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

by Gage Lee

  He said the last word with pride, and the rest of us chuckled. The idea of getting punched in the face for a living didn’t seem all that attractive to me, but Eric took great pride in his future plans.

  “It’s two months out of your life,” I said. “Heck, you might even learn something useful.”

  “At least you don’t have to spend your summer in a government office in the middle of nowhere,” Clem grumbled. She’d been assigned noble status, and would be the guest of another Empyreal family who’d show her the ropes of government work and politics. I didn’t know what Clem really wanted to do with her future, but this clearly wasn’t it.

  “The Design has a place for all of us,” Abi said, “and we should be happy with what it determines.”

  I winced at my friend’s words. Abi’s father was a preacher, and my friend had spent his whole life learning about the Grand Design and how it governed us all. I wasn’t sure how he’d handle the truth when I finally told him what had really happened.

  “This is simply her revenge for what happened to Grayson,” Hirani said. “Ishigara wants to punish Jace. If he isn’t categorized, then he won’t receive any specialized training, and he won’t be eligible for advanced classes at the School.”

  “That doesn’t seem like a bad thing to me,” I said. I eased back into the overstuffed chair in Cruzal’s office. She’d wanted to see the final test, too, though I wasn’t sure why.

  “Professor Ishigara is not nursing a vendetta for anyone,” the headmistress said. “Let’s just wait and see what happens.”

  Sanrin nodded as if those were the wisest words he’d heard all day. The elder had been strangely quiet since the raid on the heretics’ base. He was angry that he’d missed the trap, and angrier still that I’d risked my life to stop it. Everyone told me that I was lucky. Maybe I was. On the other hand, maybe I understood my limits better than most. The bomb had been dangerous, sure, and it had taken me a couple of days to recover from processing so much jinsei and absorbing so many aspects into my aura. But I’d come out the other side no worse for wear, and even the analysis of my core had revealed no damage. I was in perfect health, spiritually and physically.

  Mentally, though, I had to admit I was a little frazzled. My mom was still out there somewhere. Despite the fact that that was the only thing I’d asked from the Empyrean Flame, it hadn’t bothered to give me any details about her location before it had walked away from the world it had created.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Ishigara said as she pushed through the door and strode toward me. She gestured toward the seat that Hagar was sitting in, and my clanmate grumbled.

  “Sure, I’ll stand, you take the seat,” Hagar said. “Don’t mind me, I’ll be over here in the corner minding my own business.”

  “Again, my apologies for my tardiness, Jace,” Ishigara said. “I was consulting with some experts about how to approach this next phase, given that we had no information of use from the first two tests. It’s a bit of a shot in the dark, but I’ll do my best.”

  Ishigara opened her case and withdrew a simple brass base with a pendulum attached to it. She set the object on the table, and the pendulum dangled over the center of the base. Symbols I didn’t recognize ran around the outside of the circle. “Each of these is associated with a role in Empyreal society. Normally, we would have narrowed the choices down to a handful of likely roles, but in your case, that wasn’t possible. All I need you to do is to channel jinsei into this device and wait for the pendulum to move toward one of the roles.”

  “Seems simple enough,” I said. Without hesitation, I pushed a thread of jinsei into the device and let it do its thing.

  Which, it turned out, was a whole lot of nothing.

  The pendulum remained motionless.

  “More jinsei please,” Ishigara said.

  I did as she asked and glanced around the room at my friends and the elders. They all seemed more nervous than made sense to me. I didn’t care about any of this. None of it mattered. I already knew what my path looked like, and being assigned a role would do nothing but slow me down.

  More jinsei hadn’t changed anything. The pendulum still didn’t move.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Ishigara confessed. “Every one of the tests we’ve given has flat out refused to categorize Jace.”

  “That’s not without precedent,” Sanrin said. “In the early days of the test, the roles weren’t as clearly defined. Many students didn’t discover their true aptitudes until nearer graduation. We should give him more time.”

  “Time isn’t something we have anymore,” Ishigara noted. “The law is clear. He has to be assigned a role before the end of his third year.”

  I considered what role I wanted. A noble role would admit me into the highest levels of Empyreal society. A militant background would give me access to soldiers and training that would help me in the fight that I knew was coming.

  But, there was only one title that would let me stay at the School and continue doing what I needed to do. Without hesitation, I reached forward, grabbed the pendulum, and pulled it toward the scholar slot. I took my hand off the device, and the ball hung in the air, pointing at the same spot with the unerring accuracy of a laser.

  “Jace,” Ishigara said, “you can’t decide you’re a scholar and leave it at that. There are rules.”

  “If the Design wanted me to be something else, it would move the pendulum, right?” I asked.

  “I suppose,” Ishigara muttered, sensing the trap closing around her. “But it didn’t assign you to the scholar role, either. You moved it.”

  “So move it back,” I said. My technique had given me a glimpse of how this played out. I leaned back into the chair and waited.

  “Fine,” Ishigara said. She grabbed hold of the pendulum and tried to push it back to its resting position.

  The chain trembled. There was a low rumble, like the sound of a saw blade wobbling.

  But the pendulum wouldn’t move.

