by Will Wight
Emotion began to drain from Shera like blood from an open vein, and the cold crept in, but she stopped it. She could kill Meia if the other girl was unaware, but in a straight-up fight, Meia could tear Shera's heart out.
Shera raised her empty hands. “They'd figured it out a long time ago. And you must have known that, or you would have brought it up before now.”
The orange light in Meia's eyes flared hotter before she took a deep breath, nails gouging into her arms. She breathed deeply, keeping her head turned away from Shera.
“My apologies,” she said at last. “It gets the better of me sometimes.”
Shera continued along the path as though she weren't worried, giving Meia space to gather herself. “I hope he comes up with another plan, because I'm not sure we have a chance yet. But until he does, we're it. And we have to be looking for the signs.”
“Signs of what?”
“Signs of madness,” Shera said. “That's how we know we've got a job to do.”
Meia's footsteps followed Shera for a while, but she didn't move to catch up. She could have, Shera knew; Meia could have overtaken her in a single step. But Meia followed her instead, either wrestling with her thoughts or trying to suppress her surgically inserted Kameira instincts.
It took all of Shera's self-control to stop herself from reaching for her shears. Having someone following made her itch for a weapon.
Finally, Meia caught up, glancing to the side to make sure Shera was paying attention. Her inhuman traits had been repressed for now, and she was making an obvious effort to stay under control.
“Promise me this,” Meia said. “We need to make this decision together. The three of us. Maybe the four of us, if...the Emperor—” she lowered her voice when she mentioned him, afraid someone might be close enough to listen in, “—if the Emperor has a clear enough mind to join in. But don't try something by yourself, no matter what my mother says.”
“Gardener Meia,” Shera said, in a mock-serious tone, “are you asking me to ignore the commands of the High Council?”
“No!” Meia said quickly. After a moment's thought, she corrected herself. “Maybe. Just come to us first, all right?”
Shera made a shocked sound and shook her head, as though disgusted. It was easy to taunt Meia, as well as satisfying, and she usually took it well.
But Shera had to wonder what had led to this. For Meia to ask her to work against a possible command from the Architects...well, she must have been worried. She must honestly expect Shera to act on her own, leaving Meia and Lucan unaware.
Which made Shera think. She always thought of them as a team. She'd never planned on leaving the other two out, had she?
She thought of the first time the Emperor had gone insane, in the belly of the dead island. They had all three attacked him, but Shera had effectively fought on her own. She'd made no attempt to coordinate with her teammates.
And above Silverreach, she'd started to maneuver herself into position to strike without asking or considering the others. True, she'd had no time to think, but her first thought had been to try and remove the target on her own.
Yala had contacted Shera to kill the Emperor early, and not Meia or Lucan. Was it because they thought she knew something the others didn't? Because they thought she would be more likely to agree to an assassination ahead of schedule? Or because they knew she wouldn't tell the other two?
She hadn't. She knew the consequences if the Emperor found out she'd broken confidence, so she hadn't been willing to talk to Meia or Lucan.
Even tonight, she was only opening up to Meia because she'd been caught.
What had the Emperor once said about her? “I need you to be ruthless.”
An uncomfortable twisting in her gut told her she was onto something. This was one of those things that didn't work inside her, at least not quite the same way it worked in everyone else.
The idea scared her. Until someone else pointed it out, she couldn't see what was wrong with her. She was blind. It reminded her of the Emperor: he could tell the madness was coming, but he wasn't sure she would be able to recognize it when it arrived.
That was a terrifying thought.
“I don’t know if I can,” Shera said at last. “I can’t tell when I need to come to you and when I don’t. It always makes more sense to act as soon as I can.”
“That’s exactly why you need us,” Lucan said, stepping from the shadows of the underbrush and pulling on his gloves.
Meia didn’t look surprised, but Shera certainly was. “Did the whole island follow me?”
Lucan jerked a thumb at Meia. “I actually followed her.”
“And I followed one of the Architects, not you.”
“So if you think about it,” Lucan said, “no one was following you tonight.”
Shera led the way down the path, the others following. “I’m learning a lot from this. So before I kill anyone, I should wait for you two to follow me, and then you’ll pop out and give me a different perspective.”
“Exactly,” Lucan said.
“No, that’s not what I meant.”
“It was a joke, Meia.”
“Oh.”
The conversation died out after that, but Shera thought she understood the message. Just keep the other two informed before taking action. Easy enough.
In the darkness, the three Gardeners walked home together.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lucan was in his cell, making notes in his journal, when the world rang like a struck gong. Even halfway in a Reading trance as he was, it shook him back to reality as the room around him buzzed. Not like an earthquake; if anything, it reminded him of the Handmaiden that had so recently appeared on the Gray Island. She had seemed to warp everything around her with her very presence, causing the air to shimmer.
This time, it was as though all solid matter rippled, but only for an instant. It was enough to send him leaping to his feet, peering out the bars on his door.
At first, he saw nothing out of the ordinary, but Hansin the guard hurried up to him with a face painted in panic. “Do you know what this is?” he asked, his tone begging Lucan to reassure him.
