She fell with him. She thought they were going to crash into one of the magma flows that still burbled on the surface of the mountain, but they just missed. She found herself rolling and bouncing along a sea of broken black glass. Cuts opened all over her body.
She barely felt them.
She stood.
The boy was gone. She faced Devar. He disappeared. She had an instant to remember the way he had fought against Eva – appearing, disappearing, appearing again.
The meteor hammer disappeared from her hand. Now she held a katana of flame, and with it she slashed a figure-eight in the air before her.
There was a scream as Devar – Phoenix – flashed into being before her, then disappeared almost immediately and appeared a few feet away.
Blood streamed from both his cheeks.
He backed up. Backed up. She followed until he stood with heels on the edge of Fear.
"You think you've won," he said. "You've won nothing. Nothing." He spun, and now the form of the Chancellor faced her. Whole, for it was not in this body that he had been cut and broken. "You've won nothing."
"Some fights you can't win," she said, remembering Brother Scieran's words. "But all that matters is you don't lose."
A spear, brighter still than anything she had yet held, was in her hand. "You lose."
She threw the spear.
It passed right through Phoenix. Not an immediately killing hit – she hadn't meant it to be.
It pushed him back, though. Back over the edge, back to the void.
Back into nothing.
Phoenix fell with a shriek
Dropped.
And disappeared into the clouds below.
She watched to make sure he would not reappear.
He didn't. The clouds had claimed him.
She turned as she heard a sound behind her.
A tank dropped down. Arrow's head popped out of the hatch.
"Need a lift?"
42
Smoke thought it was over. Thought it was the end when the rest of the building seemed to fall in on him. But it wasn't the end – just one of those tanks plowing through what was left of the place, coming to rest nearly beside him.
It also flattened a very small figure, a tiny man who had been hiding in the shadows and who tried unsuccessfully to jump out of the way. Smoke smiled at that for some reason.
The top of the tank opened. Wind leaped out. Followed by Cloud, Arrow, Sword. Rune pulled herself out a moment later.
Wind was at his side in an instant. She kissed him. Signed. Don't die.
He grinned. Then saw Rune slump to the floor.
And saw the Captain of the Guard run toward her, shrieking.
43
The Captain was nearly on Rune. And Sword nearly cut him down.
Then he threw off his helm. She saw him.
The man from the Dream. Not the Man, but the one who had carried her away from Man and Woman. Carried her, and cut her. Close-cropped black hair. Blue eyes that seemed strangely out of place under the dark hair. Startlingly white skin that highlighted the lightning scar that zigzagged down his chin and neck.
She fingered her own scar. The scar he had given her.
That gave the Captain time to get to Rune.
He did not hurt her.
He cradled her.
And screamed.
"My Lady!"
He held her head to his chest. Took her hand in his.
And then Sword saw Rune's hand – so small, so white at this last moment – slip away.
The Captain looked at Sword. At all of them. "We are lost," he said. "The Emperor is dead, and the Empress now has died as well."
44
She suddenly understood.
Not all of it. But some.
The man, carrying her away. With another bundle – a second bundle. The man had been a Guard, just like her parents. Parents who had gathered in this, one of the safest places in the Empire, to protect the Imperial Family from the Chancellor's men. They had brought their own child with them to protect her to the last.
And at the last moment, when it became obvious that the royal family must fall and they must die protecting them, Sword's parents had given her to this man. Had trusted her to this Guard.
And he sold her. Cut her. Marked her as "scarred" so that if any saw him selling a child to the kennels, they would think it the royal daughter.
She was a decoy. Nothing more. Her whole life an unknown lie in service of the Empire.
Not the Empire. In service of Rune.
Rune, who was scarred – must have been scarred as a young child.
Rune, who did not remember her family.
Rune, who had been guided to people who kept her safe, who became her family. Guided by the man Brother Scieran had referred to time and again. By the man the Council had inside the castle. Who had protected Rune from afar by giving the Cursed Ones the information they needed to avoid the missions that would have resulted in her death.
The man who was dedicated, more than any of them, to the preservation of the Empire. The protection of the family. To a Guard who had returned to service and become the Captain.
"They're dead," he was crying. "All dead."
And then the Emperor stood up. Malal shook his head. "No. The Emperor lives."
FIVE: empire
"There must always be a man or woman of the Blood on the throne. Without this, the people will fall, chaos will reign, and the world will collapse."
- Emperor Eka, First Rules and
Commandments of the Ascension
1
The people had heard.
They heard that half the Army was gone. That the Grand Cathedral was in ruins.
They gathered at the palace. People always go to centers of faith in times of terror. If there are no such places, they will settle for places of power.
They found the castle open. On the highest tower of the palace stood the Emperor.
"There has been calamity in Fear, and much of Faith has fallen," said Malal. And as he spoke the words, scribes wrote them down to be disseminated to all who saw him but could not hear, and to every town and city and village in every one of the five States. "But be at peace, my subjects. We will find our way. We will rebuild. Your Emperor lives for you, and your Empire stands."
The people cheered, and eventually left.
People always do.
When they had gone, the Emperor went into his quarters. He waved for his Guard – what was left of them after so many had gone and died in the Acropolis – to leave. Many seemed to hesitate: this was not like him. Not like him to tell them to go at all, let alone to leave him defenseless with such a strange lot.
A woman and a man, clearly brother and sister, but still and solemn as a cloudless sky.
A Knight of the Order of Chain, standing bent so far to one side it seemed he must fall, clearly barely alive after some devastating injury.
A young man who wore a pair of handguns, a rifle slung over one shoulder, a bow over another.