  “I’m going to see my initiates before they leave for the summer,” I said. “Let me know if the pendulum changes position. Otherwise, I guess I’m a scholar.”

  I left the office and headed for the initiate dormitory.

  I had a surprise for my students.

  The Chaos

  I WAS MORE NERVOUS about what I had to do next than I had been during the Empyrean Gauntlet. I’d put this off for days, but now I was out of time. Sanrin and I had talked about how to move forward, and we both agreed this was the right course of action.

  Unfortunately, neither of us could see far enough into the future to know if we were geniuses or fools.

  Christina spotted me, and the case I held under my arm, as soon as I entered the dormitory. She stood up from the bench she’d been sitting on, her meager belongings in a simple canvas satchel over her shoulder, and walked toward me.

  “Thank you for what you tried to do,” she said.

  None of the initiates had healed their cores. They were still hollow, still broken, still the victims of a system that would use them and then cast them aside when it no longer needed them.

  Only Christina had discovered the first steps of her path, and the time aspects she’d harnessed put her in terrible danger. If an inquisitor found about that, they’d hound her to the ends of the earth and beyond.

  “Well,” I said, “we may not be done just yet. Gather your friends and meet me in the room just down the hallway there.”

  “What’s going on?” Christina asked, her natural suspicion rearing its head. “Are they taking us to Atlantis?”

  “Get the others,” I said. “I’ll explain everything.”

  The meeting room I’d picked was small and cozy, with exactly thirteen seats, a long table, and no other furnishings. I sat down at the head of the table, put the case in front of me, and waited for the students to arrive.

  They all filed into the meeting room a few minutes later, looking as nervous and unsure of themselves as they had on our
first day together. I felt bad for them, and worse that I hadn’t helped them find their way.

  Maybe I could change that.

  “What’s going on?” Christina asked.

  “I told you all that you needed to heal your cores before the end of the school year. I know you’ve all tried, but you haven’t been able to accomplish that,” I said. “Maybe I should’ve forced you down my path. It would’ve been difficult, but at least you wouldn’t still be hollow.”

  “We’re going to Atlantis,” Christina said in a defeated voice.

  “Only if that’s what you want,” I said. “Brother Rhône won’t be back, but someone like him is on their way. If you’re all here when that person arrives, then, yes, you’ll be off to Atlantis.”

  “We still have time to heal our cores,” Ricky said frantically. “We can do this. If we all work hard—”

  “You can do it,” I agreed. “All of you. But only if you listen carefully.”

  I opened the case and turned it toward them. A pale silver glow rose from its interior, and they peered at it with wide, puzzled eyes.

  “What is that?” Furendo asked.

  “Cores,” I said. “Artificial ones, but I can use them to heal you. All of you.”

  The students eyed me warily, and auras filled with aspects of paranoia and uncertainty. I was behind the plan that had snatched them all away from their parents and set them on this dangerous course. They didn’t have any reason to trust me.

  “Will it hurt?” Ricky asked.

  “You won’t even feel it,” I said. “But it won’t make you any friends, either. You’ll be different from everyone else. Just like me.”

  “Will my eyes turn black?” Christina asked.

  “Nope,” I said. “You get to skip that part.”

  “Can we still go home?” a young girl with a spray of freckles across her olive skin asked uncertainly. “I really just want to see my family again.”

  “Yes,” I said. “If you heal your core, you’ll be free to leave the school. But, I can’t guarantee you’ll be safe at home. The Church is very angry with me, and they’re likely to be with you, as well. There’s another way, though.”

  I was worried about these kids. If they took me up on the offer to become chaos cores, they’d be outside the Grand Design, too. The ones who went back to the labor camps would be snatched up, or the inquisitors might just kill them. The choice they made today would affect the rest of their lives. I wanted them to know that.

  “What’s the deal?” Christina asked, her eyes narrowed into suspicious slits.

  “If you heal your cores, I can get you a visit with your parents, but not for long.” I raised my hand at their protests and waited for them to come back down so I could continue. “Then you’ll have to go away again.”

  “For how long?” Ricky practically wailed.

  “I don’t know the answer to that.” I shrugged. “As soon as you’re safe, I’ll let you go home. But, I promise some of the best teachers in the world will train you in the meantime.

  “And you’ll get to see some dragons.”

  That had been one of the hardest negotiations of my life. Even Sanrin had been stressed by my idea, but we’d finally convinced the Scaled Council that our plan was in the best interest of everyone. After Elushinithoc’s betrayal, the dragons had been shamed and disgusted by the conspiracy. They saw this as a way to redeem themselves and heal the wounds between humans and dragons.

  “What if it doesn’t work?” Christina asked.

  She stared at me with dark eyes, tears trembling on her lower lids. She was terrified, and she didn’t know what to do.

  “It’ll work,” I promised her. “Trust me.”

  And, surprisingly, they did. One after another, all twelve of those kids let me stitch the Machina to their hollow core.

  By the time I’d finished, I was exhausted. It had taken far more work than I’d imagined, stitching someone else’s core. Still, it had gone off without a hitch. None of them was hollow any longer.

  They were all healed.

