by Will Wight
Tyria slid into view, close enough that Shera could see her with her own eyes. She was well and truly cornered now.
Especially since the needle was not Tyria’s Soulbound Vessel.
Golden light pooled at the Champion’s feet, congealing into finger-thick vines. Thorns of gold light sprouted on the vines, and half a dozen shot toward Shera like flexible arms.
Tyria was one of the Champions best-suited for capturing an opponent, so Shera had no choice. The instant she caught a glimpse of her opponent, she thickened Bastion’s Veil and dove out the window.
She led with her shear, so the window shattered instantly; from the moment Shera had seen the musket-ball break through the glass, she knew that whatever they had done to seal the building had not prevented glass from shattering.
Her gray, hooded outfit had been both designed and invested to protect her, so the glass couldn’t cut through the soft fabric…but that didn’t mean she escaped unscathed.
Sharp edges tore at her wrists beneath her sleeves, the sides of her neck, and even her cheeks, though she did everything she could to hide her face.
She landed on the eaves of the lower floor, tucked into a roll, and risked collapsing as she poured more energy into Bastion’s Veil and ran.
Bullets shattered the tiles all around her.
She couldn’t spare the attention to look through the eyes of the mist, but she had known the exits would be covered. She could climb down now, but as she glanced down, she saw Imperial Guards filling the streets below.
Shera continued running around to the front of the building, where the balcony still hung over a crowd confused by the sudden mist. She could slip down and rejoin Meia and Jorin.
Without the vision of the mist, she couldn’t find them. She wasn’t sure where they had positioned themselves.
But if they could join up, then they could all escape without another open attack on the Imperialists in their own headquarters. That had always been a terrible risk.
She dropped onto the corner of the balcony, taking a moment to catch her breath. Blood dripped from half a dozen wounds as her body and mind ached equally. She had overused her Vessel too quickly. If she didn’t get some sleep soon, she might collapse.
The mist was silver and endless, as though the world ended at the railing of the balcony. The noise of the crowd below echoed strangely inside the Veil, like a murmuring that came from all around her.
Her best chance was to find Meia and Jorin while the Champions were distracted, but she might pass out if she tried to look through Bastion’s Veil.
Instead, she gently let her awareness drift into the Vessel and allowed the tides of mist to take her where they wished.
Like brief flashes of half-remembered dreams, she saw images with no order or reason to them. Glimpses of individuals from the crowd outside, maids huddled in their rooms, Calder Marten sitting and chatting with Imperial Guards, Rosephus destroying walls in his rage to find her…
Hold on.
Shera’s head spun as she took the reins of Bastion’s power. She knew it was a gamble using her own power so much, but she spun it back.
There… She focused on Calder. He was sitting on the floor of a well-lit room, leaning his back against the wall. From the neck down, he wore the Emperor’s armor, but his red hair was bare. The helmet sat on the floor next to him.
He finished a joke and a snake-scaled Imperial Guard forced a laugh, but Shera let the vision vanish.
He was below her.
From the brief glimpses she’d received and from her own study of the Emperor’s Stage layout, she knew where he was. It was a costume changing room behind the balcony and one floor down.
His Champions were gone. Only half a dozen Guards remained with him in the room, and he had his helmet off.
With Bastion’s power, she could do this. The mist was thin inside the room at the moment, but she could change that. She wasn’t so exhausted yet that she couldn’t run in, slit his throat beneath the cover of the Veil, and run out.
She hadn’t seen Meia or Jorin, so she had to assume that they hadn’t been able to extract themselves from the crowd yet. She could complete her mission while she still had the chance of success.
And she could pull the weed that was Calder Marten, who had caused her too many problems already.
Even if worst came to worst…
Her left hand drifted down to the sealed Syphren.
She had options.
Shera gripped Bastion’s hilt and lightened some of the mist inside the hallways and out in the periphery around the crowd. Her breath became ragged and sweat beaded on her forehead as she slowly thickened the mist inside the storage room where Calder waited.
It would have been easier to fill it suddenly, but she didn’t want to alert them more than they were already. Stealthy meant slow.
After a few minutes, she had fogged the room enough that it would be hard for them to make out details of a figure only feet away.
Now was her time.
She caught her breath one last time, limbered up, and slid Bastion back into its sheath. Then she crept back into the Emperor’s Stage.
A squad of four Imperial Guards covered the nearest entrance to the storage room. There were two such entrances, both guarded.
The locked door was at the bottom of a short staircase, and two of the Guards stood at the top of the staircase, with two more taking up positions farther away. She could spend her time taking out first the gunner in the highest position, then the spearman watching the corner, then the two over the door.
Or…
A gust of fog blew in over the Guards, and they readied themselves, but this had happened several times over the evening as Bastion’s Veil waxed and waned. They prepared themselves, leveling their weapons and moving closer to one another, but they didn’t immediately call for an emergency.
The mist withdrew after a moment, and Shera heard them relax.
