Foundrytown lay in shambles, but the workers were not the type to be deterred by minor issues like the destruction of their homes or the loss of one cauldron. They’d set to work on temporary shelters, tents brought in by glint, and celebrated the proclamation that Long Dark week would be extended to allow repairs to homes. The crown wouldn’t allow the foundry to stay dark long but there were realities around food and sleep and also stark terror.
Declan stood with his arm in a sling, promised proper healing for the bones at Ariloch. Anissa had come through with the second and third arrows and declared it a lost cause for field work. Now they harvested the dead blazed beasts for shards. Foreman Scythe had brought the scabbard from the wreckage of his house and handed it to Declan, declaring that he wasn’t cut out to kill the blazed beasts, but he knew a man who was.
Right now, Declan had engaged in a conversation turned argument with his pop, and was losing. “Your house isn’t damaged, it’s gone. There’s nothing to rebuild. Even my shack is destroyed. Come to Ariloch. I run House Ariloch, you could live there. There’s an entire town built around the academy. And when we leave, we’ll have the rin to go somewhere nice.”
“My work is here,” Jan answered. “There is work to be done and I am a workman. You know better, son. I showed you better.”
His mother had quietly and privately accepted the rin he offered for travel and assured him his pop would come around. “The world is larger than he knows. He’s more comfortable in a small town.”
“The Academy is a small town. A large small town. With a constant infestation of blazed beasts. You don’t need to work, you would be my guests. I have enough shards that rin is easy, if you live simple.”
“Would your pop live any other way?” She gently hugged him. “I wish you’d go back overland. I’ve heard about glint.”
“However bad you’ve heard, it’s worse, but I have duties at Ariloch. I have work, as Pop would say.” Declan knew he needed to get back, if only to have his arm healed. Then again, there were healers in every major city. And supposedly glint arrays from many of them. “I’ll ask, but House Sullivan wants every arcanist gone as soon as possible.”
He went to find the ArCore, who had setup near the glint array and scoured the foundry. Rohan and Alister were engaged in a conversation that died on his approach. “I’m sorry to interrupt. I’m considering taking a trip to Teralona and spending a few days there. Do you know if they have an array? Or if it’s active?”
Rohan’s smile faded. He was never one for delivering bad news. “It would be better if you returned with us. This is a terrifying evolution in swarms. There will be many people desperate to record the details and observations.”
“You’re going back, orders of the Crown,” Alister added. “All of us are. For once, do your duty without the attitude.”
“What Alister means—”
“Is that I’ll drag him back by the broken arm if I have to. Orders. Crown. Done.” He spat and walked away toward the foundry.
Declan had business at Ariloch, personal business. “Fine. But when I get back, the first place I’m going is the registrar.”
“Before the healers?” Rohan asked—then nodded to himself. “First thing. I’ll make sure it happens.”
###
His goodbyes were the quiet kind, kept to the ArCore camp by the array, and a few of Pop’s friends who came to see Declan leave the way a proper arcanist should. He’d declined the vapor treatment that would dull the pain because it would take a few hours to wear off and he was too close to his dreams to wait.
The array activated. Everything he dreamed of was worth the pain.
Ariloch was in mid-day, rain mixed with snow and mud in places, and though he was returning an arcanist he was just another one among the thousands. It was fine. His arm would stop aching in time but his soul thrummed with the rich mana near the world wound. Rohan went with him to the Registrar’s office, where Instructor Skinner waited.
“I see we need to work on your defense,” Skinner said. “Ms. Braun, I have a candidate for registration. I’ll personally vouch he meets the requirements.”
“Rune?” she asked.
He drew a few from his pocket, then laughed. “It’s basic and takes me a moment, ok? Deflect.”
“Be my guest.” She smiled as she leaned back.
It did take minutes to retrace the pattern in his mind. Three times he lost control, the fourth—Deflect bloomed into existence for a moment before fading away.
Ms. Braun was on her feet in a moment. “Get Fana Brieze! Tell them they must come right now! You’re soul-casting without an arcsoul. I’ll just make the registration record while you wait, but you have to show them. Brieze is the soul-casting instructor.” She worked with a rune stamp, carefully writing. “Declan Thorn. House?”
“Ariloch,” he answered. “House Ariloch.”
“Welcome to the academy. You now have the same permissions as every other student. Payment for classes is before attendance, shard tax is due at the start of the month, you should discuss with an advisor what’s best to invest in,” she said. “Do you have an advisor?”
“If he takes another I’ll kill them and then him,” Skinner said.
