442

CECILIA

Voices above, around. Familiar, but far away. So, so far away…

The words, talking about the flames in my flesh, dancing like sprites. Swirling, eager mana, burning, burning. Too much. More and more, drawn to me, flames to the moth. Filling me. My blood, my bones.

Mine.

Mine, like the hole. Deep and endless. A frost-filled pit. Can’t remember…what was there before? In the hole?

Magic. Mana. A key. A core.

The words again. Strange voices, and familiar ones. “Delirium.” “Fever.” “Danger.” “Time.”

Time. A snapped thread, frayed, incoherent.

Light, dark, light, dark…dark…

Eyes open. A darkness full of color. Red, yellow, green, blue…mana.

Figures looming. Needles in my flesh, metal pressed against my skin. More words. “Delay.” “Will.” “Soul.” “Healing.” “Integration.” “

Darkness again.

I woke up trembling. The echo of a scream ringing in my ears, heart racing, bursting. Terrified.

There were stars. Outside my windows. The purple silhouette of mountains. Their name escaped me. Something was wrong. With my mind, with my magic.

I closed my eyes, tried to think. It hurt. I hurt. My skin was burning. Muscles ached. Every breath was full of ragged pain. Pain and…mana. Every breath was full of mana. Not flowing into my core but…into me.

Calm down. The mana was there. The magic was there.

Wind blew through me, cooling my bones. Sleep slipped back over me.

I blinked awake again, an unknown presence filling my rooms. At the foot of the bed, a man stood. Like Agrona, but also nothing like Agrona. His eyes, two bright rubies, pierced me like blood-tipped spears. I shivered, feeling his gaze on my skin, under my skin, peeling me apart layer by layer.

He had a cold, gray face, impassive around his cutting eyes. Two horns corkscrewed up from the top of his head. I knew that face, I thought. Only…

He said something, and someone else moved into view, his own presence dwarfing the first man. Agrona. He smiled down at me, and spoke kind words.

Sovereign Oludari Vritra of Truacia.

Names and places, the meanings of which I couldn’t seem to capture.

Oludari replied, concerned.

Agrona brushed the concerns aside, confident, assuring. Daunting.

Oludari, unassuaged. Agrona, commanding. Oludari, subservient. He cast an uneasy glance at me, and my spirit shriveled. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe.

When I opened them again, I was alone. Time felt more tangible…more real. I could tell that several hours had passed.

I struggled to think back to Agrona’s conversation with Oludari, but it was like trying to remember a dream after waking. The more I tried to cling to the memory, the more it slipped through my grasp.

My fever had broken. How long has it been? I wondered. Weeks, I suspected.

‘Long enough that I wasn’t sure we were going to survive after all,’ Tessia said in my mind. ‘Integration…I never could have imagined experiencing it myself. How would everyone rea—’

I groaned and rolled over, pulling one of the sweat-stained pillows over my head. Leave me alone.

There was no reply.

After a few minutes, I pushed away the pillow and kicked my legs over the edge of the bed. The floor was cold against my hot skin, and when I stood, my legs shook violently. I stumbled to the balcony door, which was open, and leaned against the railing. The wind off the mountains was bitter cold, conjuring gooseflesh all over my body and making it shake even worse.

Mana flowed to my limbs, and the shaking eased. It filled my lungs, helping me to breathe deeply. It sparked within my mind, clearing my thoughts.

Before, I’d felt like I was at one with the mana. It listened to me, reacted to my thoughts and desires, a tool I could do anything with. I should be stronger now, but…

There was this inescapable sense of irony. I couldn’t remember feeling weaker and less myself since being reincarnated into this world. I was the Legacy, and now I’d gone through Integration, making me perhaps the most powerful mage in the world. But I couldn’t stop my knees from shaking or the sweat from beading on my brow. Every breath felt like I was forcing it into my lungs, like the next time I tried to breathe I might not be able to.

Agrona had told me I was past the worst of it, but it didn’t feel that way. Whatever had happened to me while I was unconscious, right after my Integration, I couldn’t see how it was worse than these weeks of healing and sickness.

There was a frightening sense of incorrectness to it. Kind of like when I’d had a huge ki center, but hadn’t been able to stop it from surging out of me and hurting Nico—and Grey.

Leaning forward, I was sick over the balcony’s edge. I propped myself up on the cold railing, tasting the bitterness of my own bile on my teeth and losing myself for a while. Then, slowly, I stumbled back to my bed and fell in it, but sleep was distant and unreachable.

I just lay there, able to do nothing but drag the spotlight of my attention across the internal workings of this fragile elven body. It was still in the final stages of acclimating to the mana, now infusing every cell. It was a strange sensation to have mana that was not constrained by a core. I really was one with mana. That’s what Integration was. Agrona had tried to describe it, but what he’d told me couldn’t match with reality. Maybe his asuran mind couldn’t even conceive of what Integration really meant. But then, I thought, no one who hadn’t experienced this sense of balance and power could hope to understand it.

Tentatively, I began to experiment with it, sensing the flow of mana around and through me. Water-attribute mana soothed my aching muscles while wind-attribute mana cooled my skin. Earth-attribute mana hardened in my bones and fire-attribute mana warmed my blood.

This detached kind of observation helped bring some clarity. Integration, I realized, was actually a lot like awakening to mana after spending my entire former life trying to control my ki.

In the same way that mana had felt so much more complete and magical, Integration felt exponentially more potent than relying on a core to use magic. The creation of a mana core was similar to the condensing of a ki center since each required the concentration of energy to form, with the sensation of mana filling and flowing freely through my body very similar to ki manipulation on Earth.

I felt myself shrink back from this thought, still afraid that my mana—like with ki—would surge beyond my control. Without a core to control it…

I sat up and pushed my back against the wall, slowing my breathing. Being the Legacy hadn’t stopped that from happening before, on Earth. I’m in control, I assured myself, repeating it over and over again like a mantra.

Eventually, sleep crept up on me, and I drowsed.

I woke screaming, and an echoing scream came back to me.

Bolting up from my bed, I stared wide-eyed at the startled attendant who had been cleaning my room. Nico was sitting at my bedside, and he quickly dismissed the attendant, who bowed and rushed from the room with a frightened backward glance at me.

“What is it?” Nico asked, his voice soft. It almost sounded like his old voice, his real voice, the way he’d sounded back on Earth.

I looked at him more closely. Not his dark hair and sharp features. No, his Alacryan face wasn’t his any more than Tessia Eralith’s thin elven face was mine. But the way he dug his nails into his palm, the way he tried not to show it when he was biting the inside of his lip, how he leaned toward me every so slightly, like he wanted to be just that little bit closer to me…in those moments, I could see him. And when I closed my eyes, I could picture him so clearly.

I tensed suddenly as Tessia’s voice entered my mind.

‘Show him the mana, from before.’

