Chapter 32

Scorio awoke into a tomb of hammered copper. The space was lit by a pale, golden light that seeped in from the rectangular hole in the ceiling above, and he lay there for a moment, blinking and looking up. That’s different.

He summoned his Igneous Heart and sensed the thick Coal mana all about him; a couple of deft sweeps of his will, and he pulled it all into his Heart and lit it up.

The mana was so thick, so turgid, that he barely disturbed it with his efforts.

Power flowed into his limbs as he rose to a crouch. The tomb was familiar in all respects but for the dawn-like light filtering in from above. He leaped; this time his Cinder body made his exit easy. He grabbed hold of the upper rim and hauled himself out in one smooth movement, landing in a crouch just beyond it.

Where he remained, taken aback, gazing about himself slowly as he took in the changes.

The vast, cathedral-like space remained as before, but the beam of blood-orange light was gone. No platform arose before him, no broad steps lead up to it. Instead, a searing white column burned in the distance, accessible through a gap between three rows of successive iron walls whose tops disappeared into the gloom, each gap narrower than the last. Fifty men might walk through the first, thirty through the second, perhaps only ten through the last.

The ground was greatly changed as well; gone was the beaten copper, and in its place, Scorio saw uneven stone akin to a cavern’s floor. This rose and fell like frozen waves of some storm-tossed sea, growing rougher as one drew close to the walls, so that at the last great serried ridges jutted across the gaps, creating a tortured path toward the white beam that wound back and forth as it navigated around them.

Scorio rose slowly to his feet, taking it all in. The ground around and behind him was crosshatched with endless tomb entrances like before, but most were little more than crumbling holes, destroyed by time or some nameless violence.

Everything had the air of decay, as if the great chamber might once have been smooth and orderly, and had over the centuries atrophied, lost its original shape as chaos had encroached in the form of the rocky waves and desolation.

Breath pluming before him, Scorio glanced down at himself. He wore the same functional robes as the first time, the same sturdy sandals. Almost he expected to hear Leonis’s cry ring out, to see some hint of movement in the darkness about him.

But there was none.

He was absolutely alone.

The thought chilled him, though of course, he’d known he’d assay the Gauntlet by himself. The sheer scale of the place challenged him, however; he felt insignificant, possessed by hubris for having dared come back here by himself.

With no other option, he approached the broad first gap, stepping over sharp, angular ridges of stone, walking around the steeper eruptions. A haze hung in the air, causing everything to appear vague and indistinct, and taking on an incandescent glow where it lay directly before the beam.

Scorio strode through the first gap. The iron walls were truly massive, four yards thick, more metal than he could conceive. He crossed the rugged space, moving around the oblique ridge that had shouldered its way out of the darkness and across the path, and then through the second.

The beam in the distance was a gap in a final wall, he saw, perhaps five yards wide. It shone with the same painful white glow of a heated blade drawn from a smith’s fire; it was too intense to gaze at for long, so Scorio approached with his eyes downcast, his heart pounding steadily.

He passed through the third gap just as his Igneous Heart guttered and went out. The sweet strength flowed out of his body, and for a moment he was tempted to summon it back, but then he let it go.

Best to summon it the second before he stepped into the light.

The last stretch was so encroached upon by the raw rock that it was but a narrow path winding between the cliff-like slopes. He walked slowly, steadily, attempting to master his nerves, and then stopped when he was but a few paces from the burning light itself.

There was no heat. His breath condensed before him with each exhalation. He squinted at the bright light and considered.

This was all wrong. So different from the Gauntlet the first time he’d gone through.

Was it a second Gauntlet, then? Or perhaps the true original? Abandoned when the Great Souls had left the old Academy to be consumed by the ruins?

A thrill of excitement ran through him. What if it was?

What if he was the first to attempt to run it in half a millennium?

He stepped right up to the burning light. Extending his hand, he then paused. Summoned his Heart, swirled the thick Coal mana about and into it, then willed it to ignite.

The moment his Cinder strength flowed into his body again, he stepped through.

