Of Killers and Kings

by Will Wight

  HE’S COMING!

  Silver-blue mist erupted from Shera and filled the building of the Imperial Palace.

  Still overcome with panic, Shera tackled Yala to the ground. The High Mason rolled as she hit, landing in a crouch and pulling out a knife in a move that would have been suitable for a Gardener half her age.

  She looked up, moving her knife around, her eyes moving aimlessly. “What are you doing, girl?”

  Only then did Shera realize she was using Bastion’s power to see through the mist. Yala had no idea what was going on.

  Of course, neither did Shera. She had reacted purely on the impulse delivered by her Vessels.

  She let her vision drift up, through Bastion’s Veil, into the sky. The daggers had reacted to a feeling in the air.

  A feeling of darkness, emptiness, cold.

  It didn’t seem overwhelming to Shera. More like a winter wind on its way.

  The Capital was still bustling in the midst of the evacuation. No one outside had panicked any more than usual, so nothing outwardly dramatic had happened. No giant Elders bursting from the ground.

  It was only a little overcast; the daylight was gray and pale, and dark clouds loomed on the horizon.

  Shera stretched out her mist, and it grew thin as she reached deeper into the Imperial Palace. In combination with Syphren’s sense of life and power, she soon found Jorin.

  The Regent was standing looking into the clouds. As her vision closed on him, he began to speak as though quoting. “‘For his jaws will swallow the sun.’” He pulled the bandaged sword from his back, but didn’t begin to unravel it yet. Even so, the feel of its bound Intent was nauseating. “‘All that lives will pass away, leaving only the shadow eternal.’ Once upon a turning of the sands, we worked with the Sleepless to stop that prophecy from coming to pass.”

  With his free hand, he pulled off his shadeglasses and tucked them into his pocket. Silver eyes turned to stare straight at Shera, though he shouldn’t have been able to see her in the mist. “We were wrong, Shera. This is not Kelarac. This is worse.”

  His eyes returned to the sky. “I’m afraid we have only hours. Even the Sleepless fear the Creeping Shadow.”

  Shera snapped out of her trance and rushed over to Yala, easily sidestepping the woman’s defensive slash.

  She grabbed the High Mason with both hands. “Urg’naut is coming.”

  Whatever Shera’s personal issues with Yala, the woman was a professional. She didn’t waste time on useless questions, cutting to the heart of the matter: “Then we run.”

  “No. We’re fighting.”

  Anger showed on Yala’s face, but Shera didn’t have time for it.

  “Round up the Readers. They’re out of time.”

  One and all, the Readers protested.

  They needed weeks to safely and effectively Awaken anything. They had been prepared to spend every second of the day and a half they were given to learn the necessary Intent, and they still weren’t sure that would be enough time.

  Now, hearing they had to pull the trigger when less than half of that time had elapsed must have been like hearing they had to run into battle naked.

  But if they didn’t bow to their Guild Head, they bowed to reality.

  With Kelarac, there could be negotiation. There would certainly be survivors; Kelarac wanted slaves, not corpses.

  Urg’naut was the Great Elder of Annihilation.

  One by one, fourteen Reader-Gardener pairs entered secluded chambers and began the Awakening process.

  Shera paced the halls outside, fighting urges from her Vessels: they were uncomfortable waiting around and wanted battle to begin.

  If they hadn’t balanced one another, she would have had more awkward urges to deal with. Syphren would have loved to charge into these rooms and devour the delicious power it could feel, while Bastion wanted her to find a secure room and hunker down.

  They had come to a compromise that made her more and more restless, waiting for combat.

  With every passing second, the sky grew darker and the air grew colder.

  Which gave Shera no choice but to stand and wait for the Gardeners to emerge. To resist her impatience, she sank into the state of low-level concentration she used on Gardener assignments when she had to wait around for hours at a time.

  Either she was about to get a load of new Soulbound or they were all in trouble.