I knew what she was talking about immediately: the mana I had taken from Agrona’s rune-covered table, the one I’d woken up on after my Integration. It had stayed within me, still carrying the shape and purpose it had been given by the strange runes.

‘Remember, Cecilia. You felt like something was wrong when you first woke up. There is more to all this than what you’re being told.’

I didn’t acknowledge her, but she was right. I had woken up on that table feeling weak but myself, only to sink back into sickness the very same night. Half-remembered words tumbled in the back of my head, out of reach.

Haltingly, I began to explain to Nico what I’d seen and done upon first waking, and the discomfort I’d felt at being surrounded by the strange mages.

“You did…what? That doesn’t make sense, Cecil.” He gave me a pitying look. “It’s not…well, possible.”

I held out my hand, palm up. Warm light issued from my skin as a wisp of mana appeared in the air, burning in the shape of the runes that had originally given it form.

Nico’s eyes widened and his breathing became shallow. He leaned forward, peering at the mana, his struggle to understand and accept it clearly written across his face.

I told him about the runes, and what I wanted to do.

Moving gingerly, Nico pressed the tip of his finger down into the mana. It condensed into a swarm of individual particles and was pulled into his body. I held my focus around it, allowing the spell to keep its form instead of being dissolved into the individual components of its mana. Nico’s eyes closed, jumping around beneath his lids.

“It’s…I’m not sure.” Nico’s words rolled out of him in a slow drawl as his focus stayed on the spell. I felt him channeling mana into his regalia. “The structure, the runes—the magic, it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen, but…” His eyes opened, and he stared at me. His fear was obvious. “This is going to take some time. We…shouldn’t tell anyone else about this.”

I agreed completely.

Nico hesitated, clearly thinking hard about something, then added, “Except…Draneeve, maybe. Only if completely necessary. We can trust him, because—well, just know that we can trust him. I’ve had him keeping an eye on you whenever I couldn’t.”

Despite not really understanding, I acknowledged what he said.

After that, Nico came to my rooms as often as was prudent. Slowly, more of my time was spent awake than asleep, but the experience of Integration left behind a deep-rooted fatigue that kept me in my chambers.

Nico was restless when presented with a problem, a puzzle to be solved, a knot to be undone. His mind could focus on nothing else, and even when he couldn’t be with me—my presence was required to hold the shape of the mana—he thought about it ceaselessly.

I could tell something was bothering him, but he was hiding his fears from me. In all this time together, I hadn’t wanted to derail his thoughts and so hadn’t gone into more detail about the return of my old memories…but no, really, that’s just an excuse. I was afraid. Afraid of what I might hear after confessing. What would that conversation lead to? I wasn’t ready to tell him that I had killed myself and let Grey take the blame.

Whenever someone knocked on my door, I expected it to be Nico. I was surprised, then, the day that Melzri strode in. She wrinkled her nose as she looked around my room, not hiding her distaste. “Hello, Legacy. I’ve been tasked with fetching you for some training. I’m sure you’re just as excited about the prospect as I am.”

Ignoring her sarcasm, I stood and gestured wordlessly for her to lead the way. We were quiet as we passed through the halls of Taegrin Caelum, and I couldn’t shake the feeling of scurrying like a mouse in her wake. I hated feeling so vulnerable.

Melzri’s long bright-white braid bounced with each step. The way her horns curled back over her head, they were pointing at me like spears. We’d never got along, but I couldn’t help but admire her obvious self-confidence, the way she was entirely at ease in her own skin. I thought about trying to make small talk to break the awkward silence between us but didn’t know where to begin.

She was a Scythe, and all of Alacrya knew her story. When her blood manifested, the resulting conflux of mana killed her highblood foster siblings. Her foster father—the man who had raised her for twelve years—flew into a rage and tried to kill her. Defending herself, she burned the heart out of his chest. After that, she was taken in by Agrona and raised within this very fortress.

It was probably why she’d become so bitter toward me. After all, she’s been like a daughter to Agrona before I arrived. In some way, I was certain she thought that I’d supplanted her.

And I suppose, really, I had. That didn’t make me feel bad for her or anything. In fact, as I considered the situation, I felt more and more strongly that she’d gotten exactly what she deserved. Melzri and the rest of the Scythes were self-important, cruel people. They’d been awful to Nico. Suddenly that self-confidence I had admired only seconds earlier seemed unearned.

I clenched my jaw and walked in silence.

We ended up in a long hall deep in the stone at the base of Taegrin Caelum. The bare walls and floor were cracked and blackened with scorch marks from the many powerful mages—retainers, Scythes, even Wraiths—who had trained here over the decades. There was no equipment or weaponry, nothing to help with training. Anyone strong enough to be brought here didn’t need things like that.

I was unsurprised to find Scythe Viessa already present, along with Draneeve and a handful of nameless mages I didn’t recognize. Of those present, Viessa had the strongest mana signature, then Melzri. Draneeve was a distant third. The others were all mediocre mages at best. I could only assume they were researchers or scientists, not warriors.

Melzri stopped beside Viessa, glowering at me. Viessa’s porcelain skin was washed out in the dim light, her purple hair dark and her void-black eyes even darker.

She would have been terrifying except…

I looked down at my own hand, rubbing my fingers together. I could see the mana in each of them, watch it churning in their core as it was purified, and knew better than they did themselves just how strong, or weak, they really were. I could break these Scythes with a snap of my fingers. If I wanted to.

Draneeve bobbed forward, his expression hidden behind his awful mask. “Ah, Lady Cecilia. Lord Agrona sends his regrets that he can’t join us at the moment. But he hopes Scythes Melzri and Viessa will…” He trailed off, his eyes jumping to the Scythes behind the mask. He cleared his throat, then finished, “That they will make suitable partners for your training today.”

Viessa hissed under her breath. “We should be helping Dragoth dig out the traitor, not babysitting this reincarnate child.”

Melzri only rolled her shoulders and grinned. “Now, sister, don’t be like that. The Legacy needs all the help she can get. Despite everything the High Sovereign has done to get her to this point, she hasn’t had so much as one real victory for him.”

Viessa scowled, circling around me and away from Melzri so the two were flanking me. “Your mana signature doesn’t seem as strong as before, girl. Without a core, you seem…deflated.”

All of my self-doubt and anxiety melted away in the face of their taunting. These two were nothing to me. I sure as hell wasn’t intimidated by their desperate jabs.

Draneeve had taken several steps back, and the other mages followed his example. “Lady Cecilia is to test her powers, you two should—”

Viessa thrust her hands forward. Dark mana coalesced around them, spilling out like a swarm of locusts.

And then vanishing.

She stared at her hands, disbelieving, and thrust them forward a second time. Nothing happened. The mana didn’t respond to her at all.

Melzri summoned her blade, which burst into black flames, and lunged at me. The flames snuffed out halfway, and her blade grew so heavy that she stumbled before it was ripped from her fingers, striking the floor hard enough to crack stone.

