1. A Story of Survival #3
The Shadow Sword stood over Tarantula, holding a small square device in one hand. He turned the round dial up with his thumb, and sparks intensified, leaping from the collar as Tarantula writhed.
A fog of blue rolled through the hall at our feet. It tendrilled into long strands and slowly rose, heading for the shock collar.
The Mist.
No one knew where it came from, just that centuries ago the Mist appeared and spread across Antichthon like wildfire, shutting down all working technology. It was why the aircraft in the hangar were mostly unused and only a few helicopters were taken out for short training exercises.
Tarantula crawled toward me, teeth bared savagely as he fought through the electricity.
The Shadow Sword turned down the dial before the Mist could render it inert. Then he expertly brandished his sword, pressing the point to Tarantula’s forehead, halting him.
Tarantula leaned into the blade, blood welling as he ignored everyone else and smiled cruelly up at me.
“I’m going to kill you,” I mouthed silently, meaning every word.
Tarantula winked mockingly like he had a secret.
“Number Six, come with me,” the Admiral said, and I obeyed on instinct, following behind him, desperate to put space between myself and the man on all fours. Between the dire scorpion and now Tarantula, my nerves were shot.
Zaps sizzled as the electrocution resumed in the hushed hall behind us, but Tarantula took it silently. An abnormal gust of icy wind whispered across my neck.
I glanced back.
The white bottoms of Tarantula’s eyes were visible, giving him an inhuman appearance. The magic-dampening diamonds glittered on his shock collar as phantom fingers of wind wrapped around my throat.
The sensation whispering across my neck couldn’t be his storm magic.
Right. Right?
A few minutes later, I wiped dried blood off my face and tried to calm my racing heart as I stood in front of the Marshal in an empty room. The Admiral had bowed low as soon as we entered, then left alongside the Marshal’s cadre of Shadow Swords, giving us privacy.
The Marshal—Kalen Reeves—wore her signature red suit and black cape, the dark material draped behind her.
A horizontal scar bisected her forehead, and on her right breast gleamed the oversized gold pin of a Knight on a horse.
She also wore a tight red cap that designated her rank.
Her blue eyes were unsettlingly shrewd up close, and it felt like she was staring through me.
Her opinion of me was stark across her face—Northern peasant. I regretted voting for her.
She was supposed to defeat the Empire and end the Storm Wars, not keep the most dangerous Royal Mage alive and let him walk around the base.
In the tense silence, her gaze narrowed on the facial scars that I knew were stark against my bronze skin.
The ones on my spine were worse, but I always kept them covered.
She focused on the longest scar, which bisected my eyebrow and the corner of my lip.
Unlike the rest of my white marks, it glittered a metallic silver, the color of storm magic.
In my very first week apprenticing in the North, I got separated from Gareth. A dire bear charged out of nowhere, swiping its claws across my face and back as I twisted away hopelessly.
Strangely I’d woken up the same day, tucked safely in my bed, with the gaping wounds fully healed. Someday I’d find out what my magical scar meant, but for now, I was just grateful to be alive.
Lucky, lucky girl.
“You saved recruit Kane’s life,” the Marshal finally said, her voice deep and commanding. “His family is extremely prominent in the Middlelands. What do you want as a reward? I can offer you a higher salary, time off, or honorable leave of service—”
“Put me through the Iron Ritual,” I blurted.
The Marshal blinked rapidly. “Excuse . . . me?”
The secretive ritual was infamously held on this base. It had a minuscule survival rate—a one in one hundred thousand chance—but those rare few who lived developed a unique form of defensive magic that dissipated storms.
They became magical Knight Mages and weapons of the Commonwealth in the Storm Wars. Their sole life’s purpose was to battle against Royal Mages, the magical storm-wielding elite of the Draconis Empire.
I needed magic if I was ever going to get revenge on the Emperor and properly ruin Tarantula. The North would starve to death if their reign of terror continued unchecked.
“You’ll die,” the Marshal scoffed. “Only two people have survived it in the past century. It’s a—”
“Put me through it,” I said, refusing to quail at the impossible odds because I had to try. For Aurora and Mom. The North deserved a better future, free from starvation and tyranny.
Don’t lie to yourself. I wanted to hurt the Emperor and Tarantula. My heart was in my throat, full of longing for change, but my skin was crawling off my bones, fingers twitching with violent, vengeful desires.
“You don’t mean—”
“Put me through it,” I repeated with force. I might not have control over what I wanted, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to get it.
Rule of survival: Practice existential audacity.
“Fine. Your funeral.” She gestured for me to leave the room.
My tired legs turned to stone. “Right now?” I hadn’t thought she’d actually agree that easily.
“Yes, soldier. Move.” She arched her brow like she was calling my bluff, her gaze seeing straight into my dissonant soul.
“Perfect,” I whispered, feeling faint.
Before I could second-guess my precarious decision, I was escorted through a door with IRON RITUAL written on its surface above the alchemy symbol for blood: an upside-down triangle with a line through the middle and a droplet in the top section.
I paused inside the threshold. A single upright gurney was in the middle of the white room. A narrow empty tank sat beside it, and tubes were connected to the glass, needles hanging from the other side.
Nothing screamed mystical. The space was mechanically austere. Where is the magic?
Heaviness slammed into the back of my head. Someone shouted something outside the room, and it sounded like . . . Tarantula’s voice? Everything went dark.
Lashes fluttering, I forced open heavy eyelids. Freezing cold air bit my naked skin. I felt groggy, like a significant amount of time had passed, but I had no way to tell for sure.
I was strapped to the vertical gurney. The empty tank was now full of a bubbling dark scarlet liquid. Blood. It was a shade of red so deep it bordered on black, glittering with tendrils of silver magic. I sniffed. It reeked of . . . evil intentions?
Teeth chattering, I tried to stay conscious.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
A needle dug into a raised vein of my left forearm, and a thick tube drained out of me into a tall white bucket.
Another needle poked into my right arm—blood siphoned down the tube from the tank, straight into my vein.
The sharp tang of copper mixed with magic filled the air as I struggled against the tight straps that held me, naked, against the gurney.
This is the famous Iron Ritual?
THIS is how they create Knight Mages?
It made perfect sense, in the same way a dire bear mauling an innocent person did. They were draining my blood and replacing it with magically polluted blood. Strands of silver glittered in the tube connecting me and the tank. Grotesquely simple; an alchemy of the flesh.
I had to survive the transformation.
“Squire?” I whispered, silver escaping my nostrils. Talons dug into my scalp as a yellow beak appeared and two bright yellow eyes joined it.
“Zora,” Squire hooted upside down. “You are pretty as a moonlit winter dream.”