Chapter 69

“He cheated!” roared Kuragin as he sat up, hand pressed to his wounded gut. “Let’s have a rematch, wounded as I am—I’ll tear him to ribbons!”

Scorio dropped into a crouch at the sparring circle’s edge as his Heart guttered out. He didn’t want to look at his wounded arm; it still felt numb, though a creeping, smoldering ache was starting to build up deep within his wrist. “One fight, Kuragin. We made a deal. Uphold your end of the bargain.”

Kuragin was still in his monstrous form, but his carapace made sitting awkward; he could barely prop himself up. With a snarl, he released the form and reverted to his human shape, though the deep lacerations in his stomach remained.

“They’re right,” said Famissa, tone somewhere between reluctant and stunned. She was staring at Scorio, eyes wide. “When did you make Emberling?”

He raked his hair out of his eyes and managed a weak grin. “Oh, not too long ago. Just in time for this fight, actually. So, Kuragin. You going to honor your end of the deal?”

The large man studied his gut, hissed in anger or perhaps pain, and chose to remain seated. “Fine. Underhand as it was. Shouldn’t have expected any better from a Red Lister.”

Scorio let the insult roll off him. “Very generous of you. Now, tell me about your Trial. Everything that pertained to me and mine.”

At which point Kuragin sneered. “Oh, that’ll be my pleasure. Seeing as it was you that betrayed your brother and caused him to be executed.”

Scorio raised an eyebrow. “Actually, I saved him from that execution. If you’re trying to hurt my feelings with this revelation, you’re going to have to do better.”

Kuragin blinked. “You saved him? No. You’re the one who betrayed him so that my forces could capture him.”

“What? No. He was arrested for trying to pass radical laws in our province and apprehended for defying the king. What are you talking about?”

“Oh,” said Kuragin, understanding spreading across his features. “Oh, that’s rich. So you don’t know, after all.”

“You’re trying my patience,” said Scorio. “Hurry up and explain yourself.”

“Sure, you rescued your brother from that provincial execution. But that was old history when my trial took place. There I was, in the king’s castle, your brother on a leash. And with the knowledge that it was you who had betrayed him, allowed us to ambush him and bring him in for justice.”

Scorio stared at him in bafflement, then shook his head. “No. That doesn’t make sense. I’d not have betrayed my brother.”

“But you did. He no longer served your purpose, apparently, so you discarded him out of hand. Had him neatly removed. I remember feeling grudging respect for your cold-blooded efficiency. But I didn’t mind being used in your stratagem, not if it netted us the leader of the rebellion.”

Scorio frowned down at the large man. He couldn’t square what Kuragin was saying with his own memories. The fierce loyalty and admiration he’d felt for his brother. His willingness to risk death, risk even the rebellion, to save him. Why would he have betrayed Eberro? It made no sense.

Kuragin was drinking up his confusion and discomfort. “Oh yes. How easily you discarded him out of hand. This I know, this was branded in my mind as the truth of my situation. I swear it on my soul and hope of rebirth that I tell no lies.”

“There had to be more to it,” protested Scorio. “That makes… I mean…”

“And Eberro. I had him on a leash. He was a broken man. What you’d done had broken him, sure enough as if you’d strapped him to the wheel yourself. But there was within him a spark of anger, of outrage, that I still could use to my own ends…” And there Kuragin suddenly cut himself off.

“Explain,” said Scorio coldly.

“That’s my trial and pertains to you not at all.”

“Was my brother part of it? Yes? Then tell me what you did, or I’ll finish what I started in the circle.”

Kuragin bared his teeth. “Come on down here, pretty boy, and I’ll choke you with your own guts.”

“You’ll have to dig out my guts in the process,” said Leonis, and Nezzar appeared in his hand. He propped it nonchalantly on his shoulder and then raised an eyebrow.

“And mine, awful as this expression is,” said Lianshi, moving to stand beside Leonis.

Kuragin scowled. “Fam?”

“You swore to tell the whole truth as it pertained to Scorio and his brother,” she replied. “Sorry, Kuragin.”

He scowled and spat bloody phlegm. “Fine. Though this isn’t over, Scorio. You’ll pay for this. I no longer agreed with the king. Your brother was a means to end his rule. I was to present Eberro to him in court. If I weakened his bonds and secreted a knife upon his person, I knew your brother would take care of the king when given the chance. But it would mean the end of my own reputation, the collapse of my standing in the kingdom. Or I could have executed your brother as expected, further proving my efficacy, then waited for a future opportunity when my loyalty would allow for a cleaner kill.”

