This chapter was rewritten and reposted on the 20th Jan 2016.

Chapter 18.

(Fallon)

I was still alive.

Still in one piece.

As Akasha had stabbed at me with her long spear, Andraste had reached out and parried the weapon away from me by using its remaining sword.

The reaction was reflexive, but I was sure it hadn’t come from me.

It had come from the Seal of Arcala.

I didn’t understand what was happening, but I could feel a change had taken place within the Seal inside my body and my mind.

Ever since I was pulled into the Seal’s side of the curtain, where I saw the outside world as a fiery landscape just like in the dream, I’d had the feeling the Seal was somehow conscious and alive. As I fought Iris, I’d been conscious of the Seal’s presence as though it was pressed against me, embracing me from behind in a motherly way. It watched over me, guided me, and supported me. Its warmth had bled into me, and I’d felt an indescribable happiness and joy surge through my mind and body.

To me, the Seal felt like a companion and a mentor, a teacher and a guide.

It was a comforting, reassuring presence, and with its help, I’d fought Iris on better than equal footing, until Iris unexpectedly improved and I once again faced a steep, uphill battle to stay alive. But even when the situation had changed for the worse, I could still strongly feel the Seal enveloping me. It had not abandoned me, though now it wasn’t feeding me warmth or happiness, but cold fear.

And that fear had made it hard for me to control Andraste.

The Seal’s terror had robbed me of my strength and ability to fight.

Perhaps it realized this, because I’d felt it push me aside and grab control of Andraste. Actually, it wasn’t that it had pushed me away. Rather, the Seal that had been lovingly embracing me, had flowed into me, taken control of Andraste, and fought off Iris with a mad flurry of strikes that were uncoordinated yet desperately powerful. They were so powerful that Iris was forced to back away and regain her stance before charging at me again.

But the Seal was inside me now.

I could feel it within my body, moving me if not against my will, then at least without my consent.

This wasn’t what I wanted.

I didn’t want to feel its fear and terror rushing through me.

I didn’t want it controlling me or my Warlord.

As Andraste pushed and pulled against Akasha, the latter’s bladed-spear mere feet away from my chest, I focused part of my vision inward and reached out to the Seal.

Stop this…please….

I fell inwards, like falling down a water well, but when I reached bottom I suddenly found myself floating, and looking down at myself merged with Andraste. It was as though my spirit had separated from my body, and I was now floating above it, watching myself battle Andraste.

But that wasn’t all I could see.

I could see myself enveloped by a ghostly shadow of myself.

The Seal of Arcala.

I wasn’t being embraced anymore. My shadow self, the Seal, was flowing in and out of my body.

Stop this…please…I don’t want this….

The Seal disappeared into me, and though I was separated from my body, I felt the Seal take control of Andraste once again and generate a barrier-field that slammed into Iris and Akasha, knocking them back several meters.

Briefly separated from them, I thought the Seal might choose to escape, but then I sensed it fear turning its back on Iris. It seemed wise not to turn ones back on an opponent that had a bladed spear that could cut through concrete and stone walls like a hot blade through snow.

It took only a moment or two for Iris to recover, then she was back, pressing me or rather the Seal into a desperate defense.

With Akasha wielding it in two hands, Iris constantly worked the bladed-spear into my inside region, forcing the Seal to use both my blades to cover my high and low areas. Despite Andraste’s long arms and the length of its swords, the Seal willed the Warlord to crouch, lower its stance enough to cover my low inside better.

I realized now that I was nothing more than a spectator – a floating spirit watching from above – unable to fight for myself.

Then without warning, another wave of dizziness swept through me, I felt myself float upwards at an incredible speed. In a heartbeat or less I was back in my body, my inward vision having collapsed. But I also realized that my Awareness bubble had burst, shrinking my perception of the fiery world to what my five senses could tell me.

I was back in my body.

I was back in control.

But where was the Seal? I couldn’t feel it anymore.

A heartbeat later, Andraste and I drifted apart.

The Warlord’s legs turned rubbery and it fell to a knee, quickly stopping itself from falling forward with a hastily planted hand on the ground.

My view of the world rolled and grew gray and misty.

When Iris cut the air with a victorious cry, I could barely see her.

But I felt the tremendous kick Akasha delivered to Andraste, and my eyesight tumbled as Andraste and I rolled across the ground. The Warlord and I came to rest on its back, half sunk into a single storey house we’d crashed into. My vision see-sawed, and after squeezing my eyes shut for a few moments, I opened them to see Akasha and a bleeding Iris stagger toward me, almost dragging its bladed spear along the ground. It was as though she had spent much of her remaining strength delivering that one brutal kick.

