Chapter 31 #2
Rook kneels beside me, grabbing me by the shoulders. “What’s wrong? What can I do?”
“The tattoos,” I manage to gasp, pointing with a shaking finger.
Heathan’s forearm markings have appeared, not with the usual blue light of soul-glyphs like Falcen’s, but with an oily blackness. With each powerful swing of his hammer, it spreads up his arms like poison.
“He’s corrupted,” I rasp, my voice not entirely mine as Ember’s influence surges through me.
Rook’s head snaps toward Heathan. “What?”
The two Elites collide again, this time with such force that the ground beneath us trembles. Falcen ducks under a devastating swing and retaliates with a series of lightning-quick strikes that should have cleaved through any normal opponent. But Heathan merely laughs.
“Is that all you have, Reaves?” he taunts. “The months away have made you soft.”
Falcen doesn’t respond with words. His blade flashes, leaving a trail of cobalt light as he launches into a flurry of attacks so fast they blur together. Heathan parries each one, the black glow from his tattoos spreading higher with every impact and scales popping out of his skin, leaking blood.
“I don’t see anything,” Rook says. “Heathan doesn’t have any tattoos.”
I try to stand, but Ember keeps me locked in place, her terror flowing through my limbs like molten lead.
“The Void corruption,” I gasp out again, trying to make Rook understand. “His arms. Can’t you see it?”
But Rook only turns her head back to me in confusion. “What corruption? They’re just fighting, Verily. That’s normal Elite combat.”
Rook’s face blurs as my focus shifts back to the arena. The Elites move like living weapons, their bodies cutting through space with impossible speed. Each collision sends vibrations through the ground beneath my knees. The initiates are cheering now, bloodlust rising with each brutal exchange.
No one else can see it, Ember says. Only we can.
I gouge the ground again, struggling to stand, but Ember keeps me firmly rooted.
I told you to go. But now it’s too late. Now you must stay.
Falcen and Heathan clash again, their weapons creating a thunderous boom that vibrates through my teeth. Heathan fights with growing savagery. His strikes are wilder, more brutal, and the corruption responds to his rage, creeping out of his training leathers and up his neck.
“What are you looking at?” Rook asks, following my fixed stare.
I can barely form sentences through Ember’s grip on me. “Heathan’s skin. It’s changing.”
“It’s just sweat and blood,” Rook says, squinting. “Elite battles are insane.”
But it’s not sweat. It’s not blood. The black veins have reached Heathen’s jaw, spreading by the second.
His eyes have changed, too, the whites disappearing as darkness floods them.
His movements become less human with each passing second, his spine curving impossibly as his muscles bulge against his uniform.
Oh, no. Oh, Lux, please—
Heathan’s head snaps toward me, black eyes clashing against mine. The moment our gazes connect, Ember moans, I’m sorry. I was created to do this.
Ember strains, pulls, ravenous in a way I’ve never experienced with her before.
Heat blazes through my veins as she stretches toward Heathan, and I watch in horror as tendrils of magick extends from my body.
“No,” I whisper. “Not again. What are you doing?”
“I’m not doing anything.” Rook frowns with concern. “I’m here to help you. Verily, do you need a healer?”
“You can’t see it?”
“See what? Verily, you’re scaring me.”
Golden threads float out of my body and toward Heathen, invisible to Rook … and everyone else. No one looks askance at what is impossibly bright to me.
No one except Falcen.
His eyes widen when the tendrils sink into Heathen’s skin, into the black veins and emerging scales. I feel the exact moment they connect, because a rush of putrid darkness runs along the gold and pours into me like tar. Just like the rogue Soulren.
I convulse, falling onto my side as Ember devours what she’s pulling from him. The taste is indescribable. Ancient, rotten, powerful beyond measure. It floods my mouth, my lungs, coiling around my insides with terrible intimacy.
Rook’s voice sounds miles away. “Someone help! She’s seizing!”
No one comes. No one is paying attention.
I’m conscious enough to see the dawning understanding in Falcen. With a roar, he lunges at Heathan, but the corrupted Elite evades with unnatural speed.
Until Heathan’s movements turn jerky, his limbs twitching as Ember keeps pulling the darkness from him. One moment he’s charging forward, the next he’s stumbling sideways, his war hammer dragging through the dirt. His body convulses, too, fighting against whatever Ember is doing to him.
“Reaves,” he snarls. “What the fuck have you done?”
Heathan staggers, dropping to one knee. His war hammer dissolves into particles of light that scatter and fade. He claws at his throat.
Stop, I say to Ember, my lips moving weakly with the inner plea. You’re killing him.
