earth’s plants are all green. It’s probably fine.”

I wouldn’t have said it was possible, but she looked even more disgusted than she had. “They are?”

“Yeah.”

She stood quickly, trying her best to not let the offending grass touch any of her skin. She probably was wishing she could float. “Like…all of them?”

“Most, at least, yeah. Green’s a super common color. Green and brown.”

“Brown!?”

“Yeah. Tree bark is mostly brown.”

“Ugh! Your world looks like poison and shit?”

I couldn’t help it; I just laughed in her face, which she did not find amusing. “I mean, I guess, but no one thinks of it that way.” I couldn’t help but continue smiling.

“Gross. Let’s get this over and get the fuck out of here.”

The portal still loomed behind us, but I couldn’t make out anything looking back into it. I hoped everyone we’d left on the other side hadn’t been able to see us writhing sickly on the ground once we’d come through.

“How’re we supposed to…” I asked.

“It’s this way. I can feel it.”

“You…can?”

“Yeah, can’t you?”

“I sure can’t,” I said while following her into a more forested area. “Must be the Dravini in you.”

She held her arms in close, unwilling to touch any more of the plants surrounding us than she had to. “That does make sense.” Revana summoned her shae blade and hacked the branches and vines that blocked our way.

I thought the place looked like a forest on Earth, just much more dense. They weren’t the exact same as the plants and trees I was used to, but they weren’t really all that far off. After we’d traveled for a while, I asked, “Do you hear that?”

She stopped and stood, her head cocked to the side. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Yeah, that’s my point. There’s barely any sound at all, just a breeze passing through. No bugs or anything scurrying around.” We kept going, and more and more, the lack of sound began to get a lot more creepy. I’d never noticed how much difference the ambient sound in nature mattered, but there was literally nothing. Not a single time did a small rodent hop out of our way, there wasn’t a single bird singing or screeching, and I didn’t see the movement of any insects. No large animal paths, no half rotted corpses covered in ants. Just…nothing.

“Maybe the awful plants poisoned everything to death.”

I smiled. “Well if they did, we’re not in a great spot.”

Revana led on, and eventually, we hacked our way into another clearing, but this one looked man-made. The lines dividing the forest and the short grass curved almost perfectly, as if we’d stepped into a huge circle. The ground was uneven, and we pressed on, hiking up a very steep hill.

Once we got to the top, Revana stopped and stared, her mouth hanging wide open.

I followed her gaze to the massive beast sitting in the sun on the next smaller hill. The rays of light danced off its scales in an undulating rainbow of shimmering color. Every small movement caused the light to shift, creating waves of color down its long body. “Well, today’s the day,” I said, twining my hand in hers. “Today’s the day you meet a dragon.”

For most of my time on Vendira, I’d wondered what a dragon would actually look like. Depictions on Earth were pretty varied, and I was only a little surprised to see that a real one in the flesh looked like a cross between traditional eastern and western dragons. It was still very long and curling, but not quite as snakelike as eastern dragons, but much, much longer than western ones. It had one pair of massive wings folded across its back. It wasn’t nearly as big as a yargeth, but it was damn big, still; it could have picked us up easily in one claw.

She stared for a long time before she shook her head and smiled. “I sure hope it’s not an asshole,” she said softly. “That would kinda ruin this once in a lifetime experience.”

We made our way slowly towards the enormous creature, which was obviously aware of our presence. Its huge, shining golden eyes were locked on us as we drew closer. It made no other movement, but I was still a little on edge; disposition aside, no one had ever actually guaranteed me that a dragon wouldn’t attack me on sight. As we got to what seemed like conversational distance, I waited for Revana to speak to it. She was the Dravini after all, and besides, I sure didn’t know what to say.

“Oh, Great One,” she said, her arms spread wide, “we have come far to—”

“Hello, little Dravini,” it said with what I could only assume was a smile, but it was a bit difficult to tell on such an elongated face. And its voice was decidedly a woman’s. “You don’t need to stand on ceremony with me. I’m much too old for any of that.” She leaned down and sniffed us, which we endured. “Only one of you smells of the tenebrae, and only faintly so. And you both are channelers of the shae. How such a thing warms my heart. But tell me quickly — Has the empire fallen? Is that why you’ve come?”

“Uh, no,” Revana said, her voice shaky. “We fight against it now, and that’s why we’ve come. We want your aid.”

