Chapter 63

The next two weeks were an exercise in patience and cruel restraint. Scorio’s every waking thought revolved around two things: his growing Black Star farms, and his daily meditation and First Form practice. All other aspects of his life faded into the background; he performed everything asked of him with mechanical efficiency, but it was only when he was able to focus on his new obsessions that he really came alive.

Twice he ventured deep into the ruins and down into the caverns below. He didn’t tell his friends, sure that they would forbid him, but the wild thought that he might secure a sunphire with which to purchase healing medications obsessed him.

But both attempts ended in near-death experiences as he fled vicious monsters, retracing his steps in a panic through the caverns to the surface, and it was with reluctance that he accepted how rare sunphires were, and had to be, to command such exorbitant prices.

He had better luck with his farming. Of the hundred and six original Black Star plants that had survived, eighty-seven of them rendered seeds, which he was able to divide into three hundred and forty quarters with “eyes,” which left him in need of some fifteen plants. Unable to restrain himself, Scorio crept out of the Academy each night via the hidden passages, then loped across Bastion under the cover of darkness to scrounge amidst the ruins for elusive plants.

It was hard to remember just how rare they were; Scorio spent hours combing narrow alleyways, delving into half-collapsed basements, scrounging amidst the edges and upper parts of countless cracks and chasms. Twice he was nearly caught by floating filaments cast into the mana breezes by Coal spiders, each the size of a cart, the tip of each filament an impossibly sticky bulb. He was chased by a half-dozen kitursks that he accidentally disturbed at some ceremonial dance within a dark chamber, and another time discovered a completely new manner of barnacle that released exceedingly toxic Coal mana into the air when he wandered by.

But by the end of the first week, he’d collected sixteen plants, harvested thirteen seeds, which rendered another fifty-two quarters.

That night, weary, cut, and bruised, he’d lain in his bed with his sack of seed quarters resting heavily upon his chest. Three hundred and ninety-two quarters. It felt dangerous, to collect them all so tightly, as if their combined potential for future mana was explosive, could ignite like his own Heart and blast their entire suite apart.

A worthless fortune that any other Great Soul would sneer at. How it galled him to think of the top hundred students, all of them cruising through the Academy with their daily allotment of treasures, while he worked himself to the bone and trained so hard, he coughed up blood. How they’d laugh at his farm, sneer at his Black Star syrup as they swallowed their Fat Crickets and whatever else.

But it was the culmination of his journey so far, started so innocently back in the ruins when he’d decided to match the Academy’s resources with his own wits, and now resulting in such a perilous plan his own best friends had begun to mourn him as if he already had one foot in the grave.

That night he stayed up reminiscing, thinking on his first days with Naomi, his fierce determination to excel under her tutelage, his ill-fated adventure with Dola and the Basilisk crew, his first encounters with Helena and Feiyan.

Each of those moments felt like a miniature experience that was tightly circumscribed by the greater arcs of his soul; each fateful encounter played its own limited part in but one of his lives, his seventh so far, all of which could ultimately amount to nothing but his death, and in death, oblivion, for a time.

Would he come back sooner for having been so frustrated in this reincarnation? Would it take him another century to return? Why so long between each cycle of life? What kept him in the darkness, refusing rebirth, when his companions lapped him time and time again, so that they were born thirty times for every instance of his own return?

Scorio stared into the swarming darkness. He could have dispelled it in a moment by sharpening his vision but didn’t bother. Instead, he thought of Imogen the Woe and Sol, their words to him, their remembrances of him from lives past. What would it be like to have the doors to previous lives blown open upon reaching Imperator? The memories of hundreds of lives suddenly available and at your fingertips? Overwhelming? Mind shattering? Or perhaps by the time you made Imperator such stressors were commonplace?

He thought of Naomi with a guilty pang. Where was she, what was she doing with her time, and was she well? Thought on how he might approach her again, heal the rift between them, but came up blank. She’d retreated past a wall he knew not how to climb, and something told him that brute insistence would only backfire.

But he’d not forget her, nor cease to think of a way to connect. Perhaps Leonis was right, and the only way to bring her back to their side was to approach her in strength, girded with the powers of an Emberling.

Long into the night, he lay thinking, musing, the heavy sack on his chest, until at long last his eyelids drooped, and his feverish, fanciful thoughts gave way to deep and dreamless sleep.