  Incidentally, it also helped keep her mind from the fact that she was rolling dice with the lives of her few remaining friends.

  By the time the air had become fully gray, color seeming to leech from every surface, she heard a distant shriek coming from within one of the nearby rooms. It sounded like a hunting jungle cat.

  Syphren knew the presence inside the room. It had always smelled delicious, but now that scent had become richer and stronger.

  Shera barged into Meia’s room without invitation.

  The Architect Reader was kneeling on the ground nearby and clutching her head, but Meia stood in the center of the room with her back to the door and her shears bare in each hand. The knives had grown longer and thinner, and now instead of bronze they were a sort of dull yellow, like topaz or unlit stained glass.

  At the center of each blade, a shining orange eye appeared with a vertically slitted pupil. They looked like enlarged versions of the Kameira eyes that Meia showed when her blood was up.

  The eyes on both of the knives focused on Shera, and she had to resist Syphren’s urge to feed.

  “I see you, Shera.” Meia sounded delighted, and when she turned around, there were actual tears in her eyes.

  Shera blinked. “Meia, are you…is everything okay?”

  Different Soulbound had different urges, depending on the nature of the Intent in their Vessel, but Shera knew from experience that it could be overwhelming at first. Maybe these Vessels had brought grief or depression.

  “I want to see everything.” The eyes on her knives slid around, looking at something in the distance as tears rolled down Meia’s face. “I’m sorry, Shera, I know this is serious. But this is…it’s incredible.”

  “Uh, well, as long as you’re all right.”

  Shera didn’t know how to respond. Was this a genuine emotional response, or was it a new Soulbound Vessel messing with her mind?

  Meia didn’t seem to be a danger, and for that Shera was relieved. She didn’t think she could count this project as a victory if it cost them Meia.

  A deep whistling cut through the walls and Shera ran out, moving next door. If she remembered correctly, it was Benji in the next room over. To think the newest Gardener would be the second one finished.

  This time, the Reader was standing and wiping sweat from his forehead. When he saw Shera, he raised one fist into the air. “It’s a miracle! You have no idea how hard I—”

  Shera hushed him with a gesture, watching Benji.

  She had to be ready in case Benji went insane.

  In fact, a whole squad of Consultants and Imperial Guards waited outside, ready to put down any wild Soulbound, but Shera had insisted on the opportunity to check first.

  It had been her decision to go through with this, so she would take responsibility for the results.

  Benji hovered in midair, his shears now purple and hooked like sickles. Purple light fluttered around him in the form of a cloud of butterflies.

  He looked from one to another, wearing a slightly irritated expression.

  “How do you feel, Benji?” Shera asked. She kept her hands away from her weapons lest he take that as a threat.

  “The Kameira that left the deepest impression on these blades was a Flutterlight,” Benji said. “…can I try again?”

  The Reader looked to him in horror.

  “You look fine to me.” Shera jerked a thumb behind her. “Report to the Architects. Get yourself checked out and register your power.”

  She hadn’t needed to instruct Meia, who reported to the Architects whenever a cloud drifted by, but Benji was still
new to the Guild. He didn’t know how things worked yet.

  The newly Soulbound Gardener sighed and agreed.

  Shera took a deep breath as she felt another power blossom in a nearby room. Ayana and Kerian were still locked in with their Readers, but with two successes, she now felt much better about their odds.

  The third room she opened was filled with blood.

  Just blood. No chunks of meat, bone, or organs. The inside of all four walls and the ceiling were splattered as though someone had exploded, but there were no shreds of burst clothing. None of the details Shera would expect from a scene of true gore.

  She would have almost thought the room had been covered in dark red paint if not for the smell. Coppery, not as foul as carnage usually was.

  At the center of the room, a pair of sharp and twisted bones glowed a dull red. From Syphren’s surge of hunger, Shera supposed those had once been Gardener shears.

  Two seconds after opening the door and taking in the details, Shera slammed the room shut again.

