Kalden sprang up in his bed, glancing at the digital clock on the nightstand. . Battle mana surged through his channels, and his heart beat like a war drum.

  Akari rolled over in the bed to face him. “What’s wrong?” The only light came from a small gap between the curtains, but her face was clear to his Artisan eyes.

  “I don’t know.” He pushed the blankets aside, feeling a rush of winter air on his bare skin. “My aspect sent me a warning. Not sure why.” The floorboards groaned as his feet made contact, and he fumbled around for his clothing.

  “.” Akari rolled back to her side of the bed and snatched up her glasses. “My portal’s down.” Akari always had an escape portal, no matter where they went. In this case, she’d placed it in the forest, five miles south of the Solidor’s safe house.

  “What?” Kalden pulled his T-shirt over his head. “” His prosthetic hand was still intact, so that ruled out an AMP.

  “Space Construct.” She slipped out from the covers and grabbed her own clothes. “Around the whole compound.”

  Kalden cycled more battle mana to his head. His senses sharpened, and he felt hundreds of vibrations through the small building. Arturo and Zukan down the hall. Two sets of footsteps on the front porch. Another pair circling around back. The intruders did their best to stay quiet, but no approach was perfect.

  He opened his Silver Sight, but that revealed nothing outside the house. Only Masters could shroud their mana that well.

  Kalden pressed the emergency button on his watch, alerting the rest of their team. “We’re under attack.”

  “Should we go out the window?” Akari asked.

  “Negative,” he replied. “Hostile Masters outside. We need to get to Rosintar.” Not only was Rosintar the strongest person in the compound, he was also a space artist. In other words, he might be their only ticket out of here.

  They grabbed their equipment belts and jogged down the hallway. Another door creaked open across the basement as his teammates joined them. Zukan held a flaming short spear, while Arturo carried a black assault rifle.

  Kalden’s eyes passed over the scattered furniture, and his mind focused more on possibilities than reality. This house had already become a battlefield, and his aspect showed him a web of leverage points, cover, and attack vectors.

  He reached the bottom of the stairs, but they were too late. A man loomed in the doorway above, clad in the navy blue armor of the Prime Minister’s Honor Guard. Kalden caught a glimpse of his chiseled face and dark brown eyes through his visor.

  “Kalden Trengsen. Akari Zeller." Dain spoke their names with cold precision. He took another step forward, and the top stair groaned beneath his weight. “We know you’re the Soul Reapers. The prime minister would like a word with you.”

  Kalden filled his palms with three types of mana—pure, battle, and Angelic. They coalesced around his body, forging blades of bright blue and deep violet, strong enough to rival his opponent’s.

  “He just wants to talk,” Dain said with a raised hand. “Surrender now, and you won’t be harmed.” His other hand inched toward his belt. He tried to look casual, as if he were resting his hand on his hip. But Kalden spotted something that looked like a restraining device

  ‘’ Akari said through their bond.

  ‘,” Kalden replied. He’d seen how Moonfire treated his prisoners, and he had no plans to visit the Palace Prime just yet. Dain was a Master who could vaporize this whole room if he wanted to, but Kalden sensed no killing intent from the man. That meant his team had a chance.

  Kalden said.

  And with that, he cycled his newest technique: the Cloak of a Thousand Blades. His battle mana swirled in a pale red cloud beyond his body, stretching to every corner of the room. The possibilities became sharper in his mind’s eye, and Kalden felt every detail of his surroundings. The layout of the room, the positions of his teammates, and the stance of his enemy.

  Irina’s Cloak saw the world as it was; she gathered intel, and prepared to make a choice. But Kalden’s Cloak skipped straight to the choice itself. His aspect cut through every possible future, carving the best path to victory.

  All the while, he cycled his results to Akari through their soulbond. Less than two seconds had passed, but they already knew their parts in the coming fight.

  Dain moved in a blur at the top of the staircase, snatching the metal device from his belt and hurling it straight toward Kalden. A massive net exploded in midair, flying faster than a diving falcon. Reinforced Impedium made up the mesh, ready to pin him to the floor and block his mana. Two more devices flew around the first, soaring toward his teammates like homing beacons.

  Kalden could have tried to slice through the net, but his opponent would expect that. Just as Kalden had researched the Honor Guard, they would have researched him and planned their tactics accordingly.