The next morning was the ninth round of the tournament where the losers’ bracket would face off against the new influx of contestants who’d lost the round before. Leonis and Lianshi were eager to go watch, but Scorio excused himself, slipping away with his sack of seeds and making for the basement levels and their secret passages.

Who’d even notice if he was there to watch or not?

Sack slung over one shoulder, he jogged back across the now familiar avenues toward the ruins once more, but slowed and came to a stop at the sight of a procession working its way up one of the massive avenues.

A column, easily some ten people wide, snaked into view, drums banging a martial, challenging accompaniment as they walked under massive white banners. Scorio had never seen their like before, but each bore its own word, the character painted with fierce strokes: Independence. Freedom. Revolution.

The faces of those marching were defiant, furious, alert. Instinct urged Scorio to leap back into the alley from which he’d just emerged, and then to hurry back down its length to circle around.

This was Ward 7, the neighbor to the Academy’s Ward 9. Scorio stood with his back to a wall, staring out at nothing, listening to the pounding drums. What was going on? Nobody in the Academy, not the instructors nor the servants nor the guests or administration had spoken about the escalation in the streets.

Eventually, he stepped away and found another route toward the ruins. Putting the sight from his mind, he plunged into the ruins once more, hewing to the safer routes, and finally reached the monolithic bridge without any misadventures.

Nox was awaiting him, perched high upon his favorite boulder, head cocked to one side as Scorio came close.

“Favorite friend Scorio.”

“Nox. I’ve got the seeds. You found a place to plant them?”

“I have.” The toad sounded impossibly pleased with himself. “Follow.”

Scorio had expected the toad to lead him back out into the wilds of the ruins, but instead, he scrambled into his burrow and down the tunnel. Nonplussed, Scorio followed after, and together they navigated down a ways, then along a broad seam in the rock that finally opened up into a broad cavern that was more a gash in the raw stone than anything else. Only some four feet high, it was as dark and hermetic a space as Scorio had ever seen, lost to the skies and buried some twenty yards beneath the ruins’ surface. Its sloping floor was covered in thick, wet dirt, from which sprouted what looked like a thousand mushrooms that glowed with soft lavender hues.

“Here?” asked Scorio, forced into a squat by the low ceiling.

“Is perfect. Taste mana.”

Scorio summoned his Heart, extended his senses to the ambient mana, and startled. The Coal here was so thick as to be an almost cloying blanket, turgid and heavy to the point of oppressiveness.

“Perfect,” breathed Scorio. “And you’ll defend this point?”

“One entrance.”

“Makes your job easier,” agreed Scorio, unshouldering his sack. “These mushrooms are in the way, though.”

“Tasty,” said Nox, and began to shuffle forward. Wherever he went, his tongue lolled out and swept up a mass of the mushrooms, his body crushing the rest down into the loam.

Scorio watched, shrugged, then got to work planting the quartered seeds in the toad’s wake. Time ceased to have meaning; he simply crawled after, dragging his sack behind him, poking holes into the dirt, and dropping each quarter in after. Back and forth they went, row upon row until at last, they’d planted every one.

“Well,” said Scorio, rising to sit on his heels. “It’ll take two weeks for the plants to grow. I’ll come back then to insert the reeds. A week after that we should have our first batch. You sure you can defend this place? That much physical mana will be a powerful draw.”

“No problem. Now, read Quantic treatise.”

Scorio chuckled. “Sure thing. Let’s head back up to the air, though. Darkvision isn’t the best for reading.”

* * *

Leonis made Emberling a little over two weeks later. Each Eighthday, they’d abscond and train in the old Gauntlet, and halfway through their second jaunt he disappeared after their customary fight with the stone statues, simply vanishing the moment he kicked in the axman’s knee and then pounded its head into fragments against the wall.

Gasping, rolling away from the archer he’d just finished wrestling into submission so Lianshi could stomp its face in, Scorio sat up and looked around the dark chamber.

“Leonis?”

He sharpened his darkvision, scoured the length of the hall, the corners of the room, probing the impenetrable darkness, but the large man was gone.

Lianshi stood, hands on her knees, and then grinned. “He must be in his trial.”

“Now?” Scorio wrapped his arms around his knees. “Halfway through the Gauntlet run?”

