Chapter 80

Jova moved with purpose, and Scorio was content to simply walk beside her, their footsteps echoing in the empty halls. It gave him time to process, to come to terms with what had happened. To accept his success, his new resolve, his growth.

He thought of Eberro. Thought of Naomi’s admonitions. That powerful moment when he’d chosen to take responsibility for himself, for his past, for his deed names and titles.

Praximar, his face apoplectic. The tears shining in Lianshi’s eyes, Naomi’s proud smile, Leonis’s brazen cheer. His chest filled suddenly with emotion, his breath caught, and when Jova glanced sidelong at him, he could only give her a tight smile.

They descended a flight of steps, walked the length of a student’s residential hall, and stopped at the last door. Jova unlocked it with deft, economical movements, pushed the stuck door with her shoulder, and led him inside.

Her suite.

It was like his own, if perhaps more modest; a small common room spread before them, the carpeting burgundy, cushions strewn about, a low table in the center covered in scrolls, half-finished meals, candles burned down to their bowls, and potent mana treasures on enameled altars which radiated such potent power that Scorio could sense them even without summoning his Heart.

Still silent, she moved to sit on a cushion set against the far wall.

Archways led off to bedrooms. The rear wall through ferns to a small pool. All so similar, yet so utterly alien as this was her space, her private domain, and he was in it, with her, alone.

Scorio suddenly felt uneasy, didn’t know how to stand, to act. Jova looked completely poised, not at ease, but alert, confident, still. Carefully, he moved to another cushion and sat upon it.

They sat in silence, studying each other. It was bizarre, almost, surreal even, to sit like this with Jova, after so many months of only catching glimpses of her from afar. To be alone with her after spending so many nights ruminating on how best to beat her, to catch up with her progress, to achieve exactly what he’d just done. And now that he was here? He didn’t know what to say.

“How did you do it?” she asked at last, tone… complex. Curious. Demanding. Perhaps a touch resentful? Was there admiration there, as well as confusion and anger?

“Hard work, mostly. Took risks others wouldn’t be willing to take, or which wouldn’t have been options for them, given their easy resources here at the Academy.”

Jova nodded, a touch impatient. “Hard work, obviously. But you went from Cinder to Tomb Spark almost overnight. That’s… unprecedented.”

“It’s not,” said Scorio, and smiled again. “Ever hear of a guy called Iulius the Golden? He reached Flame Vault in his first year. I just kept quiet about making Emberling a couple of weeks ago.”

“Fine. I’m sure it’s been done before, but still, you ascended from Emberling to Tomb Spark in only a couple of weeks.” She glared at him. “How?”

Scorio stared at his hands. “Desperation? I made a deal with a fiend out in the ruins. He allowed me to use his mana condensation pool in exchange for a handbook on… well, that part’s complicated. But the process worked, mostly, and I made Emberling. Then I hit Tomb Spark during my run in the Gauntlet.” He paused, hesitating, then blurted out, “I saw you in there.”

Her eyes narrowed. “In the Gauntlet? I died before you, then.”

“You don’t seem surprised.”

“I’m not. I went fast and hard. That might have been my undoing. My team fell apart rapidly. I petitioned to enter with Juniper instead of Kuragin but was denied. Of course.”

“I… didn’t know that.”

“You’ve been an outsider. There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“Sure.” Scorio accepted that verdict with a slow nod. “Like what you might have written in your journals about me.”

“Smooth transition,” she said, her amusement showing through again. “Very nicely done.”

“Thank you.” Scorio felt almost breathless. What was going on? He’d thought she’d be furious at having come in second place, would hate him, resent him for being a Red Lister and having beaten her so publicly. Instead, their exchange felt almost… playful?

She leaned forward and drew a tattered old book from the central table. “I have it right here, actually. I’ve read it many times since you drew my attention to it.”

Scorio felt his stomach clench. “You found something?”

“Of course. It was simple. Praximar stated your last reincarnation was two hundred and thirty-three years ago. Which led me to this particular journal.”

“Oh. Right.” Scorio blinked. “And?”

“I was suspicious of you, even back then. I was a Flame Vault, you an infamous Blood Baron. You came to me at the Fiery Shoals. You were being hunted.”

“Hunted?” Scorio sat up straighter. “Who would hunt a Blood Baron?”

“You didn’t tell me. But my impression was that you had betrayed someone or an organization. Or angered them past all measure. Seems to be a motif for you.”

“Yeah. I’m starting to realize.”