I tried willing Andraste to move, sensing it was wedged into the building, but my bond to the Warlord was less than weak, and Andraste hardly shuddered in response.

Panic and desperation began building up inside me.

Akasha and Iris continued toward me, staggering with each step, but nonetheless moving my way. Iris’s lips moved but I couldn’t hear what she was saying, yet her intentions were clear in her eyes.

This time I wasn’t going to get away.

Knowing that, I began struggling for air as my despair formed a very large ball in my chest, putting pressure on my heart and lungs.

Iris and Akasha drew closer, the spear’s blade slicing a narrow furrow along the ground.

The woman’s bloodied lips moved, and this time I heard her raspy voice.

“…what will it take…to pin you down…?”

The ball in my chest grew larger, and my body trembled as I gasped for air.

Move, move, move…MOVE!

But Andraste wouldn’t move, and I could feel myself slipping away from it even more, almost losing my bond with it altogether.

The reddish sky warped and wavered with streaks of blue cutting swaths out of it. The hot air I blowing around me grew cold. The strange sounds of the inhabitants became recognizable as human cries and screams. I was falling out of the dream that showed me a twisted, hellish vision of my surroundings and back into the world I truly lived in.

I gathered my despair, and yelled inside my head – screaming at the Warlord to move.

Suddenly an icy cold surged through my body, freezing my breath, and petrifying my limbs.

My view of the world turned inward again, and in my mind’s eye, I saw the Seal, wearing my appearance, reaching out to me in despair.

I felt my mind reach out to it too.

Our hands clasped, and I was pulled into it, falling headlong into the Seal.

For a heartbeat, I thought I might have heard it yell out in surprise as we both plunged into darkness.

#

(Fatina)

With my Awareness expanded and sharpened to give me the greatest possible clarity, Gehanna and I leapt over the low building rooftops and flew down toward my quarry on the level not so far below.

My sister had stopped moving.

Her Warlord had grown limp, its Awareness-field collapsed, barrier-fields faded, and the Impulse Wings were dark.

My sister was now defenseless.

As I leapt toward them, I watched Iris Dirac Korvinus and her Warlord, Akasha, stand over my sister with a painfully familiar sword-spear poised high over Deena’s motionless body.

I sensed her hesitation, and I doubted it had anything to do with my approach.

It was my sister’s lifeless open eyes that gave her pause.

Though my Awareness was focused on Iris, I was also quite aware of my sister, which is why I knew her heart had stopped beating.

In that moment of understanding, I felt two things.

An unpleasant emptiness hollow out my heart, and a burning hatred flow into it.

It was hatred for Iris Dirac.

But there was nothing I could do for my sister.

I understood this well enough, which is why I concentrated my attention on Iris.

I needed to get her away from my sister in order to give Gabrielle a chance to save Deena.

I knew that Gabrielle would. I trusted her because I owed her my life, and while my debt to her continued to grow I wasn’t worried about it.

In truth, as I leapt down at Iris Dirac, I realized that despite the circumstances I wasn’t worried about anything at all.

I didn’t know why, but for some reason…my heart was at peace.

Perhaps for the first time in many weeks, I wouldn’t dream that horrible dream….

Dirac became aware of me a heartbeat before I crashed into her.

By then it was too late for her to avoid me, or prepare for me.

Gehanna’s barrier-fields, layered a dozen thick, collided with Akasha. The outermost fields shattered, but the inner ones held, and together with the energy of my descent, the impact knocked Akasha and Iris to the edge of the stepped level. My landing with Gehanna wasn’t the best, but at least I was on my feet before Iris could recover.

We were now on the lowest level of this strange, mountainside township, and less than a hundred feet from the lakeshore with its many boat piers.

With Gehanna gripping its long swords tightly in each hand, I walked the Warlord over to Akasha swaying drunkenly on its feet.

Dirac blinked hard, and I could sense her struggle to focus on me.

I pushed against her Awareness field, disrupting it the way Gabrielle had taught me. This had the effect of dazing Dirac, and the young woman shook her head as though trying to clear it.

It was something I could do to her because she was weakened. The fight with my sister had robbed her of her strength, and probably reopened the wound Gabrielle had inflicted upon her two weeks ago when she saved me from Iris.

