School of Swords and Serpents Boxset: Books 1 - 3 (Hollow Core, Eclipse Core, Chaos Core)

by Gage Lee

  Rachel finally shambled out of the chamber, her eyes wide, her forehead dotted with beads of perspiration. She blew strands of her bangs out of her eyes with an exasperated breath and bowed to Professor Ardith.

  “Thank you for the instruction, honored Professor,” she said. “It was most enlightening.”

  “Yes,” Ardith agreed. “I’m sure it was. Since your friends also can’t quit talking during a demonstration, Ms. Hark will be our next volunteer.”

  Clem frowned at the professor’s words, and I braced myself for an angry retort. Instead, the adjudicator’s daughter nodded, bit her lip, and marched into the chamber. She stiffened her spine and took up a position midway between the spigot and the funnel. She cycled her breathing, filling her aura with aspects from her surroundings and her own unique aspects. From the latter, she fashioned her serpents, and they rose from her palms like a pair of ivory cobras.

  Clem guided her right hand’s serpent toward the spigot and her left toward the funnel. I recognized what she was trying to do and wondered if she could pull it off. Pulling the rot aspects in through one serpent and pushing them out through the other was a tricky maneuver for someone without the benefits of a core like mine, and I’d never seen my friend do anything remotely like this before.

  Ardith must’ve really ticked her off.

  Clem took another deep breath, and at the same instant used her serpent to crack the spigot on the containment vessel. The glowing tentacle of her essence swooped down to plug the spigot so the aspects couldn’t escape into the air. She then inserted the other tentacle into the funnel, closed her eyes, and began her meditation technique.

  With every cycle of breath, Clem absorbed more and more rot aspects into her aura. I was no expert on waste management, so I wasn’t sure why the School had so many garbage aspects around. Maybe they were reclaiming the jinsei and storing the waste aspects, like I’d done for Tycho.

  Whatever the case, the containment vessel had far more rot aspects than Clem had anticipated. Her aura filled with them, and she struggled to push the toxic gunk up through her other serpent and into the funnel. She was overwhelmed and needed help.

  I took a step forward, only to be hauled up short by Ardith’s barked command.

  “Stop.” He stepped forward, put a hand on my shoulder, and glanced into the room where Clem struggled valiantly to do as she’d been asked. “She’s fine. Certainly the daughter of someone so powerful as Adjudicator Hark won’t have any trouble with a little job like this.”

  “It’s poisoning her,” I said. “Let me close the spigot so she can process the aspects.”

  “It’s an important lesson to learn,” Ardith said, his voice low. “She thought she was more capable than she was. It’s a mistake she won’t make again.”

  I glanced toward the headmistress, who was busy discussing some unimportant bit of school business with one of my fellow students. I started to raise my hand, and Ardith snatched it out of the air and forced it back down to my side.

  “Don’t embarrass your friend,” he said. “Or me.”

  Clem’s aura had taken on the the foul, sickly green of stagnant swamp water. Her head lolled on her neck, and the only thing that held her upright was the connection she’d forged between the vessels. I held my breath and counted, slowly, trying to calm myself, hoping that Clem would recover.

  And then I saw what I’d feared.

  The rot aspects were trying to push their way into her jinsei channels. The same thing had happened to me, only with fire aspects, when I was working with Hahen. Those had done significant damage, but I’d healed. Rot aspects, though, could destroy flesh. Clem could be crippled.

  I moved toward the door again, and Ardith grabbed my arm. His eyes flashed with cold anger at my defiance. For the briefest flicker of a moment, I thought he’d strike me.

  A heavy pressure built behind my eyes, and the dark urge wanted this confrontation. If Professor Ardith attacked me, he’d be dead before he knew the mistake he’d made. It’d be Singapore all over again. Only this time it wasn’t a nobody from the camps who’d be dead, but a teacher at the most prestigious Empyreal school in the world. There’d be questions I couldn’t answer, and then they’d put me under a microscope until they figured out what I’d done.

