Chapter 21

She took a few heavy breaths before answering. She considered refusing, but it wasn’t a secret. “Remnant…fed on…my spirit.” A few more gulps of air. “Brother…killed him…halfway.”

He nodded, chin in his hand, frowning like she’d given him a riddle. “You had to have seen healers. What did they try?”

Was he some kind of…traveling spirit-healer? With eyes that could turn black, and a beast rattling around in the other room?

Or was he trying to get to know her so that she would agree to leave?

She debated for a long moment, but eventually told him. If he meant her any harm, he could have killed her without lifting a hand. “Channels…core, need…repaired. Expensive…elixir. Then…pure madra…for core.”

Jai Long usually gave her longer breaks between sentences, and he and Sandviper Kral were the only ones who ever talked to her. She cycled madra to her lungs as best she could, though the energy tried to squirm out of her grip.

He knelt in front of her, pulling his pack off and setting it down. This close, she could see black scorch-marks on the canvas.

In a low, crooning voice she couldn’t hear, he murmured to something inside the pack. Was there an animal in there? She flinched back against the bed, imagining the sandvipers from the Desolate Wilds. They would crawl into packs sometimes. Or boots. Or beds.

A moment later, a girl the size of a hand popped out of the pack. She looked like a Remnant of water madra, blue the color of a sunlit lake, but far more solid and detailed. Her head bobbed as sapphire eyes scanned Jai Chen from head to toe.

Cute. For a moment, she wondered if this man would let him pet the little Remnant.

“What do you think?” he murmured, and it took Jai Chen a breath to realize he was talking to the spirit. The miniature woman pulled herself entirely out of the pack, her legs flaring into an azure dress—Jai Chen wasn’t sure if she was wearing a dress, or if her bottom half just fluttered out.

The spirit considered her for a second, then jogged up to Jai Chen. They locked eyes for a moment, and she lowered a hand to pat the little woman on the head.

The Remnant hopped onto her palm and scurried up her arm. Jai Chen barely had time to gasp before the spirit slapped her on the cheek. It was like being slapped by a raindrop.

But the real surprise came from her spirit. A deep blue power rolled through the madra channels in her head, sliding through her like mercury. Her madra tried to squirm away, but it couldn’t escape: the blue power slid through it…

…and where the tiny spirit’s azure power passed, she regained control of her madra. She must have jerked like a spooked horse, because the man looked concerned, but she couldn’t explain. Her power still moved, it still slithered in a way that normal madra didn’t, but it was hers again.

Then the liquid blue spark ran into a broken madra channel, and Jai Chen slammed against the floor. Her consciousness dimmed, and a sharp pain rang through her spirit. The foreign light faded as it tried to push through her broken channel, like it expended something of itself to drill through.

Her limbs started twitching, but she was afraid the blue light would stop. Go, she urged it. Break through.

“I need another one,” the man said distantly, and there came a sound like muffled bells. “I know you’re tired, and I’m sorry. I’ll feed you scales until you explode.”

Jai Chen cracked an eye to see the spirit returning to her, tiny blue fingers extended. She looked more pale than earlier, like a winter sky.

A second sapphire light joined the first, then a third. They drilled through her channels, shaking her limbs until he had to hold her down, but they were doing it. They were drilling new connections through her madra channels. Where they passed, the loops of light were connected again, healthy and free.

The first light was soon extinguished, but when the second and third converged on the core, she blacked out.

…only for an instant, it seemed, because she woke up to the same situation and a man’s voice saying, “Forgiveness. I only know how to do this as an attack.”

She braced herself before a hand struck her in the stomach.

The blow itself was light, but a rush of madra flooded into her, scattering her core, forking like lightning through her channels in reverse. Her madra was scattered, her circulation broken, and even her living madra seemed stunned.

But more madra came in behind it, like a tide. The first pulse had broken the damage, and now his energy filled her, settling into her new channels. It filled her, stretching her core, soaking into her spirit. This must be pure madra, because her soul accepted it gladly, even her serpentine power not resisting at all.

As a test, she cycled madra to her lungs, trying to Enforce herself as she usually did to breathe.

Opening her mouth, she took her first full breath in years.

Her spirit was weak, her core tiny and dim, and her madra channels felt tender as burned skin. Her entire soul ached, and spiritual pain was deeper than physical.

But she could cycle now. Madra ran from her core in loops, flooding her body, bringing life, and returning to the core unobstructed. She lifted her hand, and it didn’t feel like trying to lift a brick with a willow switch. She could move.

The blue spirit curled up on the man’s shoulder like an exhausted dog. She was shivering and almost white, and the broken door was visible through her body.

