Chapter 65

Scorio sank down into a crouch and placed his face in his hands.

He heard the others speaking, cautious words, half-hearted queries as they drew close to him, but he couldn’t parse the meaning of the sounds.

He’d known. Known the second he’d turned away from the tunnel below to fight the Alben Worm what he was sacrificing. And in the moment, there had been no question. Friends over power, every time. But now the full import of his loss sank in. His chin was trembling, and he lost his balance, stumbled over to his side to sit.

His friends stood about him, clearly not knowing what to say. Some part of him wanted to make a quip, to tell them it was all right, to not let them feel pity for him.

But that was a quiet voice drowned out in a great wave of numbness. Even the pain from the mana storm was a background sensation, a distant burning that meant nothing. He was out of time. Two weeks till the Gauntlet run. Two weeks till he had to go against Jova, who was now a Tomb Spark, while he was still locked and lost in what felt like the eternal state of being a Cinder.

Which meant he not only had no chance to defeat her, but he wouldn’t even come close. All his bravado. All his defiance. He’d only make himself look ridiculous. How Praximar would love it. Would Jova even notice?

“Scorio,” Naomi said, crouching down before him.

He’d wash out. No House would offer him a position of any kind with his background. No Great Soul organization would be interested in recruiting him with his Red Lister flag. He’d not even be able to enter the underworld, for surely Dola would extract her pound of flesh if he tried.

“Scorio,” said Naomi again, and he saw tears brimming in her eyes. That snapped him out of his fugue, and he blinked, sat up a little straighter.

“Why did you do it?” she asked, voice a husky whisper.

“Do what?” In comparison, his voice was a croak.

“Why didn’t you go fight for your damned plants?” Anger stole into her voice now, and fire flashed in her eyes. “I told you to go. I could have handled the Alben Worm. You could have—”

Lianshi’s voice was cold with absolute authority. “You couldn’t have handled the Worm alone. You’d have died for sure.”

“You don’t know that,” snapped Naomi, looking over to where Lianshi sat.

“Yes, we do.” Leonis straightened painfully and raised Nezzar to prop it over one shoulder. “It took the four of us to drive it away. What could you have done alone?”

Naomi bit her lower lip, face flushing, and then she gave a sharp shake of her head. “Doesn’t matter. You should have done what I said.”

“Why are you here?” Scorio’s voice seemed to float out of some deep void within him.

Naomi frowned. “Why am I here?”

He didn’t repeat himself.

She flushed deeper, looked away. “You’re just a stupid Cinder. You think I’d let you wander around the ruins forever without watching out for you?”

“You said you only joined the Academy to gain power.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounded weirdly calm. “That you didn’t care for our friendship.”

Lianshi’s protest was soft. “Scorio.”

“I…” Even the tips of Naomi’s ears had turned red. “Look. You’re an idiot.” She stood up abruptly and turned away. “You all are. And since when did you two make Emberling?”

“Recently,” said Leonis, voice casual.

“Oh. I didn’t know.” She fiddled with the sleeves of her ragged robe and then dropped her hands to her side again, still looking away. “No matter. I’d have… watched over you three… regardless.”

“Thank you,” said Lianshi. She also rose, tossed aside Scorio’s now slimy robe, and moved close to Naomi. “Without your warning, your help…”

Naomi ducked her head, allowing her hair to fall forward and hide her face. “Stupid. This is all stupid. This plan. This hope. You coming out here, again and again, as if the ruins aren’t incredibly dangerous. How many times did I warn you? But you wouldn’t listen. And now? Now… now your plants are mostly gone. And what were you thinking, anyway? Negotiating with an Imperial Ghost Toad?”

“Didn’t have any choice,” said Scorio numbly. Her intensity, her searing words, failed to pierce his numbness. “It was my last hope.”

“I told you to go protect them,” she said, rounding on him suddenly, hands balling into fists. “You should have listened to me!”

“No,” he said, raising his chin and meeting her gaze squarely. “There was never any contest. Not in my mind. I’d lose those plants a thousand times over before I left you alone in a fight like that.”

