The Rise of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  “Okay, be sketchy.”

  “It is my best side.”

  As he walked toward the door, his clothes flipped into something far more tailored to a business event. Constantine was expensive. Everything about him reflected extraordinary wealth, even his dressed down clothes. But he usually wasn't dressed in the equivalent of a business suit.

  Extra sketchy.

  He left with a rude gesture to Dare and a blown kiss to me. Dare's face was shuttered as he looked at the closed door.

  “Thanks for the sandwich,” I blurted.

  The edges of his lips lifted in amusement as he turned back to me. “That's what you are going to go with?”

  “Yup. I would have starved without you.”

  He reached inside their magic fridge and threw a wrapped package to me. I unrolled a crunchy veggie wrap. There were a few unidentifiable vegetables inside—the Second Layer had a lot more purples and pinks in their veggie options—but it tasted fine.

  “Make sure to eat.” He pressed a finger against my arm. A little diagnostic appeared above it— magic level 33%.

  Considerably better than expected, but still a strong third away from feeling like I could keep things together without Dare on campus.

  “You can boost that up another fifteen percent,” he said, “If you eat three more meals before midnight.”

  I nodded sagely. “Feeding me after midnight makes monsters.”

  “You aren't a monster, Ren,” he said, gaze intense.

  “Thanks, Alexander.” I sighed and took a bite. I wondered how much Second Layer pop culture I missed in conversation.

  “You don't have to call me that.”

  “Thanks, dude.”

  That caused the edge of his mouth to quirk. Unlike pop culture phrases, words translated cleanly just fine.

  It was clearly implied from his comment that I could address him in some diminutive form. I wondered what he would do if I started calling him Al.

  He sat across from me as I ate and casually manipulated his fingers in the air. He was doing some absolutely compelling equations based on timetables, distances, and magic variables. I didn't even try to pretend I wasn't staring at them as they formed in the air.

  A little alarm spell blinked the time and gave him a “time remaining” alert.

  I swallowed the last of my food. “You're leaving at six?”

  The same despair and tension that had overtaken me when he had left for the competition the first time, threatened once again.

  He looked up, as if sensing my distress. “They are demanding our return to the competition. To make everything 'right again.'”

  I balled up the wrapper in my hand, concentrating on the material as it compressed. “That's...there seems to be something wrong with that logic.” Tension gripped me more completely, and I threw the wrapper into the trash, then crossed my arms tightly, trying to stave off panic.

  Dare snapped his fingers and a hologram of Helen Price appeared in his hand.

  “It is best for the emotional health of the Second Layer for the competition to continue,” she said, in her cultured, hateful voice. “Having the excellent combat mages from Excelsine do well will be a boon to everyone in the Second Layer. I think we will all be rooting for them.”

  Dare extinguished her in his palm. It was a satisfying maneuver that I would have to try next time I was listening to one of her interviews.

  “The other layers are also demanding that the competition continue,” Dare said. “They say that what happened here is a tragedy, but that pausing the competition for a day and a half gives us more than enough time to grieve.”

  “Right,” I said bitterly.

  Christian's orb warmed in my pocket, as did the ultramarine thread connected to my chest. I released a breath. The feeling of kinship Dare was sending was not just warm, it was soothing.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He rose and motioned for me to follow him as he walked into his workroom.

  My steps were tentative in his wake. Tension of a different kind gripped me.

  His workroom was one of the mysteries of Excelsine that I had longed to solve. I'd been fascinated by the wards on the room from the first time I'd entered the suite—long before I'd known Dare lived here.

  It had to be something epic.

  Constantine's workroom was fantastic with all of its mechanical and material wonders, and Bellacia's news emporium was incredible. I expected Dare's to be some sort of labyrinthine maze of monstrous wonder.

  What I didn't expect was for it to be pure white. Bare. Sterile. Without a shred of furniture or even a piece of lint inside.

  Four white walls. A white floor. A white ceiling.

  I stared around the room blankly—in a reflection of all that was blank around me. “Er...”

  He raised a brow, and waved a hand. Color and light lit every surface. He pulled his hand toward his chest, and a full closet appeared.

  I reached forward and my hand went through the hanging garments and touched the wall.

  He smirked and lifted a shirt from the image. In his hand, the shirt appeared as real as any I'd ever held in mine. He flung it toward an image of a black bag and it disappeared inside.

  Dare shifted the room, rotating it to show a different section of clothing. An endless walk-in-closet. I wondered if Delia had one of these. If she didn't, she'd be green with envy.

  I was less interested in the clothes, though, and more in the abilities of the room, which I recognized intimately from the Battle Building. Dare switched the walls to display weaponry—showing some way overpowered James Bond Quartermaster level stock.

  Chosen weapons went into the bag, too.

  Medical supplies were next.

  “You have a practice room, a department store, a hospital cache, and an armory,” I said dumbly. “In your room.”

  “Not quite.” He didn't elaborate.

  “Can you battle people in here?”

  He smiled. “Only mental simulations.” He pointed to the floor. “We are limited here, where we aren't in Kratos.”