All he saw for a moment was overwhelming light, and then he blinked and was in a rough hallway, broad and high ceilinged.

Scorio immediately sidestepped, hoping to avoid the expected bolt, but instead, he evaded a curved blade that swept down at an oblique angle. It hewed so close that he was forced to sway back as it skimmed down his length, a slash so vicious it would have severed his head and shoulder from his body.

It wasn’t the only attack.

A second blade hung in the air, pointed right at where he’d sidestepped. It slid forward, fast as thought, and into his side. Slid between his ribs and right out through his back.

Scorio’s eyes bulged as he gripped the naked blade with one hand, only to scream as a third weapon—a greatsword or ax, something—swept right through his shins, hewing them cleanly off below the knees.

The pain was immediate, all-consuming. He fell, his scream stifled by agony as the sword in his side tore free, ripping out in a welter of gore.

Scorio crashed to the dirt amidst his legs, gasping and staring, mind blank with pain, overwhelmed by the suddenness of the violence. Blood was pouring out of him in great, gouting pulses, and already the room was growing distant.

“Damn,” he whispered, gazing up where the three blades hung suspended in the air, his blood running down the length of two of them.

With effort, he rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. Though the pain was terrible, though he felt as if he were genuinely dying, still his lips pulled into a grimace of a smile.

Won’t fall for that again, he thought, then the world went dark.

* * *

Scorio awoke atop the bier, his wounds healed but wracked in pain. With a grunt he sat up, his muscles clenching, one fist pressed to his side, his eyes screwing tightly shut.

“Scorio!” Lianshi was by his side, her hand on his shoulder, her concern palpable. “What happened? What is it?”

Beneath each knee, a line of fire burned, as if red hot coals had been thumbed under his skin and between the muscles. Sweat prickled over his brow, and he clenched his teeth so tightly he thought they’d crack.

“Something’s wrong,” he heard her say to Leonis. “He shouldn’t be in pain. We didn’t awaken in pain. What happened? What—?”

“Peace,” came Leonis’s rumble, then even through that ghastly pain Scorio sensed his friend step up on the other side of the bier. “Scorio? Can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” Scorio managed to say, his chest finally unlocking so that he could inhale deeply, rapidly, as if sucking in air could quench the pain. “Ears are working fine.”

“You’re not hurt,” said Leonis quietly, calmly. “I don’t see any blood. The Gauntlet’s wounds don’t transfer to the real world. It’s in your mind.”

Scorio’s grimace turned into a pained smile. He wanted to say something wry, but it took all his focus to slow down his breath. The pain, however, continued, a tunneling well of agony in his side, oblivion beneath his knees.

“That’s better,” said Lianshi, hopping up to sit before him on the bier and placing both hands on his shoulders. “Breathe with me, Scorio. Slowly. Draw it in. Now hold. Now exhale. Slowly.”

Scorio lost himself to her guidance, forcing himself to pace his breaths with her instructions, and slowly, terribly slowly, the pain receded. It must have taken ten minutes of raw torment before at last he was able to blink away the sweat, slowly unclench his muscles, and look up to meet his friends’ concerned gazes.

“Better,” he said, lowering the fist he’d jabbed into his side. “Thank you.”

“You scared the hell out of us,” said Leonis, face grave. “What happened?”

Carefully, exploring how it felt, Scorio stretched, reaching up with one arm to pull at the muscles of his side. “It’s not the same Gauntlet.”

Lianshi placed a hand over her mouth. “An older version? Like this Academy?”

“Precisely,” said Scorio, reaching down to rub at his shins. “Same kind of layout, but everything appears worn, half-broken down. I entered this great beam of pale light and was slashed apart by a trio of blades.”

Leonis frowned. “Three blades? That’s some serious escalation from one crossbow bolt.”

“You’re telling me,” said Scorio. “But before I died, I memorized their attack pattern. Assuming they don’t change, I’ll be able to evade them next time.”

“Next time?” Lianshi’s eyes went wide again. “You’re going back in?”