When the dragon didn’t immediately respond, I thought it best that I at least attempt to say something. “We’ve been able to destroy one sigilarium and have plans for disabling the rest. And four of the royalty are dead. By our hands. More or less.”

She blinked very slowly and looked out over us to where our portal was. “I’ve felt your eyes on this world before, many years ago. But no one ever came. But then, recently, I felt them again. And here you stand before me, channelers of the shae, claiming to have bested the old Gorvani themselves.”

“Will…you…?” Revana could barely get the words out, but the dragon stood and unfurled her wings.

“Yes!” she said loudly. “Yes! I will return to my home, little sister! Of course I will. How long have I waited for this day to come? A day I feared never would.” She looked down at us and great, shimmering tears fell down her scales and landed on the ground in front of us. “I will ride the winds of Vendira again! I will swim in the shae itself! And even if it costs me my life, I will help you crush the empire that slew my kind! How long I have waited for this very moment!” She raised her head and roared, a sound that made the very ground tremble.

When she lowered her head back down to us, Revana ran to her and threw her arms around the dragon’s face, which was only a little bigger than our entire bodies. Streams of tears ran down Revana’s cheeks.

I was so, so happy for her. So happy we’d accomplished so much, and that she could live yet another of her dreams. She deserved it.

The dragon endured her hug for a while before sitting back and saying, “My name is Shendinalia’surinirin, but you may call me Nir.” After we introduced ourselves, she said, “It will take me a little time to ready myself for the trip home. You may leave the way you came and close your gateway, and I will follow the trail it leaves back to you.”

We said our goodbyes and turned to leave, but I had one more thing to ask. “Is there a reason there are no animals on this planet? We haven’t seen a single one.”

Nir shook her head. “This is a dead world, having suffered some unnamed calamity millenia ago. Perhaps life as we know it will spring anew one day, perhaps not. This is why I chose it, however; it was a silent place to sleep and wait, and a place no one who knew of our travels would think of.”

We left, following our trail that we’d hacked through the underbrush as much as we were the pull of the shae that kept our portal open. “That was shockingly easy,” I said.

Revana nodded, smiling. “For once, it was! Although I understand. She was forced from Vendira without any real chance of coming home.” She glanced over to me and her smile faltered. “Do you…”

“What? Want to go home?”

“I…I thought I’d just never say this. I’d never say it and hope it never occurred to you, but if Nir joins us, she can…” Her voice trailed off and she looked away.

“If she can travel between worlds, she can take me home, right?”

Revana just nodded.

I took her hand in mine as we slowly made our way through the forest. “That’s not something you have to worry about. Ever.” I stopped, put my hands on her shoulders, and turned her towards me. “I don’t want to go home. I am home.” I looked around. “Well okay, I mean Vendira’s my home. This life, with you, even though it’s wildly dangerous and who knows how it’ll all end up, I’d choose it over going back to Earth a million times over. A portal could pop up right here, right now, and I’d do my best to close it. I’m staying with you. I love you.”

She hugged me tight and I returned it, and we stood there like that, not saying a word.

We eventually stepped back and she said, “If someone had told me I was going to summon you, I just wouldn’t have believed them. I’m not sure what I realistically expected, but it wasn’t this.”

In no time at all, we were back at the portal. “Well, are you ready to crush an empire?” I asked.

She took my hand. “You know I am.”

We stepped into the portal.

The sickening feeling was much easier to manage this time, and when we emerged onto Vendira again, I was able to remain on my feet. Which was for the best, since standing there waiting for us with a triumphant smile on her face was the Fourteenth Daughter.

34

“Hello, rats.” She smiled broadly, a tiny hint of insanity in her too-wide eyes.

“Hello, Gor’mina,” I said.

“How extraordinary, that you’ve managed to accomplish this,” she said, gesturing towards the portal that was closing behind us. “I had thought we’d beaten the fight out of you people long ago, but here you are, channelers of the shae, standing in the flesh before me.” She shook her head, still smiling. “I thought maiming Drelar would prove to be the extent of your meager powers. But perhaps…” She raised her hands and the tenebrae swirled around her. Like the other royals, she wore the white skirts and nothing else besides a heap of gem-encrusted necklaces, and all that was covered in a cloud of darkness that formed into a set of extremely thick and heavy armor, covered with the swirls and loops I was familiar with, but the magic kept moving out towards her hands where it coalesced into two massive warhammers. They were much bigger than a person would be able to lift with both hands had they been made of metal, and they featured a vicious spike on the back end. “Perhaps you’ll be more fun than I had imagined possible.” Her armor didn’t cover her head; her long, wavy hair flowed down outside of it, and the crazed smile was still on her lips.