“Stop this at once,” Viessa breathed, the mana in her core seething as it flowed out through her channels and veins. But she couldn’t form it into a spell.

Melzri balled her fists. “What are you doing?”

I felt myself smile. It was cold and cruel, the kind of expression that would have frightened me if I’d seen it on another face. And then I told her. I explained what I was doing…and what I was going to do.

It was not without a sense of self-satisfaction that I watched them struggle to understand, but it wasn’t until both fully realized the situation that I knew I had the stomach for what was to come.

Closing my eyes, I took control of all the mana Viessa had just released and turned it back on her, driving it into her veins, scouring her channels and bombarding her core. I heard her knees strike the stone as a choked scream echoed through the combat hall.

“You bitch—”

Melzri’s voice cut off with a gust as her body slammed into the ground, the force of gravity so great I knew her bones were crushing the meat of her body.

There was no difference between the mana in my body and that in theirs, or in the atmosphere around us. As the Legacy, my ability to control mana was unparalleled. And now that I had Integrated, I no longer required that my mana be drawn into a core, purified, and released before being manipulated. From this new perspective, even the idea of purified mana seemed inconsequential. I didn’t need to wash the mana and make it mine in order to control it.

I already controlled it all.

The Scythes were helpless against me. Even these shadowy Wraiths I’d heard about would be hopeless against me. What good was an asura’s strength in magic if I could wipe away their spells before they formed, pull their bodies apart from the inside with their own power, starve them of what made them special. Even Agrona wasn’t a threat to me—

‘Which is why he’s encouraged you to be so subservient,’ Tessia’s annoying voice suddenly chimed in, interrupting my thoughts. ‘He knew what you’d become, or hoped at least, and he doesn’t allow anyone else to be truly powerful. So he taught you to be obedient.’

I clamped down on my mana, attempting again to smother Tessia’s voice. But I couldn’t. It was the one thing I couldn’t control.

“Um, Lady Cecilia, perhaps…” Draneeve’s simpering voice trailed off suggestively.

I opened my eyes and looked down at the two Scythes, one writhing in pain to my left, the other flattened against the stone to my right. I released the pressure of the mana ripping at Viessa’s insides and the gravity crushing Melzri, but I kept their mana in check, preventing either of them from forming a spell.

Tessia kept talking. ‘He’s got this promise to send you back to Earth hanging over your head, and Nico to threaten if you ever get out of line. He doesn’t care about you or love you. He probably doesn’t even intend to let you control this power. Why would he when he can just override your mind?’

I pushed her voice away. Although she could interrupt my thoughts, she couldn’t affect my actions and my words.

Floating off the ground, I brushed aside a lock of silver hair. “Get up, you two. I want to understand just how far my control goes.”

***

The sky above Taegrin Caelum was heavy with dark clouds. I flew through them like a bird, enjoying the sensation of all that mana condensing around me, drawn to the natural storm. Turning upward, I shot through the cold air, moisture collecting against my skin, until I burst up into clear sky.

Below me, clouds rolled away as far as the eye could see in every direction.

I liked it up there. It was peaceful. Separate. Training with my new powers was more like exploration—seeing what my limits were. I didn’t have to learn through repetition, only to think with a clear enough vision, and keeping a clear head was a lot easier to do in the open air than buried beneath the fortress.

The clouds began to swirl in playful patterns. Steam rose up from them, condensing into spheres of water that floated around and caught the light. The clouds lightened from a deep gray to soft, fluffy white. Floating down, I lay atop the clouds, resting my head on my hands and crossing my ankles as I stared up at the blue expanse above.

“Tessia,” I said, my voice floating away on the gentle breeze.

No response came.

Tessia, I thought sharply, unable to suppress my irritation at having to call for her twice.

‘This power play doesn’t suit either of us,’ she answered after a few seconds. ‘We both know the only reason you’re calling for me is because it gives you a false sense of control. You’ve done it, you’ve achieved Integration, you’ve tossed the Scythes around like they’re ragdolls, yet you can’t do anything about me, and that eats away at you.’

I closed my eyes, rolled over, and sank down into the clouds. I held a picture in my mind, reaching with tendrils of mana all throughout my body, searching. I wasn’t sure if it was working—if it even could work—but when I opened my eyes, I couldn’t help but smile.

I was no longer surrounded by cool wind and fluffy clouds but was standing on soft green grass beneath the spreading limbs of tall, silver-barked trees, their shadows dappling the ground and making the entire world look like it was swaying gently.

Tessia Eralith was standing not far away. Her silvery braid hung over her bare shoulder, an emerald green and gold gown draped off her lithe frame.

I looked down at myself. I was shorter than her, a bit stockier. My hair was plain brown and boring, chopped off around my shoulders like it’d been hacked apart with sheers.

I let out a deep breath to steady myself. “I hate talking to you in my head. It’s gross…like a violation. This is better.”

“A violation…yeah, I think I know exactly what you mean,” Tessia said, her undertone of sadness cut through with a vague sense of irritation. “You know, after I learned through you that Arthur was reincarnated, so much made sense. His intellect, his wisdom, his maturity. It seems foolish, now that I think about it, that I tried so hard to chase after him. I used to get really angry at myself about how different we were when I thought I was a year older…but it turns out he was thirty years older.”

She laughed, and I scowled.

“Why should I care?”

“Because I thought you’d be the same, that you’d be…different. I was confused at first. But then I realized—”

“Yeah, you’ve said all this before.”

“So, are you ready to listen?”

I kept careful watch on the elderwood guardian, which was writhing around the outskirts of the clearing I had created for our conversation. “You can see in my head, can’t you? My every thought and desire is an open book to you. So you tell me.”

Tessia caressed the hair hanging over her shoulder, her eyes on the ground. “It’s not about you talking to me. It’s about you being honest with yourself. After everything you’ve learned, you’re still fighting this war. Why help Agrona get what he wants? Do you really trust him to send you back to your old life after all this?” She looked up, her gaze burning into mine. “And is it really worth it?”

I rubbed my eyes in frustration, turning my back on her. “What do you want me to say? I’m selfish? A shitty person? A stunted child believing in fairy stories? Fine. Whatever. I’m all of those things and more, Tessia. Maybe I am a bad person. But I’ve come too far, done”—I choked up, swallowed heavily, then continued—“things, killed people, and that can’t just be for nothing. It can’t all have been for fucking nothing.”

Tessia was quiet for long enough that I turned around, wondering if she was still there. She was. And as she stood there and watched me thoughtfully, I sagged, the weight of my own words settling on my soul.

“Would you really burn this world to the ground if it means you and Nico get to go home?” she asked.

I shook my head. “And leave Agrona to rule over the ashes.”

“And if you’re stuck here in the ashes with us?” she asked.

“Then at least there won’t be anyone left to judge me,” I said slowly, suddenly very tired.