But I knew that wasn’t the only serious injury Iris Dirac bore.

She carried another, one that I believed had speared through her body.

I had seen it once, when Gabrielle’s strike had cut through her clothes, revealing the gash in Iris’s chest, a moment before Gabrielle stabbed iris with her sword-spear, tearing through the woman’s body and out her back.

I was certain both wounds were weighing her down.

It’s hard for the human body to recover from such injuries. Even blessed with the Seal of Arcala, such wounds take time to heal, and Iris had rushed into battle too soon for her own good.

Relying on the training I’d received from the Seal’s dream state, I knocked aside Akasha’s spear, then delivered an upward slash that should have separated the Warlord’s right hand from its wrist.

But to my amazement, Akasha moved faster than I could follow and its arm escaped injury.

In reply, Akasha assumed a defensive stance, and fanned out the seven Impulse Wings attached to its back. At the same time, it extended the open palm of its left hand toward me. The air shimmered before its palm, and a barrier-field crashed into Gehanna and I with the force of a storm wind strong enough to uproot a forest. Gehanna slid back along the ground until it extended its six Impulse Wings and summoned a wind of its own, but it wasn’t a barrier-field. It was what Gabrielle called an Impulse-Field, and it braced us against the wind effect of Akasha’s barrier-field.

It was my turn to push back.

With both swords gripped tightly in Gehanna’s clawed hands, I willed my Warlord to hold them before me, and concentrated on generating a barrier-field of my own. I imagined it projecting from the sword tips, pushing against the field emanating from Akasha’s palm.

Gehanna began pushing back and it was Akasha’s turn to slide along the ground for a handful of yards.

Halos of blue-white light formed around Akasha’s Impulse Wings, and the Warlord came to a stop.

I knew the same halos of light surrounded Gehanna’s wings.

Our two barrier-fields pushed against each other for many seconds, magnifying the windstorm kicking up debris around us.

For a heartbeat I worried about my sister, fearing the storm we were rousing was going to harm her and perhaps Gabrielle.

Then I realized I was thinking foolishly.

Harm Gabrielle? How stupid of me. As if this storm could ever harm that demon.

Nonetheless, I resisted the urge to look behind me.

I couldn’t risk diverting my Awareness away from Iris.

Almost all my concentration was focused on maintaining the barrier-field I was summoning to oppose Akasha’s field.

I’ll believe in Gabrielle, and trust her to save my sister—huh?

Akasha flattened the claws of her left hand, turning it into a knife, and made a horizontal slashing motion.

What the—?

Without warning, my barrier-field was cut in half like a cloth curtain sliced left-to-right by an incredibly sharp sword.

A piercer-field? But it ripped through her barrier as well as mine.

In a heartbeat I willed Gehanna to cut power to the Impulse-Field it was generating, otherwise I would have flown straight into Dirac and her Warlord. Nonetheless, Gehanna still stumbled forward a couple of steps before skidding to a stop.

In the next heartbeat, I feared Dirac would come at me, but Akasha’s Impulse Wings had grown dark. It seemed Iris Dirac had chosen to stand her ground.

Unease cut sharply through my chest. Worry began to eat at my resolve.

Can I hold of Dirac long enough for Gabrielle to save Deena?

Akasha lowered its left hand while slowly twirling the long spear it gripped in its right.

She cut both her field and mine without using her spear. How did she manage that?

Shifting into a defensive stance I’d learnt from the Dream of Ragnarok, I waited for Dirac to charge at me.

So this is the difference that practice and experience makes possible.

Under Gabrielle’s training, I was confident I’d improved over the past two weeks, but I knew I’d taken only a handful of steps on the long journey toward mastering Gehanna. I also knew there was a big gap in skill between Iris Dirac and I.

With all that in mind, I really couldn’t afford to be careless or the least bit overconfident.

I had to maintain my concentration, hold onto my resolve, and be confident that the last two weeks of Hellish training under Gabrielle were not a wasted effort. But that was easier said than done, especially when moment after moment went by and Iris Dirac refused to move.

What is she waiting for? Is she just going to keep twirling that spear until I come at her?

Maybe she read my thoughts.

Akasha stopped twirling the spear, and buried one bladed tip into the ground.

Dirac spat blood, then casually wiped her lips with the back of a leather gauntleted wrist. Yet blood continued to drip down the corners of her eyes and mouth.