The man rose, standing over Jai Chen. He scanned her again, letting out a breath of relief. “My name is Wei Shi Lindon. I can leave you behind, if you tell your brother what happened tonight. Will you do that?” She was focused on breathing. How much sheer joy could be packed into a single breath?

“Lindon,” he repeated. “Will you remember that? Do you want me to write it down?”

“Wei Shi Lindon,” she said, and she didn’t have to pause to gulp down air between each word. “Yes. I will remember, and I’ll tell him, I…”

She trailed off as she realized her hair was a mess, her bedclothes were askew, and she was huddling on the floor in front of him. They were back in the real Empire now—appearances would matter to this young man.

Jai Chen straightened, hurriedly smoothing out her clothes, but her legs were still unsteady. She caught herself on the edge of a desk, and avoided his gaze; she didn’t want to see him judging her. “My name is Jai Chen. I’ve never hosted a guest, so I’m not sure what I can…but I don’t want to be rude to…”

Lindon held up both hands to stop her. “No, please. I can’t stay long anyway; I told the old men outside I was on Arelius family business, but they could come in here with spears at any time.”

But he didn’t leave. He paused awkwardly, as though he meant to say something else. Her spirit shivered again.

Jai Chen risked a glance up at his face and realized he was staring intently, almost glaring, at her stomach. Which was only covered by a thin layer of silk.

She didn’t want to be rude, but…Slowly, she moved her hands to cover her stomach.

His head jerked up. “What? Ah, excuse me.” His eyes climbed away from her until he was staring at the ceiling. “I was looking at your core. This might be a rude question, but is your madra alive?”

Her madra was still as animated as before, but this time it was on her side. Her spirit didn’t fight her anymore; it was almost as though it fought for her, slithering along according to her cycling technique.

“It used to fight me,” she told him. “I think your Remnant brought it under my control. Thank her for me, if you would.”

He returned to looking at her stomach, realized what he was doing, and jerked his eyes to the side. “Her madra cleanses and restores, I think. She helped me too.” He patted the sleeping spirit on his shoulder.

“Ah, I have to go. Please tell your brother: I’m Wei Shi Lindon, and I’d be much happier if we didn’t have to fight.”

She felt dazed, wondering if this was somehow a trick and her spirit would collapse into wreckage again. If she didn’t, then she owed him a debt she didn’t know how to repay.

Because she didn’t know how else to express that, she bowed. “Thank you,” she said at last.

Lindon was staring at her again, but at least it was at her face this time. “This may sound terrible, but have we met before? If I’ve forgotten you, I apologize, but you seem familiar to me.”

Jai Chen had heard about him from her brother, but she’d never seen him in her life. “Maybe I look like…” She cut herself off before realizing what she’d been about to say.

“No, I’ve never seen his face,” Lindon said. He shook his head. “Anyway, if you’ll excuse me.” He gave a little smile, bobbed his head, and started to walk out.

Without knowing why, Jai Chen spoke to his retreating back. “Um…did you kill young master Kral?”

He stopped, hitching up his pack. The heavy monster in the other room growled again.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Jai Chen,” Lindon said, without turning around. “If I’ve done anything wrong, or if you need her help again…” He patted the sleeping woman on his shoulder. “…then you can find me at the Arelius family. I’m sorry for disturbing your night.”

He walked out, pausing briefly in the dusty wreckage of what once had been the door to her room. A moment later, he opened the front door, and she got a glimpse of the outside world through the hole in her bedroom wall.

A Jai clan warrior in blue held a spear at Lindon’s chest, while an elder to the left looked nervous.

Lindon turned his head, meeting the elder’s eyes, and the old man flinched visibly. Jai Chen could understand; if his eyes had turned black and red again, the elder could be forgiven for thinking he was a death Remnant in human skin.

Then Lindon dipped into a bow, his pack bobbing behind him. “Thank you for your patience,” he said, and walked away.

A giant turtle followed him, big as a horse, munching on a chair as it left—a couple of painted legs disappeared into its lips as it rounded a corner. The doorway was already damaged where the sacred beast passed through earlier, and the frame shattered further this time.

Smoke rose from the giant turtle’s shell, and the cracks between the plates smoldered red. The sacred beast growled in Lindon’s wake, snorting black fire at the elder on the outside. The old man yelped and hopped back in time to avoid burning his toes.

After a moment of debate, the Jai clan members shut the remainder of the front door without asking her a word.

Jai Chen sat down on the edge of her bed, stunned. So much had happened in such a short time that she felt like she’d been slapped in the face. Now that she thought of it, she had been slapped in the face.