Naomi’s eyes widened, and she took a step back.

“Same,” said Leonis. “Though technically they weren’t my flowers, and I’m not really all that into flowers in the first place outside of table decorations.”

Lianshi reached out as if to touch Naomi’s arm, then drew her hand back. “We’ve missed you. Spoken of you constantly. Hoped you were doing well. We came out several times to try and find you—”

“And wandered around like idiots, making enough noise to rouse the whole block,” snapped Naomi, flinching away from where Lianshi might have touched her. “I know. It was child’s play to avoid you.”

Nobody spoke. The silence drew out, aching and awkward. Naomi scowled, looked away.

“Thank you,” said Scorio at last.

Naomi flinched again. “For what?”

“For watching out for us. For trying to help. For probably saving our lives. Thank you.”

“It was an idiot plan. Do you think all that mana wouldn’t draw the greatest predators around? This deep into the ruins?”

Scorio stayed silent.

Naomi glared at all of them in turn. “That nothing would sense that much mana collecting so close to the surface? Physical mana? That it wouldn’t draw fiends like the Alben Worm or the kushiwillow out? And for you to have the plants all secrete their beads at once? You didn’t think to stagger the production, to lessen the density of mana produced, to not make so tempting a target?”

“No,” said Scorio softly. “I didn’t think about that.”

Naomi ran her hands through her thick hair in frustration. “And what were you even going to do with all that mana? Make some crazy tincture that would poison you to death?”

“No,” said Scorio again. “Nox—the Imperial Ghost Toad—agreed to allow me to use his imperial gel bath to mimic his Delightful Secret Marinating technique. I was going to turn the beads into syrup and then immerse myself in it. Use the technique to overwhelm my Heart with mana so that I could make Emberling.”

Naomi’s eyes went wide with incredulity and shock. “You’re kidding me.”

“He’s not,” sighed Lianshi. “Trust me. I’ve had this argument with him several times over.”

“Toxic Coal syrup? From the number of plants down there—”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Scorio, cutting her off. “It was a stupid plan, and now it’s over. Without the mana, there’s nothing I can do. There are two weeks left, and with my Heart venting almost half of the mana I draw into it, there’s no way I’ll beat Jova in the Gauntlet run.”

Naomi stared at Scorio, her brows lowered, still looking furious. “It was a stupid plan. It would have killed you. That much toxicity would have overwhelmed whatever defenses the toad had going. The toad draws pure mana from the air, not toxic mana that’s been filtered into plants. There’s a world of a difference.”

Lianshi shifted her weight uneasily. “Nox said the gel would protect him.”

“What by the ten hells does a toad know about what a human needs?” Naomi’s voice could have flayed skin right off the flesh.

Leonis straightened. “Well, seeing as you weren’t around, we didn’t have anyone to ask.”

Naomi froze, then looked away. “Yeah. Well.”

“Like I said.” Slowly, stiffly, Scorio climbed to his feet. “Doesn’t matter now. Nox said we needed Ruby-level mana to make the process work. With only half a batch, I can only reach strong Sapphire. Enough to kill me if I drink it, not enough to activate the technique. So.” He shrugged. “Thank you, though. For everything, Naomi. You’ve always treated me better than I deserved.”

And with that, he turned to start walking back to the Academy.

He made it ten steps before Naomi called out. “Wait.”

He paused, looked down, then slowly turned.

Naomi curled her hair behind an ear anxiously, glanced at the other two, then away. “I, well.” She frowned, then said very quickly and in a low voice, “You can have the Sapphire vials.”

Scorio blinked. “I can what?”

“The Sapphire vials,” snapped Naomi, eyes flashing. “You can have them. For your stupid marinating technique.”

Scorio frowned, took a step toward her. “You need them to make Flame Vault.”

“Well, maybe I don’t, all right?”

Scorio took another step back toward her. “But why not?”