She looked a mess. A fearful, bloody mess. When she breathed, it sounded as though she had a hole in her chest. Despite this, she broke the silence between us with a calm voice and thin smile that made me shiver.

Dirac cocked her head to a side.

“You again….”

#

(Falken)

I rode Palomar up the levels back to where the rubble had collapsed onto hapless people, and where many more struggled to remove oversized chunks of permacrete and stone.

Arriving in short order at the level, I ran my gaze over what I could see of the devastation, then turned my attention to the construction Jotunn kneeling on all fours some distance away.

Two men worked on its back, ducking in and out of sight from behind the open cowling of the Jotunn’s Etheric Drive.

Unable to resist the urge to look down the levels at the Warlords, I saw the red and black Warlord of Fatina standing off against Iris Dirac, but the buildings obscured my view of Fallon.

Again, I felt helpless, so I turned away and focused on what I could do as opposed to what I couldn’t.

I urged Palomar about and galloped over to the kneeling Jotunn, bringing the horse to a hasty stop right beside the motionless machine.

“Will it run?” I called out in a firm voice, loud enough to be heard above the surrounding din.

Neither man popped their heads out of the engine housing, but one of them yelled, “Just a bloody moment.”

“Just give me an answer,” I yelled back.

The man who’d replied straightened and stared at me. He was elderly, probably more than thrice my age, but he had a fire in his eyes that reminded me of my father on a very bad day.

“Son, you yell at me again and there will be problems.”

I met his hard stare with one of mine, and pointed with a steady finger at the Jotunn. “I’ll ask you one more time, old man. Will it run?”

For a long while he remained silent, his eyes firmly locked on mine, before uttering a guttural, “It’ll run if you shut up and let me fix it.”

“Then shut up and get back to work. You have five minutes to get it running, or when this is over, I’m tossing your decrepit ass into a cell in Calandor. You hear me, old man?”

The second man, much younger than the first, pulled his body out of the open engine bay.

“Hey, you wanna try that—ugh!”

The man’s eyes widened.

“You—your Grace!”

I pointed at the mountain of rubble. “People are dying. I need that Jotunn working so that I can help them.”

The old man ran his gaze over me. “So you’re the young whelp that’s running the land.” He turned away and resumed working on the engine. “No wonder Caldera has gone to a pile of horse dung.”

I sincerely wanted to throw the old goat into a cell.

The sound of a loud crash was accompanied by a quake that made Palomar even more skittish than he already was. When a strong gust of wind roared over the ground, I had to work the reins and my legs hard to keep him from bolting.

“Damn it, you goat. Stop bucking around!”

The old man snapped, “Who are you calling an old goat?”

I decided it wasn’t worth the effort to answer him.

Casting anxious looks toward the levels below, I also kept an eye on the work the people were carrying out on the mountain of rubble. Every so often, I would look up at the level above from where it appeared even more rubble would rain down. With another strong ground tremor like before, and I was certain parts of that level would come down atop the people working below it.

How much longer was the repair going to take?

I whirled Palomar about and then edged the horse closer. “What’s the matter with it?”

The younger of the two men replied, “The gears are shot, and the Etheric fan blades have seen better days.”

I leaned closer. “Can it turn over? Doesn’t matter what gear—just tell me if it will turn over?”

The old man growled, “It’ll turn over, but you’ll need a lot of grunt to keep it running.”

Making my choice in a heartbeat, I climbed down off Palomar’s back. “Leave that to me.”

Because it was kneeling on hands and knees, strapping myself into the construction Jotunn wasn’t the easiest task to accomplish. I had to brace myself using my legs while first working myself into the safety harness, and then snapping the buckles together. My struggles aside, my confidence that the Jotunn would move wasn’t reassured by the loud banging coming from the engine housing mounted to the machine’s back. The loud cursing didn’t help either.

“Piece of junk!”

I heard a couple of extra loud metal crashes, then the sound of the engine cowling being slammed shut.

The younger man dropped down beside the Jotunn, then crouched in order to look at me strapped into the machine’s chest.

“Your Grace, you’re good to go. The lower gears had to be disengaged from both derailleurs otherwise the connecting chain may snap—and that chain is old. Very old. It should have been changed—”

“Forget about the chain. What gears do I have?”

“Just the high gears, your Grace.”

I nodded curtly. “That will do.”

Noticing I was having difficulty securing my legs into the sheaths attached to the Jotunn’s inner thighs, he squatted under the machine and helped me with the straps and buckles.