All my inherited memories said dual-wielding was troublesome at the best of times, and no one anywhere ever had used two massive hammers at once. But by the way she held them, I knew those memories weren’t going to help me very much.

I summoned my armor, pulling as much of the shae in as I could to reinforce it, and I was able to match the bulk of her armor, which would have been impossible without the new relic around my neck.

Revana summoned her own along with her blade, and as much as I wished I could tell her that I was going to take this fight alone, I knew that would be foolishness; I would need whatever help I could get. I glanced around quickly, but I couldn’t see anyone else on the plateau, just a bunch of ruined crates of used-up reagents. I pushed those emotions down and just hoped everyone was able to escape before she got here. 

They were all fine. They’d be just fine. I needed to focus on myself right now.

Gor’mina just stood there and watched as I readied my new shield and drew my sword, patient as could be. She held up her hammers and slammed them together over her head, releasing a thunderous boom of dark magic. “Come, rats. Make my blood sing!” 

The portal behind us closed with a thunderclap, and she used that split second of my attention wavering to teleport directly in front of my face and slam both hammers into my chest.

I was lifted off my feet and flew end over end to come crashing down on the stone. I righted myself as quickly as I could and charged back to her. 

Revana ran towards her back, but I cried out as I saw Gor’mina’s eyes flick towards her. 

She spun on one heel, hit Revana into the air with one hammer, and bash her away with the other.

I couldn’t go after her; I had to trust in her and continue the attack, so that’s what I did, as much as it hurt. I summoned Revana’s flashing balls of light right in Gor’mina’s face, and in the brief second of recoil, I thrust my sword into her exposed throat.

She was able to turn slightly, so my blade went out the side of her neck instead of through her spine. If it hurt, she didn’t seem to care, as she just kept smiling. One of her hammers winked out of existence and she pressed that hand into my face, expelling a huge blast of the tenebrae.

Once again, I found myself tumbling end over end across the ground. But this time, once I righted myself, I found Revana at my side instead of engaging again. We shared a glance and slowly approached our enemy, who resummoned her second hammer.

We attacked her in tandem, trying to divide her attention, but she was swift and consistently stepped back, not allowing us to flank her. The shae kept us going, but I wondered how long this fight would last, and if she was the only enemy who’d even come here.

Once again, thoughts of Tiq and Isik and Osaarin entered my head, but I got a warhammer to the face when I wasn’t paying enough attention to avoid the blow, so I put those thoughts aside as best I could.

Revana stepped back and opened two swirling masses of shae above her that spewed out spears at Gor’mina, who I charged and attempted to put off balance. We kept up this strategy for a little while, forcing the royal to fight defensively.

She tired of that quickly enough, teleporting away and opening an absurd amount of tenebrous portals above her head. They didn’t throw spears at us, but massive gouts of pure, flaming magic.

I leapt towards Revana, shielding us both from the heavy blasts.

A second later, Gor’mina was behind us, and I didn’t have any time to react as she swung, knocking me all the way across the ground. 

I flipped and rolled, and was just able to look up to see Revana prone on the ground, her armor cracked and melting away, two dark hammers ready to crush the life out of her.

“NO!”

I thought I had yelled it, but from behind a splintered pile of detritus, Isik stood, her hands flowing with magic.

The Fourteenth Daughter’s weapons puffed out of existence just before they would have crushed Revana.

Gor’mina cocked her head and stared at Isik. A second later, she teleported in front of her and lifted her, one-handed, off the ground by her throat. “Inquisitor! I had wondered how this entire sect had escaped our notice. And here I thought the Inquisition nothing more than lap dogs!”

Isik struggled, her eyes wide with fear. I couldn’t recall ever seeing her afraid of anything, but she was terrified of Gor’mina. 

“Impressive, really, Inquisitor. But still…” She channeled.

Isik screamed. She flinched and jerked, her whole body rigid as she was branded. Gor’mina then just tossed her away, and she lay unmoving where she landed.

