Chapter 10: Tested Resolve

 I.

Alex stalked through Spavia’s open streets, heads turning as she passed by. Their eyes fell on the sword at her side, then trailing up the blade at her back. A cacophony of hushed whispers lingered in the air. They asked what she was doing, why she was doing it and how the Divine Chrysalis let someone like her onto their island. Weapons meant violence, and violence had no room on Serya’s shores. The goddess protected them, so there was no need to protect themselves.

No need for violence, Alex thought. The gap between Serya and the Underworld was more than physical. It felt like she was in a different world entirely. Parents talked as their kids played in the streets. A carpenter hoisted a sign up, knocking it into place with a hammer and nail. Tired dockworkers dragged themselves back to town to rest. The ambience of town life reminded her of what the Underworld had lost. A time capsule of what life might have been like before the Ascension. A life she had never known, but yearned for. Fighting every day to buy just a bit more time. Would there ever be an end?

Alex pressed forward, moving past the dockworkers toward the same way they came in. Seeing their tired faces made the responsibility of the blade at her back feel that much heavier. A responsibility to cleave down remnants wherever they appear. An assumed job not required for a Pathfinder. The job's true goal was in the name; to find the best path forward, regardless of the cost. Alex thought that meant you kept walking forward until you passed, leaving the unfinished job to the person who came after.

The reality couldn’t have been more different.

“Krass,” Alex said.

A worker with the wide-brim hat perked up. He said nothing. His head tilted toward Alex, then jerked toward a tree outside of town.

Alex walked through the field, finding refuge under the shade of the tree. Liz and Aria followed, with Aria casting a glance at the skittish Krassimir. He glanced toward the village, to the tree, to the village, then back at the tree. After some vague criteria that only made sense to Krass had been met, he troubled Alex by taking longer than needed. He walked, his hands in his pockets, across the field toward the tree. Krass whistled for good measure. What should have been a moment took more than double the time.

“Was that necessary?” Alex said.

“You never know who's watching.” Krass tilted the brim of his hat. “So, what do you got?”

Alex detailed her journey up to the Verconis manor, everything from the training regimen to the remnant, to the skyskimmer behind the shrine. Krass frowned.

“That explains the skyskimmer I heard last night.”

“So, it came by here?” Liz said.

“Yup.” Krass frowned. “Too hard not to notice.”

“I didn’t hear anything like that.” Aria said.

“‘Course you didn’t,” he said. “You snore too loud to hear anything.”

“Hey!” Aria yelled.

“Enough,” Alex reprimanded. “What have you found out?”

“That these people are boring,” Krass yawned. “I can only hear so much about some dude’s daughter before I fall asleep.”

“That’s it?” Alex frowned.

“Oh, and there’s been a rem stalking around.”

“Where?” Alex said.

“It was headed toward Persal last night,” Krass pointed toward town.

“Persal?” Liz’s breath hitched in her throat. That was her home.

Alex clicked her tongue. “We have to move.”

“It was behaving strangely, though,” Krass added.

“Strangely how?” Aria asked. “It didn’t just corrode the first person it saw?”

“Nope.” Krass adjusted the brim of his hat as he stepped out of the shade. The sun illuminated the deep scar across his nose. “It watched people pass by. Its form seemed stable, less erratic. Can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like it. Then, once it had its fill of people watching, it got up and moved toward Persal.”

Remnants were known to be erratic. No rhyme nor logic to their targets other than the fact they were alive. If this remnant had the capacity to observe, it could plan. Alex clicked her tongue. “We’re going to Persal.”

Krass frowned.

Aria sighed, lamenting the long day she was about to have.

Liz clutched her hands together, hoping the people of her hometown were safe.

II.

Nico held the torch high as the darkness retreated from the flickering light. The cave floor flattened with each step. The cavern walls were smoothed over, padded down like clay. Nico expected the floor to be more warped and jagged if it were carved by the Oarmouth River. If it were the ritual site that Rinzai mentioned, then this cavern might have been shaped by man’s hand. Ancient artisans may very well have had nature at their beck and call. A thought that he honestly couldn’t comprehend. Something like that was in the bounds of Serya’s own miracles. He’d never seen them himself, it had only ever been in the lessons he had been taught and the books he had read.

