by Will Wight
The Judge crashed through them.
The violet light burst, sending shards of power and malicious intent spinning chaotically through the world, carving serpentine scars into the earth. Suriel’s armor had cracked as well, pieces flying from it, and blood flew from her exposed skin, but she was safe.
When the bullet reached her, she met it with her Razor.
The sapphire steel hit the missile and sliced through it. Pariana had never seen anything like it. The Vroshir had obviously put their entire will behind the bullet, but Suriel cut it as though it were nothing more than physical metal.
Her weapon split the bullet, which broke into two halves that flew to either side of her, landing with the force of missiles.
In the same motion, Suriel struck back.
The Razor swept through the air again, though there was no one in front of her. Kilometers away, the armor-clad gunman’s head flew off, streaming blood.
As though by coincidence, Suriel’s chaotic flight path took her close to the fish-woman. Pariana didn’t see what happened, but the Vroshir pitched over. With no visible wounds, she went from alive to dead in an instant. Purple sickles fell from lifeless hands.
The black-haired woman in furs screamed, pouring all her power into her legion of spirits until the entire Iteration screamed with her fury and hatred. An ocean hundreds of kilometers away was whipped into a frenzy, and dead fish began to bob to the surface. The luminous creatures inhabiting the night sky died one by one, falling to the ground like distant, shining meteorites. Even Pariana’s consciousness began to fuzz.
Then her formation-circles, under Suriel’s control, fired again.
The Vroshir woman was swallowed up by another sun-bright detonation, and her army of ghosts dissipated. But when the light faded, she strode out, protected by the power of her ironclad will. She raised her hands and her power together, enough black smoke boiling behind her to depopulate worlds.
Still flying through the air, Suriel faced the Vroshir, and her voice echoed with transcendent authority. “Begone,” the Judge said.
Pariana felt like she were submerged under endless pressure, like all of reality had been squeezed like a damp rag.
Then the one remaining Vroshir simply disappeared.
All of her ghostly smoke was erased from existence, and her barrier sealing the world lifted. The Way shone through once again, a comforting warmth to Pariana’s senses.
A working like that took extreme concentration, even from a Judge. Suriel couldn’t have done that while fighting the others—Pariana couldn’t believe she had managed it even now. Wiping someone as significant as a full Vroshir from reality was all but impossible.
[The Way does not make a Judge strong,] her Presence said.
Suriel slipped her Razor back onto her waist, where it stuck. Her armor re-formed, her mantle reignited, and the wounds on her skin vanished. The devastation left by the battle was wiped away in seconds.
Leaving the Phoenix drifting in the air, in all her glory, pristine and unharmed.
“Glory and honor to the Judge,” Pariana said, once again bending her tall, golden body in supplication.
Suriel spoke softly, the formation in her purple eyes spinning. “There is still much to be fixed. Yours was not the only world under attack.”
Chapter 1
Akura Charity, Sage of the Silver Heart, stood looking at the broken doorway into Ghostwater.
The jade doorframe, set into a cave in the side of the island, had been sliced apart from the outside. The smooth, fist-sized hole in the rock behind it told her what the technique had been: black dragon's breath.
She had other tasks on this island besides watching Harmony, but she had still kept her eye on him until the end. The interference from the collapsing space had grown too much, and the picture had grown less and less clear.
However, she had sensed it when the Blackflame artist and his contracted turtle had emerged from the pocket world. She had been surprised that her grand-nephew hadn't been the first out, but she hadn't worried much about it. She could still sense him, distantly, inside a Monarch's private space. She still had time before the world collapsed, and she didn't need a portal to enter.
But when she had tried to cross space, she had been denied.
A will greater than her own had locked Ghostwater down. She felt him arrive like a great ship passing by her in the ocean, stirring up the water with the weight of its presence.
With Northstrider there, she'd had no chance of breaking in. She had been forced to wait, hoping that the Monarch would bring her young grand-nephew home.
She had started carving a memorial for Akura Harmony in that moment. From everything she'd heard, Northstrider's mercy was a thin thread from which to hang her hopes.
When Northstrider's presence vanished, she tried once again to enter, but he had closed off the space. She slapped her power against his like a child trying to batter down a brick wall with her fists.
She felt the moment when Ghostwater crumbled to pieces. By that time, the spatial distortion had grown so great that she could no longer sense Harmony within.
Now, she placed a bust of her grand-nephew at the base of the jade doorway. Carved with her own hands, the sculpture captured his delicate features, the arrogant tilt of his chin, the distant look of determination in his eyes. Hair cascaded down his shoulders, and a dark halo hung behind his head.
A brief wave of sadness passed over her. His branch of the family had not produced someone so skilled in generations. He had hoped to become one of the legendary Akura clan pillars one day, like his great-grandfather Akura Fury or like Charity herself.
He would have had a long road to travel before he reached that goal, if he ever did, but he had been practically guaranteed a good life. She regretted the loss.
But she had buried younger relatives before. It was one reason she had never had children of her own. She stood in silence for many minutes, remembering Harmony.