With the other two down, I did my best to take up all her attention, weaving feints and parries in as best I could. None of my inherited memories were against this kind of fighting style, but my shield saved me from numerous blows, and I found myself knocked back less and less, getting at least a little accustomed to where attacks might be coming from.

Moments later, Gor’mina flinched from a large mass of the shae hitting her in the back, and I did my best to keep her attention on me and not on Revana, who’d regained her footing. And then, as I was bracing for an attack, her hammer disappeared, as Isik had also rejoined the fight. 

We continued in this way, pressing Gor’mina harder and harder, and it looked like we might have the upper hand. Her smile didn’t waver, though. I could have sworn she was enjoying every minute of this. Finally, after much duress, she grunted and raised both hammers up, and I saw the opening.

I thrust my blade straight down with all the shae I could muster, straight through her armor and into her chest.

That was the plan, anyway, and it worked. Sort of.

As I moved in for the deathblow, both of her hammers winked away, and I thought it was Isik’s doing, but in their place, a long, thin sword appeared in her hands and as I was coming down, she struck.

My sword went straight through her body.

Hers went straight through mine.

The pain was immediate and staggering. She channeled more into her sword, and I could feel the magic leaching through my muscles and bones, and it was agony. In the back of my mind, I wondered if this was what getting branded felt like. I did my best to retain my hold on the shae, but every single bit I had I needed to keep myself alive and conscious.

She grimaced, but her tenebrae must have mitigated most of the damage my sword was doing, even as it poked out of her back. “I didn’t know,” she said, dark blood falling from her mouth, muddying her words, “that rats could be so strong anymore.” She smiled. “I’d thought all the great warriors were dead and gone, never to return. What an unexpected thrill.”

She channeled into me, and my vision wavered. I did my best to not cry out, but it hurt so, so much. I thought it was over, but I saw Revana glowing out of the corner of my eye, runes and sigils beginning to form around her. They looked…familiar, in a way.

Then it hit me. She was channeling the new spell we’d found in the temple; she was calling the shae itself down from the sky.

Gor’mina looked over with an amused smile on her face. “And what do you think you could possibly—”

Revana exploded into blinding incandescence, the sigils activating and flying up to the heavens to create a massive shower of cascading blossoms of light high in the clouds before they started plummeting back down towards us.

“Huh,” the Fourteenth Daughter said.

A tidal wave of the shae washed over us. Gor’mina’s weapon disintegrated and I could feel my flesh knitting together, which was an incredibly good but incredibly odd feeling.

After that, I just rode the tides until the spell was finished, my hand still on my sword.

After the light subsided, I looked up to find Gor’mina still alive, but only barely. Her hair was gone with most of the skin and muscle from her face. One eye looked back out at me, but even then, with only the ruins of a mouth from which a river of blood flowed freely, she managed to smile at me, and then, she started laughing.

She jerked and convulsed, still laughing, her wounds trying and failing to heal. She slowly shook her head and said, “Unimaginable.” She was difficult to understand through the blood. “Well done…rats.”

I pulled my sword from her chest and raised it up, ready to cut off her head.

“Wait.”

In every single movie or show I’d ever seen where the villain told the hero to wait, I’d screamed at them, “Just kill them!” 

But, like a complete dumbass, I waited. I didn’t know why. It was stupid, but she was done for; It was over. And honestly? I guess I just wanted to know what she was going to say.

She looked up at me, and while she must have been in intense pain, her one-eyed gaze was solid. “If I…am…to die…” She coughed up even more blood. “Then it is…only fitting…that…the empire…dies with me.” She couldn’t raise her arm, but she turned her hand palm up, and after clearly making a serious effort, the air around it warped, revealing a key that looked to be made completely of the tenebrae. She dropped it to the ground.

“Thank you…for one…last thrill, little…rats. Now, scurry…along. The others…come…for you.” She closed her eye and said nothing more.

So I finished it. In one clean blow, I took off her head.

35

“Don’t touch it,” Isik said, as we all gathered to look at the key. She summoned a tenebrous gauntlet and still picked it up very gingerly.

“What is it?” I asked. “You know, aside from a key.”

Isik shook her head. “I’m…not sure. It’ll take some time to figure out.” She looked at Gor’mina’s corpse and shuddered.