“Of course,” said Scorio simply. “It’s the perfect resource. Don’t you see? We get to throw ourselves endlessly at it. If the best training is the most lethal, it won’t get better than this.”

“But the pain,” said Leonis, tone sober. “It lasted. This isn’t the same.”

“It’s not,” agreed Scorio. “But pain I can handle, as long as it’s not permanent. I’m not saying it’ll be enjoyable. But this is effectively our own private Gauntlet. We can run it as many times as we’ve got the resolve. Can you imagine what it will do for our training?”

His friends stared at him, and then Lianshi gave a curt nod.

“He’s right,” she said.

Leonis turned to stare at her.

“There’s no better training,” Lianshi said, drawing herself up tall. “I’ll take the pain if it means I can advance.”

“You’re both mad,” said Leonis in wonder, shaking his head. “But fine. If you think I’ll let the both of you wander around in there without me to take care of you, you’re sorely mistaken.”

Scorio grinned and reached out to clap Leonis on the shoulder. “Excellent. Now, let me show you the pattern.”

Swinging his legs over, he hopped off the bier and promptly collapsed to the ground.

“Scorio!” Lianshi was down by his side in a moment, Leonis hurrying around the bier a moment later. She grabbed him under one arm and helped him rise. “Your legs?”

The pain had flared suddenly, but worse was the sense that he’d simply been unable to direct them as he was accustomed. As if they’d forgotten they were attached to his body.

“Not a problem,” he said, leaning heavily against the bier. “Just need a little more time to recover from having them chopped off.”

“Your legs were chopped off,” said Leonis, tone deadpan.

Scorio leaned back against the bier, bracing himself against the beveled edge. “It was just a little chopping off.” He saw them exchange looks once more, and forced himself to stand up straight, his legs still numb and prickling beneath the knees. “I’m fine. Look. They came at me like this.”

And he demonstrated each cut. The first scimitar had slashed down at an angle, forcing him to sidestep straight into the rapier-like blade that had stabbed him through the side.

“Second blade came in at about three feet above the ground, maybe a little higher,” said Scorio, tapping where he’d been wounded. “Then an ax cleaved through my shins at just about over a foot’s height.”

Lianshi frowned, visualizing the setup. “So if we sidestep the other direction, away from the second and third blades, we’ll be cut by the angle of the first.”

“Unless we dive and roll away beneath it,” said Leonis, moving to stand alongside Scorio. “The blade comes down like this, from high left to low right. If you step to the left, avoiding the strike, you get stabbed. So either you roll hard to the right, or perhaps dive forward?”

“Maybe if you hit the wall of light at a run,” said Scorio. “And went straight into a forward dive. Perhaps you could avoid the downward sweep that way.”

“You tell us,” said Leonis, turning to him. “You’re the one who saw the setup.”

For a few minutes, Scorio mimed the different options, trying to recall the exact speed and angle of the blade. Which to do? Down and to the side, or forward dive.

“Dive it is,” he said at last. “I don’t know how far the scimitar cleaves. It could flow all the way down or even follow us. Best bet is to go straight and get out of the trap altogether.”

They both nodded.

“This means we can expect two things,” said Lianshi. “The first is that each subsequent encounter will be tougher than what we faced in the original Gauntlet. Second is that the second room will hold some kind of melee combat against three foes.”

Scorio punched a fist into his other hand and grinned. “It’ll be fun not to hold back. To see what our Cinder-level bodies can do.”

“I’m going to remind you later that you said that,” said Lianshi.

“You guys ready?” Scorio stepped to the foot of his bier. “It’s still Amber. That means we’ve got the rest of the cycle and all of Second Bronze to train. Let’s not waste time.”

“Agreed,” said Lianshi, moving over to the closest bier.

“You’re both crazy,” said Leonis, wandering off and shaking his head. “See you both in there.”

Scorio swept Coal into the large crystal, and when it flared to life, he climbed onto the bier and lay flat.

Darkness swept in to carry him away once more, and a moment later he awoke in the tomb of hammered copper. It was exactly the same as before, the pale light filtering in from the rectangle above.