The Sage looked from the bust of Harmony back up to the slice in the doorway. One of the Blackflames had broken the door behind them, trapping her grand-nephew in a dissolving pocket world.
They could not be allowed to take the Akura clan so lightly. An insult like this, gone without redress, would make the family look weak before their enemies. She was inclined to punish the sacred beast, simply on principle; any beast that dared to snap at a human should feel the consequences.
But one did not reach Charity's level without a certain amount of cold logic. And the Heart Sage had great control over her own emotions.
The Blackflame artist and his turtle had entered as the weakest individuals in Ghostwater. If they had truly grown to the point that they could threaten Harmony, then she couldn’t blame them for doing so. Harmony had competed in a game—one in which he'd started with all the advantages—and lost.
It pained her to think of one of her young relatives in such a way, but regret couldn't change the truth. She had known there was some risk to Harmony. Training him in the face of real danger was part of the reason they'd brought him here; no talents bloomed in a closed room.
And they needed talents. Now, more than ever.
That thought made up her mind. She would not cut off the Blackflame boy's growth, unless of course he demonstrated hostility against the clan itself. He might grow into another valuable asset of the Akura clan.
But she could apply some extra pressure.
And if the Blackflame bloomed under pressure, then he would be qualified to pay off his debt.
~~~
Lindon knelt in the cramped confines of the cloudship, pushing pure madra endlessly into a script carved into a wooden panel. At the center of the script was a fist-sized crystal flask containing a rolling green cloud—the madra that powered their flight. The ship creaked and shook as though in the middle of storm-tossed waves.
[You're doing great work,] Dross said in his head. [So great. In about five minutes, when we run out of cloud madra and fall scream
ing to our deaths, I want you to remember that you died doing your best.]
They had found the Skysworn cloudship where they left it: on the edge of the island outside Ghostwater. It had been more or less intact, but the crystal flask that stored its cloud madra was not entirely full. The green Thousand-Mile Cloud wouldn't have lasted all the way back to land, so Lindon had been stretching it with pure madra.
Unfortunately, that meant diluting it. They didn't have any wind or cloud artists onboard, so the Thousand-Mile Cloud got thinner by the day. Eithan had fueled a cloudship in this way before, but he had alternated between providing his madra and using scripts to draw aura. Either this cloudship couldn’t do that, or Lindon hadn’t figured out how.
Yerin and Mercy took turns piloting the ship. Mostly Mercy. When Yerin took the helm, she tended to run them too close to aura storms, hostile sacred beasts, and mountain peaks. Though she did make good time.
Lindon sent another pulse of madra into the script, and the green cloud rolling in the crystal flask weakened another notch. The ship shuddered, and he knew the large Thousand-Mile Cloud that was keeping them aloft had faded as well. He couldn't add any more power. Scripts on the ship’s hull would draw in aura from outside to replenish their stores, which was the only reason they’d lasted this long, but that system couldn’t keep up any longer.
“Let them know,” he ordered Dross.
He could feel it as the mental construct opened up his mind, projecting words into Mercy and Yerin at the same time. [Attention all crew: everything is fine down here, except that we’re out of fuel. As long as we make an emergency landing right now, everything will be totally safe.]
Lindon hurried up, bracing himself against the wall as the cloudship pitched. His pale right arm sank into the wood as though into soft mud, and it took him a moment to pull it free.
There were no windows below the deck. He had no way of telling if they were close to landing or not. They could be inches from the ground or a thousand feet in the air, and he would have no idea.
The worst part was not knowing, he decided. When the ship shuddered again and he lost his balance, he couldn’t tell if the turbulence was nothing to worry about or if they were all on the brink of death.
Finally, the ship stabilized again, so he shoved open the trap door and made his way outside.
The weather was beautiful. He had been down in the dark so long that he had pictured it storming and raining, but in fact the wind was calm and the sky was clear.
Yerin stood at a wooden panel covered in shining script-circles, her teeth bared and eyes furious. The two silver sword-arms behind her back had been jammed into the wood of the deck, nailing her in place. The control panel had been made for someone taller than she was, so it came up almost to her chin, but she glared down at it like she was about to crush it to splinters.
Nearby, Mercy had lashed herself to the railing with long tendrils of darkness. She sat cross-legged, nestled in the center of her web, purple eyes shining. It seemed like she was looking forward to the danger, though he would have thought she'd have gotten enough on Ghostwater's island. Her hair was still short, shorter than Yerin's; a reminder that it had been burned off by a dragon Underlady and she'd spent weeks—and a fortune in elixirs—recovering from the damage.
She raised one black-gloved hand and patted the wall of smoldering shell next to her. “We’ve got everything under control,” she said. “No need to worry!”
Orthos didn't poke his head out. He was tied to the deck by the same strings of shadow that bound Mercy. His voice rumbled out, echoing as though from a cave. “You're the ones who should be worried. Not one of you has a shell.”
Lindon could feel that the huge turtle was barely keeping his fear under control. That made it harder for Lindon to wrestle his own nerves, but there was still a spark of pure joy left in Orthos' soul. He had been practically reborn in Ghostwater, and he hadn't stopped celebrating for the past two weeks. Even now, withdrawn into his shell and preparing for a crash, there was a part of him that exulted in his new, strengthened body. That was enough to help Lindon fight his way free of Orthos’ fear and keep a clear head.