“You were scared of her. You were…hiding, during the fight, weren’t you?”

“I…” She glanced back and forth between me and the body. “I suppose there’s no reason to deny it. Those creatures — the royalty — they terrify me. They’re scarcely people anymore. They’ve essentially lived as gods for so long, they can only think of themselves that way. And what does that make the rest of us? Expendable doesn’t even begin to describe it. We’re not even people like they are. Look at one wrong, and that’s it: your life is over, and it won’t be pleasant. And they won’t even think of you once after giving the order.” She shuddered again and had to turn away. “I’ll pack this key up for safe transport and see what I can find out. You should head down to the manor. Everyone fled there. Luckily, Gor’mina was focused on waiting for you out here. I was…only able to hide here.” I was surprised she admitted it so readily.

Revana was on her feet, but only barely. “Casting that spell is more taxing than I thought it would be, but I’ll be fine. Let’s go find the others.”

Despite her assurances she was fine, I took her arm as we went down the many stone steps towards the manor house. Once we were close, the doors flew open and Tiq ran out, tears in her eyes.

She wrapped her arms around both of us, sobbing, trying to speak but only managing to choke out more sobs. We endured her hugs and returned them tightly.

“We’re okay,” I said.

“I wanted to help so much,” she said once she got herself under control. “I almost went up there a thousand times. But I wouldn’t have been able to do anything, even with my device. I’d just have pissed her off and gotten killed, I know, but it was torture waiting down here.”

Osaarin came out to greet us and said, “I thought I was going to have to physically restrain Lady Tiquette. But I’m overjoyed to see you safe. Can I ask…?”

“Yes,” Revana said. “There was a dragon. We met her, and she should be coming back soon!”

The elation on Osaarin’s face was like the sun cutting through a stormcloud. “T-truly? After all this time?”

Revana explained our surprisingly fruitful mission into the portal. Although Nir hadn’t told us exactly how long she’d need to prepare, I got the impression it wasn’t going to be a long time. It would have been pretty helpful, really, if she’d shown up during the fight, I thought. Assuming it was going to be soon, a lot of us went back up to the plateau to wait.

While we did so, Gor’mina’s last words echoed in my head. The others come for you. Did she mean the rest of the royalty was on their way here now? I supposed we’d find out if we didn’t leave fast enough. One thing was clear: this place wasn’t the least bit safe any longer. 

The sun had only moved a fraction over the horizon when a tiny spark of golden light burst into existence right where our portal had been. It grew and grew, eventually swirling and expanding into a gateway many times larger than ours had been. In a huge flash of light, it was gone, and standing on the plateau was Nir, in all her radiant glory. 

There were cheers and screams of joy, and Nir took it all in stride, stretching her wings and enduring all the attention that was being lavished on her. I imagined she wanted to take to the sky, but this was just as emotional for her as it was for everyone, I imagined. Maybe quite a bit moreso.

Tiq had a million questions, of course.

Isik just stood back, away from the throng, but there was a persistent little smile on her lips.

I figured I’d let everyone else have their turn, so I wandered over to the edge of the cliff face and looked out on the long road that wound down the mountain and eventually back towards Telorn. A road we’d be walking soon, I thought.

Revana came up behind me and put her arms over mine.

“Done already? I thought you’d be basking in Nir’s presence as long as you could.”

“There’ll be time for that, I’m sure. I thought maybe a quiet moment alone would be nice for now.”

We stood there, staring out over the horizon, her chin resting on my shoulder, her tail wrapped lightly around my leg.

“Wha-what’s…that?” I asked. There was a long, black line of something off in the distance, marching down the road.

Revana tensed. “Tiquette! Tiq, come here!”

Tiq detached herself from the crowd and came over, where Revana pointed down to what we were looking at.

“Tell me it’s not what I think it is, please.”

Tiq was silent for a moment before saying, “It’s…it’s the entire imperial Gorvani army.”

I took Revana’s white-clawed hand and Tiq’s heavily-ringed soft hand in mine.

“We have to go. Now.”

To Be Continued

AFTERWORD

Thank you very much for reading! It means a lot to me that so many people are enjoying my stories.

You can find book 3, Shadowbreaker, the final installment in the series, here!

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ALSO BY ISAAC KEYES

The Dragon Cult Series

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Shadowbreaker

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Izzy, for all your help and advice!

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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