by Ivan Kal
The leading man left them before a large doors and entered alone, only to come out a few moments later. They removed the sacks from their heads and led them inside a dimly lit room. There were three other people inside, but their faces were obscured by the shadows.
“Well, here you are. Now tell us what you know,” a man’s voice said from the shadows.
“I will, once you’ve shown yourselves,” Ashara said.
Vin felt the man’s anger, but he didn’t have a chance to say anything because another man stepped forward in to the light. “You!” the first man hissed, and Vin recognized him. It was the mage that had sent them away—Jeressi.
“Master Jeressi?” Ashara said as she squinted at the dark. “You’re alive!”
“I was lucky. Soon after the men approaching us came on me, Commander Atiok and his people arrived. They managed to save my life,” he said, nodding toward the man standing by his side.
“You know them?” Commander Atiok asked.
“Yes, they were the ones I told you I sent Kyarra away with. But how are you back here already? Did I send you to the wrong place?” he asked in horror.
“No, you sent us to your tower. How we got back is a long story, but the most important thing is that we are here now.”
“Is Kyarra with you? Does she have her magic back?”
“Yes and yes,” Ashara said with a smile.
“Thank the heavens!” he exclaimed. “Where is she?”
“I would rather not say. It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s that I just don’t know how much the people under you can be trusted.”
Commander Atiok frowned at that. “What? My people are trustworthy.”
“Peace, Atiok,” Master Jeressi said tiredly.
“Here,” Ashara said as she stepped forward. “Kyarra made this, in case we found any mages. So that you can know that we are telling the truth.”
Master Jeressi took a small gemstone set in a ring. “A sending?” he asked—but already he was casting a spell. His eyes went blank for a moment, and then he smiled. “It’s good to know for sure.”
“We plan, but we need information. Most importantly about the Arashan.”
“You mean those darji mages?” Ashara nodded, and he continued. “They are gone, left by ship for the Empire, soon after they took the city.”
A part of Vin was relived, but a part of him also understood that they would most likely be starting to build the gate.
“That makes our job much easier. We feared that they would be a problem,” Ashara said.
“Oh, we still have a problem,” Atiok said darkly. “It’s that monster that stayed behind.”
Vin’s breath caught. “What monster?” he asked.
“The woman—she has strange powers, but she is not a mage. We tried to retake the palace two weeks ago. We lost more than half of our men to her alone. She doesn’t seem to be under the command of the Lashians. They look scared of her.”
Ashara glanced at Vin. “Ming Li?”
Vin nodded. “Yes. She had no reason to stay unless she knew that I was with the Eternal Soul. Then she would’ve waited, hoping for my return.”
Master Jeressi scratched at his cheek. “The Lashian soldiers did come just as I finished the spell. They could’ve seen you before I transported you away.”
Vin nodded. “We will deal with her. We need you to deal with the Lashians.”
“They control the harbor, but we have been in contact with what remains of our fleet. And we have enough guardsmen left for an attack on the Lashians, as they hadn’t taken the city without losses and the people they had managed to smuggle in are all that they have left…at least until reinforcements come through the pass.”
“I can stay here and coordinate with you,” Ashara replied. “Vin, you should go back to Kyarra, tell her everything and start planning on how to take the palace.”
Vin nodded his assent. “All right.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
KYARRA
The gate flickers, and the anima shakes. I see through it to the other side, and I see a world tinted in red. I see him step through, yellow eyes and horns wide, clothed in black armor smoking with glyphs of red, and in his hand is a sword with a gem of power in its pommel. He looks at me, yet not, and he smiles.
–Excerpt from the Journal of Vardun Con Aroch
Kyarra watched the doors for a long moment after Vin and Ashara left, then shook her worry away and went back into the library. She had much work to do, but the first thing on her agenda was closing the pass. She didn’t know if the Lashian legions had started marching for it yet, but at the time of the attack they had been two months away. She went into one of the side rooms and found an old magic circle. She had used it only twice before, as she didn’t like needing to go into the library every time she wanted to cast a spell. It was why one of her previous lives had built the one in the mansion.
She stepped inside and looked for the thread of the spell she had prepared. Once she found it, it was only a matter of triggering it, and a massive snow storm would eventually cover the pass. But she’d had another idea when she and Vin had been discussing strategies and ways for her to defeat Ming Li—and so she adjusted the spell just a bit, and then triggered it. The spell would draw the storm slowly, over the coming days, making it seem natural. They did not want to tip their hand. And the faster she drew the storm the easier it would be for another mage to detect the spells guiding it. And they needed time to organize the retaking of the city.
With that done, she went back out of the circle and into the room where she kept the enchanted jewelry and anima-wells of her past lives. She would need all the help she could get in the next few days. She started by looking through what she had available, and then started picking what she thought could be most useful. From the gemstone rings that were one-shot spells, she took four of the most powerful shields she could find. They would repel any attack, but could probably withstand only one apiece, and she planned to use them as a last resort should her own shields fail.
