Ascension Read online

  Sylvia said that four ruins, made by the ancient mages and protected somehow from the asuras, held the key to wielding Fate…whatever that meant. Fate was an abstract, a way that people made sense of the world around them. Was there really such a thing as Fate, an edict of aether like aevum, spatium, or vivum? What would it even do? How would you utilize such a power?

  Does it even matter now? What can I do? My mana core is destroyed to the point where, even if I can start using mana again, I don’t think it can ever get to the same heights as before. My body may be draconic now, but I don’t even know what that fully means, and the weapon that I’ve been waiting for…

  “Get down!” Regis hissed, suddenly flying into my body.

  ‘Stay up against the wall and act dead, or at least unconscious!’

  I backed up against the wall and fell to the ground just in time to see a column of blue light appear in the center of the room.

  Letting my bangs cover my face, I kept my eyes open despite Regis’s insistence.

  As the pillar of blue dimmed, I was able to make out the silhouettes of three figures. My heartbeat quickened, excited to see other people here, but Regis berated me, telling me not to even think about getting up.

  The light completely faded, leaving only the three figures standing in the center of the room—two males and one female.

  The larger of the two men was clad in a mixture of plated and leather armor that did nothing to hide his bulging muscles. He carried a spiked mace in each hand, both dripping with blood that matched the color of his short crimson hair.

  The slimmer man was built like an athlete, with broad shoulders and toned arms underneath a brushed-silver suit of armor.

  The woman had red eyes that shone like crystals underneath a curtain of midnight blue—almost navy—hair, and it was she who spotted me first.

  After she turned to study me, it only took a moment for the two men beside her to notice me as well, and when they did, they didn’t react nearly as subtly as the woman had.

  The larger one swung his mace, splattering blood on the ground as he approached me, while the second man drew a longsword out of thin air and positioned himself between me and the girl. His sharp eyes narrowed and a soft vibration hummed from his blade.

  I shut my eyes, afraid that they’d see that I was awake.

  Shit, what do we do, Regis?

  ‘Stay down! You’re no match for anyone right now.’

  He’s going to kill me!

  ‘Wait! Don’t move until I tell you!’

  I peeked open an eye to see the hulking man towering over me.

  ‘Not yet!’ Regis hissed in my head.

  Speaking up from behind her companion, the woman said, “Leave her.”

  ‘Pfft! She thinks you’re a girl!’ Regis thought, snickering in my mind.

  Shut up.

  “She might be a threat to us in the lower levels, Lady Caera,” the large man warned. “There are those who would feign weakness to make us lower our guard.”

  “Have some pity on her, Taegen. The fact that neither of you were able to sense her immediately means that her mana core is broken,” the woman answered. “She won’t be a threat. Let’s move. We’ll rest in the next sanctuary room.”

  Taegen let out a dissatisfied grunt before turning around, following after the other two.

  I let out a mental breath of relief as I began to relax, then I saw it: All three of their outfits had been purposely designed to expose their spines, covered only by chainmail or a thin mesh that I could clearly see through. And running down all three backs, along their spines, were the same kind of runes I had seen on so many Alacryan mages.

  Anger flared within my chest, and immediately, the man named Taegen whirled around to face me.

  I took a deep breath in and slowly exhaled, forcing myself to be calm and still, for my heartbeat to slow, and for my mind to settle into the blank, emotionless state I had adopted so often as King Grey.

  Time seemed to crawl by as the Alacryan studied me, confused.

  “Let’s go!” the other man called out to Taegen, and the crimson-haired warrior turned back.

  I must’ve waited for over thirty minutes, even after they had left through the door, before I got up.

  “Wow, now that got my little black heart pumping!” Regis exclaimed, shooting out of my body. “It’s a good thing that gorgeous woman has a heart as large as her—”

  “Regis!” I snapped.

  The will-o-wisp bobbed around, flickering with delight. “Well, someone is upset that they were called a girl…”

  “No, I’m—”

  “You can check your pants if you want. You’re still physiologically a male,” Regis cut in.

  “Why are Alacryans here?” I asked, changing the topic.

  “I would assume that, as Sylvia said in her message, they are here scouting out these ruins that asuras apparently can’t go into.”

  A feeling of dread washed over me. “Does that mean we’re somewhere below Alacrya now?”

  “Beats me, but if those ancient mages were able to tinker with aether to such an extent that even Agrona wants to know their secrets, I’m guessing that we could be anywhere in the world. The room that we’re in right now could be somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, and that door could be a portal that takes us to the other side of the world!”

  Closing my eyes, I envisioned the locations of the four ancient ruins that Sylvia had imparted to me. It wasn’t some sort of internal map laid out for me to visualize; it was more like an artificial memory that had been embedded into my brain. It confirmed for me what Regis had said earlier: we were inside one of the four ancient ruins.

  What it didn’t tell me was where this ruin was located in the world.

  “So what’s the plan, m’lady?” Regis chimed.