This time her glare had enough force behind it that he thought her eyes nearly burned sulfurous green. “Do you want it or not? If you don’t, just tell me and I’ll go ahead and keep them after all.”

Scorio hesitated. It felt like mountains within him were shifting back into place after they’d all just finished collapsing. His hopes, ashen and dead and gone, resisted being brought to life. He couldn’t risk that pain again, that sense of loss.

Scorio stared at Naomi in confusion. “You’d give them to me? Free of charge?”

“You did save my life just now,” she said, blushing again and looking away. “It’s not exactly free of charge.”

“Yes, but only because you were saving ours.”

“By the ten hells, Scorio!” Her eyes flashed again. “If you insist on interrogating me further—”

“I’ll take them,” he said, speaking quickly. “I’ll take them, thank you.”

Naomi hesitated, mouth still open, then closed it and gave him a curt nod. “Fine. Good. That’s all you had to say from the beginning.”

“Wait,” said Leonis. “So the plan isn’t ruined after all?”

Unexpectedly, despite his seconds-ago resignation and horror, Scorio found a smile creeping onto his lips. “Looks like the plan’s back on the table. In fact, I want to execute it today. No more waiting, no more delays. I’ve the tincture from the first batch here in my pack. Let’s find Nox. It’s time I made Emberling.”

* * *

It took them till First Bronze to track Nox and convince him to return. He’d gone to ground, blended in with the scoria of a distant slope, but to the Emberlings, his attempts at camouflage were easily pierced. Scorio had stared, nonplussed, unable to detect the toad himself, but apparently sensing the hidden was something that just came with the rank, much to Nox’s dismay.

“Favorite friends live,” Nox said weakly as he disinterred himself from the loose cinders and broken flakes of slate. “Heart overflows with joy.”

“Sure it does,” said Leonis dryly. “We’re so happy to see you too, favorite friend Nox.”

The toad turned its sightless head back and forth. “Black Star farm?”

“In the kushiwillow’s belly,” said Scorio. “But we’ve come up with a workaround. If you’re willing, we’ll make use of your imperial gel now.”

“Workaround?” Nox’s concern was obvious. “How will Nox be paid if Black Star farm gone?”

Naomi went to step forward, but Lianshi gripped her arm, held her back. “From what I understand, Master Nox, your payment was contingent on your successfully defending the farm from all attacks. Since you failed in that regard, it doesn’t make sense for you to be paid.”

Nox hesitated. “Imperial gel not free.”

Scorio was about to argue, but Lianshi wasn’t done. “The imperial gel is part of your Delightful Secret Marinating technique, is it not?”

“It…is.”

“Then that is part of what the Quantics treatise was exchanged for.” Lianshi’s smile was hard, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “The Black Star farm was payment for your guard duty, nothing else. You failed in that; you don’t get paid. The rest remains the same.”

Leonis looked over to Scorio and mouthed, She’s good.

Scorio could only nod.

Nox grimaced, rocked from side to side, and then bowed his head. “Favorite friend Lianshi wise.”

Scorio thought he sounded profoundly unhappy with the outcome, but perhaps he wasn’t willing to argue with Naomi bristling before him. Instead, he took a tentative step forward, a second, and then as if reaching a resolution, sprang over them to land a dozen yards beyond them and look back. “Come.”

“Can we trust him?” whispered Naomi as they followed.

“We’re about to find out,” said Scorio.

They made their way back to the square, and then to the collapsed burrow with its entrance to the underworld. Nox led the way, and one by one they dropped in after him, down into the darkness. Scorio sharpened his darkvision and warily followed the toad through the passages into his burrow, unchanged since their last visit.

“Imperial gel ready,” said Nox, moving to stand on the pit’s far side.

Scorio stepped up to the pool of white gel. It reminded him now of the Alben Worm’s blood, an association that caused his gorge to momentarily rise, but he forced it down and wiped his hands on his thighs. “So I just enter?”

The others clustered around them, gazing down into the small pool as well.