“Given your brutish power,” said Scorio, “I can guess what you chose.”

Kuragin sneered. “Don’t be so sanctimonious, fool. Better a king killer than a fratricide.”

The words hit Scorio like a blow to the chin. He jerked his head back and narrowed his eyes. “I’m no fratricide.”

“You betrayed your brother. That’s incontrovertible.”

“If I did, I…” But Scorio couldn’t finish the sentence. It made no sense to him. To betray his own brother?

“He wasn’t radical enough for you,” sneered Kuragin. “He wasn’t willing to commit the same atrocities. He was splitting your forces, weakening you in the field. Trying to make allies with the wrong people and wasting time. So you had him removed from the board.” Kuragin gave him a mock complimentary nod. “Most impressive for rabble-rousing scum.”

“That’s quite enough,” said Leonis, drawing himself up. “You have anything else you need to reveal to Scorio? On your honor, speak truthfully or be condemned by your own cowardice.”

And there was something to Leonis’s tone, to his bearing, to the full reverberation of his voice so that for the briefest moment Scorio caught a glimpse of the king he must once have been. But then Kuragin spat again and slowly climbed to his feet.

“That’s the full tale, and watch your tongue, Leonis. Insult my honor again and I’ll tear it out by the roots.”

“Good. Scorio? Let’s go.” And with that Leonis turned to leave the training chamber.

Scorio wanted to remain perched on the training circle’s edge for eternity, trapped like a fly in amber, a prisoner to his own uncertainty and doubts. Instead, he hopped down, nodded absently to Famissa who looked like she wished she could say more, and followed his friends out of the room and down the hall. They made their way silently back to their chambers, and only when Lianshi pressed the door firmly closed did he blink and come back to himself.

“There you all are,” said Naomi, looking worried and cross. “I was about to head out and scour the hallways for you.” Then she paused, peered closer to Scorio’s face, and frowned. “What happened? Scorio, your arm!”

He glanced down at it uneasily. His wrist and knuckles had begun to throb as if a large spike had been driven into his forearm, and he didn’t want to study how mangled his fingers looked.

“Scorio learned more of his past,” said Leonis heavily. “He paid a price, and it wasn’t to his liking.”

“No,” said Lianshi with fierce emphasis. “More like it lacks the context to make sense.”

Naomi leaned in. “He cornered Kuragin?”

“You could say that,” said Leonis.

Scorio walked past Naomi and down the stone path to the steaming azure pool. Climbing up the steps to the wooden platform, he slowly sank into a cross-legged sitting position to stare out over the waters.

He could hear his friends speaking in muted tones from the common room, but he tuned them out. He’d betrayed his brother? Who’d proven insufficiently… what? Zealous? Extreme? Brutal in their war against the king? Could he do such a thing? Kuragin confirmed that he’d previously rescued his brother from the first execution. Did that mean his emotions and beliefs from his own trial had been authentic, real to what had actually happened? It felt real.

Footsteps. He didn’t look around but could tell that it was Naomi approaching. She hesitated at the base of the steps, then climbed up and sat down beside him.

Scorio frowned, glanced down at his swelling wrist and disjointed fingers, then squinted back over the waters as if toward some distant horizon.

“Let me see your arm,” she said with quiet authority.

Wincing, he held it out to her, and she hissed at the sight of it. “You’ve broken your wrist, looks like. What did you do, punch a wall?”

“Something like that.”

“I’d wrap it and set it, but you’re going to have to spend as much time in your new form as you can to heal up. Even then, you’re going to be in bad shape for tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Bitterness washed over Scorio, but he refused to complain.

“I spent a few years at the Academy before quitting it for the ruins,” she said. “You know this. And that I overheard and learned things during that time.”

He waited, silent.

“It was always a source of constant conversation, the trials, once people made Emberling and beyond. Were the memories real? How could they be if they were branching? Surely one set of choices were what had happened, and thus the rest had to be… lies? Fabrications? Alternate versions from alternate realities?”

Scorio looked sidelong at her, wary. “You’re saying that future trials build off the decision of the first?”