  I kept my eyes shut and took a deep breath. Relying on the habits I had developed throughout my lifetime as Grey, I bottled up the emotions gnawing at me, tucking away the stray thoughts that lay scattered about in my head and tightly packing and storing the feelings of panic and dread that encroached on my mind. I was left with a simmering anger to give me strength, and the cool and comforting numbness necessary to think ahead.

  Whatever was on the other side of that door, those three had likely taken down or cleared through most of it. I couldn’t waste an opportunity like this.

  I opened my eyes with newfound resolve and turned to Regis. “Let’s go.”

  257

  Left Behind

  ELEANOR LEYWIN

  The little stream in our underground town built by the ancient mages was burbling away happily. It was lucky, I thought. It was able to simply exist, running among the rocks and singing its bubbly little song. Even when Boo swiped a glitterfish out of the water, it wasn’t like the stream experienced the loss of the fish. It didn’t have a heart to be broken.

  But I did—and it was. Everywhere I looked I was constantly reminded of my family’s legacy of failure, loss, and death.

  I was reminded of our failure in every tired, hopeless face, and in every sad, knowing look I got from the others.

  Even if they had their own losses, they still treated my mother and me like glass—like glass trophies. It was like we were something to beam at, to keep out where everyone could see, but could not interact with…to treat like we still mattered, even though we were just relics of better times, when the great Arthur Leywin still protected Dicathen.

  When my brother and Sylvie disappeared, it was like the last piece of solid ground in the world had slipped away from under our feet, and now we were all slowly sinking into the dark waters of despair.

  Or that’s how Kathyln put it, anyway.

  It was weird. I’d have thought the death of her parents would have been a little more important to her than my brother’s disappearance, but I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised; everyone always loved Arthur the Lance, Arthur the general, Arthur the hero.

  But I had loved Arthur the brother, Arthur the friend…when he was around, anyway.

  My mother had faded into the background, happy to smile sadly and say “thank you” whenever someone offered their condolences. At best, she offered the occasional bit of healing to some injured refugee that the soldiers dragged back down into the shelter.

  I think she had been so close to the edge of despair already that when Arthur didn’t return from rescuing Tessia, she lost hope for everything else. It hurt to admit, but if not for me, I think she’d have just curled up and gone to sleep, then never opened her eyes again.

  Picking up a flat, smooth rock, I tossed it up in the air and caught it again.

  How long had it been since Arthur and I had stood here on the bank of this underground stream and he had taught me how to skip stones across the water? Days? Weeks? I might as well have died and been reborn since then.

  Letting out a scoff, I hurled the stone violently at the surface of the water where it splashed in a satisfying sort of way.

  Boo, who had taken his catch and lumbered off to find a soft, mossy place to eat, lifted his head to gaze seriously at me. The dark spots above his eyes came together, which always made him look grumpy.

  “Sorry Boo. I’m fine.” Though I wasn’t sure he believed me, the giant bear-like mana beast snorted and went back to his meal.

  “With an arm like that, have you considered throwing rocks at our enemies instead of shooting arrows?”

  I turned, startled, but relaxed when I realized it was only Helen Shard, leader of what was left of the Twin Horns. Helen had been my mentor in the castle, teaching and helping me improve my ability to fire arrows of pure mana from my bow.

  It had been a huge relief when she had arrived at the refuge with Durden and Angela Rose, and she had been quick to
take up the role of my mentor again.

  She seemed to have some sort of magical sense of when I was slipping into “a mood,” as she put it, because she always turned up to support me.

  I flicked my hair in the girlish way I knew annoyed her and looked back at the stream. “I was trying to catch a fish for mom’s dinner.”

  From the corner of my eye I saw her raise a brow, smirking. “A fish? With a rock?”

  “Shooting one with my bow would be too easy,” I said haughtily, turning my nose up slightly and putting my chin forward, the very picture of an overconfident, self-assured child. Helen had always pushed me to be different from the noble children in the castle, and it aggravated her to no end when I acted like them.

  Turning serious, Helen gestured toward the water. “Let’s see it then.”

  Returning her serious look, I picked up my bow from where it rested against a nearby boulder and inspected the clear water. Every thirty seconds or so, a dimly glowing fish would swim slowly past, heading down the stream.

  My brother had explained once that things you see in the water aren’t quite where they appear to be because the water bends the light. With this in mind, I drew back the string of the bow and conjured a thin arrow of mana. Then I waited.

  A wobbly blue line in the gloomy stream told me a fish was coming. I waited until it passed into the wide, shallow part of the stream where I was standing, then prepared to take the shot. At the last instant, I tethered the arrow to me with a thread of pure mana, then let it fly.

  The beam of white light slipped into the water with the tiniest plop, and the fish jerked, sending up a splash. I yanked at the tether, causing the arrow to jump out of the water and fly back to my hand, the glitterfish neatly impaled through the gills.