  In the practice rooms in the Kratos Battle Building, the entire realm of reality was turned on its head. The rooms weren't all that big, but the floors moved magically with the movements and intentions of the occupant. So running, diving, and even flying were all possible when the dynamics of the room were activated.

  Mental simulations? Surrounded by his mind and imagination, I could just bet on what sort of mental chessboard or fighting strategy he could practice in here.

  Maybe Olivia and I could move dorms next season.

  “So, when you move in,” I asked, “do you just decide what you want your workroom to be?”

  Because I definitely wanted this. Something I could creatively decorate, drown in my art, then pull into smaller spaces that I could activate at will.

  “The spells for the rooms are tailored by the mage.”

  Constantine had everything in his workroom just so. And everything was very real—real furniture, real stirring sticks. Sure, he could change things around—most things on campus were flexible. But he rarely did. He liked to pretend that he was quicksilver, but he was actually pretty dependent on things around him being reliable.

  As I watched Dare flip through multiple scenarios to obtain everything he needed, a few things attacked at random. He easily dispatched them, but they were unpredictable—one stock room had no monsters, another had three, and another tried to suffocate us both. In Dare's self-made room...nothing was stable. Constant flux. Always able to change and adjust.

  Dare's inherent stability—or my opinion of it—came from the feeling that he would be able to handle anything, no matter what happened. That's why it was effortless for him to wear the helm of campus protector. It didn't matter what happened, he would handle it, if he were on campus.

  Though, not unlike Constantine, Dare, too, didn't like unknown variables. He actively sought them out. He'd done it with me. Made me known.

  I shoo
k my head and stepped over to the black bag he was filling and crouched down, watching as the items he tossed disappeared inside.

  “So, this is how dressing spells work? You have a container with them in it—or with attachments to them?”

  He nodded and continued.

  “You preload them.” I crossed my legs and rested my chin on my hand, elbow on my knee. “Huh.”

  “But you have to have enough working magic to use them. Excelsine is overpowered, so many mages use the spells here. But, in other locales?” He shrugged. “It depends on the magic available. Many communities consider it a waste of resources.”

  I thought of my storage papers, and Kinsky's. The reason that they were dangerous and valuable was that they used a set amount of magic. Permanent magic. This spell, like most, used magic temporarily, allowing an ebb and flow to the usage, safely recycling it when not in use, and controlling what use there was.

  Taken in a “good for the community way,” it was a better use of magic.

  But mine...wasn't dependent on the community. There was power in that, though even I could see that it was an easily misused power.

  I looked down at my hands and clenched my fingers into a fist, then relaxed them. Magic inched its way through my palm. Better than last night, at least.

  “So, I'm fed...” I began.

  Dare—no, Axer—looked up.

  “And...I noticed some interesting items when you flipped through your medical stash...” I continued.

  He didn't seem to be taking the hint.

  “Like at least five of those white bricks-of-resuscitation.” I was hoping he'd take my leaning forward, brows-raised, hint.

  Delia could be counted on for quick energy pick-me-ups, but Axer always had the best stuff. He'd given me the bricks before, and they were crazy power-ups.

  He shook his head and continued packing. “They won't work on you right now. Your magic still isn't circulating through its proper channels.”

  “Can you...” I waved my hands around, then mimicked a cord being violently pulled from me to him.

  He looked unimpressed with my charades. “No.”

  With his mother being a world renowned healer, in addition to being a Bridge Mage, I had made assumptions. Assumptions that he could fix what Doctor Greyskull might not be able to. Unfair assumptions, really. Just because a parent was exceptional at something, didn't mean that a child had learned or inherited those skills.

  “I can,” he said grudgingly, reading my expression perfectly, as usual. “But I won't.”

  “Why?”

  He shook his head. “I can't have you running off.”

  There were a number of things loaded into that statement. Conversations that we hadn't yet had, irritations that hadn't been smoothed over, trust issues that I hadn't prepared for.

  Questions about judgment.

  Anger curled. “Just when you say so?”

  “Yes.”

  I had been angry at him before we'd gone to the Midlands. But this was something deeper, something edging on betrayal.

  He watched me. He watched me in a way that said he understood exactly what my thought process was.

  “Why?” I demanded, getting back to my feet.

  “Because while you are brilliant and powerful, trustworthy and loyal, you still lack good decision making skills.”

  I couldn't argue with that, not really. But I tried. “And you can make better decisions for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Going to the Midlands was your idea.”

  “And we got exactly what we needed, all according to plan.”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out, I was so furious. I stared deliberately at his midsection, still healing after being torn through.

  “You can be angry,” he said.

  “I am,” I said with deliberate pauses between each word. “Very angry.”

  “Perhaps then you will do very better.”

  My chest was surging with breath, like I couldn't catch it after a long run.

  He tipped up my chin, fingers like small fires set against my skin. “These next few days and weeks are important. Fate of the world important.” His gaze switched between my eyes, then his expression shifted minutely, as if he'd read something there. “Fate of your roommate important.”