He carried on. “Without the low gears you’re going to have a hard time spooling it up—”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve had to deal with worse.”

That was the bitter truth I’d had to bear the last couple of years.

With the last of the buckles locked in place, I concentrated on the Ether flowing through the belt system, and exerted my Ether Kinetic will over the pulley mechanism. The straps tightened around me until I felt secure in the Jotunn’s chest.

I glanced at the man crouching beside me. “Is that old goat clear of me?”

A second pair of feet, this time wearing sandals, landed on the ground beside the kneeling Jotunn. “Who are you calling an old goat?”

I snorted loud enough to be heard. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Closing my eyes, I reached out to the Etheric Drive by using the Ether as a medium. Like a man in darkness running his hands and fingers over the engine, a picture of it began to form in my mind. The Ether wasn’t a light shining in the darkness. Rather, it was more like a ghostly mist that illuminated the Etherite inside the components of the Etheric Drive. This had the effect of making a significant amount of the engine glow in the dark of my mind.

The construction Jotunn had a cable system I could use to control the derailleurs and shift the drive chain between gears depending on how fast I needed the engine to spin and how much Ether I needed the impellers or fan blades to draw into the Jotunn. However, while holding the engine’s image in my mind, I chose to shift the chain from one gear wheel to the next by using my Ether Kinetic will. In other words, I was using my will to operate the derailleurs, rather than resorting to the cable system, because I couldn’t trust the mechanism would hold.

Shifting into the lowest gears accessible by the worn out derailleurs was a struggle. The mechanism felt loose and unresponsive and I almost lost the chain running over them. This design lacked the more modern guide wheels that helped keep a chain from jumping gears.

I was starting to wonder just how old this construction Jotunn was. It certainly predated any that I’d ever operated before.

To get the engine spinning, I focused my Ether Kinetic talent on the crank wheel that was forged with Etherite in the mix. I couldn’t use my talent to grab onto the chain because it contained no Etherite since the material tended to weaken any structure it was mixed into. Though Etherite was malleable it wasn’t a metal, and its brittleness wasn’t suitable for chains that needed to endure large loads of tension.

With a fair amount of effort, the crank began turning over under the influence of my Kinetic talent, but it was slow going. The damn thing felt like it weighed a couple of tonnes rather than a few kilograms. A little lubrication would have gone a long way toward making the process easier. However, I had no choice but to persist no matter the headache it was bringing on. I needed the Ether the Etheric engine could draw into the construction Jotunn’s frame.

No matter how strong my talent, the ambient Ether wasn’t enough for me to make best use of the machine.

It wasn’t enough for me to save lives.

Keeping my eyes shut while turning the crank over, I focused on the engine’s fan blades, and began willing them to turn over in concert with my efforts to turn the crank wheel.

Come on. Turn. Turn. Turn. Turn over.

I sensed the multiple fan blades begin to do just that.

And I could feel the pulsing ache within my skull beat in time with my heart.

That’s it. Keep turning. Keep turning.

With more Ether flowing into the engine, I had more Ether with which to enforce my will over it.

Turning it became easier, and soon that Ether began flow richly through the construction Jotunn’s large skeletal body.

Now, I could make it move.

“Move back. Get clear,” I called out.

The younger man muttered an oath in surprise. “Bloody Hell. He got it moving. I didn’t think it would.”

“Bloody brat. He’s got more talent than he deserves.”

The Jotunn was on its hands and knees.

I willed its legs to move just as I would my own, and used its overly long arms to push the rest of the skeletal chassis into an upright kneeling posture.

To an observer, the Jotunn was like a child struggling to rise to its feet, and as its operate that’s how I felt too.

There was rubble nearby, large blocks of stone and permacrete blocks, that had fallen from the edge of the level above. Reaching out with one of the Jotunn’s arms, I planted its left hand on one of the blocks and used it to steady the machine as I willed it to stand on its two feet. The joints creaked and groaned, and the Jotunn swayed as I concentrated my famed talent to prevent it from falling over.

The two men had retreated some twenty feet.

The old man snapped, “Well? What are you waiting for? You need a push?”

Now that it was standing, I exerted a little of my Kinetic will through the frame, using it to grab onto the metal cage designed to protect the operator. The cage came down, and I locked it into place with my own two hands.

I made it a point to ignore the old man.

The first step was hard, the second a little harder. Then for some reason it became easier, and within moments I was lumbering unsteadily across the fractured ground in a Jotunn that had no business being up on its feet.

