That was something he would have never attempted, under other conditions; he didn’t understand the Intent in those green fireballs, nor did he fully understand the power in his own sword. Instead of canceling each other out, the effects could just as easily have fed on one another and burned him alive. Besides, Soulbound blasts of fire were invariably fast. It was a stupid, unnecessary risk to try swatting one in midair.
This time, he hardly noticed. Jerri stood before him, fire gathering unnoticed in her left hand, eyes as wide as he knew his must be.
“Calder, what are you…what are you doing with the Imperial Guard?”
That actually made him smile, though he wasn’t entirely sure he felt like smiling. “I thought you would have guessed. They’re with me. I’m the Emperor now.”
Jerri’s right hand, the one not wreathed in emerald fire, came up to her mouth. Her eyes filled with tears. “You see? He told you the truth!”
Calder’s feelings turned sour. Why had she brought that up? Now he was lost in the memory of slithering eyes on stalks, and the knowledge that he danced in the palm of an Elder’s hand.
Bliss popped out from behind Calder. “Technically, he’s the Imperial Steward. Sitting on the throne until someone, probably him, can be declared the true Emperor. For that, though, we’re going to need the throne.”
Everything seemed to happen at once.
Jerri focused her gaze on Bliss, anger burning through the lens of her unshed tears. Green fire glowed brighter.
The Head of the Blackwatch rolled out, extending the Spear of Tharlos to its full length. The spear of ancient yellowed bone radiated an Intent that swallowed the room, plucking at Calder with invisible fingers and urging him to change. He had to concentrate on Kelarac’s mark, filling his mind with the borrowed authority of the Soul Collector, to face even that much Elder Intent without losing himself.
Armor clanked as General Teach launched herself into the room. Tyrfang’s red-and-black blade rippled with dark power, and Calder found the breath snatched from his lungs. Utter despair rolled over him like a tide, as though he’d come face-to-face with his own executioner.
Whatever happened next, it happened so quickly that he saw it only in flashes.
Jerri released a flash of green fire and dove to the side, while the Spear of Tharlos struck straight at her. It would have missed the fire entirely, except it seemed to twist of its own accord, bending in violation of everything Calder knew about physical mass. It hit the fire straight on…just as Tyrfang’s black edge arrived.
Soon after, when Calder tried to piece the moment together, he couldn’t make it all fit. By rights, Teach should have been five steps farther away than Bliss. They should have been aiming at different points. The fireball should have passed both of them, and they all should have hit only air.
Instead, the power of Jerri’s Vessel met Tyrfang, the Executioner’s Blade and Bliss’ Spear of Tharlos at the same time.
Inches above the flesh-shrouded cage of steel bars that men called the Optasia.
The Intent burned away the Elder flesh surrounding the Emperor’s throne instantly; the heart-like muscle that had kept a grip on the metal dissolved into black powder. The force continued, tearing up floorboards and wall panels, rearranging and shattering furniture.
But the Optasia caught that blend of deadly Intent, accepted it, and sent it out to a thousand relays all around the world.
That was about as much as Calder’s Reader senses caught before they were overwhelmed, and he collapsed on the floor of the Emperor’s bedroom.
After the strange reaction of the Optasia, Bliss ran for the exit. She didn’t prefer to run—running wasn’t dignified—but sometimes the speed was worth it. Especially in cases of grave danger or medical injury.
There had been an injury here, she knew it. And very possibly some grave danger as well. Tharlos’ spear was contorting in the pocket of her coat, twisting and writhing in silent laughter.
When she pushed open the bronze doors leading from the Emperor’s chambers, she remembered that she didn’t know what she was looking for. The courtyard was a scene from an Elderspawn slaughterhouse, with chunks of rotten grayish flesh lying everywhere. Wounded Imperial Guards limped here and there, gathering up the pieces and dumping them into buckets in case the creature pulled itself together again. She could have told them it wasn’t necessary, but she approved of their cleaning efforts. Hygiene was important.
At first, she saw nothing wrong, and her heart sank even further. If she couldn’t see the damage, that meant the Optasia’s network had carried it somewhere else in the world. She might never discover what the Elders had done until it was too late.
One Guard, a woman with a tail like a peacock, was staring up at the clouds. Her bucket fell from a limp hand, spilling Elderspawn gore onto the ground.
This was what a mystery novel might call a clue. Bliss followed the woman’s gaze up, expecting a six-winged Elder with a mouth like a shark’s.
Instead, the sky itself was distorted. A long, winding stripe of twisted wrongness, like a river of heat haze or a transparent worm. The air fuzzed and twisted, high overhead, and Bliss almost thought she could hear a distant crackle.
She’d seen corruption like this before. This would only be visible from a certain angle; even as high as it was, no one outside the palace would notice anything wrong. And it would get much worse, very soon.
The sky was going to break.
When Calder came to, he had a moment of panic. The world was frozen around him, too still and too quiet. Something was wrong.
He tried to roll off his bed and grab the pistol that he knew would be next to him, but his wounds screamed in protest. His head pounded so badly that his vision actually dimmed for a second, and he was forced to lean back against his pillow.
Reader’s burn, he realized, and as soon as he accepted the truth, reality came flooding back. There was nothing wrong—he was onshore. Aboard The Testament, the motion of the boat never stopped, and there was no such thing as silence.
He relaxed and let the pain fade away. Normally, if he’d rolled around like this, he would have woken Jerri immediately. She would be the one to reassure him, to make fun of him for worrying when everything was peaceful.
But she wasn’t here. She would be locked in some secure corner of the palace by now.
So something was wrong after all, just nothing new.
Thoughts of Jerri shook up his memory, reminding him of the afternoon, and he once again tried to sit up. Again, pain convinced him to stay where he was.
What had happened? The Optasia had reacted strangely to the attack…an attack that shouldn’t have landed in the first place. And why was Jerri there, in the Emperor’s chambers, sealed in by an Elder wall that had been there since before she left the Gray Island?
None of that made any sense, so there was only one possibility. An Elder was pulling strings, shaping events directly instead of letting them fall out as they naturally would. Why? He had no idea, and his head hurt too badly for further speculation.
Soft light from a distant quicklamp filtered in around the edges of his window, so it must have been the dead of night. He surrendered himself to the pain, hoping sleep would take him quickly.