  I leaned further into his fingers, sending them brushing fire along my throat. “Which is why I need you to dive in and fix me. In case.”

  He stood there for a long moment, fingers spanning my pulse points, my life force beneath his hand, an easy twist for him to snap my neck.

  He tapped one finger against my left pulse point, in rhythm with the beat beneath that was speeding along as it always did when we were this close.

  His gaze switched from there to my lips, then back to my eyes. “Okay.”

  My lips parted, heartbeat skittering over a beat. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” I wanted it—for him to fix me—but I was also extremely aware that he hadn't been planning on doing so, five minutes ago. Natural curiosity and paranoia made me question the change.

  His fingers slipped slowly from my skin. “Do you want the true answer, the real answer, or the answer that will sound best?”

  “Truth? Real?” The one that sounded best?

  He smiled. “I want to manipulate the magic in you.”

  Unfortunately, because of how I'd answered, I wasn't sure which answer he was giving.

  “Do you know what it takes to consciously untangle someone's magic, Ren?”

  “Greyskull says it's about diving down, working with the person you are healing.”

  “How long did it take him to fix you?”

  I considered. “The first time? Five minutes? Maybe three—for a broken toe. I only allowed him to scan me yesterday—no real fixes. We sorted through his old...friendships.”

  Axer didn't look surprised by any of those statements. “It will take me hours. Hours where I will be swimming in your magic. Blanketed by it.”

  I blinked.

  “Where I can do anything at all with the pathways I find.” He touched my left pulse point again. “Because you will let me, won't you?”

  It wasn't a question. And he wasn't wrong.

  “I will be able to do anything. Hook you in any way.” His fingers slid down my throat. “Manipulate everything inside of you until you answer only to me.”

  And it was something that so many people wanted to do to me. To be able to use my magic without having to ask its shell, me, for permission. Or perhaps for me to just be a shell. Raphael, Godfrey, Stavros, Price, even Marsgrove. And I had seen some of the hungrier looks on campus yesterday and today. Some of my fellow students wouldn't hesitate. Some of the club, people I knew, would not.

  “And that's why,” he said, “if you want to prove your judgment to me, you will say, no.”

  I swallowed. His fingers moved with the movement. “That sucks. You suck.”

  “And you need people around you who question you more.”

  He stepped back.

  “Why?” Why go through with this type of charade, why not just do it and say nothing? Why?

  “Perhaps I'm just trying to get you to trust me implicitly,” he said.

  It was a very Constantine-like thing to say. But, the thing was, Axer knew I already trusted him. Knew that I would pretty much do anything for him.

  “No.”

  He was obviously amused by my response, but his gaze was piercing. “Then perhaps I don't want a shell,” he said.

  “Are you reading my mind?” I demanded. I hadn't said the part about people wanting a shell of me aloud.

  There was a slight curl of his lips. “Really, Ren? You know such things aren't possible.”

  I looked down at my armband, then narrowed my eyes on his fingers, which were now playing with a beautiful ball of ultramarine, zips of silver darting through and around the sphere.

  Communication Magic was not my forte, not yet. There was a lot of
auditory processing involved, which was not my strength. I'd be putting in some concerted effort on that, though, if I made it here another term.

  “Why are you packing? Shouldn't you already be packed?”

  “For the competition, yes.”

  I narrowed my eyes on him. “Then what are you packing for?”

  “Inevitability.”

  Chapter Twenty-six: Promises of Bloodshed

  Constantine still wasn't back as the clock ticked over to half past five.

  Axer put a small silver figurine in my palm. A duplicate rested in his. “Keep this on you.”

  I tapped my finger against the silver dragon. It was exquisitely crafted. I stroked my finger down its head and the one in his hand yawned, mouth wide. I tucked it under my armband. I'd go to Delia's and sew a pocket for it later.

  “Is this going to manipulate me while you're gone?”

  “If it is, you shouldn't have put it in your armband.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. You had your chance, buddy.”

  He smiled—a far more self-satisfied smile than I was used to seeing. Axer tended to wear an “all business, save the villagers!” look as a default. “Did I?”

  “Yup. So, what do they do?”

  “They will allow us to communicate. Off tablet, off frequency. Only these two are connected to each other.”

  I fished it back out, more interested. “How did you do it?”

  “It's an easy spell, and an old one. The hard part is usually synching up the two mages at either end. But in your case, it's simple.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you know all my magic and weaknesses. I've already been warned.”

  “Have you?” he said lightly. Too lightly.

  “Don't worry. Good judgment hasn't kicked in yet.” I held up a thumb. “You're all set.”

  His expression grew serious. “The dragons can work via dreams, if you need them to, though there is risk involved in that with you.”

  I stared at the dragon. “Yeah, I'm not eager to repeat that yet.”

  “I know. But if it comes to it, hold it and think of me as you fall asleep.”

  My cheeks flushed. “Shall do.” I was going to need to keep it away from me as I slept.

  “If you leave campus, though, do not wait, tell me immediately, however you have to.”