“Enter imperial gel. Acclimatize. Extrude mana, then draw mana back in, but cause it to miss. Begin cycle of falling mana.”

Scorio had debated the toad’s opaque instructions at length with his friends, and ultimately decided that his best bet was to improvise when he was inside. Further research into the Imperial Ghost Toads revealed their gels to be mildly psychotropic and of great value in the production of certain pills and elixirs; it was Scorio’s hope that it was the missing element in the vague equation Nox had tried to spell out.

He turned to Naomi. “Got the vials?”

She reached into a small pack she wore over the small of her back and pulled out the two. Their sapphire glow filled the burrow with a rippling, cool light.

Nox opened his mouth and licked his lips, again reminding Scorio of the Alben Worm, but made no further comment.

“Stay focused,” said Lianshi, her tone growing tense. “Remember you can climb out at any point. If you feel it going wrong, just get out.”

“See you soon,” said Leonis.

“I can’t believe I’m helping you do this,” muttered Naomi, taking the large jar of condensed Coal mana from Scorio as he pulled it out of his pack and unwrapped it. “Asinine. If you die—”

Scorio raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

She scowled. “I’ll kill you in your next life.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Then with quick, efficient movements, he undid his belt, dropped his pants, peeled off his socks, and moved to the edge of the pool.

Studied its pearlescent surface. Over a yard in diameter, it looked alien and uninviting. A deep breath. The moment had finally come. Everything had led to this. His last, desperate gamble.

Carefully he sat at the pool’s edge and slid his legs into the gel. It felt cool, oily, but not unpleasant. He pushed off the edge and sank in to his chest, arms raised reflexively, feet finding purchase on the slick stone floor below.

“Better than our pool back home?” asked Leonis, crouching with a grin.

“I’d not go that far,” said Scorio, and purposefully lowered his arms. The gel was causing his skin to tingle, again not an unpleasant sensation. He swirled his arms from side to side; the substance was thick and resistant, like jellied fruit jam. Experimentally he lifted his legs off the ground and found that he could hang suspended in the center of the gel.

“All right. Here I go.” He looked from one face to the next. “You guys are the best. See you soon.”

And before they could utter awkward goodbyes, he took a deep breath and ducked his head under the gel’s surface.

Eyes tightly closed, he felt the cool, creamy substance cover his face, sink into his hair. He pulled his knees up to his chest and allowed himself to simply float, held gently but firmly in place, arms coming in to wrap loosely around his knees.

Scorio summoned his Heart. There it was, pitted and fractured, the dark planes of its obsidian surface grown as familiar as the palm of his hand. With his senses opening, he reached out, but there was no mana around him. The gel acted as a buffer of sorts—he couldn’t even feel the mana that permeated the air of the burrow above. Just a cool void, yet somehow structured, orderly, as if the void were composed of a million tiny cells or hexagons, all perfectly and tightly fitted together, holding him in place and waiting, waiting, for something to happen.

Time seemed to slow. Or perhaps Naomi was just taking forever to pour the mana into the pool, but Scorio’s need to breathe lessened by the moment, and he felt the difference between himself and the gel begin to fade, as if his skin were being permeated, the gel bonding with his spirit. It was supremely relaxing and soothing, like a moist towel being placed on a fevered brow; his Heart felt nurtured, buoyed up, its dusty, cracked marrow eased by the gel’s support. Scorio’s sense of his body grew dimmer by the moment; his sense of self became focused on his Heart, which grew, the details magnified, the fractures all the more distressing for being made so plainly evident.

Was this imperial gel better than their pool back home? Oh yes. Scorio felt a fluttering wave of amusement and appreciation pass through him; it felt like being physically forced into a state of meditation, the gel gently enervating, soothing, and elevating his mind all at once. If there was mana here to focus on, to meditate on, he’d no doubt excel at working on his Heart, on applying all of Instructor Hera’s lessons—

And then the sky opened and poured itself into his void. Blue fire sluiced down into his consciousness, radiant and uplifting, so pure it made his teeth ache, so potent that his very being, his spirit, recoiled as if he were staring too blatantly at the sun-wire in Amber.