“Here we go,” he whispered and flipped up to a crouch. Drank deep of the ambient Coal, ignited his Heart, and leaped out once again, clearing the hole easily and landing on the balls of his feet.

To one side Leonis blew out of his own tomb, leaping so high that he was able to land fully standing, his full mane of hair hanging loose past his shoulders. Behind them, Lianshi leaped into sight, lithe and limber, her hair hanging free of its braid as well.

“Look at that,” said Leonis, voice soft with awe, taking in the huge chamber, the raw rock formations, the pale blade of white-hot gold.

“I see what you mean,” said Lianshi, stepping up to stand close to Scorio. “It has the air of neglect, of… some ancient force encroaching upon it.”

“I’ll go first,” said Leonis, moving toward the distant shaft of light.

“As you wish.” Scorio’s resolve was indomitable, but even so, he wasn’t eager to face the three blades. “Remember to leap straight and high.”

“You’ve got it,” rumbled Leonis, biting at the hem of his sleeve as he strode ahead and then tearing a strip of cloth from his robes. “Don’t worry about me.”

When they reached the great beam of pale light both Leonis and Lianshi had tied back their hair; for a long moment they simply stood there, squinting and drinking in the light’s terrible glory, and then Leonis clapped his hands loudly, taking a few steps back.

“Make room! Leonis the Golden King’s going in. Prepare yourself, oh Gauntlet, and tremble!”

And with a great, wordless cry of defiance, he ran right at the blade of light and dove into it.

“See you on the other side,” said Scorio, smiling sidelong at Lianshi, and then he ignited his Heart. Immediately welcome strength and warmth flooded through his frame. Feeling light on his feet and infinitely dangerous like some monstrous predator, he ran right at the light, picking up speed, his last steps broadening so that at the last he threw himself into a dive, forearms crossed before his face.

There was a flash of blinding light, and then he was diving through the air, the blade a flash to his left, passing beneath him even as he curled down to the ground and tucked his head, hitting the dirt smoothly and coming up onto his feet, Leonis catching hold of him before he could stagger forward, the large man’s face alight with joy.

Scorio allowed his Heart to die just as Lianshi sliced out of the wall, her form perfect, her grace liquid, diving high above the slashing scimitar with ease. She dropped into a natural roll and came up, all poise, chest heaving as she turned to stare at where her set of blades had materialized.

“Now that’s how it’s done!” roared Leonis, clasping each of them under one of his arms. “One chamber down!”

“A thousand more to go,” said Lianshi, a tentative smile appearing on her lips. “Well. The next room will no doubt prove more formidable. Are we ready?”

“Are we ever.” Leonis clapped his hands together again, rubbed them vigorously, then turned to face the rear wall where the large black door had appeared. “Let’s have at it.”

“Word of advice,” said Scorio, crossing the chamber with the others. “If we’ve the ability, let’s focus our attacks on one foe first. The quicker we drop one of the enemy, the sooner the odds will be in our favor.”

Both Lianshi and Leonis nodded.

They paused before the plain black door. Leonis pulled it open, revealing an equally black space behind it.

“Well, then.” He took a deep breath, held it, and glanced sidelong at either of them. “You both ready?”

“Ready,” said Scorio. “Let’s wait to ignite on the other side.”

“Agreed,” said Lianshi. “But saturate your Heart now. We don’t know what the mana situation will be.”

The three of them drank deep of the Coal around them, and when each was filled to bursting, Leonis squared his shoulders and stepped through the door.

Scorio didn’t hesitate, and carefully balancing the power in his Heart as if walking with a glass of water on his head, stepped in after.

The next room was large and steeped in dramatic darkness but for the dozen cones of frosty light that plunged from the ceiling to bathe twelve statues in radiant light. The statues were arranged down the length of the hall, six to a side, each facing its partner across a river of absolute shadow.

None of them moved. All were carved from the same pale gray stone, the detail so painstaking that they could have been petrified but seconds ago.