  The few Architects close enough to see looked sick. One made a gagging sound.

  “Not a word,” Shera said coldly. “Send in cleaning crews afterwards. Who was in this room?”

  A nearby Architect gave her the name of a Gardener and a Reader, neither of whom she knew well.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. If she had to lose someone, at least it was no one she cared about. Though she did understand enough not to voice that thought out loud.

  A pattern became clear as the next five Gardeners emerged successful. Unlike Shera’s shears, these knives were being Awakened in pairs, so they shared one consciousness. No one but Shera would have to deal with multiple minds within their own, which Shera found convenient if a little unfair.

  Also, none of the others so far had to deal with urges as strong as Shera’s had been.

  Some of the Readers speculated that it was because her shears held Elder Intent from the Heart of Nakothi, though Shera suspected it had more to do with the Emperor.

  Finally, the success rate was astonishing. With every new person that came out successfully Soulbound, the Architects grew more and more excited. One failure—no matter how violent—and seven successes was a performance that surpassed any Soulbinding attempts on record.

  When word finally reached Yala that the Gardeners were coming out, she ran so fast that she arrived out of breath, searching for her daughter.

  Seconds after she saw Meia, her stern and tightened face beamed. The two crashed into an embrace.

  Shera was horrified.

  Seeing Yala happy was like watching an Elder dance. It twisted everything she knew about the world in on itself. Meia’s entire life, Yala had never been fully satisfied with her daughter. At least, not as far as Shera had ever seen. Their relationship had been one of Meia constantly seeking approval while Yala withheld it.

  To see them get along as a family was…uncomfortable.

  She edged away from the mother-daughter pair and focused on the doors.

  Six left, and two of them were Kerian and Ayana.

  Honestly, Shera was far more worried about Kerian. She was older than most Gardeners ever lived to be, and she had a permanent injury to her knee where Shera herself had kicked it in.

  Kerian might not have the physical stamina to live up to the strain of her Vessel, and even if she did, she may not be capable of carrying it in battle. If Kerian’s long bond to her shears wouldn’t improve the success rate of Awakening, Shera would have found a new Gardener.

  Ayana, while perhaps a little past her physical prime, had inherited Kameira blood from the Imperial Guard. If Shera knew her at all, Ayana was looking forward to standing on equal footing with the Head of the Guard, General Teach. She would be fine.

  Name the Elders and they appear, Shera thought as she heard a low growl coming from a door to her right. Ayana’s door.

  She moved to open it…but the room swung open on its own.

  A bloody Architect stumbled out. He had one hand clasped over an eye, which gushed so much blood that Shera knew it must be gone. Missing, like three of the fingers on the man’s other hand.

  “Help…” he gurgled.

  From behind, something leaped for him.

  Shera had already moved, pulling the Reader back and out of the way, as Ayana landed where he had just stood.

  It was like a wild beast in Ayana’s skin. Her six-inch iron claws dug at the bloodstained carpet where the Reader had been as though she thought he might have escaped her by burrowing into the ground.

  When Ayana turned her ghostly face up, she bared her teeth and growled at Shera. There was no reason in her eyes. Blood splattered her mouth and face.

  Bands of softly glowing pink metal encircled both her wrists, short spikes sticking out like rose thorns.

  Manacles that had once been her shears.

  Ayana had lost to her Vessel.

  She bunched her legs up beneath her, ready to pounce, but Shera was ready. She unleashed Syphren’s power.

  Shera tore green light from Ayana’s chest.

  The wild Gardener’s eyes fluttered. Her limbs sagged, and she stumbled in place. The light hovered in the air like a fuzzy green haze, and Syphren hungered for it so strongly that Shera’s left hand drifted for it.

  But Shera didn’t want it. She forced her arm down.

  The medical Architects dragged the Reader away from Ayana and began patching him up.

  “Take him to a Pilgrim,” Shera ordered. Her eyes were still on Ayana.