Before she could answer, I swept my hand across the mental projection, wiping the clearing away and opening my eyes. The clouds were dark and heavy with rain. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed.

I sank beneath the clouds and into heavy rain, letting the coldness of it soothe my skin, refusing to acknowledge that the flush of my cheeks was from shame. And the streams running down my face aren’t tears, either.

“Cecilia!”

I flinched, not having noticed the approaching mana signature.

Nico, flying in a cocoon of wind conjured from his staff, pulled up twenty feet away, his face shielded against the wind and rain by a hand. “Are you all right? This storm came up out of nowhere!”

I stared at him blankly, and it took several seconds for my thoughts to click into place. As soon as they did, the rain stopped. The clouds melted away, and we were flying in the bright, cold afternoon sun, Taegrin Caelum jutting up from the mountains beneath us.

An uncomfortably warm breeze kicked up, whipping around us and leaving us both dry in moments.

“Um, Agrona called for all the Scythes and…you. The others have already arrived. He’s expecting us immediately.”

As he turned away, I blurted out, “Am I a bad person, Nico?”

Reversing course, Nico flew closer, his worried frown deepening further. “What’s this about?”

“Nothing,” I blurted. “Nevermind. We shouldn’t keep Agrona waiting.”

I sped ahead, plunging down toward the fortress, flying at speed around the sprawling exterior to Agrona’s private wing and landing on one of his many balconies.𝗇𝒪𝗏𝑒𝒍𝐔𝓢𝔟.𝕔𝑶𝗆

A wall of noise hit me as the rush of wind in my ears subsided: the stomping of booted feet, the call and response of barked commands, the rush of channeled mana.

Beneath the tower, thousands of mages were arrayed in formation in the courtyard. Banners from every dominion were displayed, showing where soldiers from Etril stood separately from those of Vechor and Truacia, each force having been brought by the Scythe of that Dominion.

The glass balcony doors were closed, locked, and warded, but the mana unfolded at my approach, and the latch jumped up, allowing a gust of wind to push the doors open.

Beyond was a comfortable sitting room. A fire was burning in a huge fireplace, and Agrona was leaning against a low bar. He was dressed formally in black and gold, and the ornaments in his horns caught the light and twinkled like stars as he turned to look at me. He looked just as he always had, ever since I’d known him. But, as he regarded me, his brows lifting ever so slightly, I couldn’t help but think something had changed. He had changed, but I couldn’t put my finger on how, exactly, and had to wonder if I was just imagining it.

Or maybe, I thought, I’m the one who has changed.

Nico eased into the room behind me and carefully closed the doors, his unease coming off him in waves.

“Ah, we are finally all here,” Agrona said with a too-wide smile, gesturing for us to enter.

I was surprised to see Melzri and Viessa already present, seated uncomfortably on one of the plush couches filling the room. Neither met my eye. Dragoth was also present, standing in front of the fire with his back to me. His shoulders were hunched, his broad horns drooping.

More surprising was the presence of the retainers. The sickly Bivrae hunkered in the shadows, while the statuesque Echeron lingered near Dragoth, trying and failing to hide his nervousness. Mawar hovered near the windows and stared out at the Basilisk Fang Mountains, the cool light painting her changeable skin an almost translucent pale marble color.

For the first time since arriving in Alacrya, I thought I understood a little bit of how Agrona must have felt when he saw all these powerful people gathered together. Anywhere else in the world, they would have been a formidable, even overwhelming force, but here, now…they seemed so unimportant. They were nothing.

I felt Tessia’s disappointment bubbling up from within.

What?

‘Do you suppose this is how the researchers felt toward you as they poked and prodded you? Under such high authority, maybe they saw you as nothing more than how you are now looking at the Scythes…as an asset, soldiers to be tolerated perhaps, but not respected.’

I swallowed hard, carefully keeping my thoughts to myself.

“All my mighty Scythes and their fearsome retainers together again,” Agrona said, his arms out wide. “We are missing only our lost little lamb, Seris, and her faithful hound. Her presence would have been a wondrous gift, but alas…”

Dragoth had turned when Agrona started speaking, and he blanched at this comment. Beside him, Echeron stared at his own feet.

“Still, don’t be too hard on Dragoth.” Agrona flashed us a wide grin. “You’ve all suffered your share of defeats and failures—of embarrassments—lately, haven’t you?”

Agrona smiled around like a proud and understanding father. He pushed himself up on the bar, letting his legs kick back and forth, his heels occasionally knocking against the wood.

“But we, all of us, sometimes must take our licks and keep moving.” He knocked his knuckles against the bartop a couple times. “To mix metaphors, we’ve allowed our house to gather dirt for long enough. The Seris situation will come to a close in due time, but there are many other places we can begin cleaning up right now.”

The Scythes and retainers exchanged uncertain glances, but no one dared interrupt Agrona, especially when he was giving off the pretense of a good mood.

“The dragons’ presence in Dicathen means there is no longer anything to be gained from our infighting,” he continued. “While Dragoth will continue to pursue Seris in the Relictombs, the rest of you will put our house back in order. I expect, before our efforts in that department are complete, we’ll be seeing Arthur Leywin poking his head out as well, and when he does, I want you to capture or kill him.”

Melzri and Viessa shared a meaningful look.

“What are you going to be doing?” I asked, frustrated by this flippant mention of killing Grey. Grey had already defeated a squad of Agrona’s asura killers. I knew Agrona didn’t expect any of these Scythes to actually beat Grey.

Agrona cocked his head to the side, jangling the ornaments in his horns. His smile didn’t falter, but his legs stopped swinging. “Why do you ask, Cecil dear?”

I swallowed heavily, something about the look in his eye making me second guess my forthrightness. “I…just meant, if Grey is such a threat…”

Agrona’s smile widened, baring his canines, and he slid off the bar, standing tall. His shadow seemed to fall over everyone at once. “Despite my feigned weakness, that cautious old dragon has been satisfied to let the situation on this world linger, allowing me to plumb the depths of the Relictombs and grow my understanding of this world’s power. Finally, though, thanks to our wayward reincarnated friend, Arthur, Kezess has opened the way between Dicathen and Epheotus. Now, as you end this silly civil war and hunt Arthur Leywin, I will be…preparing to take full advantage of Kezess’s misstep.”

Anything pleasant slid from Agrona’s face like he’d taken off a mask. Beneath was something dark and dangerous. “In my own pretense of weakness, some of you have allowed yourselves to become actually weak. I’ve given you new regalias along with my patience. It is time to prove yourselves worthy of both.”

The room seemed frozen, as if the others were no longer even breathing. Time could have stopped, and it would have changed nothing.

Agrona’s eyes traveled slowly across each of us in turn. “The Legacy will focus primarily on Arthur Leywin. If you can’t bring him whole, at least bring me his core. Make use of the Scythes as you see fit to ensure that this is done.”

He turned and swept from the room, leaving behind him a deep-set and brooding silence.