But she could move again.

Ordinarily, she had to be careful when she opened her wardrobe, so she didn’t strain herself. Now, she opened and closed the door. Open and closed. Open and closed.

Her brother found her half an hour later, standing on her own two feet and opening and closing her wardrobe.

His mask had torn, exposing the lower half of his face. His skin was pale and tinged with blue, his jaw swollen and misshapen, and light leaked from between his lips as he spoke. “What did they do to you?”

He sounded ready to find someone to murder.

Jai Long was standing in the ashes of what had once been her doorway. She must have looked insane, standing in her bedclothes with her wardrobe door in one hand.

And tears were running down her cheeks. Her eyes were swollen, her nose stuffed, and she’d been sobbing. When had she started crying?

Jai Long walked over to her, gently guiding her closer to bed, but she pushed back against him. He noticed her strength and his eyes widened between the remaining strips of his mask. “Tell me what happened,” he demanded, and her spirit shivered at the touch of his scan.

Her voice was quivering, and she was still uncertain about many of the details.

But she told him.

***

Jai Daishou woke on a crumbling, icy cliff inside a pile of moon-white Remnant parts. They were already dissolving in streams of essence, so he must look like he was bathed in stars.

Which was no comfort to a man who had just died.

His limbs trembled as he hauled his way to his feet, his joints screaming like he’d packed them with broken glass. Every breath was agony, and his vision blurred.

He pushed the palm of his hand against his aching head, trying to shake loose his memory.

An image snapped into place: Eithan Arelius, standing over him with face bloody, hair blowing in the wind, scissors held against Jai Daishou’s throat.

Snip.

Pain, blood, absolute exhaustion…and something breaking in his soul.

He ran a thumb over the fresh, tender scar on his throat and shivered despite decades of self-control. Without his good fortune years ago, he would have lost his life tonight.

The Underlord plunged his awareness into his spirit, looking for a black-and-red ornate box that usually floated above his core. The Heartguard Chest was a spiritual object, a treasure he’d plundered from an ancient clan of Soulsmiths, but it had an invaluable function.

It contained enough blood and life madra to save you from death once. And only once. He’d thought it might prolong his lifespan for a few months, when time eventually claimed its due.

Sure enough, the box was open, and the Chest itself melting away to nothing. Jai Daishou had spent months filling it with a decoy Remnant, one convincing enough to fool—it seemed—even Eithan Arelius himself.

He coughed heavily into his hand, the force rattling his bones, and he was surprised when he didn’t find blood in his palm. Even with the healing of the Heartguard Chest, his body was finished. He was held together by little more than hope and wishes.

If he lived out the year, it would be because the heavens smiled on him.

He cycled what little madra remained, his channels burning, his core throbbing like a bruised muscle. He needed his remaining elders to find him alive.

Before Eithan Arelius did.

Because Jai Daishou was the only one in the Empire to know the truth about the Arelius family Underlord. Pure madra. He’d always thought of Eithan as nothing but an overgrown child, and he was more right than he could have known.

He wouldn’t die until he could plant that knowledge like a dagger in Eithan’s heart.

***

Iteration 216: Limit

Iteration 217 Harrow

TERMINATED

As Harrow and Limit dissolved and crumbled away into the void, Suriel witnessed once again the death of an Iteration.

The endless darkness of empty space had peeled away first, like black wallpaper peeling away…only to reveal an even deeper hole. The void surrounded them, infinite nothing dotted with swirling balls of color, like a rainbow of fireflies dancing in the night.

The planet itself faded away like a ghost, leaving fragments: pieces of the planet with a strong enough identity to hold together even in the chaos of the void. There, a disc of earth holding a forest spun into the distance, its trees frozen in a wind that no longer blew.

Time worked strangely in the void. Fragments tended to either live the same moments in a loop or to freeze entirely, waiting to join back into an Iteration. Fragments with inhabitants crawled along, their time drifting slowly forward, but the inhabitants tended not to fare well.

She had sent Ozriel’s population shelter straight to Pioneer 8089. With a population of over thirteen million, they had good odds of surviving until their world stabilized into a true Iteration.

Of course, if the Abidan didn’t survive Ozriel’s absence, it wouldn’t matter.

Iterations were like fruits, and the Way was the vine. So long as the worlds were healthy and connected to the Way, they enjoyed luxuries like causality and existence. As a world’s population shriveled, that strained its connection to the Way, which invited infection.

Whenever a corrupted world—like Limit and Harrow—broke into fragments, those pieces still contained some of their corruption. Corrupted fragments were like parasites, drifting up and down the vine, looking for healthy fruits to infest. When that world was corrupted, it broke into diseased fragments as well, and the corruption spread exponentially.

