by Gage Lee
“Thank you, Reesa, for everything.” I tried to give the worm woman a hug, but she recoiled from me, hands raised. I settled for a shallow bow which she returned, then slithered out of the hall with her supplies tucked under her arm.
I pulled out a chair and collapsed into it, my right hand sticky with Biz’s blood. My arms and legs twitched with residual adrenaline, and my thoughts were a scrambled mess of fear and rage. I tried to focus my breathing, to clear my mind. But I couldn’t get past the image of Biz on the ground, her face pale, blood spreading through the cracked cobblestones beneath her. It was too much like what had happened the last time I failed my sister. I don’t know how long I sat there, head in my hands, replaying the scene over and over again, thinking of ways I could’ve done things differently. Imagining how I could have protected them all so much better than I had. If we’d left at four minutes instead of five, that would’ve made all the difference. Sure, we wouldn’t have gathered as much ore, but we could always make another trip.
The ore. That was the only good thing that had come out of this trip. I had to make sure it was safe.
“Where’s the ghostlight?” I asked Ylor.
“The other students took it below,” he said. “Baylo went with them. I’ll go down and inspect the ore and show them how to load the refinery. You can call for Monitor if you need us, but your sister should be fine for now. If anything changes, let us know.”
I closed my eyes and tried to meditate. After long minutes, I could finally take a breath without seeing Biz’s body sprawled out in a pool of her own blood. The pain was still there, though, and experience told me it would be a long, long time before I’d be less than paranoid about Biz’s safety. I wanted to lock her away in our room until I’d gathered enough ore to light up the gate.
Biz would blow a gasket if I tried that, though. I had to figure out some way to protect my sister and keep her from hating me for it. The only path through that minefield that I could see was to repair the Academy and get us out of here before something awful happened.
“Eat.” Xin prodded my shoulder to pull me out of my thoughts. “I brought food.”
The horned girl shoved a plate stacked with sandwiches into my hands. I winced at the sight of the pickles leaking brine from between slices of ham and turkey.
I really hated pickles.
“Thank you,” I forced myself to say. Just the smell of pickles made my stomach roll. Despite my queasiness, I took the plate.
“Eat,” Xin insisted.
The last thing I wanted to do was eat. I didn’t even feel like a sandwich without pickles. The urge to invent an excuse and take off out of the great hall was nearly overwhelming.
But the look of quiet compassion in Xin’s eyes deserved better than that from me. I bobbed my head in a little bow to her and lifted the tainted sandwich. Stifling a grimace, I took a bite.
The good news was that it didn’t kill me. I managed to choke the whole sandwich down, washing the taste of pickles out of my mouth with huge gulps of water between bites. When I’d finished, Xin took the plate and examined it carefully for any errant crumbs.
“Still hungry?” She showed me the empty dish. “I can get more.”
“Oh, no,” I said hurriedly, raising my hands. “I’m stuffed. Couldn’t eat another bite.”
“Okay,” she said with a faint smile. “I’m going to practice punching. Come see me if you need.”
Xin put the plate on the table and gave me a pat on the shoulder. She hesitated for a second, then stalked out of the room with lithe, animal grace.
“Hey,” Biz said. “How’s your girlfriend doing?”
Her voice was weak, but the sarcasm told me she was going to be fine.
“You’re such a jerk,” I said. “She’s the only reason we got back inside the gate. She held it open so it wouldn’t close on us.”
Biz tried to roll over, then groaned and lowered herself carefully back on her belly. She rested her chin on her hands and tilted her head to the side so she could look at me. The fuzzball stroked her hair and made soft, soothing sounds.
“I feel like I got run over by a truck,” my sister said. “What happened out there?”
“You got shot,” I said. “How’s the shoulder?”
Biz moved her left arm, then her right. She groaned on the second one and raised a very unladylike middle finger to me.
“It hurts,” she said. “A lot. I really got shot? Did they get the bolt out?”
“Maybe?” I said. “Ask Reesa the next time you see her. She’s the one who gave me the sutra to use on you. You shouldn’t try to move too much while you heal. Probably shouldn’t talk, either.”
“You’re hilarious,” my sister said. “Did they operate on me in the hall? Rude.”
“Next time I’ll let you bleed out,” I snorted. “Don’t be such a baby.
>>>One hundred blades have been refined and added to your reserves.
Approximately one thousand more blades of unrefined ore are in processing.
Total ghostlight reserves are at two hundred blades.
It will require three hours and thirty-three minutes for processing to complete.
Would you like to be notified when the ghostlight ore has been refined?
Akashik network interface awaiting response. <<<
I told the interface that I did in fact want to be notified and confirmed that wish. A thousand blades was a lot of ghostlight, but I’d thought there’d be more with twenty of us out there working. I needed to talk to Ylor about why our haul was so much worse than I’d expected.
“What’s wrong with your face?” Biz asked. “You look all scrunched up.”
She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips in what I was pretty sure was an exaggerated imitation of how I actually looked.
“I was doing some work,” I said. “Not all of us have the luxury to lie around on a table being waited on hand and foot. Give me a few minutes to wrap this up and I’ll grab you some food.”