“Regardless, you’d known me in previous lives, apparently. My reputation, you said, was such that you hoped my journals would remain inviolate. Whereas any message you left to your future selves would be stolen and destroyed, and so hoped to use me to communicate with yourself, just as we’re doing now.”

Scorio shivered. A plan over two centuries in the making was coming to fruition. “And the message?”

Jova opened the journal to a slender bookmark and frowned down at the pages. “I’ve puzzled ceaselessly over it. At first, I thought them the words of a paranoiac. But now…” She trailed off, then raised the journal. “Your message was as follows:

Scorio, do not trust the Houses, the Imperators, and least of all the Herdsmen. Everything is a lie: our cause, our purpose, the reason we are bound to this hell, and our way out of it. The only way to break the cycle is to become the Infernarch. Unless you do, the cycle shall repeat itself forever, damning us and countless innocents to this heinous masquerade. I know we can do this. Not in this lifetime—my questioning has already drawn too much attention. No doubt we shall be placed on the Red List for it—but you can do it. I tried to go it alone. I failed. Don’t make my mistake. You can’t do this by yourself. Damn the odds. Do whatever must be done.”

Jova considered her journal, then lowered it to her lap once more.

“That’s it?” asked Scorio, breathless, almost dizzy. “I didn’t say more?”

“You refused to.” Jova frowned down at her pages. “You said committing certain truths to paper would draw the attention of the Imperators, and worse. You could only use indirect warnings. We spoke long into the night, however, and my previous incarnation came to trust you, or wished to, at any rate. You left the next dawn, and I never saw you again.”

“Huh,” said Scorio, then bit his lip and frowned. “Who are the Herdsmen?”

“I don’t know,” said Jova.

“And my becoming Infernarch?” He gave a hollow laugh. “Within the next—how long are we supposed to have?”

“Depends on who you ask,” said Jova softly. “Seven to ten years if the rate of the ruin’s advance remains steady.”

“Well, that’s just not possible.” Scorio sat back and propped himself up with outstretched arms. “Pyre Lord in that span of time would be impressive. Imperator in seven years would make me a legend. But to make Imperator and conquer the Pit, and to do so before the other seven Imperators do so? Not going to happen.”

Jova stared at him silently.

“What?” He shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Don’t tell me you think it can be done.”

“I made a bet with myself, after reading this,” said Jova. “That I would believe the warning, would believe your previous self’s words, if you bested me in the Gauntlet. It seemed so impossible that you could do so, but so necessary a first step in your quest to become Infernarch, that I decided it a fitting test.”

“Oh,” said Scorio, taken aback. “So… you believe in this warning?”

“I’ve always intuited it, I suppose, even before we spoke.” She stared down at her black nails. “It’s why I never signed up with any of the Houses. Their… need, their sweet words, all seemed but a prelude to the raising of a lash. The harder they pursued me, the more suspect they became.” She shook her head irritably. “An intuition, nothing more. But your warning and the… other things I wrote in my journal convinced me that it might be otherwise.”

“You were pretty adamant the last time we spoke about not trusting me because I was a Red Lister,” said Scorio.

“That was before I read these journal entries.” She continued to study her fingers, her frown marked. “After our encounter in the hallway, I looked up this passage, and ever since I’ve been wondering. Doubting. Questioning. And then, against all the odds, you somehow went the deepest into the Gauntlet.”

“I bested you by only one segment,” said Scorio suddenly. “I threw myself onto the fourth pentagon just before I was killed.”

Jova smirked at him. “Smart. But still a valid victory. And that doesn’t gainsay the fact that you somehow made Tomb Spark when you needed it most.”

“I suppose it doesn’t.” He subsided, pensive. “I can’t make Infernarch. Reaching Tomb Spark has nearly ruined my Heart. I’m venting half of everything I draw on. Just healing that damage will take years.”

“We don’t have years.”

He looked up sharply. “We?”

“We.” Her expression became defiant. “You don’t think I spurned the Academy and all four Houses to then wander Hell by myself without a cause?”

“Oh.” His face flushed. “So, you’re—ah—coming with me?”

“If we can reach an agreement, yes.” She couldn’t hold his gaze any longer and looked away. “I didn’t say what I said on that stage lightly. But if your warning is true, and we cannot trust the Houses, the Imperators, and that everything we’ve been told is a lie—then how could I do otherwise but help you begin to discover the truth?”

To which Scorio could only slowly nod.

“It’s a gamble.” Her voice turned soft, and she looked down once more. “But the stakes are too high to be ignored. You’ve proven yourself remarkable, Scorio, just as I once thought of you, two centuries ago. I trusted you then. It will take some work, but I’ll try to trust you again.”