A few thousand standard years ago, the Abidan could only care for two hundred and fifty Iterations. That was as far as they could stretch their forces, because they had to protect each world from the chaos-tainted fragments that hunted the edges of the Way.

When Ozriel appeared, someone who could dispose of a corrupted world without breaking it into toxic pieces, the Abidan went through a period of explosive growth. They stitched healthy fragments together into new Iterations, spinning out new universes that they could protect.

Without infected world fragments flying around, they could expand without worry. And they did.

Suriel and her predecessor had known the danger of putting the weight of their entire system on a single component—Ozriel—but they were saving lives. Every Iteration under Abidan protection was another reality not left to the ravages of chaos or the Vroshir.

And everyone agreed: they would replace Ozriel as soon as they found another candidate.

The problem was, they had never found one. And they’d kept expanding.

They held ten thousand worlds now, with only enough Abidan to secure two and a half percent of that number. If any of the other Judges had gone missing, they could have found someone else to fill their function, but not Ozriel. He was irreplaceable.

And now, in all likelihood, dead.

[The probability of Ozriel’s death is unknown,] her Presence said, its voice robotic and cool. [If he is capable of hiding from the Court of Seven, he is capable of faking his own death.]

He had left a fractured message behind with just enough information to allow her to reconstruct its contents. And a body’s worth of unidentifiable blood and decay staining the walls. And evidence of a battle that had conveniently not spilled over into the room where the rescued inhabitants of Limit lay sleeping.

But there was no reason to fake his death. Makiel wouldn’t believe it, so Suriel couldn’t call off the search. And if he were pretending to be dead, he wouldn’t have left her instructions on what to do in his absence.

He had most likely been attacked while preparing to disappear, and either been killed or driven deeper into hiding.

She had to assume he was dead. If he was still alive and hiding even from her, she’d never find him until he wanted her to. The only logical step was to proceed as though he had been killed here.

His death was another weight on her soul. She had known everything: the pressure they put on him, his desire to change the restrictive rules of the Abidan, Makiel’s refusal to listen. She could have joined him, lobbied for change.

Another chunk of the planet crumbled to nothing, leaving a loose collection of fragments drifting in an ocean of nothing. A slice of city spun away, all but frozen in time. A great machine of springs and copper gears kept pumping away as it tumbled into the distance, and a hundred-kilometer mass of flesh and limbs drifted away.

Ozriel had finally taken matters into his own hands, as he always did. He’d manipulated Fate so that no one could see his departure coming—if anyone could twist the future to such a degree, Ozriel could. He’d prepared to minimize the damage of his absence, but he’d been caught.

But who had caught him?

[Entities confirmed capable of killing Ozriel, while he is fully armed and aware: NOT FOUND.]

Well, that was telling.

[Entities possibly capable, though not confirmed:]

The possibilities spooled out in Suriel’s consciousness, a mix of images, text, and memory.

Information requested: Judge Killers

Beginning report…

Vroshir:

Our information on Vroshir worlds is limited, so the capabilities of the Vroshir themselves are largely unknown. Only a handful are projected to possess combat power that rivals a Judge.

The Silverlords gather armies from the worlds they conquer. Between them, they may have found a combination of specialists and assassins capable of catching Ozriel unaware.

The Horseman rides from world to world, gathering energy systems and replicating their effects. He has demonstrated capabilities from at least thirteen dead worlds, and under certain conditions, he could have bypassed Ozriel’s protection.

The Mad King hosts an entity that has killed Judges before, but the Court would have been notified if he had left his Iteration. If he has found a way to cross the Way without alerting Sector Control, then he represents a Class One threat.

The Angler has stolen six weapons from Abidan Iterations, and she remains at large. Her confirmed arsenal holds nothing that could threaten the Reaper, but certainly possesses other weapons beyond the knowledge of the Court.

Fiends of Chaos:

True Fiends defy classification by nature, and the only individuals known capable of threatening Judges remain imprisoned in Asylum. Also, no Fiend has ever demonstrated the ability to pass into existence without disturbing the Way, and the Spider Division has reported no such violation near Harrow or Limit prior to Limit’s expiration.

If a Fiend capable of doing battle with Ozriel has passed through the Way undetected, current quarantine levels are insufficient. Contact the other Judges to prepare for system collapse.

Abidan:

For security reasons, each Judge’s combat potential is not available for access. However, inferences can be made from publicly available data.