From the bottom of the stairs, where she already waited against the door.
Why fight the Guards when she could just walk past them?
The Emperor’s Stage was never designed as a fortified location. The Imperial Guard did their best, but it wasn’t as though it was a military installation. In order to make things easier on the maintenance staff, the publicly accessible areas used one master key.
Shera took a copy of that key from her pocket and opened the door.
The sound of the lock turning was muffled from the outside, thanks to the cloud of mist that she carried with her, but it would be clear from the inside. That was to her advantage; the Guards within wouldn’t be afraid of anyone who entered with a key.
Someone from inside called out for verification, and Shera took a moment to glance inside. She still didn’t want to exhaust herself by looking for too much detail, but she got a brief impression of the positions of everyone in the room.
Then she threw the door open and dashed inside, carrying Bastion’s Veil with her.
She shot through, dodging the shadowy figures of the Guards. Their voices echoed through the fog, cries of alarm sounding from every direction, but she reached the far wall in a second.
The mist cleared enough to show her Calder, still in the process of putting on his helmet. His throat was bare.
Bastion leaped for his neck.
A sharp pain seized Shera around the ankle and yanked her entire body back, tearing her skin as it did. She twisted in midair, slashing at her own leg with her shear.
The silver-blue blade passed through Tyria’s golden thorns, slashing the vine apart.
Silver light pierced the air where Shera would have been if she hadn’t broken the Soulbound’s power.
Shera lunged back in the other direction…and Bastion’s blade skated across the Emperor’s helmet.
Calder leaped away, into the Veil.
She’d lost him.
Mission failed.
Shera moved away from her last known position. She couldn’t chase; Calder w
ould be leading her closer to the Champion.
A woman’s voice resonated through the mist, casual but powerful. “You’re pretty slippery, aren’t you?”
Tyria. The Champion.
An explosion sounded through the room, and a quick shadowy glimpse through Bastion’s Veil showed her that Rosephus had blown his way through the doorframe of the door Tyria had already opened. He held a sword in each hand while a trio of ghostly red daggers floated over his head: his own Soulbound power.
“FACE ME, SNAKE!” Rosephus roared.
No, Shera thought.
She ran for the other exit.
She couldn’t afford to look through the mist anymore; her eyes and mind were both on the verge of giving up. When she was close enough to see the Guards on the door, they swung weapons at her immediately.
“East exit!” one called, and Rosephus’ weapon-clad figure landed before the words were even out of the Guard’s mouth.
The floor cracked under his boots, and a sword and a spectral dagger both flashed for Shera’s chest.
She rolled away, drawing the mist like a cloak around her, but something still scored a hit on her back.
She limped away, hearing the Champion tearing the room around her apart.
In an instant, she assessed her condition.
She could no longer see through the Veil, and her ability to control it was questionable at best. One of her ankles was damaged, so there would be no outrunning anyone. She was losing blood by the second.
This could only get any worse if someone stumbled on her in this exact moment.
Calder emerged from the mist, looming over her, his sword shining orange in the silver clouds.
Of course, Shera thought.
The black glass of his visor made Calder’s visage inhuman as he looked down.
“By the authority of the Imperial Steward, you’re under arrest, Guild Head.” Coming through the Emperor’s armor, his voice had an unusual tone of authority.
“We’ve fought before,” Shera said, lifting Bastion. “You want to try again?”
He had her beat in reach, strength, and physical condition. And while wearing that armor, Bastion couldn’t touch him. But every second she could bluff him was a second she could use to think of a way out.
Her left hand tightened around Syphren’s hilt. Bastion couldn’t touch him, but Syphren had been invested to break through defenses. If he came any closer…
Calder took a step back. “This is not about me or my pride. We will stop you from tearing the Empire apart. Whatever it takes.”
He raised his voice and called, “Southeast corner.”
He had grown up. He wasn’t trying to prove himself, to match her. Shera’s frustration was distant. Cold calculations kept it at bay.
The Champions were coming closer with every second. Shera had only moments to live.
This was no time to hold anything back.
Without further thought, Shera drew her second shear.
The voices of her Vessels slammed together into her head like two ships colliding head-on.
Bastion’s voice was soothing. We protect, preserve, and conceal. Our life is a small price to pay for peace and unity.
Syphren was anything but peaceful. Its whisper tore at her reason. So hungry…
The two clawed at each other, and Shera was merely debris tossed between them.
What did she want? Where was she? How much time had passed? She couldn’t know. Was she here to save the world from the Elders or to kill a man? Did she want to preserve the Guild or to find some kind of revenge for Lucan?
Around her, the mist seemed to grow thinner or thicker as Bastion’s power waxed and waned. Syphren felt the power of those around her, though that sense dimmed to distant awareness one moment and brightened the next until she could almost see balls of green light floating around her.
The two brightest lights moved up to either side of Calder: the Champions.