“Oh.” Scorio blinked, almost shook himself. He had to do better than that for a response. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” She inhaled sharply and sat up straight once more. “If this warning proves true, I’ll be the one eternally in your debt. I don’t like the idea of being anyone’s slave, especially not for countless reincarnations of my life.”

There was a knock on the door. Jova frowned, rose smoothly to her feet, and crossed the room to crack it open.

“Scorio in here?”

Jova opened the door wider to reveal Lianshi. Jova stepped aside, and she and the others filed in. Juniper was with them, Scorio saw, along with Zala.

Scorio rose to his feet. “Jova and I—”

But he was cut off by Lianshi’s high-pitched squeal as she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly about his frame and burying her face into his neck. “You did it! You did it! You’re a Tomb Spark?” She drew back sharply, suddenly angry. “How did you become a Tomb Spark?”

Leonis laughed loudly, the rich sound filling the room like sunlight, and pounded Scorio’s back before grabbing him in a headlock, only to release him a second later. “You’d not have made it without us, you mad bastard! Don’t forget us on your road to greater glories!”

“What? No! I’d never—”

But Leonis was grinning so widely that Scorio realized belatedly it was a jest, and clamped his mouth shut, cheeks flaming.

“Tomb Spark!” Leonis shook his head and put his hands on his hips. “Insanity.”

“Congratulations,” said Naomi, voice almost inaudible, standing off to one side, one arm wrapped over her midriff, hand clutching her other elbow. “That was… incredible.”

Scorio grinned at her. “We’ve come a long way since we first met, haven’t we?”

She couldn’t resist a quiet smile. “That we have.”

Juniper brushed her blonde hair behind her back and smiled tightly at him. “Congratulations, Scorio. We’ve not spoken much, but Lianshi has told me a lot about you.”

“Nothing private,” said Lianshi hurriedly.

“Nothing private,” agreed Juniper. “But… Jova?” And she stared at her friend in disbelief. “I knew you had an independent streak as wide as the ten hells, but what… I mean… What’s going on?”

“Same,” said Zala, crossing her arms and sticking out one hip. “I mean, Jova, you’re not exactly what I’d call talkative, but seriously, you’ve got to tell us what the hell’s going on.”

“Yes,” said Lianshi, stepping back, face becoming concerned. “The treasures Praximar was going to be forced to give you would have healed your Heart, Scorio. I know your distaste for him, but you won. Leaving now feels like doing what Praximar wanted?”

Scorio took a deep breath and looked from one face to the next. “Jova found the passage I was hunting for in her journal. She shared it with me.”

“Oh,” said Lianshi.

Leonis put his hand to his brow. “Oh! I’d forgotten all about that. And?”

Uneasy, Scorio glanced at Zala and Juniper.

“They already know,” said Jova, then blushed. Scorio stared. He’d never have guessed her capable. “I trust them with everything. Just like you guys do.”

“All right,” said Scorio. “I turned down Praximar’s offer for more training at the Academy and endless treasures for the same reason, it turns out, that Jova turned it down all along. We both recognized those rewards for the leashes they were. After all I’ve seen, after the way I’ve been treated, I’ve no illusions about the Academy’s morals or virtues.”

Naomi nodded her head in approval.

“But our decisions were…” He paused, searching for the right word. “They were reinforced by words I wrote down over two centuries ago. I’d unearthed some… theories, I guess you could say. The process of which put me on the Red List. And warned my future self to not trust the Houses, the Imperators, anything of what we’ve been told. I sent a warning through Jova to myself about everything we’ve been told being a lie.”

Leonis frowned. “The story we’ve been told? A lie?”

“How so?” asked Lianshi. “You mean Ettera? The Portal home?”

“I don’t know,” said Scorio. “Writing down more would have drawn the attention of people worse than the Imperator, apparently. But Jova and I are taking the warning seriously. We’re going to leave Bastion and try to learn more.”

“Leave Bastion?” Zala’s eyes widened dramatically. “By yourselves? And go where?”

Scorio glanced at Jova, who was frowning down at the ground. “We’d not gotten that far.”

“Wow.” Leonis stroked his beard. “I definitely want to know more about this warning. Would like to read it, even, when we have a chance. But when do you intend for us to head out?”

“We?” The word almost choked in Scorio’s throat. “I don’t expect you all to sacrifice your—”

“Oh, come off it,” said Lianshi. “You tell us we can’t trust the Houses and Academy, then expect us to stay behind and remain part of that system?”