Next she took the largest anima-well she could find, and drew power to it from her staff, filling it. Then she took it to her engraving station and slowly crafted a ward, a spell-shield that would activate any time an aura attack came within four paces of her. She and Vin had tested it out, and his ki attacks did trigger wards crafted in that way. She crafted two more such anima-wells, all set to activate even closer—the second one at two paces, and the last one just a hands-width from her body. She planned on keeping the shield on her staff active at all times, but she couldn’t take the chance of that one being broken.
Then she found an anima-well that cast a mid-level binding spell and took it as well. It might not stop her opponent for long, but it could be a distraction. She took three more rings that had one-shot, powerful fire-bolt attacks, and one that fired a blast of light that could blind her opponent.
She took a few more enchanted items that she wasn’t so sure about, but planned on talking with Vin about their usefulness later when he and Ashara came back. After completing her arsenal, she went back into the library and looked for books on magical combat and started reading, looking for anything that could help her.
* * *
Kyarra’s studying was interrupted when she heard a chime that announced someone at the entrance. She went to the doors, with her staff summoned. Only Vin and Ashara knew how to trigger the chime now that Ovar was dead, but she still wanted to be prepared. Once she opened the doors, she found Vin standing there alone.
“Ashara?” Kyarra asked.
“Stayed with the rebels,” Vin said and she released the breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding.
“You found them, then.” Kyarra nodded in relief.
“Yes—and Master Jeressi is alive.”
“Oh, thank the heavens! He is leading them?”
“He and Commander Atiok.”
“And they will help us?”
“Yes. Ashara stayed to help them co
ordinate. She seems surprisingly good at it, actually,” Vin said with a smile.
Kyarra couldn’t help but smile as well. “Of course she would be.”
They stepped back into the library proper, and Vin raised an eyebrow at the piles of jewelry and open books. “Anything useful?” he asked.
“I read a few entries by the Eternal Souls who’d had to fight before.”
“And?”
“Attack with overwhelming force from the very start—obliterate your opponent.”
“Very good advice.”
“Yes, but I don’t think that they ever had to face anything quite like what I have to,” she said.
“You have power, Kyarra. You have the knowledge. You only need believe in yourself.”
“I’ve never had to. I’ve always had the name of the Eternal Soul shrouding me, protecting me.”
“You are the Eternal Soul. You do not simply bear the name. It is you—all those lives that had to fight, they were all you,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You just don’t remember. But your soul does. Trust that you will know what to do when you need to.”
He gave her one last look and then turned away. “Come, tell me what these do and I will tell you if they will be useful against Ming Li.”
* * *
They spent the next week planning and coordinating with Ashara and Master Jeressi. Then the day finally came, and Kyarra felt oddly calm. The storm that would cover the pass would reach it by nightfall. And hopefully it had managed to remain undetected, she had made sure to keep the storm obscured behind the mountain range. They had done all that they could, and she felt confident; but in actuality, a lot of her calm came from Vin and his belief in her.
“Ready?” Vin asked her.
She took a deep breath and nodded. They walked out of her library and into the mansion proper, and then went to her courtyard. They had decided that the courtyard should be their battleground—both because there weren’t so many people on the hill, and because it was a large, open area, it gave an advantage to Kyarra. Vin nodded at her and disappeared, going to deal with the Lashians in front of her mansion. Then he was to hide and wait; in case Kyarra couldn’t take Ming Li alone, he would look for an opening and try to help. He had said, though, that if he did step in that she would most likely kill him. That somehow made the stakes even higher for Kyarra.
As soon as Vin left, she started laying down spells on the ground around her. Simple traps that would trigger when stepped on, and others that required her to trigger them. She created a large spell-construct and sent it into the air, activating it. It would be something easily detectable in most cases, but soon it wouldn’t matter. She had debated using it sooner, setting it up. But doing so would most certainly alert any mage in the city of their presence if she had just created a storm out of nothing. Instead she had to wait for the spell she had cast days ago to draw a smaller storm toward the city. Then, when she was satisfied, she turned to the western side of her courtyard that overlooked the cliff and the harbor. Gray clouds were slowly moving in over the city as she stepped closer to the edge and summoned the Staff of Storms. She activated all of her wards, all the spells she had woven in her jewelry and anima-wells.
All the pieces were in place, as soon as she announced their presence the fighting throughout the city would begin. She looked down on the three Lashian warships occupying the harbor. She pulled on the power from the fragment and reached out to the harbor, to the seabed below the ships and the runes carved there long ago by one of her previous lives. She reached out to the water gate and the wards on the towers, and the wards welcomed her, even though Lashian mages controlled them now. After all, every ward in Tourran was keyed so that the Eternal Soul could use them, no matter the circumstances.
The water gate rose and the chain gate closed, trapping the ships inside the harbor. Then she reached for the runes at the bottom of the bay, and the spell-constructs made long ago answered. She pulled on the sea—and with one big lurch, it moved. A hand made out of water rose above one of the Lashian ships, and with a thought she brought it crashing down, cracking the ship in half. She immediately moved on to the next one, arms reached out, and pulled the ship down, crashing its hull against the rocks below. She then raised another wave shortly thereafter and crashed it into the third vessel.