Part of my talent was focused on keeping the crank wheel turning, and the lack of lubrication made that a real struggle. But the Ether was flowing strongly into the engine and the rest of the machine, and that mitigated the struggle to sustain the turning of the wheel.

Almost falling a handful of times, I caught myself on the surroundings to keep upright and moving. After what felt like minutes travelling a drunken path on foot, the Jotunn and I arrived at where this level of Calmonad was devastated and numerous people struggled to move oversized chunks of rubble by hand.

A few of them noticed my approach, but a great many didn’t.

“Out of the way,” I yelled. “Move out of the way.”

It took a few more yells for them to clear a both for me.

The next problem I faced was deciding which pieces of stone and permacrete to move first.

Unexpectedly, a large man who’d been overseeing and participating in the rescue attempt made those decisions for me.

“That one,” he pointed. “That one first.”

Swinging thick burly arms, he waved back the dozens of men clambering over the mountain of rubble.

“Get out of the way,” he snapped at them. “You lot—pull back twenty feet.”

Then he waved me forward.

“Come on, lad. Get to it.”

I ground my molars together and rolled my neck in irritation.

When I’m not being called a brat, I’m being called a lad.

Restraining the urge to stomp, I walked the Jotunn to the foot of the debris mountain, and planted its feet wide and firm on the ground. Then I willed the machine to reach forward, and grab onto the first irregular chunk of rubble. Hands and arms the length of a large tree’s branches took hold of a piece of permacrete the size of an adult boar though significantly heavier.

I gave myself a moment to gather my will before exerting it fully through the machine’s arms, shoulders and torso, much like a man tightening his gut and bracing his legs a heartbeat before lifting something sizeable weight.

With the Ether flowing strongly through the Jotunn, it picked up the debris and lifted it clear of the mountain of rubble. Mindful of the people around me, I swung the Jotunn’s body around, and tossed the permacrete boulder away.

“Good. Now that one.”

I looked where the burly man indicated, and then repositioned the Jotunn so that it could remove a jagged piece of permacrete from a side of the rubble mountain.

After lifting, I tossed it behind me. Again, I had to careful not to hit anyone as I did so.

Then it was onto the third piece.

And then the fourth.

I lost track of time as I operated the Jotunn to the large man’s instructions.

Before long, sweat ran in rivulets down my back and under my arms.

The headache I’d endured when spinning up the Etheric drive had not abated. It had grown worse. However, even while moving boulder after boulder of rubble, I had to keep part of my concentration on the crank wheel. I simply couldn’t afford to let it stop. I feared that once it stopped, the worn out engine would seize up and never spin again.

Then I felt something in the Etheric drive that made my blood run cold.

The drive chain was rattling and sliding about.

There links were beginning to separate and the chain was losing its tension.

“Gods damn it,” I whispered, and shook my head to flick the seat out of my eyes as the twentieth—no, twenty-fifth piece of broken permacrete was tossed out of the way by the Jotunn’s hands and arms.

The mountain of rubble continued to grow smaller, and pockets with survivors were now visible, and their pleas for help audible. People trapped under the debris now extended their hands and reached out for salvation.

I had to be more careful than ever as I removed one piece of debris after the other. No matter my surroundings, my concentration had to be devoted to the task at hand, and the instructions blared out by the barrel chested man that insisted on calling me ‘lad’.

Now, more than ever, there was no simply no room for a mistake on my part.

Men began clambering atop the broken pile that was once a large part of the level above. They worked in concert to roll and sometimes lift small yet quite heavy lumps of permacrete and rock out of the way, throwing them aside over the foot of the mountain of destruction gradually growing smaller and smaller.

Other men reached into those pockets of safety and began pulling survivors out, one person at a time.

Carefully positioning the Jotunn on the a couple of large broken slaps, I reached for the block of permacrete hampering a group of men trying to get people out of a cavity under the debris pile. The Jotunn’s joints and metal chassis creaked loudly, and the body swayed as I felt one side stiffen while the other gave way.

As I fought to keep it upright and steady, I felt moisture on my upper lip. At first I thought it was sweat, but the coppery taste that greeted my mouth told it was blood, and it was trickling out of my nose.

I chose not to wipe my lips and nose dry.

Instead, I sucked in a lungful of air, reflexively tensed my body, and threw my will into steadying the five tonne bipedal machine before it could topple over.