  What I was.

  “Headmistress Cruzal,” I called out, my eyes fixed on Ardith’s, “there’s a problem in the waste unit.”

  “Mr. Warin,” the headmistress responded with an annoyed sigh, “this is not your test. Please allow Ms. Hark to finish what she has begun.”

  “My apologies, honored Headmistress.” I slipped my arm out of Ardith’s fingers and bowed low to Cruzal even though I didn’t feel like showing deference to the headmistress. I felt like punching her in the throat for standing in my way. “Ms. Hark was not aware of the multitude of aspects contained in the vessel. She needs a moment to recover, before the rot infests her jinsei channels and she’s injured. I’m certain her mother would be grateful to know that you allowed a fellow student to step in to assist her in this way.”

  Cruzal eyed me with shrewd appraisal. A faint smile twisted the corner of her mouth, and she reached out to pat me on the shoulder.

  “Yes,” she said, glancing past me at Ardith. “I’m sure her mother wouldn’t want anyone to suggest that Professor Ardith hadn’t adequately warned Ms. Hark of the dangers of the assignment. Your assistance is most appreciated, Mr. Warin. You truly are the School’s champion.”

  Ardith glared daggers at me as I stood up straight and headed in to help my friend.

  It would be a simple matter to strip the aspects out of Clem’s aura. My Thief’s Shield would do it in the blink of an eye. But I knew that Ardith was watching me, and Headmistress Cruzal might be as well. I’d have to be very careful to keep the two of them from discovering what I really was.

  I reached down and grabbed the spigot with my right hand, activating the Thief’s Shield technique at the same instant. I twisted the valve clockwise, stopping the flow of aspects, and let my aura overlap Clem’s.

  “Jace?” she asked, her eyes more than a little foggy and disoriented. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve got you,” I whispered. “Keep cycling your breath. You’re okay.”

  I’d never done this before, and I wasn’t even sure it would work. I stepped behind Clem, supporting her with a hand under each of her arms. Then I formed a serpent and entwined it with hers. To most Empyreals, it would look like a single serpent, and I hoped it would be enough to fool my instructors.

  The second problem I had, though, was hiding the aspects I leeched away from Clem. If they showed up in my aura, Ardith would instantly know something was up. That would not only embarrass Clem, but it might give the professor and headmistress more information about my abilities than I wanted them to have. Ardith was already angry, I didn’t need him looking for more reasons to cause me problems.

  The only way to hide what I was doing was to not hold the aspects in my aura at all. I had to pull them out of Clem and immediately push them through my serpent and into the funnel. I’d never done anything like that and wasn’t even sure it was possible. I took a deep breath and gave it my best shot.

  My Eclipse nature didn’t make things easy on me. It was greedy and wanted to take more than just the aspects out of Clem’s aura. I struggled to contain its hunger and wrestled with my own serpent to keep it from plunging into my friend’s core and draining her jinsei. As overwhelmed as she was, Clem wouldn’t stand a chance against that attack. She’d be a husk in seconds.

  “Hold on,” I whispered to Clem. “Try not to act surprised.”

  I took a deep breath and cycled my breath as rapidly as I could. Aspects flooded from Clem’s aura into mine, absorbed by the Thief’s Shield technique. I stifled a groan and forced the rot aspects away from my core, through my aura, and into my serpent faster than anyone could possibly see. The disgusting mess left a foul taste in my mouth and a dark shadow across my thoughts, and
then it was gone, safely contained in the transport vessel.

  I stepped away from Clem, who only had a few motes remaining in her aura. She glanced back at me, mouthed her thanks, then focused all of her attention on purging the last of the toxic mess from her aura. She’d recover, but she’d have a heck of a headache and it’d be days before she could smell anything but the stink of warm sewage.

  I slipped out of the room and past Ardith’s angry gaze and Cruzal’s appraising look.