CECILIA

Voices above, around. Familiar, but far away. So, so far away…

The words, talking about the flames in my flesh, dancing like sprites. Swirling, eager mana, burning, burning. Too much. More and more, drawn to me, flames to the moth. Filling me. My blood, my bones.

Mine.

Mine, like the hole. Deep and endless. A frost-filled pit. Can’t remember…what was there before? In the hole?

Magic. Mana. A key. A core.

The words again. Strange voices, and familiar ones. “Delirium.” “Fever.” “Danger.” “Time.”

Time. A snapped thread, frayed, incoherent.

Light, dark, light, dark…dark…

Eyes open. A darkness full of color. Red, yellow, green, blue…mana.

Figures looming. Needles in my flesh, metal pressed against my skin. More words. “Delay.” “Will.” “Soul.” “Healing.” “Integration.” “

Darkness again.

I woke up trembling. The echo of a scream ringing in my ears, heart racing, bursting. Terrified.

There were stars. Outside my windows. The purple silhouette of mountains. Their name escaped me. Something was wrong. With my mind, with my magic.

I closed my eyes, tried to think. It hurt. I hurt. My skin was burning. Muscles ached. Every breath was full of ragged pain. Pain and…mana. Every breath was full of mana. Not flowing into my core but…into me.

Calm down. The mana was there. The magic was there.

Wind blew through me, cooling my bones. Sleep slipped back over me.

I blinked awake again, an unknown presence filling my rooms. At the foot of the bed, a man stood. Like Agrona, but also nothing like Agrona. His eyes, two bright rubies, pierced me like blood-tipped spears. I shivered, feeling his gaze on my skin, under my skin, peeling me apart layer by layer.

He had a cold, gray face, impassive around his cutting eyes. Two horns corkscrewed up from the top of his head. I knew that face, I thought. Only…

He said something, and someone else moved into view, his own presence dwarfing the first man. Agrona. He smiled down at me, and spoke kind words.

Sovereign Oludari Vritra of Truacia.

Names and places, the meanings of which I couldn’t seem to capture.

Oludari replied, concerned.

Agrona brushed the concerns aside, confident, assuring. Daunting.

Oludari, unassuaged. Agrona, commanding. Oludari, subservient. He cast an uneasy glance at me, and my spirit shriveled. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe.

When I opened them again, I was alone. Time felt more tangible…more real. I could tell that several hours had passed.

I struggled to think back to Agrona’s conversation with Oludari, but it was like trying to remember a dream after waking. The more I tried to cling to the memory, the more it slipped through my grasp.

My fever had broken. How long has it been? I wondered. Weeks, I suspected.

‘Long enough that I wasn’t sure we were going to survive after all,’ Tessia said in my mind. ‘Integration…I never could have imagined experiencing it myself. How would everyone rea—’

I groaned and rolled over, pulling one of the sweat-stained pillows over my head. Leave me alone.

There was no reply.

After a few minutes, I pushed away the pillow and kicked my legs over the edge of the bed. The floor was cold against my hot skin, and when I stood, my legs shook violently. I stumbled to the balcony door, which was open, and leaned against the railing. The wind off the mountains was bitter cold, conjuring gooseflesh all over my body and making it shake even worse.

Mana flowed to my limbs, and the shaking eased. It filled my lungs, helping me to breathe deeply. It sparked within my mind, clearing my thoughts.

Before, I’d felt like I was at one with the mana. It listened to me, reacted to my thoughts and desires, a tool I could do anything with. I should be stronger now, but…

There was this inescapable sense of irony. I couldn’t remember feeling weaker and less myself since being reincarnated into this world. I was the Legacy, and now I’d gone through Integration, making me perhaps the most powerful mage in the world. But I couldn’t stop my knees from shaking or the sweat from beading on my brow. Every breath felt like I was forcing it into my lungs, like the next time I tried to breathe I might not be able to.

Agrona had told me I was past the worst of it, but it didn’t feel that way. Whatever had happened to me while I was unconscious, right after my Integration, I couldn’t see how it was worse than these weeks of healing and sickness.

There was a frightening sense of incorrectness to it. Kind of like when I’d had a huge ki center, but hadn’t been able to stop it from surging out of me and hurting Nico—and Grey.

Leaning forward, I was sick over the balcony’s edge. I propped myself up on the cold railing, tasting the bitterness of my own bile on my teeth and losing myself for a while. Then, slowly, I stumbled back to my bed and fell in it, but sleep was distant and unreachable.

I just lay there, able to do nothing but drag the spotlight of my attention across the internal workings of this fragile elven body. It was still in the final stages of acclimating to the mana, now infusing every cell. It was a strange sensation to have mana that was not constrained by a core. I really was one with mana. That’s what Integration was. Agrona had tried to describe it, but what he’d told me couldn’t match with reality. Maybe his asuran mind couldn’t even conceive of what Integration really meant. But then, I thought, no one who hadn’t experienced this sense of balance and power could hope to understand it.

Tentatively, I began to experiment with it, sensing the flow of mana around and through me. Water-attribute mana soothed my aching muscles while wind-attribute mana cooled my skin. Earth-attribute mana hardened in my bones and fire-attribute mana warmed my blood.

This detached kind of observation helped bring some clarity. Integration, I realized, was actually a lot like awakening to mana after spending my entire former life trying to control my ki.

In the same way that mana had felt so much more complete and magical, Integration felt exponentially more potent than relying on a core to use magic. The creation of a mana core was similar to the condensing of a ki center since each required the concentration of energy to form, with the sensation of mana filling and flowing freely through my body very similar to ki manipulation on Earth.

I felt myself shrink back from this thought, still afraid that my mana—like with ki—would surge beyond my control. Without a core to control it…

I sat up and pushed my back against the wall, slowing my breathing. Being the Legacy hadn’t stopped that from happening before, on Earth. I’m in control, I assured myself, repeating it over and over again like a mantra.

Eventually, sleep crept up on me, and I drowsed.

I woke screaming, and an echoing scream came back to me.

Bolting up from my bed, I stared wide-eyed at the startled attendant who had been cleaning my room. Nico was sitting at my bedside, and he quickly dismissed the attendant, who bowed and rushed from the room with a frightened backward glance at me.

“What is it?” Nico asked, his voice soft. It almost sounded like his old voice, his real voice, the way he’d sounded back on Earth.

I looked at him more closely. Not his dark hair and sharp features. No, his Alacryan face wasn’t his any more than Tessia Eralith’s thin elven face was mine. But the way he dug his nails into his palm, the way he tried not to show it when he was biting the inside of his lip, how he leaned toward me every so slightly, like he wanted to be just that little bit closer to me…in those moments, I could see him. And when I closed my eyes, I could picture him so clearly.

I tensed suddenly as Tessia’s voice entered my mind.

‘Show him the mana, from before.’