  So he stood still and trusted Akari to play her part.

  The first portal appeared in front of him, while the second snapped into place behind Dain. Kalden lunged through the opening, aiming for the back of his opponent’s head. Dain spun in a blur, raising a blade of red plasma to parry. The scent of ozone filled the air, and Kalden felt the heat of it on his face. He swept low with his other blade, aiming for his opponent’s boots.

  Sparks flew as they exchanged several more blows. A web of portals formed around Dain's body, faster than blinking. They caught his arms and legs, squeezing them as soon as they formed.

  Gunfire split the air as Arturo's bullets slammed into Dain's back. Each one made a dull thud against his armor, but these weren’t designed for lethal blows. Instead, a mundane chemical targeted his nerves, creating an itch that was impossible to ignore. Dain gritted his teeth and thrashed in his restraints. Empty casings clinked against the floor as Arturo kept firing.

  Kalden slashed at the Master’s shin, and the Angelic mana cut a clean hole through his armor. His left blade struck an instant later, drawing blood beneath Dain’s arm.

  He and Akari had spent this entire year holding back. They couldn’t use their Aeon powers in class, and they couldn’t use their aspects against the police. It was like telling a fire to flicker when it was meant to burn.

  Now, every technique fed a hunger deep inside him—something that howled with every slash and parry. Mana artists weren’t meant to face lesser foes; he’d always known that, but comfort was the worst foe of all. It gave you tunnel vision for months, forcing you to walk when you should run.

  Kalden brought his next blade high, angled for his opponent’s windpipe.

  Dain burned away the portals with clouds of gas and plasma. The air warped with bright colors and silver mist. Kalden saw the technique coming, but he barely leapt back in time.

  Another Guard smashed through the basement window in a shower of glass. His teammates broke off and engaged.

  Dain pressed his advantage, forcing Kalden back with several quick slashes. Blades of plasma sliced through the drywall, leaving smoking red lines on either side of the hallway. Kalden leapt over furniture, relying on his aspect to guide him through the darkness. His opponent cut through the clutter, storms of splintered wood and torn fabric erupting around him.

  He couldn’t match Dain in a battle of raw speed, so he listened to his Cloak technique, predicting each strike an instant before it came. His vision was a blur of lights as their blades clashed and spun through the pitch-blackness of the house. His muscles ached from the harder clashes; one wrong angle, and Dain would snap his arm like a tree branch.

  He sent Akari a quick message through their bond. Space warped around him, and he appeared outside with the others. The Solidor's safe house loomed on their left, a two-story log cabin with a thick blanket of snow on its roof. Smaller wooden buildings stuck out among the compound—a barn, a watchtower, and two training dojos. Every window was dark, with no sign of the cultists.

  Where were Rosintar and the others? Why had no one else come to help?

  Kalden spread out with his Cloak of a Thousand Blades, forming a more detailed map of the game board. Akari, Zukan, and Arturo stood in a loose circle behind him, and everyone seemed in good shape.

  A second Honor Guard, Silas Knox, stood ten yards ahead of their group with currents of wind mana spinning around his arms. A third Guard circled behind Kalden’s team. He couldn’t see her face from this vantage, but Akari sent him a quick image through their bond. That was Naomi Thorne, the red-haired stone artist who’d gone with Relia into the Hollows.

  Finally, Dain stepped out of the house with his blades of red plasma.