I am saving you, she insists.
My limbs jerk against the ground as Ember gorges herself on the darkness she’s pulling from him. Each swallow sends waves of nausea through me, but she won’t release her hold.
“It’s not you, is it? It’s the girl,” Heathen snarls, taking an unsteady step in my direction. “The remnant’s doing this.”
The corruption has overtaken half of Heathen’s face now, black veins writhing beneath skin that’s stretching, splitting to reveal scales.
But Falcen and I are the only ones reacting to it. Is nobody seeing what we are?
Heathan’s legs coil beneath him. Muscles bulge against his uniform as he launches himself across the arena in a single, inhuman bound. Dirt explodes where his feet leave the ground.
Twenty feet. Fifteen. His claws—when did his fingernails become claws?—arc toward my face.
Falcen’s blade catches him mid-leap, the impact sending both men slamming into the arena wall three feet from where I lay.
Gone is Falcen’s calculated fighting style, the precise strikes and defensive positioning. Now he’s pure aggression, his soul-sword carving brutal curvatures through the air to drive Heathan back.
“You don’t touch her,” Falcen warns, but his voice carries none of its usual control.
The Master Keeper leans forward on his platform, and though I can’t see his face beneath the skull mask, I catch the subtle tilt of his head. Like he’s observing something he expected.
Heathan lunges again, not at Falcen but around him, trying to reach me. Falcen intercepts with a vicious strike that opens a gash across Heathan’s shoulder, but the corrupted Elite barely flinches.
Heathan’s movements become more erratic, his body fighting against itself. One moment he’s lunging forward, the next he’s stumbling back, as if warring with whatever Ember is doing to him.
“Make it stop!” Heathan roars, clawing at his throat as more scales burst through his skin.
Falcen doesn’t respond. He’s abandoned any pretense of an honorable duel, using his body as a barrier, forcing Heathan to go through him to get to me.
“Kill me,” Heathen suddenly gasps, his words garbled through a mouth that’s reshaping itself. “Before I—before I become—”
Falcen’s face remains expressionless, but his eyes betray him. The grief returns.
Heathen falls to his knees, his black eyes fixed on mine as Ember continues to pull the corruption from him. The golden tendrils connecting us vibrate with effort, and I feel her strain as she tries to consume it all.
Falcen’s soul-sword gleams bright against the oiled black surrounding us, its light cutting through the haze. Falcen takes in the scene, me, Heathen, then looks up to the Master Keeper, lines of concern replacing his warrior expression.
Then back to me.
“Forgive me,” Falcen rasps, the words not meant for my ears.
Falcen’s blade slides into Heathen’s chest, angled upward to pierce his heart. It’s not a killing blow meant to end a monster, but a mercy strike to free a comrade.
Ember wails inside me, her golden tendrils retracting violently as Heathen’s body sags against Falcen’s sword.
The sudden severance throws me backward, my skull cracking against the ground.
Stars burst behind my eyes as the world fragments into shards of light and dark. I taste copper and dirt and the rank tinge of whatever corruption Ember was feasting on.
The arena’s gone silent. The cheering stopped the moment Falcen’s blade pierced Heathen’s chest, replaced by a stunned hush that feels like the inhale before a scream.
“Verily,” Rook whispers, her face swimming into view above me. “Can you hear me?”
I try to nod, but my body refuses to obey. Ember has retreated deep inside me, curled tight like a wounded animal and leaving me shaking and cold.
The Master Keeper descends from his platform, his mask dulled when compared to Falcen’s sword, but it stays fixed on Falcen and me.
Falcen’s hand appears in my peripheral vision, streaked with Heathan’s blood. I take it, letting him pull me to my feet, but his grip is wrong. Too tight, like he’s still primed for a fight that should be over.
“And there we have it, initiates,” the Master Keeper commends.
“A true battle, the likes of which you would only see outside these walls. Elite Barnes served the academy faithfully for twelve years. A shame to lose such experience, but combat assessments carry inherent risks. Some lessons require such sacrifice in order to preserve the health of the realm. Elite Reaves, don’t you agree? ”
Falcen doesn’t answer. I’m shocked to still feel his hand embracing mine. Firmly, like it’s not going anywhere, and I’m put at immediate unease by his stance as the Master Keeper approaches.
Falcen flexes his sword hand and his weapon evaporates.
The Master Keeper tilts his head, and I catch the slight pause before he continues. “Though I confess, Elite Reaves, your tactical shift during the engagement was unexpected. One might have assumed you’d press your advantage when Barnes began to falter.”