“Nothing yet,” his father said. He gestured to a chair opposite him, and Lirin excitedly hopped up into it.
Two pale fingers lifted from the desk, and energy rushed from Lirin’s father. It filled the bowl in a blink with a blue-white transparent liquid that resembled glowing water.
“When I was your age,” his father began, “I had to take a test.”
Lirin had heard this story before and was impatient to get to the next part. Nonetheless, he held his tongue and listened. His father’s black-and-white eyes were distant, so this was clearly important.
“It helped me understand who I was. But I want you to remember that this is a tool to help us see where you are going to begin. It doesn’t tell you where you will end up.”
Suddenly, Lirin was nervous. How much did this test matter?
His father’s distant gaze snapped, and he gave a sheepish smile. “Pardon, I was lost in thought. Don’t worry too much. All you have to do is put your hand into the bowl and cycle your madra.”
Lirin took a deep breath and stretched out his hand. Before he put it in, he hesitated. “I just…put it in?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not going to hurt?”
“No.”
Lirin still hesitated. “What’s going to happen?”
His father looked like he was struggling to hold back laughter. “It’s even safer than a bowl of water.”
That soothed Lirin’s worries. His parents had strange ideas about training and fun, but they wouldn’t tell him something was safe when it wasn’t. They could be too concerned about his safety, in Lirin’s view.
Lirin evened his breathing and slid his hand into the bowl. At first, it was only cool. His fingertips tingled.
Then he felt a reaction from his cores.
Two similar, but subtly different, forms of power flooded up his arm and resonated with the fluid energy in the bowl.
The liquid erupted.
One half burst into rapidly forming crystals, like a violent ocean spray freezing at the moment of its creation. The other half dissolved into a cloud of steam, dissipating into the air.
Lirin jerked his hand back, leaving a disappearing cloud of blue-white and a sculpture that resembled a frozen tree.
The ice, which Lirin supposed was really Forged madra, only covered one half of the dish. It slowly lost balance, tipping over to one side.
Lirin’s father caught the bowl before it broke.
“What does that mean?” Lirin asked nervously.
“That means it’s time to make your own badge.”
Synchronization terminated.
Suggested topic: the fate of the Reaper Division.
Denied, report complete.
BLOOPERS
“Worst book in the series,” Eithan declared.
Lindon shrugged. “I don’t know, I liked it. Lots of powering up. What’s your criteria for a good book?”
“Percentage of Eithan. The more lines I have, the better the book. This one didn’t have nearly enough Eithan for my taste.”
“You weren’t in the first one either,” Lindon pointed out.
“Oh, but I was there in spirit.”
“How do you read other books without you in it?”
“I don’t.” Eithan held up a book with his own smiling face on it. “There’s only one other story worth reading. From Conditioner to Executioner: A Story of Hair Spray and Spraying Blood – The Eithan Arelius Story, Collected Edition.”
“That sounds…uh, fascinating. I’ll have to get a copy one day.”
“You have one! Check your pocket.”
Do you have an answer for me? Lindon asked.
[You’re not going to like it,] Dross said gravely. [It should be a gun.]
Lindon considered the Silent King’s binding. Really? You don’t think something else, like a spear or a bow?
[Nope, definitely a gun. In fact, they should all be guns.]
Why?
[Well, a gun is the most efficient weapon. It’s just better in every single way. Also, Reigan Shen’s gonna be shaking when you pull up to the fight with the Silent King Assault Rifle.]
“We’re missing a name!” Mercy cried.
Dross drifted over. [Oh, I’ve been thinking about this! It’s a chamber where we distort time, right? And that change is very dramatic, so I thought we could call it…] He spread boneless arms wide. [The Hyperbolic Time Ch—]
“No,” Ziel interrupted. “No one uses the word ‘hyperbolic.’”
[You do better, then.]
Ziel responded immediately. “The Danger Room.”
“I like that one,” Lindon said, “but for some reason, I get the feeling we shouldn’t use it.”
Mercy leaped up. “I like the room part! Let’s go with that! What about the…Requirement Room? No, wait, I’ll think of something else.”
“We could say something about the way it functions,” Lindon said, “but this is basically just a complex matrix of stolen constructs. And we wouldn’t want to call it ‘The Matrix.’”
Yerin patted the weapon at her waist. “We’re training swords in here, aren’t we? How about ‘House of Blades’?”
Ziel pointed to her. “That’s it!”
The Weeping Dragon was flying south over the Trackless Sea, following traces of its youngest brother. It felt the remainder of the Slumbering Wraith’s power, tracking it to a cloud fortress drifting over the ocean.
As soon as the Dreadgod got close enough to see the house on its dark blue cloud, suddenly it felt seven new figures emerge from within. Seven terrifying figures, Monarchs stronger than anything it had ever felt.
At the sudden threat looming in the immediate future, the Weeping Dragon turned and ran.
Meanwhile, Ziel turned to Lindon. “This worked a lot better than I thought it would.”
“What do you mean? I told you, when we came out of there, the Weeping Dragon would run from us.”
“Yeah, I just…for some reason, I thought something would go wrong.”
“Nope. Smooth sailing.”
“Huh.”
To Yerin, the world turned colorless and very, very quiet. She realized something new. She saw a pattern so clear that she was shocked she hadn’t noticed it before.
Yerin wasn’t just the disciple of the Sage of the Endless Sword; she was also Eithan’s apprentice. The student of the Reaper.
She had used Penance to strike down a Monarch. She had learned to imitate Ozriel’s sword strike.
In a world that still seemed frozen, Yerin pulled her sword back almost casually. An image formed in the sky at the motion. Not a sword.
A vast, smiling face with twinkling blue eyes.
“Die,” Yerin ordered.
And at Yerin’s command, the Eithan Icon descended on Akura Malice.
“Do you know anything about my father?” Mercy asked.
“They told me enough,” Lindon said. “They told me you killed him.”
“Wrong!” Mercy straightened up and raised a black-clad fist. “You are my father!”
Lindon staggered back, clutching a nearby pole for support. “No! That’s not true! That’s impossible!”
“Search your feelings. You know it to be true.”
“NOOOOOO!”
“Lindon…Join me, and together we can rule the world as father and daughter!”
Lindon leaped off the cloudship.
Yerin clung to the edge of the cliff by the tips of her fingers. Lindon peered down at her.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Yerin shrugged as best she could while still hanging onto the cliff. “Not sure. I hear we’re supposed to end books this way.”