A moment later, he met Instructor Brieze, whose smooth tan skin was probably femine, until they spoke in a deep voice. Their slight build gave Declan no clue as to gender, but what he cared about was knowledge. “It’s just Deflect. Don’t expect much and you won’t be disappointed.”
“Strike would be a more conventional choice. Go on, I left a classroom full of curious students to see this.” They leaned against the door.
This time it took only two tries to emblazon the rune, but it didn’t last as long, flashing instead of fading. “It worked better last time.”
“This is your fault,” Brieze said, turning on Skinner. “You taught the boy soul-casting, and you did it badly. It will take a year just to unteach him everything he’s doing wrong. He’s not outlining the rune imprint at all. He’s just…pouring mana in and the shaping is pitiful! You should be ashamed. Not you, Declan. You should be very proud, he should wallow in shame.”
“Declan taught himself, and we’re working on it, Fana. I intended to have him take a lesson or two from you. Not the whole class, of course.” Skinner shrugged.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Don’t listen to him. And don’t teach yourself any other runes. You’ll waste both our time. I’ll discuss with your worthless advisor a reduced rate. Not free!” She said to Skinner, then turned to Declan. “A pleasure meeting you, I must return to my class.”
“Rohan, I need a moment with my assistant. I’m aware of the inquisition, you have my word he’ll be there.” Skinner commandeered an office and sat. Then he drew a stone from his pocket.
Two separate squares overlaped just by one corner on each, and a circle swallowed both in a pattern that made Declan feel like a manape sat on his chest. “What is this?”
“An oath-stone. They bind your actions to the intent of the oath, not the letter of the oath. That’s one I swore to the Sun Queen herself, keeping the secret of how I ended the Defiler. You’ll want to accept and offer an oath soon. Tegan Domine was deposed by the Inquisitor, the ArCore, and Lord Domine himself. You hold the secret of countering a feared blood-rune, for a house that backs the Crown.”
“She wouldn’t tell them that.”
Skinner’s gaze fell on the stone. “We’ll discuss after the Inquisitor. You’ll understand then. It is not a painful process, except that it strips bare every thought. There will be no secrets, nothing you hide. The Crown has a representative. I doubt Lord Domine will spare the time but it’s possible.”
“So they’ll want an oath to keep secret how to neutralize Destroy. What do I demand in return? I know what I want. I have a pretty good idea what they’ll do to keep their power. I may as well ask big.”
“If there are gods, they are merciful. I thought I’d need to explain exactly how many breaths you would draw after refusing. I suggest money. You’re going to need far, far more than you can imagine. Hundreds of thousands to pay to surpass the other students. There’s only one thing you absolutely should not ask for.”
Declan swore. “All I want is for them to pay to have my arcsoul unsealed. It’s what I’m missing.”
“I said I want you to surpass the other students, not catch them. You can’t make up for a decade of lost learning. You can’t outspend a noble house on artifacts or treatments. You can’t out-influence the ArCore for training. But you can do better.” Skinner waited. “Go on, ask. Ask how I could possibly claim that.”
“It’s easy if you’re full of bullshit. But how?”
Skinner pointed through the clouded crystal, where Rohan leaned against the wall, waiting. “They’re given the most expensive treatments. The most difficult training, runes chosen for them, armor made to order, guidance, growth, they have it all. But they’re manufactured. Stamped by the same mold with little regard to their individual strengths. The new arrows are better, but still aiming for speed over ultimate power.”
Declan considered it. Eden had said before, Ariloch wasn’t the world, it was the start. “I’m a workman, not a negotiator. I want an actual negotiator to deal with the House. I want numbers that make them debate if murder is a better option.”
He thought a moment. “And I want my arm fixed first.”
###
The Inquisition was held in a darkened room with a chair that reminded Declan of the arcsoul one. There weren’t leather straps but he didn’t doubt there could be. Skinner wasn’t allowed in. The only people were the Inquisitor himself, a much older man in a boring brown suit, the emissary of the Sun Queen he’d seen at the announcement, and a woman not much older than his mother who shared the same sharp cheeks as Tegan and focused on him with an interest he felt was unhealthy. “Declan Thorn, House Ariloch,” he said.
“Good,” the Inquisitor said. “Before we begin, I would set your mind at ease in one way and settle any question you might have of not complying. I act by order of the Sun Queen, with her witness. Through generations of loyalty, House Domine has earned the right to protect their power and thus attend.”
Declan had left his pack, his runes and almost all his possessions with Keel Skinner, keeping only a mana stone that circled him slowly. The steady waves of mana were comforting, if not entirely useful. “Got it. The crown orders, we’re supposed to obey. Not that the crown means much where I grew up. Foundrytown, if arcanists are near myths, the Crown, the Sun Queen, those are…fantasies.”