“I didn’t necessarily assume you’d believe me—”

“He’s very slow,” said Leonis patiently to Juniper and Zala.

Tears pricked at Scorio’s eyes, and a comfortable warmth washed over his face.

“Of course we’re coming,” snapped Naomi. “That was always our plan, in the end, wasn’t it? Escape to the Rascor Plains?”

“Jova?” Zala lowered her head to catch Jova’s downturned gaze. “Are you really doing this?”

Jova pursed her lips, nodded slowly, thoughtfully, then raised her face to meet Zala’s stare full-on. “I am.”

“Bloody chasms,” said Zala. “I mean—” She paused, gave her head a rapid shake. “Well. All right.”

“All right?” asked Leonis.

“If you all will have me, I’ll come, too,” said Zala. “I don’t take Jova’s decisions lightly, and someone needs to come along who can cheer her up. While I don’t understand quite what’s going on, I want to learn more. Whatever this is, I want to be a part of it.”

“Me too,” said Juniper softly. “I feel… called. I can’t explain it. Perhaps it’s my bond with Lianshi. But I can’t tell you what I felt when you both turned down the chancellor’s offer. I felt my soul sing. As if it had lain dormant for generations, and only now been offered a chance to escape its cage.” Her smile became self-conscious. “So if you’ll have me…”

“That makes seven of us,” said Leonis. “And none of us dead weight. Well, maybe Lianshi, but—”

“Hey!” She thwapped him across the arm.

“What?” He assumed an innocent expression. “Which chamber did you die in again?”

“Oh, you’d better watch it,” said Lianshi, glowering at him.

Scorio felt like laughing. His heart felt full, a sensation he’d briefly felt before, but which now seemed to suffuse him. He looked from Naomi to Leonis, to Lianshi to Juniper, considered Zala, then turned to meet Jova’s steadfast gaze.

“Very well,” he said. “We’ll form a fellowship. My goal—our goal, I suppose—is nigh on impossible. I literally don’t see how it can be done. But I must try. There’s so much to learn. I can’t… if my warning is true—risk the chance of us all being bound to a lie. Our lives yoked to some… travesty that makes us little better than ignorant slaves. I aim to learn the truth or die trying.”

Everyone’s expressions grew sober, and one by one they nodded their affirmation.

“There you go,” said Naomi at last, and her smile was crooked, bittersweet.

“What?” asked Scorio.

“I told you once that if you wanted real power, you were going to need a real desire to achieve it.” She curled her dark hair behind one pale ear. “Looks like you’re finally on track.”

Scorio stared at her, suddenly brought back those first brutal days of training, the awe and fear with which he’d regarded her.

Felt like a lifetime ago.

He grinned, and she grinned right back.

“We’d best clear out of the Academy soon,” said Lianshi. “Praximar won’t take this humiliation lightly.”

“Agreed,” said Scorio, coming back to the moment. “And fortunately, I know just where to go.”

Jova frowned at him. “Where’s that?”

“I have a couple of friends in town. Helena and Feiyan. They contacted a group called Manticore. They were going to help get us out.”

“Manticore?” Juniper stirred uneasily. “Didn’t they almost form their own House a decade ago? Am I thinking of the right group? Had an Imperator who disappeared, and then their organization collapsed?”

“They don’t have a good reputation,” said Jova.

“It’s a way out of here,” said Scorio. “We can evaluate our partnership once we’re out on the Rascor Plains. But yes. I agree with Lianshi. We’d best gather our belongings and quit the Academy before Praximar escapes his ceremonial duties and comes for our blood.”

“Well, then,” said Leonis. “How about we all meet at the western gates in twenty minutes?”

“Agreed,” said Zala. “I don’t have much to collect anyway.” Then she stopped, pressed her palm to her temple, and shook her head. “I can’t believe this is all happening so quickly. This is so exciting!”

Juniper laughed and stepped to the archway of her bedroom. “See you all in twenty minutes then.”

Scorio walked with the others to the doorway, then paused to look back to Jova. She stood alone, pensive, her dark hair raked over to fall past one shoulder, her expression grim, resolute.

“Thank you,” he said. “For deciding to trust me.”

“It’s but the first step,” she said. “You’ll have to earn it from here on out.”

“I mean to do so.”

For a moment they stood thus, gazes locked, then she gave him a grudging smile. “Hurry up, Scorio. You won’t make Infernarch by lingering at my door.”

To which he could only laugh. And heart full, he turned and left with his friends, hurrying down the hallways of the Academy.

THE END OF BOOK 1