Razael, the Wolf, has expressed a personal grudge against Ozriel since the creation of the Reaper’s office. She was capable of depopulating an Iteration even before her first conscious contact with the Way, and Razael’s Sword was designed for the execution of Judges and Class One threats. The Wolf Division contains many destructive powers that are not public record, and Ozriel may have underestimated them.

Makiel, the Hound. As the Judge of Fate, he is the only individual whose prediction skills rival Ozriel’s. In combat power alone, he was once considered capable of assuming the role of Razael, though he declined the mantle. He has attempted to replace Ozriel many times, fought to deny Ozriel the rank of Judge, and led the opposition to all Ozriel’s proposed modifications to the Eledari Pact. With the Reaper gone, he will propose an imperfect replacement within the standard year, and unofficial reports suggest he has been developing his own Scythe.

Due to the personal biases involved, an encounter between Makiel and Ozriel is virtually guaranteed to end in conflict.

Report complete.

As the report faded away, so did Harrow. Suriel drifted in a black nothingness like the darkness of space, with swirling balls of color instead of stars. They were world fragments—one of the closer spots carried the fractured black tower from Harrow. Another fragment was a shining blue bubble with an island floating inside; water streamed down from the island and hit the bubble, looping up the inside to fall as rain.

The power of the Way was weak here, where chaos thrived. Each fragment was a little pocket of order and energy, which could someday be combined once again into a new Iteration.

With Gadrael’s isolation gone, her information requests arrived from Cradle one after the other:

Lindon and Yerin, together, left Sacred Valley and went into the Desolate Wilds.

He was trained by a local Soulsmith in the very basics of the art.

They encountered the Transcendent Ruins, where they were the first to retrieve the treasure at the top.

Lindon killed a Highgold, initiating a rivalry with a young man named Jai Long. Good. Pressure would help him grow. His sister was more interesting: she would have met Lindon in a few more years, if not for Suriel’s interference.

The exact nature of their relationship would have changed depending on several factors, but the destiny between them must have been quite strong to survive Lindon’s divergence.

A minor point of interest, nothing alarming. Fate adjusted for such small variations as a matter of course.

After a few moments of reviewing her Presence’s predicted future for Lindon and Jai Long, Suriel noticed a handful of gaps. She reviewed the data, pulling up extra information, comparing the reports.

Finally, she found what her automated requests had overlooked.

The Arelius family.

A young Underlord had found Lindon and Yerin, adopting them, and taken them back into the Blackflame Empire for training.

Suriel frowned. That could be a problem. She was familiar with the Arelius family—or rather, their ancestors—and they hadn’t come anywhere near Lindon in any of her projections. Why would they? He was a weak child from nowhere.

She tore open a blue hole in the void, stepping into the Way: the power of order washed over her, soothing and empowering, soaking her body and mind in comfort.

Here, she was close to every Iteration of reality. She could get some answers.

Through her Presence, she reached out to Cradle, requesting information on Wei Shi Lindon.

[Significant deviations detected,] her Presence announced. [Entity Wei Shi Lindon has deviated from primary course. Any analysis of current conditions or projections of future activity will have a low degree of accuracy.]

She’d made a mistake somewhere, but a quick review of her actions found nothing to account for this degree of change. She’d altered his future, true, but she should still be able to call up information about his current status.

If her Presence couldn’t even connect to the fate of Cradle, then something was badly off-course. None of her assumptions were reliable any longer.

And all of her predictions were wrong.

Irritation growing, she requested general information about the status of Iteration One-one-zero.

[Iteration One-one-zero has deviated from primary course. Any relevant information will have a low degree of accuracy. Direct contact with Iteration is recommended to ensure precision.]

Suriel cut off her physical reactions before she could feel irritation, anger, and uncertainty.

Abidan were allowed a certain degree of autonomy when responding to a spatial or temporal violation, especially Judges. She was permitted to alter the course of many individual lives, so long as the fate of the world remained intact.

Nothing she’d done should have violated those restrictions. Even if Wei Shi Lindon defied all odds and transcended Cradle, it would only mean one more potential Abidan recruit. On a cosmic scale, that was virtually irrelevant. Cradle wouldn’t notice when he was gone.

Something else had changed.

The Hound Division would have seen this. She had to go back to Cradle and determine the origin of this deviation before—

An eyeball the size of her head popped into being in front of her. A human eye, in appearance: pure white sclera, black pupil, purple iris ringed with symbols like a Cradle script-circle.

It looked very much like one of her eyes, in fact, only larger.

[Judge designation zero-zero-six, Suriel,] Makiel’s Presence said, by way of greeting. [Please travel to the following coordinates. Judge designation zero-zero-one, Makiel, requests a meeting.]