“I assure you, Her Radiance is a very real, very powerful, very observant ruler. Little happens to the realm that is not known to her, and these events are of great concern. We have heard the truth of the ArCore members and Baker Sullivan. Let us begin, that her knowledge may be made complete.”
“Wait.” He’d sat on the chair and not laid back. “Why does it matter? I’m one arcanist. The house arcanist, for that matter, registered half an hour ago, yet to even attend one official class. I don’t for a moment believe I know anything you didn’t hear from Rohan, Alister or Tegan.”
The Emissary himself answered. “It matters because these claims contradict every fact, every learning, every strategy. If mere monsters can collect and orbit runes, their threat grows faster than our ability to hold them back. Now we begin.”
Declan lay back, reminding himself it wouldn’t hurt. Trying not to admit it was probably a lie they’d said to get him to go along. “Ask.”
Mana surged, and a lone rune faded into existence, and began to grow brighter.
“Oh, a mind rune,” Declan said. “What’s it do? Why does it look backwards? Shouldn’t that cause lies?”
“I’ll ask the question—que—quest—” The world stuttered as the rune activated. It was like floating in a bath of the warmest water, while shining under a summer sun and simultaneously caressed by the coolest breeze and being wrapped in a fuzzy blanket.
He heard the questions but his mind desperately wanted to remain in the perfect moment of comfort. Any answer would do, and the actual answer was somehow better. This wasn’t torture, he would have killed to keep it going, even when the questions turned personal.
Of course his father was Raleigh Thorn.
His mother was a seamstress, his bond-father a workman, a subject that earned him minutes of peaceful bliss explaining what a workman was, what they did, what he could do, what he couldn’t, and what exactly he hated about arc circuits and why. Then they shifted to runes and Insight which he didn’t have despite wanting it very badly, no matter what anyone said.
Everyone else was a little right and a little wrong and maybe it was Insight but that would have come with a soul-rune and he didn’t have one, so it wasn’t Insight, that was just obvious. What he did have was a solid theory of how runes interacted and great intuition, and if they wanted to call that Insight (which they did) he didn’t mind as long as the sun-bath-wind-blanket moment continued.
And yes, he would gladly stab Alister Rush and no, it probably wasn’t intentional that he’d been hurt and yes, he had a plan for revenge that involved clogging toilets in a particularly foul way, which he admitted freely wasn’t a great plan but one of them was an ArCore lead and the other a house arcanist.
Rohan was great but too cheery and he’d probably get along with Anthony except that they’d smile so much their faces would split and babble about how strong their hearts were before hugging it out and killing blazed beasts with their teeth.
Tegan was a shitty healer and either had terrible control over Vine Whip or fantastic control and a deep vindictive streak and they didn’t ask, but he volunteered his opinion as to which it was.
Destroy was terrifying and also a simple counter except that the rune sequences to do so were counterintuitive and would produce a shield worse in every conceivable way except snuffing out the Domine family’s greatest weapon. He found it hilarious. He saw no reason to stop laughing until the joy began to fade and that was all the reason he ever needed to stop.
The manape had been the most terrifying moment of his life and Declan held zero doubt he was going to die. It wasn’t an ‘unless,’ it was basic math. A house arcanist with a broken arm and no runes versus a swarm heart with three runes and a monster’s body.
He was happy he hadn’t and a little surprised and more than just a little angry that the crown had known a spawn would happen there and not moved to intercept it. And he loved his mom and pop. He stressed it over and over, expounding on how wonderful they are and how they’d even acquired him a mana bearing so he could learn to be an arcanist and it was ugly and heavy and didn’t actually function like a normal rune but it was his.
Also he’d used it to knock the teeth out of a manape and not many people could say that.
No matter what he said, the joy began to fade.
The peace gave way to longing and the cold of the chair, and the tears in his eyes wouldn’t stop coming as he pleaded to just ask a few more questions.
But they’d gotten the proof they wanted and left him there in the room to weep. Logic brought shame at how easily he’d spilled every secret including that Jen Scythe had one nipple larger than the other, something he probably wasn’t supposed to know and definitely wasn’t supposed to share.
When he left, he found Rohan Taylor waiting in the hallway. “You shouldn’t be alone. The first time you endure it is brutal.”
“I won’t be alone.” Declan collected his pack from Skinner’s office and dragged a literal bag of shards home to Ariloch, where he kicked open the door and ended Emperor Chen’s reign.
Chen had made a throne of sorts in the common room and sat on it, surrounded by his favorite snacks. He glanced up at Declan sighed. “There goes that.”