“Yes. If you make one decision to reach Emberling, your next trial will follow the consequences of that decision. But in some lives, Great Souls choose with their hearts, in others with their minds. And each choice causes cascading versions. There are a potential sixteen versions of your past life that you’ll relive by the time you make Dread Blaze.”

“So what are you saying?”

Naomi sighed and looked out over the pool as well. “The Academy official position is that you accept your current life’s version of your past as the one that is real for you now. It’s recommended that Cinders learn none of this, and some go so far as to recommend not even keeping journals about your trials, so as to not… cause conflict with your future selves.”

“So Lianshi? She might have records of her other choices in her journals?”

“I imagine so.” Naomi sighed. “But what use does it do her? The Lianshi of today chose what she chose because it felt right, and that makes it her current reality. Learning what her previous selves chose will only confuse or ruin her current choices.”

“But Kuragin’s trial touched on my own life. Doesn’t his experience confirm what I truly chose? Since he had his trial first?”

Naomi sighed. “It might. Or perhaps, in a previous life of his, one where you weren’t incarnated, his initial trial turned out differently, and it was you that was betrayed. Nobody can say with certainty.”

Scorio pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is giving me a headache.”

“Which is why we’re counseled to not take what we experience literally, though of course, that’s easier said than done.”

Scorio sighed and dropped his hand to his lap. “What about you? If you don’t mind my asking? Your trial can’t have referenced a first life.”

“No, it didn’t.” Naomi’s expression turned bleak as she looked away. “I… I didn’t have a trial. I didn’t go to the place with four doors. I simply manifested my power.”

“You what?” Scorio stared at her. “No trial? Does the Academy know?”

“I’m sure they do, though not from me. Way I figure it? I came into my power the old-fashioned way. The way you must have during your first life. The doors, the trials… they’re artificial. I think they were created here in hell, but I’ve no way of knowing. Perhaps to make sure you Great Souls always ascend, given your lack of memories.”

“That’s wild,” said Scorio softly. “Huh. I guess it makes sense. Then who made the doors?”

“Nobody knows. Just like no one knows who made the Archspire, or the biers, or the Gauntlet, or created the wards that guard certain areas or hide important books in the library. We just inherit them.”

Scorio blinked at her. “I thought… I mean, that can’t be right. Somebody has to have made them.”

“Someone did.” Naomi sighed and looked out over the pool. “But I’ve never heard of anybody today who can make magical items like that. Alchemists can make pills and elixirs, even regular folk can use mana traps to generate mana light, but that’s about the extent of it. Whoever made those wonders died and never came back.”

Scorio frowned and stared off into the middle distance, deep in thought. “Huh.”

Naomi sighed. “But anyways. Was it worth it, what you learned? Worth the ruined arm?”

“I don’t know.” Scorio stared at the swollen knuckles, the puffy wrist. “The answer wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but… I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”

“I can’t pretend to empathize. My past is all clear to me, every aching moment. But I think I can understand. The need to…” She trailed off, seeking the right words. “To know who you were. Where you come from. But none of that is who you are. And the Scorio of today must enter the Gauntlet now with a broken arm. That was a high price for all of us.”

He had no words.

She placed a hand on his shoulder and levered herself up to standing. “You’d best ignite your Heart and assume your scaled form. Any healing you can muster will be to our advantage tomorrow.”

“Right,” he said softly.

Naomi slipped away, leaving him to his dark thoughts. Had he betrayed his brother? Even if he hadn’t, did he have the capacity for such an act? Scorio the Abhorred. Scorio the Quencher of Hope. What if he had earned those names fairly? What if, within him, were the seeds for eventual destruction and ruin?

He shuddered and forced the thoughts away. Summoned his Heart instead, and began the laborious process of sweeping Coal mana into its reservoir. Everything, every effort, every sacrifice, every risk, had been made for tomorrow’s run. And on the eve of his greatest trial, he’d imperiled his already minute chances out of a desperate desire to learn more about his past.

Bitterness, anger, and resolve curled within him. With bloody-minded determination, he packed his vast reservoir full, and then ignited his Heart. A moment later black scales emerged over his broken wrist, down the lengths of his arms, across his shoulders. His very body changed, growing taller, leaner at the waist, broader at the chest. Vitality coursed through him, and he felt that strength roil in his broken wrist as if personally affronted by the damage. The pain began to recede.

Setting his jaw, Scorio stared out across the azure waters and waited.