  “You handled Ardith and the headmistress very smoothly,” Rachel said as I returned to her side. “Will Clem be okay?”

  “She’ll be fine,” I said. “Just bit off a little more than she could chew.”

  “Seems like that happens around you quite a bit,” Rachel said with a wink. “What did you do?”

  “It’s just a stupid thing I learned working in Tycho’s lab.” That was far from the truth. What I’d done in there should have been impossible. I’d never heard of anyone who could pull aspects out of the air and channel them directly through their serpent without passing them through their core or aura. “I don’t want to make a big deal about it. Clem’s probably going to be embarrassed as it is.”

  And she was, which worked out to my benefit. For once, Clem took the first explanation I offered and didn’t chase after me for more details.

  Thank the Flame for small miracles, I guess.

  The Slip

  OTHER THAN CLEM’S NEAR miss with the garbage disposal, classes went by without any notable incidents. I kept showing up and tried to pay attention. While my clan could, and no doubt would, help cover up any failings in my grades, I didn’t want that. To master the dark urges of my Eclipse nature, I needed to learn as much as I possibly could.

  Which was easier said than done, when I spent every day nervous there’d be another attempt on my life. It wasn’t so much that I was scared of the assassins, as I didn’t want anyone else to get caught in the crossfire.

  If something happened to any of my friends because I’d become the top target for a heretic hit team, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

  It didn’t help matters that the Portal Defense Force had tightened their security around the School for reasons entirely unrelated to the attack on me. As far as I knew, none of the School’s authorities or staff had any idea there’d been an assassination attempt on school grounds. The PDF were concerned about heightened risks of terrorist attacks following a series of minor, but still worrying, incidents in the overcities. Someone had been breaking into government buildings and spray-painting “Free the Slave” on the monuments to the Empyrean Flame.

  It was obvious to me that this was the work of the heretics, but the PDF was positive it was related to Grayson Bishop’s trial.

  “Why would anyone take Bishop’s side?” Rachel asked my friends and me at dinner one night. “He was caught red-handed dealing with the Locust Court. I’m surprised they bothered with a trial.”

  “Of course there’ll be a trial,” Clem said. Her mother was an adjudicator, and her whole family firmly believed in the rule of Imperial Law. “Even with ironclad proof, the code of Empyrean Law demands that we conduct an investigation and give the accused a chance to defend themselves against the crimes they’re charged with. I know it seems unlikely, but there’s always a possibility that Grayson didn’t actually do any of the things he’s been accused of.”

  That drew a lot of raised eyebrows from the rest of the table. It was one thing to defend the system, it was entirely another to pretend like we hadn’t caught Grayson’s Locust Court emissary red-handed. Tycho had even presented Bishop’s journal at trial, confirming what I’d already known. There wasn’t much wiggle room there.

  “It will all be over in a few months,” I said and scooped up a spoonful of the best chili I’d ever had. It was spicy, with just a hint of chocolate sweetness and the faint bitter bite of coffee. The meat was tender with the right amount of chew to it, and I’d already finished one bowl topped with diced onions, sour cream, and sharp cheddar cheese. The second helping tasted every bit as good as the first had. “One way or another.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Eric said. “My clan is just about sick of this case. We’re ready for it to be over. Most of us just want to get past it so we can repair the damage all this has caused.”

  I felt bad for my friend. Grayson was a member of his clan and had been one of the world’s five sacred sages. He brought prestige and honor to the Resplendent Suns, and his fall from grace had plunged Eric’s clan into turmoil over whether to support their former elder or condemn him before the trial.

  We kicked the subject around for a while longer, then let it go. There was nothing any of us could do about the case, and arguing about it would just end with hurt feelings. As always, we drifted away after dinner, heading off to do homework or study for the next day’s classes. The School of Swords and Serpents was one of the most challenging environments I’d ever experienced. Between the physical demands of martial arts training for four hours every morning, the mental demands of our academics, and the fact that every time I touched an inscriber I broke something, I ended every day more than ready to hit my bed.