I knew what she was talking about immediately: the mana I had taken from Agrona’s rune-covered table, the one I’d woken up on after my Integration. It had stayed within me, still carrying the shape and purpose it had been given by the strange runes.

‘Remember, Cecilia. You felt like something was wrong when you first woke up. There is more to all this than what you’re being told.’

I didn’t acknowledge her, but she was right. I had woken up on that table feeling weak but myself, only to sink back into sickness the very same night. Half-remembered words tumbled in the back of my head, out of reach.

Haltingly, I began to explain to Nico what I’d seen and done upon first waking, and the discomfort I’d felt at being surrounded by the strange mages.

“You did…what? That doesn’t make sense, Cecil.” He gave me a pitying look. “It’s not…well, possible.”

I held out my hand, palm up. Warm light issued from my skin as a wisp of mana appeared in the air, burning in the shape of the runes that had originally given it form.

Nico’s eyes widened and his breathing became shallow. He leaned forward, peering at the mana, his struggle to understand and accept it clearly written across his face.

I told him about the runes, and what I wanted to do.

Moving gingerly, Nico pressed the tip of his finger down into the mana. It condensed into a swarm of individual particles and was pulled into his body. I held my focus around it, allowing the spell to keep its form instead of being dissolved into the individual components of its mana. Nico’s eyes closed, jumping around beneath his lids.

“It’s…I’m not sure.” Nico’s words rolled out of him in a slow drawl as his focus stayed on the spell. I felt him channeling mana into his regalia. “The structure, the runes—the magic, it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen, but…” His eyes opened, and he stared at me. His fear was obvious. “This is going to take some time. We…shouldn’t tell anyone else about this.”

I agreed completely.

Nico hesitated, clearly thinking hard about something, then added, “Except…Draneeve, maybe. Only if completely necessary. We can trust him, because—well, just know that we can trust him. I’ve had him keeping an eye on you whenever I couldn’t.”

Despite not really understanding, I acknowledged what he said.

After that, Nico came to my rooms as often as was prudent. Slowly, more of my time was spent awake than asleep, but the experience of Integration left behind a deep-rooted fatigue that kept me in my chambers.

Nico was restless when presented with a problem, a puzzle to be solved, a knot to be undone. His mind could focus on nothing else, and even when he couldn’t be with me—my presence was required to hold the shape of the mana—he thought about it ceaselessly.

I could tell something was bothering him, but he was hiding his fears from me. In all this time together, I hadn’t wanted to derail his thoughts and so hadn’t gone into more detail about the return of my old memories…but no, really, that’s just an excuse. I was afraid. Afraid of what I might hear after confessing. What would that conversation lead to? I wasn’t ready to tell him that I had killed myself and let Grey take the blame.

Whenever someone knocked on my door, I expected it to be Nico. I was surprised, then, the day that Melzri strode in. She wrinkled her nose as she looked around my room, not hiding her distaste. “Hello, Legacy. I’ve been tasked with fetching you for some training. I’m sure you’re just as excited about the prospect as I am.”

Ignoring her sarcasm, I stood and gestured wordlessly for her to lead the way. We were quiet as we passed through the halls of Taegrin Caelum, and I couldn’t shake the feeling of scurrying like a mouse in her wake. I hated feeling so vulnerable.

Melzri’s long bright-white braid bounced with each step. The way her horns curled back over her head, they were pointing at me like spears. We’d never got along, but I couldn’t help but admire her obvious self-confidence, the way she was entirely at ease in her own skin. I thought about trying to make small talk to break the awkward silence between us but didn’t know where to begin.

She was a Scythe, and all of Alacrya knew her story. When her blood manifested, the resulting conflux of mana killed her highblood foster siblings. Her foster father—the man who had raised her for twelve years—flew into a rage and tried to kill her. Defending herself, she burned the heart out of his chest. After that, she was taken in by Agrona and raised within this very fortress.

It was probably why she’d become so bitter toward me. After all, she’s been like a daughter to Agrona before I arrived. In some way, I was certain she thought that I’d supplanted her.

And I suppose, really, I had. That didn’t make me feel bad for her or anything. In fact, as I considered the situation, I felt more and more strongly that she’d gotten exactly what she deserved. Melzri and the rest of the Scythes were self-important, cruel people. They’d been awful to Nico. Suddenly that self-confidence I had admired only seconds earlier seemed unearned.

I clenched my jaw and walked in silence.

We ended up in a long hall deep in the stone at the base of Taegrin Caelum. The bare walls and floor were cracked and blackened with scorch marks from the many powerful mages—retainers, Scythes, even Wraiths—who had trained here over the decades. There was no equipment or weaponry, nothing to help with training. Anyone strong enough to be brought here didn’t need things like that.

I was unsurprised to find Scythe Viessa already present, along with Draneeve and a handful of nameless mages I didn’t recognize. Of those present, Viessa had the strongest mana signature, then Melzri. Draneeve was a distant third. The others were all mediocre mages at best. I could only assume they were researchers or scientists, not warriors.

Melzri stopped beside Viessa, glowering at me. Viessa’s porcelain skin was washed out in the dim light, her purple hair dark and her void-black eyes even darker.

She would have been terrifying except…

I looked down at my own hand, rubbing my fingers together. I could see the mana in each of them, watch it churning in their core as it was purified, and knew better than they did themselves just how strong, or weak, they really were. I could break these Scythes with a snap of my fingers. If I wanted to.

Draneeve bobbed forward, his expression hidden behind his awful mask. “Ah, Lady Cecilia. Lord Agrona sends his regrets that he can’t join us at the moment. But he hopes Scythes Melzri and Viessa will…” He trailed off, his eyes jumping to the Scythes behind the mask. He cleared his throat, then finished, “That they will make suitable partners for your training today.”

Viessa hissed under her breath. “We should be helping Dragoth dig out the traitor, not babysitting this reincarnate child.”

Melzri only rolled her shoulders and grinned. “Now, sister, don’t be like that. The Legacy needs all the help she can get. Despite everything the High Sovereign has done to get her to this point, she hasn’t had so much as one real victory for him.”

Viessa scowled, circling around me and away from Melzri so the two were flanking me. “Your mana signature doesn’t seem as strong as before, girl. Without a core, you seem…deflated.”

All of my self-doubt and anxiety melted away in the face of their taunting. These two were nothing to me. I sure as hell wasn’t intimidated by their desperate jabs.

Draneeve had taken several steps back, and the other mages followed his example. “Lady Cecilia is to test her powers, you two should—”

Viessa thrust her hands forward. Dark mana coalesced around them, spilling out like a swarm of locusts.

And then vanishing.

She stared at her hands, disbelieving, and thrust them forward a second time. Nothing happened. The mana didn’t respond to her at all.

Melzri summoned her blade, which burst into black flames, and lunged at me. The flames snuffed out halfway, and her blade grew so heavy that she stumbled before it was ripped from her fingers, striking the floor hard enough to crack stone.