The Jotunn swayed for a heartbeat longer, then grew still.

Not willing to breathe a sigh of relief, I concentrated my Kinetic talent on guiding its arms over the side of the mountain that was now more of a hill. Under my will, the Jotunn’s oversized hands that could easily wrap their fingers round the trunk of a tree, grabbed the troublesome piece of shattered permacrete, and lifted it into the air.

At that moment, the drive chain snapped and ricocheted of the inner walls of the engine housing.

A ghastly grinding noise belched out of the Etheric drive as the chain smashed into the fan blades spinning at hundred or more revolutions per minute.

I felt the Ether drawn into the Jotunn wane and grow thin.

A heartbeat later, the twelve-foot tall metal giant toppled forward with the permacrete boulder still in its hands.

#

(Alleyne)

Ravinia Eldridge’s face was covered by a fine sheen of sweat.

If not for her consistently fast and shallow breaths, I would have thought she was in labor and ready to deliver a child into the world.

However, that was far and away from the truth.

The agony flowing into her came from the piece of the Seal of Arcala that resided in her body. It was a piece that was once part of the Seal that was embedded within Iris Dirac’s body. The bond between Dirac and Eldridge was made possible by the link between the two pieces of the Seal. The agony Iris Dirac was enduring was flowing into Ravinia. In fact, the Seal of Arcala was prioritizing Iris over Ravinia, and syphoning the pain the Khan felt and sending it Eldridge’s way.

This allowed Iris Dirac to fight for longer, despite the injuries she bore that had yet to heal.

It also made me wonder at the extent of the injuries Dirac was carrying. If this much agony was flowing into Eldridge, didn’t it indicate Dirac was tearing herself apart?

I concentrated on the textures Dirac’s pain was writing into the Ether flowing through Eldridge’s body, rewriting them so that instead of anguish they became soothing contentment. If I couldn’t change them in time, I would simply wipe them clean. And failing that, I left what textures slipped past me to the surprisingly capable Ether Empath talent demonstrated by Lisanna Sandoval.

For the past few minutes, our combined efforts had kept Ravinia conscious and her body alive. If she had to endure it on her own, she would have fallen unconscious by now. There was a strong chance her body would have expired shortly afterwards from organ failure. In essence, there is only so much pain the human body can endure, and this was after taking the Thread that resides within us into consideration.

As I rewrote the textures imprinted harshly onto the Ether, I watched both Eldridge and Lisanna. The latter was on her knees, her palms resting over Eldridge’s midriff, while I knelt with my hands on the woman’s chest.

I was surprised by how quickly Lisanna could rewrite the textures imprinted on the Ether. Though she was weaker than I in regards to how much Ether she could weave, I grudgingly admitted that her ability to write and rewrite emotions and sensations on the Ether was in a class noticeably above mine.

I had strength.

Lisanna had speed – a very frightening speed.

If I was to face her in battle, as one Aja to another, my strongest possibility for victory would be to overwhelm her in the opening moments, before she could write textures into the Ether that could harm me. If she slipped past my defenses, and entered my consciousness with an Etheric thread that conducted her will, I doubted I would be able to fight her. She would override my consciousness and will, effectively turning me into a puppet.

Had she been playing with me all these years?

Had she been pretending to be weak?

I simply did not know, and it stoked the embers of worry deep in my chest.

I shook my head inwardly.

I was trying to save Eldridge’s life, yet I was considering ways to defeat Lisanna should the situation ever arise. I chastised myself for being distracted, and concentrated on cleansing the Ether flowing through the woman lying on the ground before me.

Lisanna spoke in a strained voice. “You’re falling behind.”

“I know….” I narrowed my concentration around the task at hand.

“Let me take over.”

I blinked in mild surprise, and stared at her in kind.

Lisanna flicked a glance my way. “You’ve noticed by now that I’m faster than you. I can keep the pain flowing into her at bay before it spreads that far into her body.”

“…I have….”

“Then let me take over,” she repeated. “Or do you think you can do a better job of it?”

Had she shown me a hint of arrogance, I would have rejected her offer.

However, Lisanna’s eyes were clear of malice, envy, pride, or any of the seven sins.

I cleared my throat by swallowing the moisture in my mouth. “Very well. Let us swap.”

And swap we did.

My hands gently pressed down upon Eldridge’s midriff, and Lisanna’s hands rested upon the woman’s chest.

I sensed and saw the Ether being rewritten under her Empath Weaver talent, and again I had to grudgingly admit she was the best choice for keeping Eldridge conscious and sane.