Holding his hand: a young woman, beautiful even though she had a curling scar from eye to mouth. She was weaponless, but the Guard remembered seeing her on the practice fields: a prodigy at fighting, they said. And though weaponless she seemed dangerous somehow, as though she held a weapon that none but her could see.
And, some said, perhaps more than just any weapon. Perhaps… Blessed? Cursed?
But the Emperor waved the Guard away, and away they went. Only the Captain remained.
When they were gone, the Captain bowed to the Emperor. "I have helped, as I promised. But I do not believe you should continue with me as your Captain. I will never work against you – for the family you replace – but you can never be my true Emperor."
Malal reached out and took the silent woman's hand. Drew her to him. Signed: Will you be my Captain?
She looked surprised. Then kissed him.
The Captain left.
Sword looked on as Wind kissed Smoke. "This is your Second Gi
ft," she mused.
Smoke –
(No, Malal. He's Emperor now.)
– nodded. "I can take the shape of any one person. Not partly, but truly. I don't have his memories, but other than that I am Malal. No Reader can penetrate this guise."
"A sacrifice," said Brother Scieran. He seemed like he was speaking to himself as much as to anyone. "Leaving all you were behind forever."
Malal laughed. "Perhaps. But if I hadn't changed to someone who was whole, I would have died anyway. So perhaps not such a sacrifice after all." He looked at Wind. "Though my Second Gift is a one-way thing. I can only change once, and now am Malal forever. Are you sure you want to stay with me?"
She punched him. Hard.
Then kissed him. Harder.
Sword smiled at them. She turned to Arrow, and saw him grinning at her.
She blushed.
Then joined her family.
epilogue
"There is reason in the Great Commandment. That we do not descend below the clouds is both our blessing and our curse. But some day we shall fall below. And great shall be the triumph thereof."
- Emperor Eka, First Rules and
Commandments of the Ascension
There was a body on the spikes. Someone who had climbed – or fallen – over the side of one of the mountains. Now impaled outside the palace by the Gods as a silent reminder never to fall, never to attempt to descend into the domain of the Gods.
The girl looked at the body. She held a doll in one hand, and played absently with her hair with another.
She had red eyes, and those red eyes danced.
It had all gone just as Phoenix had said. The Emperor and the other Heir were gone, she Felt that. She could Feel dead things, and those two were certainly dead. Whoever the man was in the palace, he wasn't the True Emperor.
That was the first part of what had to happen.
The second part: the great sacrifice. The death of so many it would make the land run red with its own blood. The slow corruption of the Empire, begun by Phoenix over a century before, had begun to bear fruit in the murder of Malal's family, ten years ago:
The Blessed Ones corrupted, turned from missions of mercy and stabilization to quiet murder in the night.
The children, given to the kennels and to the blood-lust of many an Imperial officer or noble.
Then A Grand Cathedral, and all within it, pounded to nothing.
The Knights of Chain, almost to the man, hunted and killed.
Fully half the Imperial Army gathered, and dead in the blood-lava of the land.
The sacrifice was complete.
The Army had never questioned, never wanted to know why it was split – half for the sacrifice, half to maintain order after. Because the Empire would need to maintain order after the sacrifice.
Phoenix had said they would need the Empire intact. Just as it had played out. Everything as he had said it would happen.
And now it was time. Time for Marionette to play her greatest game.
She kept playing with her hair. She genuinely wasn't sure what would happen next.
But it would be Fun.
The body on the spike twitched. Then the twitch became a conscious motion, and the once-corpse began pulling itself up the spike. Up, up, up, and then down it fell as it rolled off the pointed top.
The creature lay in the dust beside her for a moment. Then stood, wobbly.
"Would you like to be my poppet?" asked the girl.
The bear-man smiled. "No, my dear. But perhaps you would like to play nonetheless?"
She nodded. Laughed the laugh of innocent madness.
And together Phoenix and Marionette disappeared into the mist.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michaelbrent Collings is a full-time screenwriter and novelist. He has written numerous bestselling horror, thriller, sci-fi, and fantasy novels, including The Colony Saga, Strangers, Darkbound, Apparition, The Haunted, Hooked: A True Faerie Tale, and the bestselling YA series The Billy Saga.
Follow him through Twitter @mbcollings or on Facebook at facebook.com/MichaelbrentCollings.
NOVELS BY MICHAELBRENT COLLINGS
THE COLONY SAGA:
THE COLONY: GENESIS (The Colony, Vol. 1)
THE COLONY: RENEGADES (The Colony, Vol. 2)
THE COLONY: DESCENT (THE COLONY, VOL. 3)
THE COLONY: VELOCITY (THE COLONY, VOL. 4)
THE COLONY: SHIFT (THE COLONY, VOL. 5)
THE COLONY: BURIED (tHE COLONY, VOL. 6)
THE COLONY OMNIBUS
THE DEEP
TWISTED
THIS DARKNESS LIGHT
CRIME SEEN
STRANGERS
DARKBOUND
BLOOD RELATIONS:
A GOOD MORMON GIRL MYSTERY
THE HAUNTED
APPARITION
THE LOON
MR. GRAY (aka THE MERIDIANS)
RUN
RISING FEARS
YOUNG ADULT AND
MIDDLE GRADE FICTION:
THE BILLY SAGA:
BILLY: MESSENGER OF POWERS (BOOK 1)
BILLY: SEEKER OF POWERS (BOOK 2)
BILLY: DESTROYER OF POWERS (BOOK 3)
THE COMPLETE BILLY SAGA (BOOKS 1-3)
THE RIDEALONG
HOOKED: A TRUE FAERIE TALE
KILLING TIME
The Sword Chronicles: Child of the Empire Page 40