Lianshi straightened, swept her dark hair over an angular shoulder, and shrugged. “The trials don’t care. Plus Leonis said he was having trouble igniting, remember? That all this practice was making it nearly impossible to take in enough mana.”

“Sure,” said Scorio, wiping the sweat from his brow. “But…”

“But what?” The question was innocently asked, and then Lianshi understood. “Oh.”

“I’m not jealous.” Stiffly, Scorio rose to his feet. “Just… frustrated.”

“Of course.” Lianshi stepped in and gave him a tight hug, resting her chin on his shoulder. “It’s not fair.”

Scorio stood stiffly for a moment, then hugged her back. “Fair’s got nothing to do with it, though, does it?”

“No.” She stepped back, lips scrunched up into a sideways pout. “Doesn’t stop it from stinging though.”

“No,” sighed Scorio. “No, it doesn’t.”

“How is your, ah, project coming along?”

It was the first time Lianshi had brought up his Black Star plan. On Leonis’s advice, Scorio had avoided discussing it, and he and Lianshi had fallen into something akin to their old camaraderie, though the unspoken plan seemed to hang between them.

“It went well. Reeds are in. Three hundred and eighty-seven plants have grown. Nox is taking his part of the bargain seriously. I’ll collect the first batch next Seventhday.”

“You can’t keep skipping the tournaments,” said Lianshi. “Someone will notice, and you could get expelled.”

“I don’t want to use our Eighthday for farming, though.” Scorio rubbed at the back of his head and stared around the chamber. At all the silent statues, all of whom had killed him at one time or another. “Especially since, well. You know.”

“Since you thought I’d grow upset if you brought it up?” Lianshi sighed, blew a lock of hair out of her face, then shook her head slowly at him. “I am upset. But it’s not like I’d prefer you to be expelled. Let’s harvest the mana together next Eighthday. It’ll take much less time that way, and we can enter the Gauntlet right after.”

Scorio hesitated. “You sure?”

Lianshi smiled ruefully at him, and then socked him in the shoulder. “Yes. Of course. Might as well enjoy your company while you’re around.”

“Hey, I’m not going to—”

“Kidding!” Lianshi laughed, rocking away from him in amusement. “Honestly. I know you’re going to be fine, because if you’re not, I’ll kill you myself.”

“Now you’re just not making any sense.”

“Yeah, I know.” She leaned back against the wall and blew away the same lock of hair that had fallen before her face again. “It’s hard to be both funny and coherent when dealing with you and Leonis. A girl’s got to make sacrifices.”

“Speaking of which.” Scorio rose to his feet with a groan, his numerous bruises and contusions complaining as he did. “Shall we?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” she said, taking his hand and rising as well. “I’ve a new idea I want to try against that ogre. I’m getting sick and tired of his tearing my arms off.”

“Can’t wait to hear about it,” said Scorio, leading the way to the door. “But first, my favorite room.”

* * *

Leonis was strangely somber when they appeared atop their biers once more, sitting with his lips pursed and staring distractedly at his interlaced fingers. Scorio ignited his Heart to help dispel the pain of having his skull crushed by a flying block, and after a few moments sat up, eyes tearing up from the pain, to wince and glance at his friend.

“So?”

Leonis’s frown didn’t disappear. “Guess I’m an Emberling now.”

Lianshi was muttering curses and rubbing at her shoulders as she also sat up, but she caught Leonis’s somber mood. “That bad?”

“What was bad?” asked Scorio, looking from one to the other.

“Wasn’t what I expected,” allowed Leonis with a sigh. “But that’s history now, right?”

“Right,” said Lianshi.

“What is?” Scorio scowled. “If you think you can start an Emberling club and keep me out—”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” said Leonis somberly, and his uncharacteristic gravity silenced Scorio. “For better or worse. But yes. I’m an Emberling now. Felt the same thing you described, Lianshi. My Heart kept drinking in mana, but no matter how much I poured into it the damn thing wouldn’t saturate. Then the fight began, and I was trying to ignite, and…”

“And your trial began,” said Lianshi softly.

“Yeah.”

“So?” Scorio’s irritation did as much as his burning Heart to rid him of the last of the headache. “Your powers?”