  They were surrounded again, but not for long.

  ~~~

  Akari stood with her back to Kalden’s, cycling spacetime mana through her channels. The snow stung her bare feet, while her dark hair thrashed in the mountain wind.

  Kalden said through their bond. ‘We need to separate them.’

  He was right. She’d been ready to gang up on Thorne or Knox, but the others wouldn’t polish their helmets while that happened. Several more images flashed through her mind as Kalden showed her where to place her portals.

  Akari stretched out her arms, unleashing a hail of spacetime Missiles like silver sparks. The sparks formed domes around her teammates; three-dimensional portals that swallowed them whole.

  Arturo moved deeper into the forest where he could cause trouble with his weapons. Kalden appeared by Knox, while Akari and Zukan emerged a few paces behind Thorne.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  The red-haired woman whirled to face them, unleashing a blast of stone mana from her hand. Space warped in front of Akari as she caught the projectiles and sent them toward Knox on the other side of the battlefield. She never could have kept these angles straight on her own, but Kalden fed her a constant stream of intel, and she knew exactly where to aim.

  “We’re gonna do a Portal Slam,” she told Zukan as she blocked two more attacks. “I’ll distract her while you sneak around.”

  “Copy that.” The dragonborn slipped between two thick pine trees, leaving Akari alone with the stone artist.

  Thorne raced forward in a blur, covering the space with terrifying speed. Clouds of dust gathered around her, pressing against Akari’s portals, worming through the gaps.

  Clouds like that could blind, deafen, or suffocate a person. Akari knew that from personal experience. And Thorne was a Master; her clouds were big enough to bury buildings.

  Akari stretched her portal wider, but the dust slipped around the edges, attacking her face like a storm of razor wasps. The grains burned her skin like sandpaper, while more threatened her eyes and nostrils.

  She cycled spacetime mana through her channels, activating her father’s Cloak technique. Space warped around her body, and her head flickered like a broken computer screen. The dust swirled around her in a thick brown haze, but it couldn’t make contact.

  Her opponent closed the distance an instant later. Stone mana grew around her body like volcanic skin. Spikes of jagged glass jutted from her fingers as she slashed at Akari’s stomach.

  Akari’s body flickered again, and the claw passed through her like smoke. Thorne attacked three more times, faster than a hummingbird’s wings. The claw slashed Akari’s leg, her shoulder, then her throat.

  Each time, her opponent hit empty air.

  , but she loved this technique. A month ago, she never could have gotten this close to a Master and survived. Now, her opponent couldn’t land a single hit. But Akari couldn’t keep this up forever. Space warped in predictable patterns, and her teammates had adapted quickly during their training sessions. She had to assume Thorne would, too.

  Akari stretched out her right hand and launched a dart from her wrist launcher. She appeared between a cluster of pine trees, twenty yards from her opponent. Then she cycled battle mana to her belt pouch, visualizing the item she wanted.

  A katana appeared in her right hand, reinforced with Master-level blade mana. She still couldn’t do much with Kalden’s aspect, but she’d spent hours practicing with these belt pouches. Pulling weapons from thin air was just too much fun.

  Her opponent released another volley of stone projectiles. One Missile slammed into the nearest pine tree. The trunk broke in half, sounding like a gunshot. Another Missile struck the ground in front of her, sending up a cloud of snow and soil.

  Akari dropped her space Cloak and cycled her mother’s technique instead. Time softened, and the world blurred like ink in water. A ghost of Thorne raced ahead of the woman’s physical body. The real Thorne followed in the ghost’s footsteps, copying its exact movements.

  In other words, Akari saw the future just before it happened.

  She shot a pair of spacetime Missiles, opening a portal on either side of her opponent’s path. The shadow veered left so Akari leapt right, emerging behind the real Thorne. She drove the katana between the woman’s shoulder blades.

  Vibrations ran up her arms, and it felt like hitting a cavern wall. The charge faded from the blade; twenty thousand espers down the drain.

  Oh well, this was always a long shot.

  Thorne’s shadow-self whirled around, striking Akari hard with her elbow. The real blow didn’t land, of course. Akari sidestepped it before it could. Several more strikes followed, but she dodged each one in turn. At one point, Thorne’s shadow conjured another cloud of blinding dust. Akari switched to her space Cloak before it came, letting the dust warp around her skin. Then she switched back to her time Cloak, and the fight continued.

  Portals and stone flashed between them as the future blended with the present. It was a stalemate, and her teammates hadn’t fared much better across the battlefield. Dain countered Arturo’s traps, and Kalden’s blades were useless against Knox’s wind mana.