The torch’s flickering flame revealed only the void as the walls stretched out of sight. They rounded an unseen corner. Nico knelt to the ground, running a hand along the floor. It was smooth. Smooth and cold to the touch. A faint, distorted glimmer shined from the floor. He eyed the torch, then the cavern floor. Lowering the torch, he saw the glimmer get larger. His own illuminated reflection stared back at him.

“This is some kind of metal,” Nico slapped the floor. He could not confirm it was the ritual site, but this was definitely not just a cave. The carved corridor leading into what seemed to be an open room. The plateau outside with two bridges. Was it a makeshift skyskimmer port? If it was, what was it here for?

“Nico, I see something reflecting there.” Ezia tapped her brother’s shoulder. “Can you point the torch at it?”

Nico nodded, brandishing the torch in the direction Ezia pointed.

His eyes widened. “Oh no!”

A face stared back.

A completely placid, unmoving face. Painted eyes stared back. It stood, stalwart and unbreathing.

“Is it some kind of prop?” Ezia pressed her hand against the humanoid statue. It didn’t budge. It weighed too much to be moved with a simple shove. “I feel like I’ve seen something like this before.”

“You have? Where?”

“It’s been so long, I couldn’t really tell you,” Ezia said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Nico walked past the statue, deeper into the spacious room. He stopped midstride. “Ezia.”

“Yes?”

Nico held the torch to the wall, revealing another statue of similar make. It wasn’t just one. Two, three, four stood in a line. The procession of humanoid statues extended beyond the torch’s reach. The statues lent credence to the skyskimmer port theory. Nico frowned as he continued walking along the wall. Nico looked back at Ezia, who appraised each statue as she passed by.

“Is it still bugging you?” Nico asked.

“Yes.” Ezia sighed. “But, it’ll come to me.”

Nico broke off of the wall and walked toward what he believed the room’s center to be. He kept his eyes on the ground, making sure he didn’t fall into a hole. That was the last thing he wanted to happen. As he walked, his eyes on the floor, he bumped into something hard. Not hard enough to fall, but enough to wince. He raised the torch up, looking toward the cavern’s ceiling.

Another reflective surface. A flat, silver sheen extended above Nico, curving just out of the torch’s light. It looked like a circle or a sphere at first glance. Nico crouched to see if there was a bottom, or some kind of mechanism to move it. After sating his curiosity, he pushed off the ground.

“What is this?” He asked. “Hey Ezia, come look at this.”

Ezia walked over, a hand resting on her hilt. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure.” Nico pressed his hands on the large, metallic sphere.

His heart pounded in his ear.

Nico’s teeth chattered.

He jumped back.

“Nico, are you alright?”

Nico patted his chest, his stomach, and legs. He was in one piece. Nothing happened. He shook his head, a hand resting on his brow. “What was that feeling? It was just like with the girl. She’s not in there, is she?”

“Hello? Is anyone out there?”

That was her voice.

“Y-yes, it’s me, Nico! Do you remember me?”

“Is anyone out there?”

She needed help. The girl was alive. She was alive and imprisoned in whatever this contraption was. “Can we open this thing?”

“I’m not sure that’s something we should do.” Ezia’s eyes wavered. Her hand shook just as Nico’s did.

“Ezia, what’s wrong?”

“Nico, step away from that thing.”

Nico eyed the sphere, then his sister. It wasn’t moving or shifting. What was she afraid of? Regardless, he followed her advice and stepped away. He reached for his eye patch with his free hand while holding the torch up with his other hand.

The fabric shifted. The darkness of the cavern vanished. The glimmer of his eye illuminated the unknown.

The metallic egg vanished.

The cave vanished. Ezia vanished.

Nico’s breathing echoed in the void. A black mist exuded with each breath.

Eyes. The shadows had eyes. There were hands. Hands at the end of each leg. Its body was bundled, bound in the shape of a sphere. The hands pressed against it. They pushed and pushed, but the sphere did not give. He heard voices, faint voices not from what was bound, but from the sphere.

“We bind you, by our purpose, we bind you.”

A sonorous drone, a rhythm that threatened to overwhelm Nico’s spirit.