  Helen began to clap slowly, shaking her head and letting her mouth hang open as if in awe. “Incredible, Eleanor, simply incredible.” She then marched toward me, pulled the glitterfish off the arrow, gave it a single hard crack against one of the large rocks lining the edges of the stream, saluted me with the dead fish, and turned to walk away.

  “Hey, that’s mine!”

  “Consider it payment for a lesson well learned,” she said over her shoulder, not breaking her stride. “With a talent like yours, it surely won’t be any trouble catching another?”

  Half irritated, half amused, I turned back to the water, feeling better. I decided that I might as well shoot a few more fish and take them home to Mom for dinner.

  As I drew my bow again, though, movement on the other side of the stream caught my attention and I instinctively aimed in that direction.

  “Oh!”

  It took a second for my eyes to focus in the dim light, but when they did I immediately cancelled my spell, and the glowing white arrow fizzled and faded away.

  “Sorry, Tessia.”

  After an awkward pause, her eyes probing me like she was trying to read my mind, Tessia continued her walk down the steep edge on the other side of the stream. It was a little deeper on that side, and there was an ancient hunk of petrified log embedded in the ground that made a perfect bench on which to sit and cool one’s feet in the water.

  “Sorry,” Tessia said quietly, her gaze turned downward to the stream. “I didn’t realize anyone was here when I decided to come take a dip.”

  But you got here, saw me, and decided to help yourself anyway.

  “It’s fine,” I said in the tone of voice that told her it wasn’t fine at all. “I was just leaving anyway.”

  Slinging my bow over my shoulder and gesturing to Boo, I turned to walk back up the embankment, but my heartbeat quickened with each step I took, pumping anger and resentment through me until I just wanted to stop and scream.

  Tessia hadn’t been out and about much since Arthur disappeared. I’d seen her a couple of times, but this was the first time I’d been close enough to talk to her, and I realized suddenly that I was overflowing with things I wanted to say to her.

  Nothing you say here is going to change anything, Ellie, I told myself through gritted teeth. Shouting and cursing at Tessia isn’t going to undo—

  I spun on my heels and met Tessia’s eye. “It’s your fault he’s gone, I hope you know that.”

  She flinched but remained silent, infuriating me even more.

  “It’s your fault, and you’ll never, ever be able to fix it.” My voice grew louder as I persisted. “He was our best chance to ever have a life outside of this cave again, but he was also a big, fat idiot who couldn’t just let you go! You should have known that!”

  My voice constricted as I rubbed away an angry tear with the back of my hand. “W-why didn’t you just stay here? Why?”

  The elven princess clenched her jaw as her gaze fell, but when she spoke, she was frustratingly calm. “I couldn’t, Ellie. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Maybe, if I knew then how it was going to end…but they were my parents.” After a beat of silence, Tessia looked up at me, her turquoise eyes glimmering with tears. “Tell me, honestly, what would you have done?”

  I wanted to grab her by her stupid, pretty silver hair and shove her headfirst into the water. She had run away from the shelter, defying both logic and the pleas of my brother and Virion, and forced Arthur to go after her. Because of her selfishness, Sylvie and Arthur had vanished.

  Boo growled and stood up, sensing my anger. His presence gave me courage.

  “I’d have listened!” I shouted, not even sure it was true.

  “Then maybe you’re wiser than me, Ellie—and that’s why I need you…and maybe you need me as well.” Tessia’s bright eyes locked onto mine, her gaze imploring and hopeful, but conflicted.

  “I don’t need you,” I hissed.

  A frown flickered across her face. “Don’t you think I notice how they treat you? Like you’re a child, like you don’t have anything to add? Like you only have value in your connection to Arthur? Don’t you think I know how that feels?” Tessia rose to her feet, her jaw clenched, her expression somewhere between stoicism and desperation. “I hear what the others whisper about me behind my back, Ellie, and many don’t bother to hide their doubts, but say it openly for all to hear.

  “But you’re different…you’re so much more than a hero’s sister and I want to prove that to everyone. I’m not asking you to forgive me—I could never ask that of you after what I did. I know that if I hadn’t run away, Arthur might still be here with us, but nothing I can do now will bring him back, and—”

  “You don’t get to just accept it and move on, princess. Arthur shouldn’t have saved you! You should be dead, and he should be here, with me!”

  She smiled at me, sad and beautiful and infuriating. “I’ve thought the same thing. Over and over and over. If Arthur was here, now…and I was dead…” Tessia paused, took a deep breath, and forced the sad smile back on her face. “But he’s not. No matter how much I wished he hadn’t, Arthur sacrificed himself for me. And the price he paid for that is something that I will never be able to repay.”

  Practically shaking with rage, hot tears starting to run down my cheeks, I opened my mouth to tell her off, to curse at her, to empty my anger into her, but the words died in my throat. I wanted to hate her so much, but I just couldn’t.

  I couldn’t hate her, because Arthur had loved her. He had loved her so much that he had traded his life for hers. That’s what she meant. Her life was my brother’s last act of heroism.