Her attack was a signal, and as it happened she knew Master Jeressi and his people would move against the other Lashian forces in the city. She looked at the devastation in the bay and calmed the sea. There was collateral damage—a few other ships had been damaged—but it had been unavoidable. Her spells had been a beacon, one they had hoped Ming Li would see.
And then there was a loud crash behind her, and Kyarra turned to see the woman that had killed the King and his daughter standing before her, the stone beneath her feet cracked. Ming Li had a wide smile on her face, and was looking around the courtyard.
“I knew that you would return. I could feel it,” Ming Li said as her eyes searched around. “Where is he?”
Kyarra swallowed. The woman did not look like much, but her eyes were terrifying. “This is my city, and I will be your opponent.” Her heart thumping in her chest. This was going to be her first real fight. She had read much about the instances when the Eternal Souls had to fight, but those were rare. And Kyarra herself had never actually thought that she would be in the same situation. She had always been protected by the name of the Eternal Soul, now she faced someone who didn’t care.
Ming Li looked at her in disbelief, and then she started to laugh. She was shaking with laughter so hard that she had to put a hand on her stomach to calm down. “You! Hah, was that stunt in the harbor supposed to scare me? Girl, I’ve crushed things far scarier than you,” she hissed. “Now, tell me—where is Kai Zhao Vin?”
Kyarra put her staff in front of her, parallel with the ground, and pulled on the fragment’s power, triggering three spells. A ball of spell-fire exploded toward Ming Li, followed by another dozen firebolts that spread around the spell-fire. A binding spell below Ming Li’s feet activated and chains of light coiled around her feet, keeping her in place. Almost lazily, Ming Li raised her palms toward the onslaught coming at her and she moved, breaking the chains effortlessly and twirling in a circle, somehow redirecting Kyarra’s attack away from her.
But Kyarra had known that that wouldn’t work, Vin had warned her that fire was Ming Li’s affinity and that it would have little effect against her. She triggered another spell and a greater binding sprung from the ground, coiling around her enemy just as Kyarra leveled the head of her spear at Ming Li’s torso. The fragment of power lit up and a beam of pure anima left it. The beam crossed the distance in an instant and hit Ming Li directly in the chest, sending her flying back and into the wall of her estate. She hit it so hard that it cracked and her body became stuck in the hole she had made.
A glimmer of hope blossomed in Kyarra’s chest as she saw her efforts going to plan. She thought that she might’ve defeated her. But then, Ming Li moved. She stepped out of the hole in the wall and looked at Kyarra with a much different expression on her face as she started walking forward. Kyarra swallowed in disbelief and fear.
“I see that I might’ve been mistaken. Perhaps you will provide me with some entertainment. And I am sure that Vin will appear once you start screaming.” She drew the two curved short swords on her hips as lightning flashed above them and rain started to fall lightly. Then her swords ignited and blossomed with fire. Any drop of rain that hit the swords sizzled into steam.
Kyarra was still shocked that her attack hadn’t seemed to have done anything, and then Ming Li jumped forward and she snapped out of it. She sent bolts of fire toward the spirit artist, but she spun her swords in front of her and Kyarra’s firebolts disappeared. She fired a bolt of spell-fire, and Ming Li pivoted, then shimmered, and appeared just in front of her shield. Kyarra had reinforced the shield she kept active from the staff with ten times the amount of anima she had used against Vin,
and as soon as Ming Li’s swords crashed against it she felt the spell-construct bend. The force of the attack was enough to move Kyarra, along with her shield, back. She nearly stumbled, but she stabbed the point of her staff in to the ground and caught herself. Her hand immediately shot forward at Ming Li and a gush of wind battered her away, but after only a few steps Ming Li caught herself.
Kyarra triggered two spells and the stone beneath Ming Li’s feet opened up, swallowing her up to the waist and then contracting. Kyarra was hoping to crush her.
Ming Li stabbed her swords into the ground and lurched herself out of the stone. She twirled through the air, swiping one of her swords and sending a crescent wave of fire toward Kyarra, who stabbed her staff into the ground and formed a wall of ice in front of her.
Kyarra focused and inscribed three glyphs into the air in front of her. The fire hit the wall and fizzled out, and then Kyarra activated the rune. The wall cracked, and hundreds of small icicles flew toward Ming Li, who was still in the air. In response, she started spinning her blades faster than Kyarra thought possible, breaking the icicles as she fell to the ground. Before the spirit artist regained her feet, however, Kyarra formed a complicated spell-construct in her mind and pulled. A round area of the ground beneath suddenly rose up, surprising Ming Li, and hitting her mid spin. Kyarra then summoned a large amount of anima from her fragment and sent a wave of spell-fire at the other woman.
It devoured the raised stone, but Kyarra saw a burst of air suddenly explode out of Ming Li, and she flew to the side, landing on the ground safely as Kyarra’s spell-fire fizzled out against the wall of her estate. Kyarra looked up and noticed Ming Li looking at her arm. She saw a rip in her clothes and a line welling up with blood—an icicle must’ve grazed her, and Kyarra rejoiced.