“It’s not an earthquake,” Lucan responded.
Hansin shook his head and wordlessly pointed to the sky.
Lucan followed the man's finger, but saw only the treeline. The Architects kept the Gray Island looking as natural and pristine as possible, for visitors and potential clients, though in reality it was as densely populated as a Capital district. But his view looked more like an Imperial Park, with trees bending in the wind.
Then he saw it. Next to one of the flexing trees, past the wispy pieces of the regenerating Bastion's Veil, a glimpse of something black. He stared for another five minutes before he understood what he was looking at.
There was a crack in the sky. As though the flawless blue and distant clouds were merely painted on the inside of an eggshell, and now that protective barrier had begun to crack, leaving them exposed to darkness on the other side.
Here was his chance.
“The Architects will be coming for me shortly,” Lucan said. “Be ready to receive them.” Hansin actually looked comforted by the news that the Architects would soon be along to fix everything.
Lucan rushed around his room, preparing. When the Architects arrived to consult the Guild’s most powerful Reader, it had to be clear that he’d expected them. Like a true Consultant, he’d use the appearance of superiority to his advantage. Not that it would get him anywhere, but it might be nice to see a startled look on one of his jailers.
He made his bed, straightened his desk, shut the wardrobe door. He smoothed his clothes, indulged in a quick shave—they allowed him his own razor now, in exchange for his agreement to stop stealing knives from the guards—and generally swept up.
When he was satisfied that everything was in order, he pulled his chair over and faced the door.
“Patience is a virtue,” Ayana had once taught him, “but waiting is a skill.” Among
the first lessons any Gardener learned was the ability to sit still and unstimulated for hours at a time. There were some tricks to it, but mostly it took nothing more than long practice. It was one of the few skills that had sharpened rather than dulled in his two years of semi-voluntary incarceration.
So when the Architects arrived two hours later, they found him sitting patiently with his arms folded in his lap.
The first to peek in his cell was a woman, an Architect Reader he knew. She had started her Consultant training only a few years after he had, shortly before he left for the Emperor's care. She turned away, to someone he couldn't see. “He's waiting for us, High Councilor.”
Kerian's face flashed in Lucan's mind, and he leaned forward. He had expected a messenger, someone meant to escort him to the Council chambers. He hadn't imagined that one of the three High Councilors would come to meet him in person.
He got his second surprise when Yala's stern, disapproving face met him through the barred window of his door. Kerian was the only High Councilor who knew him personally. If Yala was here instead...
His speculation was cut off when she spoke. “You know why I'm here, I'm sure.”
“I don't know why the sky cracked like an egg,” he said, answering the most obvious question first. “But I have some ideas.” Living at the Imperial Palace for years and investigating the Gray Island had given him insight into obscure answers. Given free reign of Consultant resources, he was confident he could find the answer in a matter of days.
Yala's tight, leathery face remained a mask. “You have the cause right, but the question wrong. We suspect we know what caused it. Or at least who.” The key rattled in the latch and the door swung open, leaving her to step inside. She sat on his bed without permission, wrinkling the blanket. “The Navigators and the Imperial Guard have made an attempt to awaken the Optasia.”
The news hit him harder than the cracking sky.
“Wasn't it destroyed in the Elder attack?” He had seen the Optasia in action only once: the night Shera had killed the Emperor.
“We generated that rumor, actually. I’m surprised it convinced you, but it worked on most. The Guard have only begun their investigations into its existence very recently. A team of Shepherds managed to sabotage the functions of the device more than a year ago, but I daresay Jarelys Teach would have fixed it by now. She has the support of the Magister's Guild, after all. But there have been complications.”
She searched his face, as though to make sure he was paying complete attention. She needn't have worried on that count; nothing short of another Handmaiden attack would have moved him from his seat. “The Sleepless made their move for the device last week. The Imperial Guards have been battling them for it since that time, and they've brought in backup from the Navigators. They might have won through, but the last information we received suggests that the Sleepless have de facto control of the Optasia. Any information you could give us regarding its use would be helpful.”
Yala sat back, awaiting his response. And as much as he would have liked to string the High Councilor along out of personal distrust, she needed that information. This could shape into a bigger crisis than the Emperor’s death, and if the bizarre sign in the sky was any indication, it might already be spiraling out of control.
“The Optasia is the Emperor's true throne, built into his personal chambers. He used it alongside a global network of specially designed receptors, intended to expand and channel his power all over the world. With it, he could keep an eye on all the Great Elders at once, and take action against them at a distance.”
The Emperor had shared such a vision with Lucan, and the results were...staggering. Alone and unaided, the Emperor stood above any Reader or Soulbound in the Empire. But with the network on his side, he could predict and counter any threat, anywhere, before it manifested.
The thought of such power in any other hands made him physically sick.
“What do you know of its...drawbacks?”