“My powers.” Leonis blew out his cheeks, then frowned and Scorio felt his Heart ignite, a palpable expansion of force that blew past him like some manner of ghost wind. A second later, a stone club appeared in his hand. But a stranger club Scorio had never seen; it was massive, a yard long and uniform in diameter for its whole length. It was hexagonal, with three of its panels inscribed down their length with glowing orange runes.

It had to weigh hundreds of pounds, but Leonis held it easily by the grip that emerged from its base. He turned it about, holding it in both hands, mouth pursed once more as he studied it.

Scorio watched his friend, the silence growing between them, and bit the inside of his cheek. He thumbed his palm and fought the urge to leap off his bier and move over to Leonis, to provoke him into action, into speech. Instead, he cleared his throat and glanced at Lianshi, who seemed content to wait.

Scorio resigned himself to silence, unsure as to what was going on. He had so many questions, but beyond that, a sense of annoyance was growing within him. Placing one hand into the palm of the other, he cracked his knuckles, then did the same for his first hand. Still, Leonis just turned the club around, running his fingers over the light gray and pitted surface.

Scorio sighed loudly, drummed his heels on the bier, and finally, Leonis looked up, his expression turning wry.

“You’ll understand soon enough,” he said, voice deep, resonant. “But yes. This is Nezzar.”

“Nezzar,” said Scorio. “That’s from one of your titles. The Wielder of Nezzar.”

“I think Nezzar was what allowed me to accomplish so much,” said Leonis softly. “In my first life, that is. It’s followed me here, into hell.”

“Is that… a good thing?”

“I don’t know.”

Lianshi’s tone was firm. “It is what you make of it.”

“True.” Leonis sighed, then sat up straight. “True.”

“What do those runes mean?” asked Scorio. “Can you read them?”

“I can,” said Leonis, but made no effort to explain further.

They sat in silence for a spell longer, and then Scorio hopped of his bier. “Well, do you want to try another go at the Gauntlet? See how far we get this time? Maybe with Nezzar, you can reach the ogre that’s been giving Lianshi so much trouble.”

“No, I don’t think so. Go ahead, both of you, if you want.” Leonis was studying his hexagonal club once more. “I’ll wait for you here.”

“I’m good,” said Lianshi. “There’s only so many times I want to be torn apart.”

“Then…” Scorio trailed off. They’d already been through the Gauntlet twice. “Perhaps that’s enough for today. If you guys are sure.”

“I’m sure,” said Lianshi softly.

“Yeah,” said Leonis, though Scorio wasn’t even sure he’d heard the question.

“Go ahead,” said Lianshi. “I can tell you want to. We’ll wait for you.”

Scorio pursed his lips. His irritation warred with his sympathy for Leonis. They’d come here to train. They only had five Eighthdays left.

But Leonis’s expression tugged at him. Conflicted, somber, reflective. No, far more complex than that. Scorio had never seen such depth to his friend’s face. Not sorrow, exactly, nor regret, but somewhere between wounded pride, deep chagrin, and old, old pain.

What by the ten hells happened in the trial?

“No, let’s get back,” said Scorio before realizing he’d decided. “We can take a good soak and then get an early dinner.”

Leonis looked up, bemused. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” He stepped up to his friend and clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on. We should relax, celebrate a little. With your hitting Emberling, Naomi in the wings as a particularly vicious example of the rank, and my sure to hit Emberling before the final Gauntlet run, we’re in great shape.”

Lianshi and Leonis exchanged a look.

“At least he’s confident,” said Lianshi.

“C’mon.” Scorio grinned. “We can stop at that favorite stall of yours and get fire pepper ices on the way back. My treat.”

Leonis snorted. “You’re making me feel like a child.”

“You said it, not me.” Scorio forced a grin. “You coming? Offer won’t last long.”

Leonis raised Nezzar. He held it aloft as if it weighed less than a reed, then opened his hand, and it faded rapidly from view, the runes taking longest to disappear. “Fire pepper ices sound good. Lianshi?”

“No, thank you.” She pressed her hand to her stomach. “Last time you convinced me I spent the worst night of my admittedly very, very short life thus far in the bathroom. You indulge.”

“Your loss,” said Leonis, his hearty tone ringing false. “How about I buy you some candied skrellen teeth instead?”

Lianshi stuck her tongue out at him, and Leonis laughed, and for a second Scorio thought they might be transitioning to a lighter mood, but as they filed out between the biers, he glanced back once, and with his darkvision saw Leonis’s somber expression once more.