“Stop this at once,” Viessa breathed, the mana in her core seething as it flowed out through her channels and veins. But she couldn’t form it into a spell.

Melzri balled her fists. “What are you doing?”

I felt myself smile. It was cold and cruel, the kind of expression that would have frightened me if I’d seen it on another face. And then I told her. I explained what I was doing…and what I was going to do.

It was not without a sense of self-satisfaction that I watched them struggle to understand, but it wasn’t until both fully realized the situation that I knew I had the stomach for what was to come.

Closing my eyes, I took control of all the mana Viessa had just released and turned it back on her, driving it into her veins, scouring her channels and bombarding her core. I heard her knees strike the stone as a choked scream echoed through the combat hall.

“You bitch—”

Melzri’s voice cut off with a gust as her body slammed into the ground, the force of gravity so great I knew her bones were crushing the meat of her body.

There was no difference between the mana in my body and that in theirs, or in the atmosphere around us. As the Legacy, my ability to control mana was unparalleled. And now that I had Integrated, I no longer required that my mana be drawn into a core, purified, and released before being manipulated. From this new perspective, even the idea of purified mana seemed inconsequential. I didn’t need to wash the mana and make it mine in order to control it.

I already controlled it all.

The Scythes were helpless against me. Even these shadowy Wraiths I’d heard about would be hopeless against me. What good was an asura’s strength in magic if I could wipe away their spells before they formed, pull their bodies apart from the inside with their own power, starve them of what made them special. Even Agrona wasn’t a threat to me—

‘Which is why he’s encouraged you to be so subservient,’ Tessia’s annoying voice suddenly chimed in, interrupting my thoughts. ‘He knew what you’d become, or hoped at least, and he doesn’t allow anyone else to be truly powerful. So he taught you to be obedient.’

I clamped down on my mana, attempting again to smother Tessia’s voice. But I couldn’t. It was the one thing I couldn’t control.

“Um, Lady Cecilia, perhaps…” Draneeve’s simpering voice trailed off suggestively.

I opened my eyes and looked down at the two Scythes, one writhing in pain to my left, the other flattened against the stone to my right. I released the pressure of the mana ripping at Viessa’s insides and the gravity crushing Melzri, but I kept their mana in check, preventing either of them from forming a spell.

Tessia kept talking. ‘He’s got this promise to send you back to Earth hanging over your head, and Nico to threaten if you ever get out of line. He doesn’t care about you or love you. He probably doesn’t even intend to let you control this power. Why would he when he can just override your mind?’

I pushed her voice away. Although she could interrupt my thoughts, she couldn’t affect my actions and my words.

Floating off the ground, I brushed aside a lock of silver hair. “Get up, you two. I want to understand just how far my control goes.”

***

The sky above Taegrin Caelum was heavy with dark clouds. I flew through them like a bird, enjoying the sensation of all that mana condensing around me, drawn to the natural storm. Turning upward, I shot through the cold air, moisture collecting against my skin, until I burst up into clear sky.

Below me, clouds rolled away as far as the eye could see in every direction.

I liked it up there. It was peaceful. Separate. Training with my new powers was more like exploration—seeing what my limits were. I didn’t have to learn through repetition, only to think with a clear enough vision, and keeping a clear head was a lot easier to do in the open air than buried beneath the fortress.

The clouds began to swirl in playful patterns. Steam rose up from them, condensing into spheres of water that floated around and caught the light. The clouds lightened from a deep gray to soft, fluffy white. Floating down, I lay atop the clouds, resting my head on my hands and crossing my ankles as I stared up at the blue expanse above.

“Tessia,” I said, my voice floating away on the gentle breeze.

No response came.

Tessia, I thought sharply, unable to suppress my irritation at having to call for her twice.

‘This power play doesn’t suit either of us,’ she answered after a few seconds. ‘We both know the only reason you’re calling for me is because it gives you a false sense of control. You’ve done it, you’ve achieved Integration, you’ve tossed the Scythes around like they’re ragdolls, yet you can’t do anything about me, and that eats away at you.’

I closed my eyes, rolled over, and sank down into the clouds. I held a picture in my mind, reaching with tendrils of mana all throughout my body, searching. I wasn’t sure if it was working—if it even could work—but when I opened my eyes, I couldn’t help but smile.

I was no longer surrounded by cool wind and fluffy clouds but was standing on soft green grass beneath the spreading limbs of tall, silver-barked trees, their shadows dappling the ground and making the entire world look like it was swaying gently.

Tessia Eralith was standing not far away. Her silvery braid hung over her bare shoulder, an emerald green and gold gown draped off her lithe frame.

I looked down at myself. I was shorter than her, a bit stockier. My hair was plain brown and boring, chopped off around my shoulders like it’d been hacked apart with sheers.

I let out a deep breath to steady myself. “I hate talking to you in my head. It’s gross…like a violation. This is better.”

“A violation…yeah, I think I know exactly what you mean,” Tessia said, her undertone of sadness cut through with a vague sense of irritation. “You know, after I learned through you that Arthur was reincarnated, so much made sense. His intellect, his wisdom, his maturity. It seems foolish, now that I think about it, that I tried so hard to chase after him. I used to get really angry at myself about how different we were when I thought I was a year older…but it turns out he was thirty years older.”

She laughed, and I scowled.

“Why should I care?”

“Because I thought you’d be the same, that you’d be…different. I was confused at first. But then I realized—”

“Yeah, you’ve said all this before.”

“So, are you ready to listen?”

I kept careful watch on the elderwood guardian, which was writhing around the outskirts of the clearing I had created for our conversation. “You can see in my head, can’t you? My every thought and desire is an open book to you. So you tell me.”

Tessia caressed the hair hanging over her shoulder, her eyes on the ground. “It’s not about you talking to me. It’s about you being honest with yourself. After everything you’ve learned, you’re still fighting this war. Why help Agrona get what he wants? Do you really trust him to send you back to your old life after all this?” She looked up, her gaze burning into mine. “And is it really worth it?”

I rubbed my eyes in frustration, turning my back on her. “What do you want me to say? I’m selfish? A shitty person? A stunted child believing in fairy stories? Fine. Whatever. I’m all of those things and more, Tessia. Maybe I am a bad person. But I’ve come too far, done”—I choked up, swallowed heavily, then continued—“things, killed people, and that can’t just be for nothing. It can’t all have been for fucking nothing.”

Tessia was quiet for long enough that I turned around, wondering if she was still there. She was. And as she stood there and watched me thoughtfully, I sagged, the weight of my own words settling on my soul.

“Would you really burn this world to the ground if it means you and Nico get to go home?” she asked.

I shook my head. “And leave Agrona to rule over the ashes.”

“And if you’re stuck here in the ashes with us?” she asked.

“Then at least there won’t be anyone left to judge me,” I said slowly, suddenly very tired.