I dove back into the interface before Biz could respond. I was confident she’d be fine now that the sutra had taken hold, and I needed to take care of these upgrades to the Academy before I got distracted again. What I wasn’t sure about, quite yet, was exactly how to spend the blades we’d gathered. Bolstering its physical defenses was an obvious choice. That would help us withstand a direct assault from the Fell Lord. What it wouldn’t do, though, was aid us out in the field. If the students had been stronger, I wouldn’t have hesitated to take the fight to the scrats, and maybe then Biz would never have been shot. I willed the interface to show me upgrades to improve the students.
>>>Two hundred blades have been refined and added to your reserves.
Total ghostlight reserves are at three hundred blades.
Approximately nine hundred more blades of unrefined ore are in processing.
It will require approximately three hours and fifteen minutes for processing to complete.
Available first-year student classroom upgrades are as follows. All upgrades require three hundred blades, except where otherwise noted.
Combat arts
Sutra inscription
Ghostlight circulation
Artifactory
Core strengthening
Your reserves do not contain enough free blades to process any of these upgrades at this time. Would you like to add any upgrades to the production queue?
Akashik network interface awaiting engineer response.<<<
Based on the improvement I’d experienced after upgrading my discipline, I imagined any of the classrooms would train the students in useful abilities. At the moment, though, our most pressing concerns were fighting strength and defending the Academy. While I would’ve dearly loved to learn more about core strengthening, the only logical upgrades available were combat arts and sutra inscription. The former could make us all much more formidable fighters. If it came down to a hand-to-hand battle through the Academy’s halls, we’d need that edge against the scrats. S
utra inscription would be useful before, during, and after any fights we had with the Fell Lord’s minions. I had some plans for that, though I needed to talk to Reesa and her students to make sure they could be accomplished.
“Queue up the combat arts and sutra inscription classrooms,” I said. And, before the interface could bother me for confirmation, I added, “Consider that order confirmed.”
>>>Combat Arts and Sutra Inscription classroom upgrades are currently in the production queue. Estimated time of completion based on current refining progress is eight hours and thirty-seven minutes.
According to the most recent estimates, you will have six hundred blades of ghostlight remaining in your reserves when refining and production have completed. Are there other upgrades you would like to add to the queue?
Akashik interface upgrade schema awaiting engineer response.<<<
I willed the interface to show me a list of basic upgrades. I was most interested in structural changes and any defenses I could add with the blades left over from our little expedition.
>>>The following maintenance improvements are currently available. All options below require an investment of one hundred blades of ghostlight unless otherwise noted.
Exterior wall restoration.
Roof restoration.
Personal sanitation room upgrades.
Flooring restoration.
Windows restoration.
Shutters restoration.<<<
The list went on and on. There had to be a hundred different things in the Academy that needed my attention. Unfortunately, I only had six hundred free blades, and I needed to stockpile what I could to fuel the gate when it was time to get out of here. We could use some basic defensive upgrades, though. I selected the roof and exterior wall restorations and committed them to the production queue. That, at least, would keep scrats from coming in from above us or shooting through holes in the walls.
>>> Exterior wall restoration and roof restoration have been added to the production queue.
You may change the queue at any time, provided the item you wish to change has not already begun production.
Based on current projections, you will have four hundred ghostlight blades in your reserves.<<<
I opened my eyes, leaned back in my chair, and let out a long, slow sigh. The day was barely half over, and I already felt exhausted. I cycled my breathing to fill my core with blades of ghostlight.
“Hey, bro,” Biz croaked. “I don’t feel so good.”
A cold jolt of fear shot through me. I stood up and leaned over the table to get a better look at her. Her lips were pale, and deep, black bags bulged beneath her eyes. Her breath was shallow and labored, and her dry tongue darted across her cracked lips in a desperate search for moisture.
“Oh, no,” I groaned. Then I raised my voice, shouting for help. “Monitor, get Reesa in here, now!”
“I’m all right,” Biz protested. “I just need some water. Would you get me a glass?”
But Biz wasn’t all right. Through the tear in the back of her shirt I saw thick black threads winding beneath her skin. They emerged from her collar and coiled around her neck like an ebon noose.
We’d healed my sister’s wound but missed the more insidious danger.
Biz was poisoned.
Chapter Twenty
MONITOR GATHERED THE Tribunal as quickly as he could, though it still felt like hours between the time I’d called for him and when they all arrived. Reesa brought her students with her, and they all dropped their sutra cases on the table, rolled up their sleeves, and got to work on my sister. The worm woman gave her apprentices orders in an efficient, clipped voice that was utterly at odds with her usual frazzled self.
I tried to push my way through the knot of scribes to be at my sister’s side. Baylo stepped in front of me to block my path with her tall, muscular frame. Her intense eyes burrowed into mine and let me know she was serious about keeping me away from that table.
“Let them work,” the warrior told me. “There’s nothing you can do they can’t do better without you interrupting them.”