Lindon pushed his way out and along the edge of the ship, keeping a tight grip on the railing. They were definitely descending, though the trees were getting closer at a much faster rate than he was comfortable with. And the green cloud keeping them aloft had faded to a sort of lime-colored haze. Maybe it was better not to look.
Mercy had been controlling the ship until recently, when she ran out of madra, and then Orthos had tried before getting frustrated and threatening to blast a hole in the hull. Finally, Yerin had taken over, determined to land the ship even if it killed her.
Through the creaking of wood and the rush of wind, he heard the soft tinkling of glass. Little Blue scampered up to him a moment later, a tiny spirit in the shape of a woman made of deep blue light. Her flaring dress slid smoothly over the deck. She pulled herself up Lindon's leg, nimble as a monkey, and a moment later she sat on his shoulder. Chimes sounded in his ear as though she were filling him in on everything that had happened since he'd gone below.
Recently, he'd thought he was starting to understand her: she was telling him about the sights she’d seen during their flight. It could have been his imagination giving shape to the Riverseed’s meaningless squeaks, but he responded attentively nonetheless, nodding gravely at her and making responsive noises himself. If she was telling him something, he didn't want to seem rude.
Finally, he made it next to Yerin. “Apologies. I held on as long as I could.”
The ship pitched so far to one side that half the sky was replaced by an ocean of trees before Yerin corrected it. “We’re just a skip from some town. Long as there’s an Arelius family down there, we’re—”
The ship shuddered, and the lights on the control panel shone. Yerin growled with effort, gripping the sides of the panel so hard the wood splintered, her scars standing out brightly against her skin.
She shouted over the wind, sending another flare of madra into the panel. “Everybody hold tight!”
Lindon braced himself, gathering Little Blue in his left hand and holding the railing with his right. It was less than encouraging to know that if he stopped cycling madra to the limb he would immediately fly off and be lost to the wind, but that was all the more reason not to stop cycling.
The wind picked up, the boat shook, and they started to fall. Lindon couldn't tell if they were landing or crashing, and at that point, there might have been little difference.
[Oh look, the owl's still there,] Dross noted.
Lindon was determinedly staring at the deck and not looking over the edge of the railing, but Dross' comment made him realize he could see something at the edge of his vision. An owl—or at least a Remnant that looked like one—perched on the opposite railing. It was made of madra that looked like swirling silver smoke, edged with the occasional flicker of purple light.
The Remnant had been following them for days. Maybe ever since they left the island. It showed itself once or twice a day, as though to remind them that it was still there.
Lindon had tried to point it out to Yerin and Mercy, but the owl always seemed to vanish when they looked for it. Lindon might not have ever noticed it himself if not for Dross, as the thought-construct was far better at using Lindon's senses than Lindon himself was.
He didn't spare another thought for the owl. Some Remnants had strange, almost obsessive behaviors; maybe this one was stuck following cloudships. He certainly wasn't going to deal with it while they were in the middle of a crash.
The deck surged upwards, and Lindon almost thought they'd made a soft landing before he realized Yerin was pushing out the last of their cloud madra. After this surge, they would fall.
For lack of something better to focus on, he kept his eyes fixed on the owl.
Mercy sat up, staring at him. “Is it the owl? Is it here?” She craned herself around in her little nest of black madra,
eager to see.
She had been desperate to catch a glimpse of the owl. She hadn't said why, but sometimes people could be superstitious about Remnants.
Silver light flared from the script in front of Yerin, and the console exploded into splinters.
The ship hung in the air for one brief, frozen second.
Yerin sighed.
Then the cloudship fell.
…roughly two feet.
It settled onto the ground with a crunch, rolling slightly on its side, and shuddering for another moment or two before it came to a halt. Lindon released his grip on the railing, sliding over to come to a stop next to Yerin.
He nudged her with his elbow. “Congratulations on your successful landing, captain.”
From behind them, Mercy cheered.
With her shoulder, Yerin lightly shoved him back. “Not the worst one of my life, I’ll give you that.” She eyed him. “You could have probably jumped down from the clouds and walked it off.”
“Well,” Lindon said, “thanks to you, I didn't have to.”
It had been strange for both of them, over the last week or two, now that they were at the same stage of advancement. The atmosphere between them had changed, and Lindon was still trying to figure out how.
The dark webs around Mercy dissolved in a rush of black motes of color, and she stumbled down the deck past them, bracing herself on her braided black staff so she didn’t slip. She looked back as she ran. “Next time, we should all jump!”
The ground rumbled as Orthos leaped over the side, landing on soft earth with a surge of relief that Lindon could feel. Gingerly, the turtle scooped up a bite of soil and grass, chewing with great relish.
Lindon released Little Blue from his hand, and she scampered off to go join Orthos. From inside Lindon's head, Dross gasped.
[Look, everyone! Look! Here come some friends! That’s a relief, isn’t it?]
Dross must have been sharing the message, because they all looked in the same direction at once.