Gardener doctrine had a saying about having to face a member of the Champion’s Guild in open combat: “When the Champion defeats you, end your own life.”
She was dead, her body just hadn’t figured it out yet.
Soon, she would join Lucan.
In Syphren’s whispers, it was as though she could hear Lucan’s voice drifting from beyond the grave.
“You will need as much power as you can get…to protect Shera.”
Bastion’s voice echoed one word. Protect.
“To feed…in Shera’s service.”
Service, Bastion repeated.
Gold light pooled beneath Shera, and thorny vines reached up to surround her in a cage of Soulbound Intent. Whether they meant to capture her or kill her, she didn’t know; she was swallowed up in her own Soulbound power.
“To turn power against…”
Lucan’s whispers faded, merged into Bastion’s voice, and the two Vessels completed the sentence together.
…any that would threaten her.
Suddenly she could sense the lives of those around her as clearly as she knew the position of her own limbs. The powers of the two Champions were like two bonfires just out of arm’s reach.
But she was already surrounded by delicious power.
Shera’s left arm swept out and green light swallowed gold. The golden thorns melted into green, flooding into Shera, filling her with life and sharpening her senses…
And this time, not just her physical senses.
The scene in the rest of the room was burned into her mind so clearly. She could see everything, and the power she’d just absorbed gave her all the fuel her power needed.
It was so easy now.
“…kill her!” Calder shouted, and Rosephus didn’t need another order.
Having just seen Tyria’s Soulbound powers failing, he knew better than to try his own. He was on her in an instant, swinging a sword the size of her thigh with one hand.
Shera had told Jorin that Syphren’s power didn’t make her any stronger or faster.
“Then you’re using it wrong,” the Regent had responded.
Was it because she knew how the emerald light was meant to be used, or was it because Bastion’s power muted Syphren’s and made it easier to handle? She couldn’t be sure.
But as the Champion’s blade came down, Shera drank in the power she’d just absorbed. It sunk in more deeply and more easily than it ever had before, filling her with vibrant life.
Her arm came up and caught the Champion’s sword on Bastion’s blade.
Even with the power flooding through her like lightning, Bastion still cautioned against overconfidence. She herself remembered enough that she didn’t try and meet Rosephus strength for strength. No matter how useful her Soulbound powers were, his body was more than human.
She turned his blade aside with Bastion and struck at his head with Syphren.
The green blade came in and slashed through the metal of his helmet in a spray of sparks, but he was still a Champion. He bent himself backwards so that when she tore open his armor, she left only a shallow slash on his skin.
His leg swept hers out from under her and she fell, but a small spark of dense green energy hovered in the air where Rosephus had been cut. She drew it closer.
Then she rolled away, into the mist.
Bastion’s power surrounded her.
Tyria drove her own weapon into the ground where Shera had just lain.
In that moment, Shera absorbed the spark of power from Rosephus.
She’d thought that the amount she had before was enough, but it was a puddle next to the lake of what she drank this time. The power forced her to her feet, and she could feel torn muscles and skin knitting themselves back together all over her body.
You are invincible! one of her shears cried.
But don’t let it go to your head, the other counseled.
It was like each of the Vessels was an impossible weight. With only one, it tilted her too far to one side. But the two kept each other in balance.
For one driving purpose.
Shera readied her shears and dove into Bastion’s Veil, hunting her target.
The mist was so thick now that it was difficult for anyone else to see their hand in front of their face, but Shera could see, feel, and hear everything in the room. If she tried to expand her senses any further, it would be too much for her…but within the bounds of the storage room, it was as though she had a thousand eyes.
Four Imperial Guards surrounded the armored Calder, taking him to the exit. Meanwhile, Tyria and Rosephus had exploded with power, tearing craters in the floor and flailing around in their search for her. Even in her current state, she could not take on a Champion in open battle.
But she wasn’t after a Champion.
She took away the first of the four Guards and shoved two needles into his neck. The dose might kill him, but at least she had tried to keep him alive.
The other three Guards hadn’t even seen him vanish before she took the second.
This woman resisted the needle, but before she could cry out, Shera drove Syphren into her and drank deep of her energy.
Oh well, I tried.
The Independents would still need the cooperation of the Imperial Guard afterwards, so she didn’t want to upset them too badly, but she had killed their fellow Guild members before. No matter what she did today, she wouldn’t ever be their favorite person.
Calder turned when his final Guard vanished, calling out for the Champions…but his voice echoed from every direction in the room. And he didn’t know where he was.
His orange blade swept through the mist as Shera appeared in front of him.
“She’s here!” he shouted.
“WHERE?” Rosephus roared back.
“Where’s your wife?” Shera asked quietly.
Jyrine was the one who had really killed Lucan.
“You want to know?” Calder levered his sword. “Defeat me and I’ll tell you.”
There was rarely any good reason to engage the target in conversation before killing him. Shera wasn’t sure herself why she had spoken; maybe her stolen power was making her cocky.