Scorio activated his darkvision, and immediately the dark river down the center of the room relinquished its secrets, which in this case proved to be blank floor all the way to the far wall.

Lianshi emerged next to them, and together the three of them stared at the statues on their short plinths, drinking in the individual nature of each.

For each was utterly dissimilar to its neighbor. All were roughly the same height, but some were clad in bulky cloth armor, others in robes, some were broad-shouldered, and others lithe. A couple were hooded, three bare-headed, the rest with different manners of helms.

A wealth of detail, but each displayed the same martial nature, a club or short sword or numerous knives in evidence.

Scorio realized he was holding his breath, and carefully exhaled, losing his grip on the Coal mana as he did so. “At least they didn’t all come to life immediately.”

“If my theory holds,” said Lianshi, voice barely above a whisper, “then three of them should animate when triggered.”

“Triggered how?” Leonis rubbed at his jawline, uneasy. “Walking down the center? What if we squeeze in behind them?”

“I doubt it would be so easy to evade the room’s challenge,” said Scorio. “What if we attack the closest statue before it animates?”

“What if that causes all of them to animate?” asked Lianshi. “I think we have to make our way slowly to the far side and be ready to react when they come to life.”

Leonis scowled. “What if we sprint to the far side? That way we won’t be surrounded and can put the wall to our backs.”

“Sure,” said Scorio. “That works for me. Lianshi?”

She licked her lower lip, studying the statues, and then nodded. “Fine. Something tells me we’ll be trying this room again shortly, so we may as well be experimental.”

“That’s the spirit,” grinned Leonis. “We ready? On the count of three. Single file, right down the center.”

“I’ll bring up the rear,” said Scorio. “Leonis, you’ve got the lead.”

“Very well.” He rubbed his hands together again and bent over, ready to break into a run. “One.”

Scorio took a deep breath, spent a few moments refilling his Heart, then caused it to ignite. The obsidian rock lit up with a whoomph, and he immediately sensed the thick Coal mana that blanketed the room, so ponderous and heavy as to be cloying.

“Two.”

Both Leonis and Lianshi ignited their hearts, the action just barely discernible as a sudden pressure at the edge of his perception.

“Three!”

They took off at a sprint, racing as quick as they could past the statues. The balls of Scorio’s feet barely touched the ground as he ran, and a moment later they collided with the far wall, hands outstretched to arrest their impacts.

He turned, chest working powerfully, and for a moment thought nothing was going to happen.

Then three of the statues began to move, carefully and precisely, turning their expressionless faces to stare at them, stepping down neatly from their plinths, dust sifting from their bodies as the stone flowed and came to life.

The first was a young woman in ragged robes, a single pauldron over her left shoulder, a curved stabbing blade in one hand, a short sword in the other, her hood hanging low over her face so that Scorio could only make out her pert lips and rounded chin.

The second was a large man, nearly as big as Leonis, heavily bearded and clasping a large battle-ax with both fists. His features were coarse and brutish, his expression even more unnerving for being slack, and he was clad in heavy robes with twin vambraces around his forearms.

The third was an archer, though the short bow lacked a string. The man was slender, cloaked, but without a hood; heavy tresses hung down to his shoulders, and his beard was close shaved. His blank expression somehow still managed to convey disdain, and a full quiver was slung over his shoulder.

“Easy now,” whispered Scorio. “Eyes on the archer.”

Who stopped after taking two steps and smoothly drew a shaft from his quiver. The other two approached, unhurried, the axman walking slowly down the center of the hall, the blade warrior ghosting behind the other statues toward them.

Without the darkvision, both would have disappeared. As it was, Scorio had to resist the urge to swing his patch of lucidity from one to the other.

The archer set the arrow to his bow and drew it back, the bow bending despite the lack of a string.

“The three of us on the axman,” called out Scorio, heart pounding in his chest. “Watch out for the woman, she’ll attack our rear!”

And he burst forward, trying to pay attention to everything at once—and failing. His small patch of darkvision was unequal to the task, so that in the end he committed to the axman and let the other two fade into the dark.