Before she could answer, I swept my hand across the mental projection, wiping the clearing away and opening my eyes. The clouds were dark and heavy with rain. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed.

I sank beneath the clouds and into heavy rain, letting the coldness of it soothe my skin, refusing to acknowledge that the flush of my cheeks was from shame. And the streams running down my face aren’t tears, either.

“Cecilia!”

I flinched, not having noticed the approaching mana signature.

Nico, flying in a cocoon of wind conjured from his staff, pulled up twenty feet away, his face shielded against the wind and rain by a hand. “Are you all right? This storm came up out of nowhere!”

I stared at him blankly, and it took several seconds for my thoughts to click into place. As soon as they did, the rain stopped. The clouds melted away, and we were flying in the bright, cold afternoon sun, Taegrin Caelum jutting up from the mountains beneath us.

An uncomfortably warm breeze kicked up, whipping around us and leaving us both dry in moments.

“Um, Agrona called for all the Scythes and…you. The others have already arrived. He’s expecting us immediately.”

As he turned away, I blurted out, “Am I a bad person, Nico?”

Reversing course, Nico flew closer, his worried frown deepening further. “What’s this about?”

“Nothing,” I blurted. “Nevermind. We shouldn’t keep Agrona waiting.”

I sped ahead, plunging down toward the fortress, flying at speed around the sprawling exterior to Agrona’s private wing and landing on one of his many balconies.𝗇𝒪𝗏𝑒𝒍𝐔𝓢𝔟.𝕔𝑶𝗆

A wall of noise hit me as the rush of wind in my ears subsided: the stomping of booted feet, the call and response of barked commands, the rush of channeled mana.

Beneath the tower, thousands of mages were arrayed in formation in the courtyard. Banners from every dominion were displayed, showing where soldiers from Etril stood separately from those of Vechor and Truacia, each force having been brought by the Scythe of that Dominion.

The glass balcony doors were closed, locked, and warded, but the mana unfolded at my approach, and the latch jumped up, allowing a gust of wind to push the doors open.

Beyond was a comfortable sitting room. A fire was burning in a huge fireplace, and Agrona was leaning against a low bar. He was dressed formally in black and gold, and the ornaments in his horns caught the light and twinkled like stars as he turned to look at me. He looked just as he always had, ever since I’d known him. But, as he regarded me, his brows lifting ever so slightly, I couldn’t help but think something had changed. He had changed, but I couldn’t put my finger on how, exactly, and had to wonder if I was just imagining it.

Or maybe, I thought, I’m the one who has changed.

Nico eased into the room behind me and carefully closed the doors, his unease coming off him in waves.

“Ah, we are finally all here,” Agrona said with a too-wide smile, gesturing for us to enter.

I was surprised to see Melzri and Viessa already present, seated uncomfortably on one of the plush couches filling the room. Neither met my eye. Dragoth was also present, standing in front of the fire with his back to me. His shoulders were hunched, his broad horns drooping.

More surprising was the presence of the retainers. The sickly Bivrae hunkered in the shadows, while the statuesque Echeron lingered near Dragoth, trying and failing to hide his nervousness. Mawar hovered near the windows and stared out at the Basilisk Fang Mountains, the cool light painting her changeable skin an almost translucent pale marble color.

For the first time since arriving in Alacrya, I thought I understood a little bit of how Agrona must have felt when he saw all these powerful people gathered together. Anywhere else in the world, they would have been a formidable, even overwhelming force, but here, now…they seemed so unimportant. They were nothing.

I felt Tessia’s disappointment bubbling up from within.

What?

‘Do you suppose this is how the researchers felt toward you as they poked and prodded you? Under such high authority, maybe they saw you as nothing more than how you are now looking at the Scythes…as an asset, soldiers to be tolerated perhaps, but not respected.’

I swallowed hard, carefully keeping my thoughts to myself.

“All my mighty Scythes and their fearsome retainers together again,” Agrona said, his arms out wide. “We are missing only our lost little lamb, Seris, and her faithful hound. Her presence would have been a wondrous gift, but alas…”

Dragoth had turned when Agrona started speaking, and he blanched at this comment. Beside him, Echeron stared at his own feet.

“Still, don’t be too hard on Dragoth.” Agrona flashed us a wide grin. “You’ve all suffered your share of defeats and failures—of embarrassments—lately, haven’t you?”

Agrona smiled around like a proud and understanding father. He pushed himself up on the bar, letting his legs kick back and forth, his heels occasionally knocking against the wood.

“But we, all of us, sometimes must take our licks and keep moving.” He knocked his knuckles against the bartop a couple times. “To mix metaphors, we’ve allowed our house to gather dirt for long enough. The Seris situation will come to a close in due time, but there are many other places we can begin cleaning up right now.”

The Scythes and retainers exchanged uncertain glances, but no one dared interrupt Agrona, especially when he was giving off the pretense of a good mood.

“The dragons’ presence in Dicathen means there is no longer anything to be gained from our infighting,” he continued. “While Dragoth will continue to pursue Seris in the Relictombs, the rest of you will put our house back in order. I expect, before our efforts in that department are complete, we’ll be seeing Arthur Leywin poking his head out as well, and when he does, I want you to capture or kill him.”

Melzri and Viessa shared a meaningful look.

“What are you going to be doing?” I asked, frustrated by this flippant mention of killing Grey. Grey had already defeated a squad of Agrona’s asura killers. I knew Agrona didn’t expect any of these Scythes to actually beat Grey.

Agrona cocked his head to the side, jangling the ornaments in his horns. His smile didn’t falter, but his legs stopped swinging. “Why do you ask, Cecil dear?”

I swallowed heavily, something about the look in his eye making me second guess my forthrightness. “I…just meant, if Grey is such a threat…”

Agrona’s smile widened, baring his canines, and he slid off the bar, standing tall. His shadow seemed to fall over everyone at once. “Despite my feigned weakness, that cautious old dragon has been satisfied to let the situation on this world linger, allowing me to plumb the depths of the Relictombs and grow my understanding of this world’s power. Finally, though, thanks to our wayward reincarnated friend, Arthur, Kezess has opened the way between Dicathen and Epheotus. Now, as you end this silly civil war and hunt Arthur Leywin, I will be…preparing to take full advantage of Kezess’s misstep.”

Anything pleasant slid from Agrona’s face like he’d taken off a mask. Beneath was something dark and dangerous. “In my own pretense of weakness, some of you have allowed yourselves to become actually weak. I’ve given you new regalias along with my patience. It is time to prove yourselves worthy of both.”

The room seemed frozen, as if the others were no longer even breathing. Time could have stopped, and it would have changed nothing.

Agrona’s eyes traveled slowly across each of us in turn. “The Legacy will focus primarily on Arthur Leywin. If you can’t bring him whole, at least bring me his core. Make use of the Scythes as you see fit to ensure that this is done.”

He turned and swept from the room, leaving behind him a deep-set and brooding silence.