Her firm words weren’t exactly soothing, but they took the edge off my panic. Baylo was right. Reesa and those she’d been training knew more about sutras than I did. If anyone could save Biz, it was them.
“I should stay here,” I said. “In case Biz needs me.”
Baylo took a step forward and bent until our faces were only inches apart and our eyes were level. For the first time, I noticed a faint golden ring surrounded each of her irises. It was strange and held my attention like a hypnotist’s swinging watch.
“Your sister is stronger than you give her credit for,” the green-skinned warrior told me. “Whatever the scrats did to her won’t keep Biz down. Those hooded freaks will regret ever crossing that kid. But this won’t be the last time she gets hurt. She’s a fighter, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.”
Biz cried out, her voice small and pained. The sound of it dragged me back to the dark times in the clinics. Biz hooked up to machines that hummed and whirred as they pumped and filtered, filling her up with one cure after another while they drained her blood for testing. None of it had ever worked. The doctors and nurses were no help. They’d hurt Biz, tortured her as a pointless sacrifice to the gods of medicine.
“She’s my sister,” I growled at Baylo. “I have to protect her.”
“Come with me,” the varm said quietly. “You’re driving yourself crazy here. You need to center your mind.”
I tried to slip past the fighter, but she stuck to me like glue. We did the same dance, left, right, then back again, until I finally gave up trying to get around her.
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s go meditate and center my mind.”
“Oh, no,” Baylo laughed. “You’re not getting out of this that easily.”
The warrior motioned for me to follow her out of the hall and into the garden where all ten of her students, including Xin, were all paired off and practicing basic combat techniques. One partner would throw a punch, the other would block it, then they’d switch and the defender would attack, while the aggressor protected. Some students moved very slowly, careful not to hit each other. Others, mostly the varm, threw full-strength strikes and blocked with such ferocity they filled the garden with the meaty slaps of colliding limbs. It was hard to believe the students I saw had been in cold storage just two days before.
“Looks like they’re coming right along,” I said.
“Not bad for their second session,” Baylo agreed. “But some of them had studied at the Academy before the splintering. They’re not all completely green.”
“Girlfriend!” Xin shouted when she saw me. She grabbed her partner’s strike, twisted his arm around behind his back, and dumped the poor guy in the dirt with a brutal leg sweep. While her fallen partner spluttered on his belly, Xin trotted over to Baylo and me. “Biz is okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “She was poisoned, but Reesa’s got a handle on it.”
“Good!” Xin exclaimed. “Fight!”
She grabbed me before I could react, one hand on my wrist, the other on the back of the same arm. Xin swiveled at the hips and whipped me around in a half circle, my feet churning to keep my balance. She didn’t look like she weighed more than a hundred pounds, but she was far stronger than I’d imagined.
I nearly toppled over when she let go of my arm suddenly, and only just got an arm up to defend myself against the kick she snapped at my midsection. The blow smacked into my forearm with jarring force, but the natural armor I’d gained from my spinal meridian investment shrugged off the attack with no stamina or physical damage. Before she could follow up with another strike, I dropped my chin to my chest to guard against an uppercut and slammed a low kick into the outside of her thigh just above the knee.
Xin’s leg buckled from the unexpected attack, throwing off her balance and robbing her of momentum. She raised both hands to protect her head and abdomen as she staggered to regain her fo
oting and balance. She grinned at me through her guard, dark eyes sparkling.
“Good,” she said. “You should’ve finished me.”
She came in fast and hard, feinting with a left-handed hook before throwing a powerful straight-line punch toward the center of my chest. It was a brutal, stunning attack that would’ve rocked me back on my heels if it connected. Unfortunately for Xin, I’d twisted inside her reach. The strike only grazed my shoulder.
Before Xin could hop back out of my reach, I wrenched my body around and drove the tip of my elbow into her midsection. If this had been a real fight, I would’ve aimed for her chin. An elbow strike like that to the jaw was a good way to put out your opponent’s lights. It was also a good way to put somebody down for good, and I didn’t want to take any of our students out of the fight.
That shot had an impact on Xin; I could see the surprise in her expression. But she didn’t back down or call a halt to our match. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and used the only attack left to her at such close range.
Her head snapped forward, and the bony ridges of her horns slammed into my face just above the bridge of my nose.
>>>You have sustained moderate stamina damage and a minor stun effect.<<<
Stars danced in my vision, and even my more advanced core and the investments I’d made in my spinal meridian couldn’t keep my knees from going wobbly. Instinct kept my guard up to protect my rattled skull, and that saved me from a pair of nasty hooking punches that would have easily dropped a stunned fighter. I took a kick to the ribs before I fully recovered and grunted at the sharp pain in my side.
>>>You have sustained serious stamina damage. The stun effect has dissipated.<<<
Xin had recoiled into a defensive position the instant she knew her flurry hadn’t put me out of the fight. She kept her guard close and her head down to protect from a knockout blow. She was a seasoned fighter, I’d give her that. All things being equal, I’d have a hard time getting through her defenses with my current tactics. If I didn’t stop her, though, she’d wear my stamina down with her brutal combination attacks.