Moving smoothly, his actions fluid and unhurried, the axman drew his great weapon back, around, and into a downward swing that would have hewn Scorio from head to groin if it had connected.

At the last moment, however, he leaped aside, the burning fire in his Igneous Heart making him light on his feet. The ax cracked against the ground.

Then Leonis was there, charging in with a roar, one shoulder lowered to barrel into the other large man. Just before he connected, however, an arrow appeared above his clavicle, sinking deep, then Leonis smashed into the axman with a cry.

Only to bounce off as if he’d collided with a column.

The axman staggered back, off-balance. Lianshi flew in next, leaping in to hammer a side kick into the statue’s chest, the impact of her sandal accompanied by a sharp crack, and the statue toppled over backward, crashing to the ground.

Scorio broke into a sprint, making for the archer, and heard Leonis cry out in pain and anger behind him. Lianshi was there—she’d have to help him, for the archer was notching another arrow, the movements economical and swift. He brought the bow to orient on Scorio, who leaped up and to the side, his Cinder body allowing him to press a foot against a still statue’s thigh and push off as the arrow whistled just below him.

With a cry, Scorio fell upon the archer, and it was like crashing down onto a pile of sharp-edged rocks; pain blossomed from a dozen places as he drove the statue staggering back.

Somehow the statue kept its balance; Scorio leaped back and off it as it dropped its bow and drew a knife.

Get in close with long weapons, stay far from short ones. The voice was gruff, unfamiliar, but it sounded like something he’d heard in another life. Scorio checked his charge, remaining just out of stabbing range, and circled.

The archer, expression still somehow conveying supreme disgust, pivoted with him.

A scream of pain from the end of the hallway—Lianshi.

Scorio’s gaze flickered past the archer to the darkness beyond, where he saw the bladed statue had Lianshi bent over her knife arm.

There was no sign of Leonis.

His distraction came at a price. His statue slid forward, deceptively quickly, and stabbed at Scorio’s gut, forcing him to leap back.

The statue pressed on, slashing and stabbing. Scorio backed away then timed his block so that his right arm snaked in, and his fingers closed around the statue’s wrist, clamping tight and arresting the swing.

The statue stared at its own arm then slowly up to Scorio, as if bemused. Muscles writhed along Scorio’s arm, his whole body bent to the task of holding that stone arm still, and then Scorio crashed forward, hammering his elbow across the stone face.

Again and again, he pounded at the man, his Cinder power dulling the pain of each impact, his strength like surging waves smashing themselves against a cliff. The statue staggered back, cracks spiderwebbing across its visage.

Clutching the knife arm with both hands, Scorio brought it down as hard as he could upon his knee.

Pain wrenched through his joint, but the statue’s hand opened, dropping the wickedly sharp blade.

Which Scorio snatched out of the air, reversed, and pounded into the man’s eye, slamming it home, the edge cutting through the blank stone orb as if it were jelly.

The statue shivered, took a jerky step back, then fragmented, collapsing into a hundred shards.

Scorio saw movement out of the corner of his eye, tried to leap away, but a slender knife slipped into his chest, through thick muscle and between the ribs, plunging right into his heart with surgical precision.

He gaped, blood bursting out of his mouth. The assassin had crept right up beside him. Her long blade dripped blood, which was also generously splashed across her robes, and as he staggered away, hand clasping the deeply embedded knife, he saw her lips curl into the subtlest of smiles.

Then Scorio crashed down to his knees. He drew the knife free with a wrenching jerk and fell face forward.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

* * *

Scorio awoke atop the bier, a permanent spasm wrenching his body and rendering him unable to breathe. Every muscle was clenched. He lay there with only the back of his head and his heels touching the bier’s jeweled surface, seeing stars as his heart throbbed and jerked, trying to find its rhythm, going long seconds without beating and stuttering violently before seizing up again.

The shock, the pain, was eternal while it lasted. He stared up, unseeing, at the basilica’s distant dome, yearning for breath, straining, locked up.