  A ghostly image of Zukan charged behind Thorne. The future stone artist must have sensed him coming, because her own shadow whirled around and impaled Zukan on a glass spike.

  Akari formed a portal around her opponent’s feet, distracting Thorne while Zukan made his move. The future changed, then it played out a second later.

  Zukan grabbed Thorne around the waist and tossed her a dozen feet into the air. She might be a Master, but the dragonborn was still twice her size.

  Spacetime Missiles flew from Akari’s hands as she formed a cocoon of portals around Thorne’s flying body. The woman destroyed several of these, shattering them to silver mist before they formed. She dodged several more with quick blasts of mana, struggling to seize control of her flight path.

  It wasn’t enough. Akari saw each move before it happened, and she adjusted her own moves accordingly. The last portal swallowed Thorne. The woman vanished from the sky, and the portal snapped shut like a dragon’s jaws.

  Akari dropped the technique an instant later, trapping her opponent inside a pocket dimension.

  “Nice work,” she told Zukan. “Now let’s—”

  Zukan’s future self leapt forward, tackling Akari to the ground. Kalden sent her a mental warning in the same moment, and she let herself fall back into the snow.

  A pure Missile soared straight over their heads. Akari felt the wind of the technique on both sides, and the ground shook as it destroyed another pine tree

  That was another problem with time Cloaks—you couldn’t block what you couldn’t see.

  Akari formed a portal around herself and Zukan, catching two more techniques and hurling them back at her attacker. They both sprang to their feet just as Dain charged forward with his red plasma blades.

  A broad-shouldered man stepped between them and Dain. His dark jacket billowed in the mountain wind, and his shaved head shone in the moonlight. Rosintar.

  The cultist opened a portal, catching Dain mid-lunge and hurling him across the field.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Akari demanded.

  “Getting the others to safety,” Rosintar said in his Cadrian accent. More blades of trueflame mana closed in, but he responded with his own blades of space mana.

  “What happened?” she snapped back. “You forget about us?”

  “Yes.” He blocked another technique. “You come and go so much. I didn’t know you were sleeping downstairs.”

  “The others are in the bunker.” Rosintar raised a hand, preparing a space technique. “I can take you—”

  “Not without my friends,” Akari cut in. “Can we break that Construct?” She gestured up at the semi-transparent dome that surrounded the compound.

  “Too strong,” he said with a quick shake of his head. “There’s—”

  Dain cut him off with a cloud of burning gas. Rosintar blocked the attack, and Akari leapt through a portal to flank their opponent. Dain spun to face her, expanding his gas cloud and directing a good chunk of it toward her. Akari wrapped herself with portals, then she flared her space Cloak.

  It didn’t work. Dain’s mana ate through her portals like acid, burning them into silver mist. Even her space Cloak buckled against his technique.

  Akari teleported away to buy herself more time. There, she switched to Kalden’s aspect and retrieved another weapon from her belt pouch. This hadn’t worked against Thorne, but Dain was more of a glass cannon than a tank.

  Rosintar rushed to her aid, and the two Masters exchanged several quick attacks. Unfortunately, Rosintar wasn’t much of a fighter. Like most space artists, he played a support role in battle. He could keep himself alive, but he couldn’t actually deal a killing blow. Not against a trained fighter like Dain.

  Akari cycled her time Cloak again, falling into the space between heartbeats. She stretched out her hand and unleashed a hail of silver spacetime Missiles at Dain. Dain destroyed most of these with his gas cloud, but that didn’t matter. Akari put her full power into the attack, releasing several dozen Missiles at once. They struck from every possible angle, landing on his torso, limbs, and head.

  Finally, she opened a dozen small portals around Dain. The last portal appeared near her hand, swallowing her weapon like a sheath. She bound this single portal to all the others.

  Most portals were a one-to-one link between two points in space. A person or object went through one side of the tunnel and popped out the other; anything more would violate the laws of mass conservation. Akari knew that, and so did every other space artist.

  But Akari wasn’t a space artist. And this technique wasn’t about copying. It was about .

  Each portal was staggered by a fraction of a second, spread across micro-windows in causality. Her blade passed through the first, then the second, then the third. It was still just one blade, but her eyes saw a web of silver steel, surrounding Dain’s body like a cage.

  Akari twisted the weapon with all her might, cutting through her opponent in a dozen spots—one after the other, too fast to see. It severed his arms and legs. His head rolled off his shoulders, while another blade slit his helmet down the middle. Puddles of dark crimson stained the snow around Dain’s broken body.

  Rosintar staggered forward, dropping his own techniques. He glanced down at their fallen opponent, blinking several times as if he couldn’t process the sight. Then he looked up at Akari in wide-eyed horror.