“You have to open yourself to it,” Lucan said immediately, “which means Reading everything it picks up. Even what you’d rather not.” Using the Optasia sounded like both a dream and a nightmare, and he wasn't sure which was most prominent. “When you're searching for Elders, you're accepting some of their taint into you. Every time the Emperor used the device, he risked going insane and leaving humanity to die.” He shuddered at the thought of using such an enhancement to sense a Great Elder. It would be like trying to find a diseased carcass by licking your way along a forest floor.
“And if the Sleepless gained control of this throne?” Yala didn't seem nearly as disturbed as Lucan thought she should be. Possibly because she wasn't a Reader.
“No one could handle the Optasia safely except the Emperor or the Regents. Maybe a handful of Guild Heads.” Or me, he thought, but kept the idea to himself. If Yala knew it was even possible that he might be able to use the Emperor's throne to affect events on a global scale, she wouldn't stop until he controlled the Optasia. Or until she controlled him.
“What if the Sleepless found a way to do it anyway?”
He pointed out the door at the cracked sky. “We know they haven’t, or that would be the least of our worries. We would be dead or slaves by nightfall.”
The Reader escorting Yala looked a little sick, but the High Councilor herself kept her composure. If anything, she looked slightly displeased by his answers. “I see. We knew those things already, of course, but firsthand testimony is always more reliable. Well. We've spent much of the last five years dismantling the Emperor's global network, so the device won't be as potent as it was in the past, but a weapon is still a weapon. The High Council had elected to leave the throne intact...but it seems we can no longer afford to do so. If the battle between the Imperialist Guilds and the Sleepless has begun to crack the world, we must act.”
Lucan looked to the horizon, where Bastion's Veil was still nothing more than a thin haze instead of a vast gray wall. The Consultants were an unstoppable force of sabotage, assassination, and information manipulation, but they were outclassed in head-on encounters. The one power they had against the Elders had been left to them by Bastion, and it was currently depleted. And it couldn't be taken off the island anyway.
...well, not anymore.
“You must know what you need,” he said. “Or rather, who you need.”
Angrily, Yala slashed a hand at her attendant Architect. The woman hustled backwards, gripping her skirts in both hands as she retreated beyond earshot of the discussion. “If you continue spilling Guild secrets to those without clearance, I will have you executed regardless of what the Regents have to say.”
Lucan held back the urge to laugh in her face. He was younger, stronger, and better trained; despite Yala's accomplishments, she had never been a Gardener. And then there was his Reading to consider. He didn't consider himself a destructive person by nature, but there were precious few Readers in the Empire more combat-capable than he.
Then he considered his situation. He was alone, unarmed, and Yala was neither. The active Reading that the Emperor had gone through such pains to teach him was all but useless here. It was more of a demolition tool than a personal combat weapon, and it would take him the better part of a minute to pull anything dramatic together anyway. She'd slit his throat and walk away smiling. Well, not smiling. This was Yala, after all. Maybe glaring happily.
He wasn't used to being in the presence of people who could kill him so easily. Not since the Emperor's death, at any rate.
In the end, he didn't apologize. But he did lower his voice. “We need someone to carry Bastion's Veil into the Capital, and we need someone to unite the Guild and lead us into combat. Appoint the Mistress of the Mists.”
Yala slapped the flat of a knife against her knee. “I suppose you have your own idea about who should fill that position, do you?”
“I have a suggestion or two,” Lucan said easily.
“That's not an option,” Yala responded. When he
started to object, she spoke over him. “That's not an option available to us at this time. You can see for yourself the state of the Veil. Even if we could find someone suitable to bind the Vessel, it would take them weeks to recover enough power to do anything. Furthermore, Shera has already taken a Soulbound Vessel.”
“There's always your daughter. Or Kerian. Even you, though I’m not advocating that.”
Yala pointed the knife at him. “Appointing a Guild Head will not solve this problem. We need someone to deal with the situation now.”
“Then I don't have any ideas for you. If you're not willing to listen to my advice, then why...” He'd been speaking out of sheer frustration, but he trailed off when he realized what Yala meant.
“I would reinstate you as an active Gardener, effective immediately. Kerian and Tyril are pursuing their own solutions, but they have signed off on this as a temporary measure.” She withdrew a folded sheet of paper from her pocket and passed it to him. Sure enough, it was a notice of emancipation, signed by all three High Councilors.
If he took any more shocks today, his heart might give out. Yala, releasing a Guild asset?
“Your release comes with conditions, of course. You must head to the Capital and attempt to secure the Optasia as a voluntary assignment. If you survive, you would then return to the Gray Island and continue to perform your duties as a Consultant. If you attempt escape, or if you do not execute your assignments with excellence, the High Council has agreed to dedicate our full resources into hunting you down.”
There it was. He and Shera could evade or destroy a squad of Gardeners, but they couldn't go into hiding against the entire Guild. Not with the High Council set against them.
Lucan slowly rose from his seat. “I may not be able to capture the throne on my own.”
Yala eyed him. “We typically don't send agents who can't get the job done, Gardener.”
“What do you expect me to do if Jarelys Teach, Mekendi Maxeus, and Bliss are all on guard duty?” He didn't like his odds of survival against any one of them, and it wasn't impossible to run into two or three of them together.
