Emre had expected some fallout from disentangling Cadrianna from the lies. Void, he’d even expected her to show outward violence toward him for his betrayal. But he hadn’t planned for her to confront him in the center of the party.
Tevun would’ve had a number of unsubtle words to say about his failure to think ahead.
Like stalks of wheat being shorn by enormous aethecite harvesters, the guests of Drenth fell upon one another. Screams of pain, shouts of horror, bellows of terror pierced the once festive evenfall. The music died; the vocalist’s song ended like a knife severing. Broken pieces of marble rained down, interpolated by cleanish fuel-water. Gargantua shook as the raised dance floor split.
Men and women scrambled over one another. Blood-covered faces, peppered with dust as they clawed through an undulating wave of mortality trying to escape. Tables overturned, chairs kicked, bushes trampled, glasses broken under heeled shoes and boots as hundreds scrambled through the wooden doors toward the gondolas.
Everything underfoot quailed intensely from further detonations in the interior of Gargantua. There was a thunderous snap in the air like the sound of a mountain parting from apex to base. The crowd stopped at once, afraid and terrified.
Like a giant whip being cracked, one of the tethers arched through the sky, rising like a metal seagandr, groaning in a gasp of mutilated steel. The whole of Gargantua floundered, teetering toward the lost anchor. Another blast signaled the tether opposite also blew free. The flying fortress wobbled, unbalanced as the two remaining anchors tried to keep it steady. People fell from their feet again.
Burning aetheurgy, Emre wove through the jungle of fallen people as he sought the staircase that led into the compound of Gargantua. Emre barreled through a maze of white halls and metal doors. Lapin and Imperium servants scurried hither and tither in frenzy, paying him no mind, only concerned about fleeing the shaking fortress.
A unit of soldiers hurried around a corner ahead, causing Emre to duck into a doorway. The clop-clop-clop of soldiering boots echoed in his direction, getting louder as the distance lessened. He held his breath, ready to burn his parch, and waited for the enemy to appear at any moment. But the soldiers turned, their footfalls disappearing down an adjoining corridor.
All was empty in the hall amid the aethecite lighting as another series of quakes shook the fortress, sending some glass from the light orbs crashing to the ground. Emre consulted the map hidden in his waistcoat pocket before extricating himself from the doorway.
After a series of turns, Emre found what he was looking for: a portal leading to a library. At the door’s terminal, he entered the code one of his spies had given him. The door slid open silently. All was empty.
Or so he thought.
Click.
Emre dove through the doorway as he burned aetheurgy. Gunfire battered the wall where he had been moments before. Rolling into a crouch, he found cover behind a waist-high, wooden chest nestled next to a sofa. Fluffs of down exploded into the air as Ignis-infused gunshots riddled the cushions and embedded into the wooden chest.
The firing stopped and Emre launched himself over the couch with aetheurgy-enhanced speed. Two guards positioned behind palatial chairs with multiple throw pillows were in the middle of reloading their wheellock rifles when he landed between them.
Kicking upward, he struck one soldier upside the head. Down the man went as he drew the knife from the soldier’s belt sheath. Emre lashed at the other with the blade. The soldier blocked it with his rifle, using the butt as a counter. Emre bounced away and aimed a punch into the man’s opposite arm, jarring the gun loose from the soldier’s grip.
The soldier backed away and Emre felt a slight tinge in the air around them. Shit, this isn’t an ordinary guard. A scourge!
The scourge grabbed the chair and swung it at him with aetheric strength, narrowly missing his skull. The chair shattered upon the wall in a cascade of feathers and wooden bits. The scourge drew his own blade.
Emre could feel his parch reserves starting to ebb, so he withdrew, fists held up. Sensing his hesitation, the scourge attacked. His dwindling aetheurgy was no match for the other’s. Emre blocked too late, and the scourge’s blade left a two-inch slice upon his upper arm. Another too early, faltering judgment allowed a second gash to open along his thigh. A clenched fist connected with his side, sending misery throughout his insides as he went flying into the couch.
Reaching down instinctively, Emre brandished one of the throw pillows as the scourge stabbed with his knife, feathers pouring from the long slice within the fabric. Emre stumbled back as the pillow was yanked from his hands, making him trip over the knee-high table, and toppled to the ground. The scourge closed in, his impending doom all but certain.
A pale blur flew into his peripheral vision striking the scourge, the man’s head cracked viciously to the side. Once more, twice, thrice times head flinging side-to-side by punches. Down into a battered heap the scourge went.
The pale blur turned out to be Val.
A chime of bracelets, knuckles covered in drake scale punchers reached down to help him to his feet.
“Took you long enough,” he breathed.
“I had to see to things,” she whispered, barely breathing hard from the assertion.
Things… steel it, Benld. You know what comes. “Let’s go. Finn’s waiting.” With that, Emre pulled Val into the hall.
A bullet pinged off the wall nearby.
Another Imperium soldier fired from the doorway. Emre spied more rushing down the hallway. Val leapt through the air, knee raised high and brought the drake scale punchers down into the soldier’s collarbone. The man dropped his wheellock rifle and yelped. In a fluid motion, Val kicked up the soldier’s rifle and shot him, warm aetheric smoke rising. Lifting a hand, her bracelets glowed fiercely as her Vision Form came alive as she drew upon the gun’s smoke. Throwing her hand outward, Val unleashed a torrent of Ignis flames into their soldiers heading their way, fire shearing through the unprotected bodies.
“So much for secrecy until the end.” Val straightened the veil over her face.
“Always going to be this way. Just a tad earlier than expected.”
“Lojen and Ruane sure did their part.”
“Val, you didn’t see Brynn after the explosions, did you?”
She shook her head, but there was something lingering behind the veil that told Emre indicated otherwise. “Too much dust.” Her bottom lip quivered minutely.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said with a tight smile that showed no teeth. “She’s been pushed.”
“What do you mean ‘pushed’?”
“Cadrianna needed to know that she was lost. Before she confronted you, I saw that she was on the fence, and if I didn’t push her, she wouldn’t follow through. Her will is sound, but her heart asunder. If I didn’t intervene, she would fail. I had to give her the key.” Even behind the veil, Emre could see the tears welling. He grabbed her hand and squeezed. “If I didn’t give her the blade, she wouldn’t be able to face the darkness in her soul. It has a power over her. It has given her the foundation of everything she’s become. Her training, her sense of self, everything has been channeled through that weapon. She believes it the only way to save Brynn. It’s bonded to one of the Gods, Emre.” She looked away, ashamed. “I had to give the blade back, otherwise Cadrianna wouldn’t crack. It’s the last tie to her old life that must be broken.” Tears trickled from the bottom of the veil. “The one that has to…” she couldn’t finish.
Slow understanding came to him of the enormity of what Val had done. He pulled the bikrome in, hugging her as she sobbed. Cadrianna’s aetheurgy must have frightened the seer, for Emre had never seen her break down like this before. She was always the strong one, the rock. Bliss had chosen a strong woman, but even the strong broke from time to time.
“You did what you had to do. Nothing about this day has been easy. None of what will come will make it any easier. You did the right thing.”
“I… forgive me… I…” Val broke away. “Hear that?”
A scrape down the hall. A clack and a chirp. Emre burned the last of his aetheurgy, the silvery sheen of Burn Form jostled his senses. Metal shimmered in the silver glean. “Slag, automaton.” A wheeze of combustion indicated the sentry drone was close, maybe a single corner down. He gave Val a wry grin. “This one’s on me. Try not to get yourself killed just yet.”