The sphere spoke. No, it did not speak, it sang.

The voices got weaker with each repetition.

“You hear me.”

The sphere did not utter those words.

It was the creature within.

Nico stepped back.

His eye widened.

Memories played unbidden in his mind. Not his, not the sphere’s, not Ezia’s, but the thing inside.

A woman stood alone in the shade of a black forest. Jagged vines ripped from the earth, hoisting corpses overhead. Their wounds wide open, they rained scarlet to the ground. A gentle, red rain. The woman, covered in scars, trudged through the mud of some foreign land. She looked for a place to die. They kept coming after her. Pursued until the end of the earth. No peace in life, no rest in death. She fought, pursued for her darkness, pursued for her life.

Nico’s eyes rolled into the back of his head.

The images didn’t stop. The flood continued. No bulwark, no reprieve. Just pain.

He screamed.

A hand ripped him from the nightmare. He couldn’t see anything.

“Nico, get a hold of yourself!” Ezia’s hand barred his vision.

“A-ah, Ezia.” Nico choked on his breath. “I-I’m fine. I’m okay.”

“Sometimes that eye is more trouble than it’s worth.” Ezia sighed.

Nico shifted the eyepatch to his other eye. The pain dulled, but didn’t vanish. “You’re right. We can’t let whatever that thing is get out.”

Ezia sighed. “Well, at least you came to your—”

Metal screeched in the distance.

“What was that?” Ezia whispered.

Nico held the torch to the large, silver sphere. It hadn't moved an inch. He limped toward the wall where the statues stood. He held the torch aloft, the statue’s shadows dancing in the light of the flickering flame.

“Ezia,” Nico murmured. “It’s gone! One of them is missing! You need to—”

His words were cut short.

Then, something he didn’t want to see. His worst nightmare came to life. It was just like the vision he had seen. The vines hoisting bodies into the air. Ezia’s eyes widened. Blood splattered onto the floor and Nico’s feet.

“What?” Ezia whispered. The darkness lifted Ezia into the air as if she were a puppet on string. Then, all at once, they were cut. She collapsed onto the ground.

“Where are you!?” Nico waved the torch in the air.

Nothing.

There was nothing there.

“Ezia, are you okay?” Nico slid on his knees to Ezia’s side. “Ezia!”

Nico pushed her onto her back. His face paled. A large gash thrust through her back, and exited out the front. She was in a pool of her own blood.

“I apologize, but I am only performing what was requested of me.” A monotonous tone echoed through the cavern.

Requested? This place had a guardian of some kind. Of course. Nico didn’t consider guards. He had never thought of them as a possibility. No doubt a fault of his Seryan upbringing. No. He cursed himself under his breath. He couldn’t make an excuse. This was his fault.

“Ezia, please, stay with me,” Nico muttered. “Please, don’t die. Please, don’t. No. No, no, no!”

He hugged her close.

“Nico,” Ezia whispered, her voice a weak rasp. “Please, get out of here. Go.”

“No, I’m not abandoning you. Not here.”

“I’ll be fine.” A faint smile pulled at Ezia’s lips.

Nico’s breaths became erratic. Needles pricked at his cheeks. His eye narrowed at the darkness. “Who are you!?” Nico’s panic spilled into his voice.

“I cannot answer that inquiry.”

“Why not?” Nico clutched Ezia close with one arm, the torch held high in the other. “If you’re going to kill us, then what’s the harm?”

“Cyrus did warn me that humans are duplicitous.” The shadows echoed. “A trait seemingly shared amongst your kin. If I am wrong, please enlighten me.’

“Nico, go,” Ezia pleaded.

Nico’s teeth chattered. He pulled off the top part of his robe to pack Ezia’s wound. As he shoved the fabric into the opening, his eyes widened. The wound was smaller. He looked over his shoulder, then back to Ezia. Afterward, his hand crawled toward Ezia’s limp wrist and her sword. He grasped the hilt.

It was his last hope. He had to buy time. Buy time for Ezia to recover and for Rinzai to wake. Ezia’s sword scraped against the ground as Nico struggled to raise it. He had the torch in one hand and a weapon in the other. The eyepatch limited his vision, but even in the darkness — brandishing the eye spelled death. The dizziness and vertigo outweighed whatever nebulous benefit it might give. Not while Ezia was on the ground.