Whatever had happened to his friend, it would clearly not be easily forgotten.

* * *

True to his word, Scorio joined his friends on the next Seventhday to watch the tournament. He couldn’t deny being excited; after two rounds of the loser’s bracket hashing out who would continue, it was finally time for the winners to have another go at each other. With only thirty-two left, and all of them Emberlings, there were no longer any contenders who hadn’t proved themselves against worthy opponents time and again.

Every fight would be worth watching. Analyzing. Discussing at length. But there was only one fight Scorio wanted to watch. One opponent he wanted to observe. One woman he’d started to see as his nemesis. The obstacle he had to overcome, the impossible standard he had to not only meet but exceed.

Jova Spike.

Despite his own incredible focus on his pursuits, he’d now been at the Academy long enough to absorb the culture, overhear the quiet conversations, notice the subtle trends that warped their cohort. Which students were the natural leaders, who generated enough pull to develop followings, which students were loners, which constantly generated rumors and jealous whispers, which were emulated, hated, loved.

But out of their nearly five hundred members, only one name consistently was spoken with a mixture admiration, awe, reverence, and disdain. The yardstick against which everyone, even the greats like Accardi, Zala, Kuragin, and Chen She, measured themselves.

Jova Spike.

She had only two close friends and didn’t bother with acquaintances. Plenty of people followed her about, ran with her, sat at her dining table, clustered around her in class. Plenty of students went out of their way to do her favors, gift her their personal treasures, seek to earn a moment of her approval.

But through this noise, through this attention and focus, she sailed through with steely focus. Polite, unassuming, reserved, and as searingly intense as the blue tip of a gas fire, she spoke little and laughed only when she was with either Zala or Juniper.

And somehow, despite being the most talented of their whole class, she also trained the hardest. Each night when Scorio and his friends would search for a sparring circle in which to train after hours, they’d often find Jova practicing her forms alone or sparring with her two friends. Once or twice, Scorio had been tempted to ask her if she wanted to train with them, but each time, she’d stared right through him, her gaze passing him by as if he weren’t even there, and each time he’d stepped back, the warmth of the impulse turning cold.

The Houses, it was said, continuously sought to recruit her. They’d locked up every other top contender, but she, the glittering apex to their cohort’s best accomplishments, remained disinterested. It was said, by those who claimed to be in the know, that every few weeks a different House would approach her, ask for a meeting which she politely acquiesced to, and put a new offer to her. Increased the treasures they could provide, the quality of the tutors at hand, the guidance, the knowledge as to what to expect.

And every time she declined, politely, firmly, absolutely.

“But why?” Scorio had asked one morning after their run. He’d jabbed his spoon at Leonis. “Why does she turn down such an obvious advantage?”

Leonis had blinked. “Funny you should ask. She and I were cuddling last night, and I asked her, just randomly you know, ‘Hey Jova, so what’s with this whole—’”

Scorio pretended to throw his spoon at the massive man, who laughed and ducked aside.

“But seriously,” Scorio had said. “If she’s gotten this far on basic Academy offerings—”

“And by basic,” Lianshi had interjected dryly, “you mean a daily allotment of Glittering Sage, Fat Cricket, Luminous Ghost—”

“But think of what Hydra could offer her,” Scorio had said. “How much more powerful she could be. A whole semester of ultimate grooming. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“She was unaffiliated back when I knew her,” said Lianshi casually, spooning up more soup. “Granted this was over eighty years ago, but she’d turned down every offer of sponsorship, affiliation, or group membership that had been sent her way. I made a special note of it, because apparently, I’d been mulling inviting her to join my own outfit and ultimately decided not to for that reason.”

“Huh,” said Scorio. “It’ll never get old, hearing about your past lives.”

“Try reading them,” said Lianshi. “It can be shockingly embarrassing. Apparently, I have a tendency to fall in love with emotionally unavailable older men, then create entire alternate realities about them that inevitably prove to be heartbreakingly wrong. And that’s with my having known about the trend ahead of time.”

Scorio and Leonis just stared at Lianshi.

“What?” she said in annoyance. “You think just because I was once the Nun of the Red, I don’t have feelings?”

“No comment,” said Leonis briskly, turning his attention to his plate.