The Sapphire mana flooded the gel, and quickly saturated it; the concentration became evenly distributed, and then redoubled as more was poured in, the second vial, the density, the potency ratcheting up.

It was mesmerizing, surreal, beautiful—this was no ambient cloud, no sooty darkness of Coal, no quicksilver of copper, no obdurate defiance of Iron. This was artificial, a perfect blue canvas in every dimension, the Sapphire mana caught and held by the gel’s matrix, perfectly molding itself to his body, quiescent and still.

Rapt with wonder, Scorio went to exert his will upon it when even more mana entered his void; this, however, was crude oil, black and viscous, spoiling the peerless blue like mud splattered across a silk robe. The Coal mana, potent and toxic, oozed into the gel, an endless torrent as Naomi emptied the jar.

The black didn’t mix with the Sapphire; instead, it sank to the bottom of the pool to form a deep, impenetrable layer, distinct from the vivid cerulean blue. Yet the darkness called to Scorio in a way that the Sapphire did not. He knew that toxic, gritty black power. He knew that thick and turgid might. Felt an affinity to its impenetrable depths that he didn’t for the regal blue. Wanted to call to it, to summon it first and foremost to his Heart—and then realized that he could.

“Reach equilibrium,” he heard Nox say in his memory. So, carefully, he manifested his will, shaping it like his paddle, and dipped it down into the layer of blackness to swirl some up and around and into his waiting Heart.

A tendril floated around and around and then insinuated itself into his Heart. But the process felt entirely different; the imperial gel slowed and regulated the entry, removed much of the strain from the endeavor. Once the Coal began to enter his Heart, the gel seemed to ensure that it continued, acting as a perfect conduit for the mana to stream in.

Scorio ignited, and the flames that burst forth were less a conflagration and more of a controlled burn; the gel even regulated the wildness of the fire.

For a while, Scorio focused on finding that equilibrium, admitting just enough mana to keep the flames burning. The gel seemed to limit the amount of mana he vented through the fractures as well, like gauze bound over wounds. Controlling his elation with savage focus, he turned his thoughts to the next step: to cause the mana to grow, to fall around his Heart, and in doing so pull more after it.

The part that had made little to no sense to him.

He observed what was taking place. Once ignited, his Heart burned the mana reserves that had saturated it before catching fire. But the gel made it easy, almost reflexive, to draw more mana into his Heart even as he burned it. A virtuous cycle that would allow him to remain ignited for as long as there was mana in the environment, and something he’d never had the fine control and ability to do before.

Experimentally, Scorio drew on more of the Coal, increasing the rate of burning, and the flames grew correspondingly, the power washing out through his body and invigorating him. But that wasn’t what he wanted; he could float here all day, burn through all the mana, and never expand his Heart to its fullest extent.

Frowning, he slackened the amount being drawn into his Heart, and the flames dampened.

Mana fall around toad, grow compressed as more mana enter. Stabilized by matrix.

What did it mean, for the mana to fall around him? It was already present in the gel. It couldn’t fall around his Heart; the best Scorio could do was whip it about him with his will at ever greater speeds, but what would that accomplish?

As technique used, more mana pulled in by act of missing.

Missing. Falling. Nox had been using the words in ways that didn’t make sense given Scorio’s Heart. The only way Scorio could pull in mana was to direct it into his Heart, as when he saturated it before igniting. The goal was to force ever more mana into himself, straining to maximize his saturation point till he could barely ignite. But once he’d ignited, he could no longer saturate, only increase the rate of burning.

Or was that true?

The gel gave him such fine-tuned control over the mana, made it so pliable and willing, that he decided to experiment. The process of burning initiated the reflexive draw that pulled more mana into his Heart, but perhaps… Scorio frowned, focused completely on the inside of his Heart, became his Heart, identified himself with it, felt the pull as a visceral experience. There. Just as it entered his Heart, he could split it. Send the requisite sliver to keep the burning going, and then pool the rest around the flame, refilling his reservoir.