  ~~~

  Kalden’s aspect screamed a warning, and he spun toward Akari. She’d beaten Dain, but it took her full concentration. Now she’d left herself exposed with no Cloak.

  Knox must have realized the same thing, because he shot toward her with a burst of wind mana. Clouds of snow erupted around him as he flew, shrouding the compound in a blizzard.

  Kalden couldn’t see anything through the chaos, so he relied on his aspect to guide him. He switched to spacetime mana at the last second, opening a crude portal and putting himself between Akari and her attacker.

  His opponent landed in the snow, unleashing a volley of pure Missiles through the white haze.

  Two blades formed in front of Kalden. They spun like propellors, cutting through the first few strikes. Then something slammed into his legs, hard enough to shatter his bones. A blade struck his back as he fell, sending a burst of agony through his body.

  Kalden had been stabbed countless times throughout his life, but Master techniques were different. This brought a wave of primal fear, as if his brain expected him to fall apart at any second. Just like Dain.

  Was this what dying felt like? If not, it was the closest thing.

  Tendrils of wind mana wrapped around his ankles an instant later. His legs flew skyward until he hung upside-down, several feet above the snow. More tendrils grabbed his arm and neck until he couldn’t move a muscle.

  “Zeller!” a woman’s voice shouted.

  Kalden turned toward his left where Naomi Thorne stood behind Arturo. How had she gotten free from her prison? It didn’t matter; all Masters had their tricks. The woman held one glass blade to Arturo’s throat, and pressed another into his stomach. Zukan hung in the air behind them, caught in a current of Knox’s wind mana.

  “We have orders to take you and Trengsen alive,” Thorne said. “But your friends are irrelevant. Surrender now, or I’ll cut the boy’s throat.”

  Kalden’s eyes darted back to Akari. She and Rosintar stood a few paces away from Thorne, but they made no move to fight back.

  Akari asked through their bond.

  Kalden said.

  Akari asked a question about trust, and Kalden closed his eyes and cycled his battle mana. The displacement darts were the obvious choice here. Akari could get the team free, but where would they go? Everyone was injured and exhausted. They couldn’t keep fighting like this, much less escape the compound. Kalden couldn’t even stand up with his wound.

  Should they surrender before things got worse?

  his instincts told him to dig deeper and find the path to victory. The Honor Guard were strong, but they weren’t invincible. Akari had already proven that by killing Dain.

  Besides, they were missing something here. Kalden felt it in his bones.

  He slowed his breathing, ignoring his wounds, and the adrenaline in his veins. He cut deeper with his battle mana, past his surface thoughts. How had Moonfire known they were the Soul Reapers? How had he found the Solidor’s safe house? How had his minions gotten past the wards without detection?

  The answer was obvious when he thought about it: the cultists had a traitor in their midst. That would also explain the empty cabin; someone had evacuated the others to keep them safe from the fighting.

  Relyn Solidor had the skills of a dream artist, and she could read lies like words on a page. Despite that, she was still just a human, and humans made mistakes. Especially when they didn’t want to find the truth.

  With that in mind, Moonfire’s spy must be invaluable to the Cult. Someone the Solidors were afraid to lose. Someone who could sneak hostile forces through the wards. This person might even stay behind, putting on a show to maintain his cover.

  Kalden sent his thoughts to Akari. Her eyes widened in realization, then she stepped up behind Rosintar.

  “Fine,” she said with raised hands. “I surrender.” Paradigm shifts always took a second to process, and even Masters were no exception to this rule.

  Rosintar relaxed and turned to face Akari. A storm of spacetime Missiles shot out from her hand like silver sparks, swarming around the Master’s body from a dozen angles. Rosintar blocked most of her attacks, but not all of them

  A Master-level blade appeared in Akari’s right hand. A portal swallowed the weapon up to its hilt, and the blade stuck out from the traitor’s windpipe a second later. Blood spilled from his open wound, and Rosintar collapsed to his knees in the snow.

  Knox hit Akari with a burst of wind mana, but he was too late. The silver Construct faded from around the compound, revealing the night sky above.

  Akari launched a volley of metal darts from her wrist launcher as she fell. The steel projectiles soared over the pine trees, and they all warped away.

  Web of Secrets Book 1 is now available for ebook, paperback, and Kindle Unlimited:

  https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0D7XSBKH2?maas=&ref=

  Book 2 (Web of Dreams) is also available in ebook / KU:

  https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0DX13PV7V

  Support the story on Patreon and read ahead!

  https://www.patreon.com/davidmusk