Lianshi turned to Scorio, eyebrow raised, and he grinned. “I’ll keep an eye out for you this time. Don’t worry. You’ve got Scorio the Abhorred here now to wreck any emotionally unavailable idiot that tries to ruin your day.”

“Oh, joy,” deadpanned Lianshi. “I feel so much better.”

Walking alongside his friends now to the basilica, Scorio mulled over the invisible strands of fate and history that were attached to each of them. Was it possible someone had not only kept track of their exploits but created profiles of them, predictive texts that foresaw how they might react to any given situation? After hundreds of reincarnations, surely there was enough information on their personalities and natures to know them better than they knew themselves?

The ritual of entering the arena had grown commonplace. Scorio, Leonis, and Lianshi found their biers and chatted quietly until Praximar once more began the proceedings. His speeches were almost comically similar, but when Helminth bid them all activate their crystals, Scorio repressed a shudder of excitement.

Any chance to watch Jova in action was a moment to be savored.

Opening his eyes, he found himself once more upon the huge stands of the arena. Overhead clouds streamed by as if in torment, endlessly roiling and presaging a storm that never broke. Below, sixteen sparring circles filled the arena floor, the competitors facing off against each other on each edge.

Ignoring Helminth’s customary outline of the rules, Scorio scanned the rings for some sign of Jova. Whom was she up against? His gaze leaped from one pair to the next, bringing each up into magnified view for a moment before releasing them, and then he found her.

Jova stood, composed, chin lowered, hands by her sides, staring across the ring at Ravenna Accardi.

“You’re kidding me,” Leonis whispered by his side.

Lianshi had taken a moment longer to find them and now exhaled in shock. “Oh, wow. Accardi against Spike? That’s…”

“Number one against number two,” said Leonis. “What a fight! This might prove to be the best match-up of the whole tournament.”

Scorio had no words, no interest in chatting or speculating. He studied Accardi’s face. She had to know she was going to lose, or at best, fight the hardest fight of her life. Her expression under her jet-black bangs was stoic, though, revealing nothing of her emotions. Her piercing blue eyes were locked on her distant foe, her jaw set in determination. Scorio hadn’t watched her fight the last time but knew her powers, just like he knew those of every Emberling.

If anybody had a chance of defeating Jova, it was her.

The first chime sounded. Jova shifted into a runner’s stance, legs bent, torso inclined forward, poised to break into a sprint the second the fight began. Ravenna remained still, poised, alert, but clearly not interested in moving forward to engage her foe.

Second chime.

“I feel bad for all the other contestants,” said Leonis. “Not a soul’s going to watch them fight.”

Third chime.

Scorio’s breath caught as Jova hurled herself forward into an all-out sprint.

Ravenna stomped her foot on the stone ground, which shattered into a yard-wide crater as if made of thin glass. Ravenna gestured, turned her hand palm upwards, and beckoned with a curled finger, and a hunk of stone the size of a closed fist flew up to hover before her.

Time seemed to slow. Scorio leaned forward, studying her magnified face, and saw Ravenna’s intense blue eyes narrow a fraction just before she gestured once more.

The hunk of stone flew forward, lazily at first but rapidly gaining speed, so that just before it hit Jova it was flying so fast it blurred.

But Jova was ready, and threw herself into a dive, ducking under the projectile and coming up running, a seamless, perfect move that barely slowed her down.

Only for Ravenna to gesture and fling a second rock at her.

This one came right on the heels of the first, so that Jova was coming up when it hit. The impact was terrible, catching her right hip and spinning her around, lifting her right off her feet so that she rotated mid-air and crashed down onto her chest.

Ravenna didn’t hesitate. She summoned a third rock, smaller than the first two, and sent it zipping right at her fallen foe.

Jova grimaced, rolled aside, climbed awkwardly to her feet, and began to limp forward. Her hip had been pulverized, or should have been, but somehow, she continued advancing. But with her agility greatly diminished, more and more of the stones Ravenna sent her way connected.

Jova dropped to one knee, rose. She reeled back, a stone catching her in the brow, caught her balance, advanced. Six more rocks hit, each doing ever less damage, until the last. This one she simply leaned into, taking it full on the shoulder as if she were shoving her way through a heavy door. The rock spun off her, tearing a gash in her robe but otherwise leaving no mark.

“Accardi needs to do better,” said Leonis quietly.