For a long, aching moment, Scorio just watched as the Coal mana both fueled his burning Heart and began to saturate it at the same time. It was a terrible balancing act, one that he’d never have been able to pull off without the gel.

But then something else happened—the more he pulled into his Heart to saturate, the more the burning pull grew, so that he found it easy to continue saturating. Back in the Academy, under Hera’s guidance, the process became ever harder the more he saturated, like trying to inhale ever more air. But here, with the gel’s guidance, he was able to endlessly draw in mana, using the draw of the burn to power the saturation.

Better yet, the gel was minimizing how much he vented and collecting that which did escape to funnel it back into himself.

Mana was growing incredibly dense within his Heart. The layer of Coal was nearly all gone. His Heart burned on, the flames subtle and constant, and always his reservoir filled, growing ever denser, ever larger.

Watching, bemused, exhilarated, Scorio saw the last of the Coal disappear into his Heart, and then the first of the Sapphire mana flowed into him.

It felt like lighting a thousand lanterns inside a dark cathedral all at once, like diving headfirst into an icy lake, like being jolted back to life from the dead by a stroke of lighting.

Too much. Scorio opened his mouth to scream, but the gel was there, fusing with his flesh, numbing the pain, easing the burn. Healing it over. More Sapphire poured into him, and despite trying to keep the sliver that he directed toward the flames to a minimum, the fire that coruscated around his Heart blossomed into a bonfire of gelid azure.

It was too much, too intense. Scorio strained to control the power, watched as the Sapphire split away to saturate his Heart as well, so much more potent and denser than the Coal. It compressed into something akin to diamond, and still more poured in, forcing his reservoir to widen, deepen, stretching it beyond its limits.

Scorio moaned, the sound muffled, lost to the crackling of the flames, and still, the Sapphire came. And then he saw more Coal filtering into the top of the pool of imperial gel; as he emptied the pool, the draw of his burning Heart, the process he’d begun, facilitated and augmented by the gel, caused the ambient mana in the burrow above to sink in and replenish the mana.

Too much. The Sapphire was almost all absorbed, the terrible damage it should have done to his Heart softened by the gel. His Heart was venting a blue light so blinding he could barely look at it, the flames roaring higher and higher, and still, the mana in his reservoir grew, expanding and growing denser by the moment.

Scorio wanted to scream, to clutch at his head. He felt as if his very soul were splitting, the flesh suit of his body about to be torn asunder by terrible pressures from within. The fabric of his being was fraying, and still more Coal poured into the pool, surrounding him now with its comforting black power.

His reservoir felt vast, endless. If he’d not already been burning his Heart, he’d never have been able to ignite. It would have been like holding a match to the trunk of a centuries-old tree.

More mana poured into him. How could he stop it? Scorio tried to snuff out the flame, but it burned on despite his will, lit now by an environment so mana-rich that it seemed to burn the very air itself.

Scorio screamed. His vision was doubling, and now he felt his real heart stuttering, losing its beat. He was burning up, his Heart growing as it swelled before him, eclipsing everything else, the flames reaching up to the heavens themselves, his reservoir an endless lake of depthless night with an azure core.

His body was thrashing, flailing at the gel, disrupting the orderly layers that the new Coal mana was trying to form. He was drinking it in, could no longer tell which way was up, which down. Scorio fought to eclipse his Heart, but he couldn’t stop the process of engorgement; more and more mana poured into him as if drawn by a void, sucked in by an endless hunger. It was too much. His mind was fracturing. His very sense of self tearing apart—

—then it all fell away.

The imperial gel, the Coal mana, his Heart, the vast reservoir like an ancient ocean—all of it disappeared, the pressure and pain, the mania and fever-bright delirium.

And Scorio found himself standing on a gray slate platform from whose edges arose four free-standing portals, the void beyond starless and infinite.

Three of the doors were sealed shut, but the fourth stood open, and Scorio knew that his first trial awaited him beyond it.