“Your eyes are wide, your grip weak. Your legs threaten to buckle under your own weight.” The assassin said.

“Shut up!” Nico gritted his teeth. “If you’re going to strike, then strike! What good does drawing this out do!?”

“I do not have many opportunities to examine humans up close.” The air whistled. “Apologies.”

“Ahhh!” Nico yelled as pain ripped through his body. The torch rolled onto the ground. His shoulder slackened, his bare arm dyed red with blood. He grit his teeth and thrust his hand toward the ground, clutching the flickering light. He stood tall over Ezia.

He couldn’t see the attacker, and he lacked the strength to swing a sword.

What do you know?

Thaleo’s words echoed in his mind.

At least, he had his answer.

Nothing.

“Another.”

The darkness glimmered.

Nico swung the sword to intercept the thin blade.

He missed.

It struck its mark, puncturing Nico’s shoulder.

Blood rained onto the ground.

“Ahhh!” Nico yelled.

It hurt. It hurt more than anything he had ever felt. Nico narrowed his eyes at the unseen assailant. With the assailant’s aim, he could kill them. The attacker had dealt what he believed to be a fatal blow to Ezia. Nico’s life was little more than a twig to snap, not a tree to cut down. Yet, he didn’t. He provoked him with words, taunted him with grazing wounds. The assailant wasn’t acting like an assassin. They were a kid plucking the wings off a butterfly. Each pained scream was another twitch and a wiggle.

Nico wasn’t a threat, so he wasn’t treated as one.

For the first time, Nico felt disgust.

A burning resentment for someone whose face he had never seen.

A faceless assailant would rob Ezia of her future, and Nico of his freedom.

“Another.”

The wind whistled.

Nico’s body buckled as he fell to a knee.

What did you know?

Thaleo’s question repeated over and over again, it haunted him. It taunted him with his own ignorance.

Nico swung the sword with one hand.

Another blade.

Nico’s opposite shoulder was hit. Then, his waist. The wounds were shallow, but the blood flowed.

The strikes did not contain malice. There was a curiosity. A deep ignorance of the crime it had been ordered to commit.

“It feels like you don’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“Correct, I only do what I am told.”

“Were you ordered to torture?”

The voice paused.

What did you know?

Nico didn’t know everything. But, there was one thing he did know. From the day he met that girl, to now, there was one thing he knew above all else. A lesson drilled into his head from the moment he had been born, from spending all eighteen years of his life in a deep languor.

Even if he didn’t know the how, there was one thing Nico knew above all else.

He wanted to protect the people he cared about.

Nico wasn’t an Artisan like his sister, or a politician like his brother. He had no skills to speak of except the eye he was burdened with.

But, there was something he had that they didn’t.

Someone who watched him since he was a child. Someone he had forgotten who had never forgotten him. A crime he probably couldn’t atone for.

“You’ve gone through the trouble of watching me for so long,” Nico huffed. “You really going to take that sitting down?”

Nico dropped the sword. He dropped the torch. He clutched his chest with one hand and yelled. He yelled as loudly as he could, with his whole chest, with his whole being.

“Rinzai, I need you!”

A pulse.

She wasn’t ready to wake.

Nico knew that. He felt her skulking around in his shadow. She was hard not to notice orbiting him like a moth to a flame.

A second pulse.

Not a pulse, but the murmur of boiling water.

“Nico, you are my beacon, frail of body as you are. Thus, I will become your foundation; your sword and your shield.”

Nico’s eyes widened.

A mistswell formed. It burst forth from his shoulder like a geyser. It spilled forth, devouring the darkness. Then, all at once, it stopped. A misty silhouette of Rinzai's arms appeared at Nico’s sides. Their hands were open, claws brandished — each large enough to crush Nico in its palm. Beaded bracelets hung loosely off of their wrists. They clutched at the open air, their nails digging deep into their translucent flesh.

A partial manifestation that left Nico with a terrible migraine.

This was Rinzai’s strength.

No, not quite.

It drew upon his own.

It was their strength.