As if she’d heard, Ravenna stepped back, shut her eyes, and raised both hands. Jova picked up her pace, managing a rough jog as she closed the distance. The ground beneath their feet seemed to shake, and Ravenna’s face went bone-white from the effort as she tore a chunk of rock four feet across right out of the sparring circle’s floor.

“That’s… that’s better,” Lianshi said. “I didn’t know she could do that.”

“Neither did Jova,” said Leonis, and Scorio saw it was true. The woman had faltered, only to resume running a second before Ravenna flicked her fingers and sent the huge rock flying at Jova.

Like the others, it started flying slowly and picked up speed as it went, but Jova was now close enough that it couldn’t quite build up that lethal velocity the other rocks had enjoyed. But it didn’t need to. It hit Jova like a landslide, lifting her off her feet and blasting her back. Jova flew a good fifteen feet before hitting the ground bonelessly. She pushed herself upright, shook her head as if cleaning it, then turned to glare at Ravenna, eyes narrowing.

“She’s not trying to kill her,” breathed Lianshi as Ravenna tore another huge boulder out of the ground. “She’s going to knock her right out of the ring.”

Jova had realized the same. Problem was, being that far from Ravenna allowed her boulders to pick up ever more speed, negating any benefit that being at a distance might give her.

Jova climbed to her feet, hesitated, and then leaped to the side as Ravenna launched her boulder.

It clipped Jova and sent her spinning backward. She hit the stone ground hard enough to bounce and immediately rose to her feet, furious, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, but otherwise not visibly wounded any further.

“Impossible,” said Scorio. “How can she simply stop taking damage?”

“She doesn’t,” said Lianshi. “Don’t fool yourself. It just takes ever more to hurt her.”

“Same thing,” said Scorio.

“It really isn’t. Especially at higher levels of power. A Dread Blaze could crush her.”

But they both went quiet as Ravenna hurled a third boulder at Jova, then a fourth. Each was going so quickly by the time it reached Jova that she couldn’t dodge in time; twice more she was hurled back, the last one bringing her right to the edge of the arena.

“By the ten hells,” said Leonis. “Accardi’s going to do it.”

The effort was taking a toll on her; just like Massamach, Scorio saw, drawing on her power took ever more physical effort. Her jaw-length black hair was now in disarray, her eyes wide and staring, her shoulders rising and falling rapidly as she gasped for breath. But Scorio could see a gleam in her eyes, a predatory hunger.

Ravenna could obviously taste just how close she was to doing the impossible.

Jova rose to her feet and stood, inches from the arena’s edge. At that distance, the boulder would hit her like a bolt of lightning. Run! Scorio shouted silently at her. Juke left and right! Close the distance!

Instead, Jova took a deep and measured breath, then sat down.

“What is she doing?” Leonis sounded outraged. “That’s not how you dodge boulders!”

Ravenna clawed at the air, and a huge chunk of rock, raw and sharply edged tore itself free of the ground. Easily six or seven feet wide, it was the largest she’d drawn thus far, and the effort caused blood to burst from one nostril.

A deep breath, and then she hurled it at where Jova sat cross-legged.

Heart in his throat, Scorio stared. The rock would pulverize Jova, send her flying into oblivion. The fight was over. She wasn’t even trying to dodge. Had she conceded? Acknowledged the inevitable?

The rock took off slowly, picked up speed, raced across the center of the circle, then blurred as it closed on Jova.

Scorio blinked and thought he’d missed it. “What happened?” The huge boulder had sailed through the spot in which Jova had sat, out into the darkness beyond, which had consumed it utterly.

Of Jova there was no sign.

“Where did she go?” He searched the darkness beyond the circle. Nothing. Ravenna was staring, wide-eyed, so winded she could barely stand.

“She disappeared,” said Lianshi, tone awed. “The rock went right through her.”

“Can she do that?” Leonis sounded outraged. “She can’t do that. Can she do that?”

Scorio waited. All it would take was for Helminth to call the fight for Ravenna, but the instructor stayed silent.

Ravenna, for her part, fought to catch her breath. Wiping the blood from her upper lip, she began to draw back, looking all around her as if expecting to be attacked at any moment.

“Somebody please explain what just happened,” said Leonis, tone plaintive. “Someone? Anyone?”