  There was no trace of Shera’s mentor left. She moved jerkily, like a wounded animal trying to pull herself to Shera.

  “Meia.”

  Shera didn’t look to know that Meia would already be in position.

  Sure enough, Meia landed on Ayana in an instant. Her eyes shone as brightly orange as her new Vessels.

  Ayana struggled, scraping up more carpet with the knives on her fingers, but she had no chance against Meia’s augmented strength. Meia had to snap Ayana’s fingers to get the Awakened manacles off, bones crunching like ice. Ayana’s scream shook the hallway.

  Shera stood, stone-faced, not even willing to blink.

  She committed the scream to memory.

  This was her fault.

  The thought didn’t draw any blood. It was a simple fact. She had made this decision, and it had cost her one of the people she had ever considered a friend.

  She would take responsibility for that.

  Once Meia had bound Ayana, some Shepherds carried her off. She would receive the best care the Guild could offer, but even if she recovered completely, Shera had still made her suffer. It was a fact that could not be changed.

  Eight successes and two failures.

  Four left.

  Another Gardener succeeded—not Kerian—and developed the power to liquify stone. One more failure, but this one wasn’t so harmful as the last had been. The shears Awakened, but he didn’t become a Soulbound.

  That, the Readers told her, had been the expected result. For it to have happened only once out of twelve attempts thus far was extraordinary.

  That knowledge did not wipe away the sound of Ayana’s scream.

  Finally, it came down to Kerian and one other Gardener left.

  Meia stood next to Shera in silence. Shera glanced at her friend’s face. All joy had vanished, leaving only sober reality.

  Did she blame Shera? She should. It would be like Meia to blame herself, even though it was objectively Shera’s fault.

  When this process completed, she would accept whatever punishment the Guild thought was appropriate.

  Shera’s thoughts cut off as the wind whispered in a voice that everyone could hear. “Jorin…such torment you still suffer. I will free you.”

  The sun died. It flicked off like a quicklamp.

  Urg’naut had arrived.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Elders all believe they are doing the right thing. Even Urg’naut.

  He just w
ants to save you from pain.

  —Dying message from a former Head of the Blackwatch

  present day

  When the sun darkened at midday, it was as though Urg’naut had dropped a moonless night over the Capital. Buildings shone like islands in the dark and lanterns lit up the lines of people evacuating the city.

  The newly Soulbound Gardeners cast lights of every color through the hallway, so Shera had no trouble finding the windowsill as she pushed it open.

  “Time for your crash course,” Shera said. “Follow me to Jorin. Learn as you go.”

  A more-than-physical chill hung in the air, so Shera worried how the Great Elder’s Intent might affect the Awakening of the last two Gardeners, but there was no time to consider now.

  Jorin needed backup.

  The world of the Capital was entirely dark; even the lights in windows were strangled so their light didn’t penetrate as far as she would have expected.

  Most of the Gardeners followed Shera along the rooftops of the Imperial Palace, but some had new ways to travel now. Benji, for instance, floated along in a cloud of purple-light butterflies. He did not look happy about it.

  They reached the Regent in less than two minutes. Around him, the darkness had lifted somewhat, so it looked as though he was surrounded by a hazy gray light. Wood-and-paper wings stretched from his back, attached to him by some sort of harness. Kameira feathers had been glued all over the device.

  Those must have carried some sort of power, because he drifted sixty feet in the air. His rotting sword was bare in his right hand, and he stared up into the darkness covering the sky.

  When Shera and the other Gardeners arrived, glowing shears in their hands, they couldn’t get too close to Jorin because of the Intent in his blade. Shera pushed against the nausea to get closer and call up to him.

  “Reporting for duty, Regent.”

  “Scatter like sand,” Jorin called back. His attention was still fixed upward. “He’ll call his Elders soon. Don’t burn yourselves for tinder, just protect everyone you can until Loreli gets here. She will save you.”