  And, as I watched them take their first true cycled breaths, as jinsei flooded into their cores and stayed there, I knew that it had all been worth it.

  The Farewell

  THE LAST DINNER OF the school year was exactly the kind I liked. My friends and I had all gathered in the dining hall at our usual table. We stuffed ourselves on roast beef, mashed potatoes swimming in butter, and, for the first time, we sipped glasses of wine provided by the School. We weren’t kids anymore, we were adults.

  We laughed and teased each other about our summers. As a scholar, I wouldn’t be going anywhere. My days and nights would be spent here at the School, studying with the librarian who’d drawn the short straw and had to stay behind to keep an eye on me. I looked forward to it. I had a lot to learn, and not much time to do it.

  Finally, as the last of our food disappeared and the other students drifted away, I leaned in toward the center of the table and gestured for my friends to do the same. Hahen and Niddhogg sat on either side of me, hunching forward conspiratorially to hear what I had to say.

  “I need to ask all of you something,” I said quietly. “And if you don’t want to answer, or you don’t feel comfortable by what I ask, then just say so. No hard feelings, okay?”

  As I’d hoped, that cryptic introduction to my little speech lit sparks of curiosity in all their eyes. They leaned in even closer and nodded for me to continue.

  “When I won that challenge,” I said, “the Flame told me something.”

  I spilled the whole story to them. How the Design had been corrupted by interference from humans and dragons. How the Flame had asked me to find its replacement. And, most aggravatingly, how it hadn’t told me how I was supposed to do that.

  Hagar leaned back in her chair when I’d finished and blew out an exasperated sigh.

  “You’re putting me in a hard position here, Jace,” she said. “I want to help you. But you haven’t told the elders any of this. You know what I have to do.”

  I reached out and took Hagar’s hand in mine. We squeezed each other’s fingers.

  “Things have changed,” I said. “We don’t know that we can trust anyone outside this group. I don’t think the elders would oppose us, but I don’t know that for sure. Do you?”

  My clanmate shifted uncomfortably in her seat and pulled her hand away from mine. She looked down at the table in front of her, as if the wood grain held some secret knowledge she needed to make her decision.

  “I’m not telling my parents, either,” Clem said. “Though I probably should. The Adjudicators rely on the oracles, and knowing what I know now, we can’t trust anyone who says the Flame speaks to them.”

  “Jace,” Eric said. “I don’t know, man. I have training, a future with the prizefighting circuit. I can’t jeopardize all that for whatever this quest turns out to be.”

  “Jace would never let that happen,” Abi chided his friend. “I know this is all very frightening to hear. I’m the son of a preacher. But I’m with Jace. The world is changing, and not for the better. I think we have to do this. No matter the cost.”

  Hahen let out a disgusted grunt. He shuffled forward, then turned to face me and rapped me on the tip of my nose with his cane.

  “You know you’re talking madness,” he said. “We cannot redesign the world.”

  “Not the world,” I said. “Just the Design.”

  It was hard to explain how I felt about all of this. I’d been nothing when I won the Five Dragons Challenge. That victory had pulled me up out of the muck and given me a chance at a better life. And all along the way, people in power and authority, people I should’ve been able to trust to help me, had used and betrayed me. Even my own clan had pushed me onto a dangerous course that had nearly gotten me killed.

  That wasn’t the way the world was supposed to work. That wasn’t what the Flame had ever intended.

  It was time to find a new way.

  I leaned
back in my chair, crossed my arms over my chest, and waited.

  Finally, the rat spirit shook his head.

  “I can’t tell you what to do, but I will help you,” Hahen said.

  “Me, too,” Niddhogg said. “Whatever you need, Jace.”

  One by one, my other friends nodded. Even Eric finally agreed.

  “So,” I said, “it’s decided.”

  It was time for us to take the reins.

  It was time to make a better world.

  The Inquisitor

  MY FIRST DAY WITH THE librarian, Garfield Tanoki, was more exhausting than I’d imagined possible. He seemed much less interested in teaching me scholarly pursuits than invested in getting me to do all the grunt work he could dream up. I spent hours finding misplaced books and sticking them in the right positions on the shelves. On top of the world’s most boring game of hide-and-seek with inanimate objects, Mr. Tanoki tasked me with hauling what felt like several hundred pounds of damaged books down to the workshop for repair. By the time I was released to scrounge up dinner for myself, I was too wrung out to care about food. I hauled myself back to my room in the dorms and flopped down on the bed.

  Only to jump right back off with a startled yelp and one hand clamped to my lower back.

  Something sharp had poked me, hard enough to hurt even through the natural defenses offered by my advanced core. My probing fingers found the stinging wound and came away with blood smeared across their tips.

  Frowning, I pulled the sheets back. My eyes widened when I saw what had stuck me.

  “How’d you get here?” I muttered as I lifted it off the bed and held it up to the light.

  The orichalcum key shone with an inner fire. One of the teeth had bitten into me when I flopped down, and now my blood was smeared across the metal.

  My new serpents appeared and lifted the key out of my hands. They moved with mechanical precision, their sharp tips applying just enough pressure to hold the object without damaging it. They seemed to know what I needed before I did and raised the key to my eye level so I could get a better look at it.