“No,” said Lianshi, but not to Leonis. More to the world at large, a single expression of disbelief.

“What?” asked Scorio. He kept searching, kept failing to find Jova. “What is it, Lianshi?”

“I… it can’t be. Just… wait. If I’m right…”

Scorio blinked, relinquished the magnified view, and turned to observe the other fights. Had Jova somehow leaped into another circle?

Half the fights were over, and over the course of the next few minutes, they all ended, one by one. Victors raised their fists as Helminth made her announcements, until at last, only Ravenna remained, wary, uncertain, growing ever more furious as she continued to stab looks in every direction.

“What is going on?” muttered Leonis.

Around them, the crowd was stirring, restive. Scorio focused on Ravenna again, saw the frustration breaking through her otherwise impenetrable mask.

And then her expression changed. Her eyes widened, her jaw went slack, and she took a step back.

Scorio blinked, pulled his vision back out so that he wasn’t solely focused on her face, and saw that Jova had appeared.

She stood in the same spot as before, head bowed, hands clenched into fists by her side. Though her clothing was torn, her wounds had disappeared altogether.

“What the…?” whispered Scorio, then heard a collective gasp torn from the lips of nearly a thousand onlookers as Ravenna let out an animal-like cry of panic or fear and tore a rock from the ground.

Spellbound, Scorio could only watch as Ravenna gestured and sent the rock flying—but it flew wide of where Jova stood, missed her by a yard at least.

As if awoken by this attack, Jova raised her head and began marching toward her opponent.

Who continued to back toward the far end of the sparring circle, her brow suddenly beaded with sweat, her shoulders rising and falling rapidly. Again she tore a rock free from the ground, and again she hurled it at Jova.

And again she missed, the rock flying a good three feet over Jova’s head.

“Is she… has Jova taken over her powers?” asked Leonis.

“Can’t be,” said Lianshi, though she sounded anything but certain. “I’ve never heard of anyone being able to do that.”

Jova marched straight toward Ravenna, who labored to throw ever more rocks at her. Most missed; one or two flew right at her and simply bounced off an invisible force, not even causing Jova to stumble.

Ravenna was now right against the edge of the circle. She looked desperate, her mouth hanging open, her back hunched. She glanced to her left and right, as if seeking an escape, and then let out a scream and tore a huge chunk of rock free, five or six feet wide, and with a second cry hurled it at Jova.

And missed.

“What is going on?” asked Leonis again. “Why’s she acting terrified?”

Lianshi’s scorn was evident. “Wouldn’t you be if you were fighting a Tomb Spark?”

Tomb Spark.

“No,” said Scorio, the word escaping his lips before he could control himself. “That can’t be.”

Ravenna let out an anguished cry and threw a smaller rock, this one the size of her fist. It was a wild hurl, but more by luck it seemed to fly right at Jova; it detonated a foot from her as if it had been thrown right at a stone wall.

“Where do you think she went?” asked Lianshi, tone implacable. “Her second trial. And Tomb Spark is when you first get your shroud.”

Shroud.

Words came back to him, summoned from recent memory. The White Queen, speaking to them all as they prepared to assault Imogen the Woe: Her halo allows her to establish preeminence, which none here can contest. Her Ferula is infamous for its destructive power, and her shroud is nigh impervious to any attacks we can muster.

Jova had a shroud?

Jova was a Tomb Spark?

Scorio felt a bout of dizziness wash over him, felt his heart lurch painfully in his chest and begin to pound erratically.

Jova strode forward, impervious, inexorable.

Ravenna stood, shaking her head in abject denial, and then broke into a run, darting away to the left.

Jova angled to intercept and broke into a sprint. The transition from slow strides to all-out running was shocking. A moment later she intercepted Ravenna, who screamed and dropped into a crouch, arms wrapped around her head.

Jova stopped beside her, placed a boot upon the girl’s shoulder, and shoved her out of the ring.

Ravenna fell into the darkness and was gone.

Utter silence had fallen upon the stands. Everyone was gaping. Scorio felt numb; everything was happening too quickly, and all he could think was a single thought, over and over again as Jova turned to stare up at where Helminth stood on her pedestal.

The crowd broke out into rapturous cheers as Jova raised her fist, the sound washing over him like a huge wave, drowning him in its frenzied might.

It’s over, he thought. It’s over. It’s all over.