His vision was swarming with black and red when he finally felt his heart’s erratic beats change into a stampede, pounding like a herd of wild horses across a plain. He fell to the bier and lay there gasping, massaging his chest, lost in the primal immediacy of his psychic wound.

Slowly he became aware of sounds around him. With great effort, he forced his head around and saw that Lianshi had curled into a fetal ball atop her bier and lay there shaking, while Leonis moaned in a low, tortured voice somewhere behind him.

“You guys with me?” Scorio’s voice came out more of a wild cry than a reassuring question, and he took a deep, shuddering breath. “How are you holding up?”

“Wretched,” moaned Lianshi, voice muffled. “Like I just died.”

This somehow drew a laugh from Leonis, immediately followed by another moan of pain. “The damn statue cut off my head.”

Scorio couldn’t imagine how that must feel. Instead, summoning his will, he forced himself to sit upright. His heart was still pounding, as if so relieved to be beating again that it meant to race forever. Shaking, shivering, he slid off the bier and stood upright.

“We almost did it.” His voice was husky. “We destroyed two of them before the assassin got me. That’s…” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “That’s fantastic.”

“Doesn’t feel fantastic,” said Lianshi, slowly uncurling. Her face was blotched and her eyes wild. “She scrambled my insides. I feel like… never mind how it feels. It’s not good.”

“I can imagine.” Scorio forced himself to stretch, then bent down to touch his toes. Rising, he pulled a knee to his chest and squeezed, then the other.

“Still, we did great.” He wasn’t sure they had, but he wanted to believe it. Needed them to. “Excellent work.”

Lianshi sat up, hair hanging before her face. “I know you’re trying to cheer us up and get us excited about another run. And I’m not saying it’s not working. Just… can you give me at least two minutes to feel properly awful?”

“And I’ll take a new head,” said Leonis, who had also sat up. “This one feels… all wrong now. Never thought I’d say that about my peerless visage.”

Scorio hiked himself back up onto the bier and sat cross-legged. “Take your time. I’m going to cycle mana, see if that helps.”

Closing his eyes, he envisioned his Igneous Heart. It gleamed before him, faceted and dark. Was that—? Scorio scrutinized it more carefully. It looked like spider-thin lines were drawn about the Heart’s surface. Had they been there before? They looked familiar, somehow. He wasn’t sure.

The mana in the basilica was thick—not nearly as powerful and dense as that within the Gauntlet, but still rich with power. Focusing his will, he swirled it about, and was pleased to find that it seemed to obey his desire slightly quicker than he remembered.

With a great inhalation, he pulled it into his Heart and ignited it, and immediately the tremulous pain in his chest lessened.

“Ignite,” he said, voice low and intent. “It makes all the difference. Trust me.”

Closing his eyes, he focused on swirling mana and drawing more into his Heart just as it was about to gutter, so that he was able to limp along until the last of the pain in his chest faded away. He didn’t know how long it took, but when he glanced up it had become First Bronze.

His Heart guttered out, and he pushed off the bier, leaping up to his feet. He felt battered but whole, rough but ready for more.

The other two sat cross-legged still, though Lianshi’s eyes were open, her lips pursed.

“You all right?” he asked.

She gave a curt nod. “Better, yes.”

“Ready for more?”

Her lips twisted into a smile. “Does it make me a masochist for being eager?”

Scorio laughed. “No. It makes you an exemplary Great Soul.”

“I’m of the opinion,” rumbled Leonis, “that exemplary Great Souls are all masochists.”

Scorio looked over to him. “You exemplary, then?”

Leonis sighed deeply. “No. I am but a handsome, virile warrior with regrettable amounts of loyalty to his friends. Let’s go at it again.”

As one, they activated the gems at the foot of their biers. Laying back down on the jeweled surfaces, they closed their eyes. Scorio felt exultant, at once anxious about the pain to come and yet ferociously determined to overcome it.

This was his way to advance. This was his way to overcome the odds.

This was his way to do better than even the Academy Great Souls.

Heart pounding, Scorio awoke once more into a tomb of beaten copper.