  These days, though, I didn’t get the bed.

  Hagar did.

  I’d been relegated to the couch in the sitting room, which was comfortable, if a little short for my long legs. I’d floated the idea of trading places every other night, but Hagar wasn’t having any of that. As my handler, she thought she had seniority, and she abused it at every turn. She got the bed, used up all the hot water before I could take my showers, and had even rearranged the furniture according to some plan that made no sense to me.

  Which is why most nights, I went to the small library rooms to research more about my Eclipse core. Since my advancement, its hunger had changed. It was easier for me to control now, but it was also greedier. Every time I was even the slightest bit irritated or annoyed, my core wanted me to remove the source of that annoyance immediately if not sooner. I was also getting more paranoid, though it was open to debate whether that was from my Eclipse nature or from the recent assassination attempt.

  The small research cells worked on demand. If you concentrated on the type of book you needed, it would replace one of the books already on the shelves. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but soon I learned how to summon books on important moments in Empyreal History, including the Utter War.

  The irritating part of researching an event that no one wanted to talk about was that whoever had written these history books had gone to great pains to remove any mention of the events that surrounded the war with the Locust Court. There were lots of cryptic passages regarding a great weapon that was unleashed to protect the world against the hungry spirits. Some historians even referred to that weapon as the last defense of the Empyrean Flame. But they never said what the weapon was or how it defeated the Locust Court.

  I knew those cryptic hints were about the Eclipse Warriors. I just didn’t know how to dig any deeper to find out the truth about them. It was driving me crazy.

  The closest I got during my research came in a book about military units in the Portal Defense Force. Those were the frontline troops in the first phase of the Utter War, and they were the last ones still stationed in the Far Horizon when the war ended. Most of the information about those units was boring, though I did learn that students from the School of Swords and Serpents were impressed into service after the Empyreals suffered tremendous casualties in the war’s opening stages. Abi’s unit, the Scholar’s Brigade, still had many of the same commanders that had served during the war. They must have been powerful Empyreals to resist the effects of aging for so long, or they’d been blessed by the Flame with extended lifespans. Maybe they’d be able to answer some of my questions.

  I considered asking him for an introduction, then discarded the idea. Abi would want to know why I was looking into this, and if he caught me in a lie, our friendship would be on the rocks again. It wasn’t w
orth the risk just to hear an adult lie to me.

  The most intriguing tidbit was hidden amongst all the boring lists of names and ranks in that same essay. There’d been a unit known as the Lost. They’d apparently been distinguished in service and had been instrumental in turning the tide against the hungry spirits during the war’s final stages. Despite that, they warranted only a single paragraph of description, which ended with the strangest euphemism for death I’d ever read.

  The Lost left the Far Horizon for stranger places and were never seen again.

  I let those words roll around in my head, hoping that’d jog something loose. That sentence didn’t line up with what I knew about the Eclipse Warriors, who’d all been executed by the Empyreals who’d created them. Maybe the Lost had made a break for it when they found out the fate of their Earthbound counterparts. That would have been enough to convince me to run away, too. Only, there wasn’t anything beyond the Far Horizon except dead worlds and hungry spirits. Running into that would only have been a slower and more painful death for the Eclipse Warriors.

  I was just about to request a book on Empyreal cosmology when a hand fell on my shoulder.

  My Eclipse nature instantly activated the Borrowed Core technique to harvest beast aspects from the rats that scuttled along the ceiling above me. It forged a single serpent and lashed out at whoever had been foolish enough to touch me.

  Aspects of fear and confusion flooded into my aura, strengthening my serpent. Before I even knew what was happening, the construct had wrenched the hand away from my body and slammed its owner against the wall of the library cell.

  “Jace!” Rachel shouted. “What are you doing?”

  The sound of her voice shattered the spell of violence around my darker nature, and the urge retreated. My heart froze, and I prayed my Eclipse nature hadn’t hurt my girlfriend.