Eldridge coughed and began breathing longer, deeper breaths.

She gave Lisanna a weak nod. “Thank you….” Rolling her head my way, she added, “Thank you…both of you….”

Lisanna began to tightly, narrowly shake her head. “Why? Why is this happening? Doesn’t your Khan know what she’s doing to you?”

Eldridge swallowed a couple of times, and gathered air in her lungs. “She has decided…not to…let her go….”

Lisanna questioned, “Let who go? You mean that little trollop from the countryside?”

I shot Lisanna a glare that she ignored. Despite the fact her attention was on Eldridge, she was doing a masterful job of keeping the Ether free of any trace of pain within the woman’s body. As a result, I could see color returning to Eldridge’s features, and her breathing had noticeably recovered.

Eldridge cleared her throat again, and gave Lisanna a dry smile. “I take it you’re not friends?”

Lisanna raised her eyebrows. “I being friends with that Khan? Hardly.”

With the Ether in Eldridge’s body filtered by Lisanna, there was nothing for me to do so I withdrew my Empathic talent, knelt back, and turned my attention on Eldridge.

I sounded a little harsh to my ear. “Why is Iris Dirac so intent on removing the Seal from Fallon’s body?”

Eldridge faced me. “As I said before, she wishes to remove the Seal of Arcala from the girl in order to save her from the darkness, and to prevent her from harming these lands.”

Alleyne huffed. “That sounds like a very good thing.”

I leaned slightly toward Eldridge. “Is that truly the only reason? Or is it a standing order from the Quorum of Khans that no new Wilders be admitted into the existing ranks?”

Eldridge shook her head, but the motion was quite narrow. “Not at all.”

Lisanna’s brow furrowed ever so slightly, and I was truly fortunate to glimpse it.

The young woman asked, “So your Khan is risking death to protect these lands from that country trollop?” She snorted softly. “And she’s willing to sacrifice you in the process. What truly admirable dedication to her duties.”

Eldridge inhaled deeply, a truly deep breath now possible that Lisanna was cleansing the Ether in her body with a talent that exceeded mine.

“Duty is all that girl has left,” the Quorum Secretary added solemnly.

“You’re lying.”

Lisanna’s statement surprised me and Eldridge.

The young woman nodded to herself but spoke to Eldridge lying on the grass before her. “I’m cleaning the Ether in your body, and I can feel the lie that accompanied your words.”

Eldridge’s surprise became concern.

Lisanna broke into a thin smile. “It was very faint. But it was there nonetheless.”

The Quorum Secretary pressed her lips into a thin, pale line.

Lisanna leaned down closer to her. “Let me clarify something for you, Madam Secretary. I do not like that village girl. She is a danger and a nuisance we can do without. She is a problem that stands between his Grace and I, and the interests of my family. As such, I’d rather she went away. Therefore, if you know something about her, then you should tell me. I believe it would be in your immediate best interests to do so.” Her thin smile brightened yet it was clearly cold. “After all, your present wellbeing is in my hands.”

“Lisanna!” I snapped.

She spared me a confident, sly look. “You’re constantly challenging and threatening me. Maybe now is the time I put you in your place, Alleyne.”

I exhaled loudly. “Very well. However, here and now is not that time. But I accept your challenge, Lisanna.”

Lisanna’s lips made an odd shape that complemented the pensive frown she wore. “Hmm, very well. I look forward to facing you in the coming days.”

“You’re going to regret this,” I warned her.

“I only regret not doing this sooner,” she answered with a cold smile. Then she turned her attention on Ravinia Eldridge who had folded her hands across her midriff. “Madam Secretary, tell me what you know about that girl. Allow me to understand the reason for your lie.”

I chose to remain silent and studied Eldridge’s face as the woman came under pressure from Lisanna’s icy stare.

I couldn’t deny that I too wished to know what Eldridge was hiding.

Ravinia Eldridge wet her lips slowly, then swallowed visibly before responding to Lisanna’s cold insistence.

“It’s nothing more than a suspicion harbored by Iris….”

“A suspicion?” Lisanna asked.

“Yes,” Eldridge replied and nodded. “Iris believes that girl and her sister are noble born.”

I gasped sharply. “Her sister?

Lisanna muttered, “Noble born?”

Again, Eldridge nodded.

“Yes. Iris believes those girls survived the ambitions of the Anderas Empire….”