Jerome sighed and lay back in the soil. The liquid steel beneath him splashed outward and everyone around him rushed away.

“Would you tell him to stop that!” a woman yelled.

That voice woke him up fast. “What’s going on?” he asked, leaning up again.

“Why don’t you take a look around you,” Rihal said from a distance away. “People don’t just lie in flowing steel, you know?”

Jerome looked around and saw the mess he’d made. The metallic glint of steel was everywhere, only it was in liquid form — like mercury. Large puddles of the liquid dotted the whole ground and people had to avoid it completely as they moved about, some even opting to fly instead. The geyser had stopped flowing but its location had the deepest pool, he could tell — with some sort of flowing steel sense he suspected.

Jerome smiled. “I heard the sovereign say it’s very difficult to mine living steel.”

“It is!” someone said loudly from the crowd. Jerome felt a weight upon him from hearing the voice — that was a Sage. “I’ll pay you well to mine as much visha stirh’aun for me as you can. Name your price!”

“How are you feeling?” Rihal asked again, ignoring the voice. The concern in his master’s voice made him smile.

“Never been better,” Jerome said, standing up. He staggered a little before orienting himself. “That voice sounds like Grandmaster Fesir Vorthe.”

“Hmm,” Rihal responded. “I swear, that man can smell an opportunity from a thousand miles away.”

Jerome chuckled at his complaint. “Are you sure the Sovereign didn’t send him?” Jerome knew this wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Rihal didn’t answer so he took that as a ‘yes’. “Time to get to work then.”

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and began waving his hands around. He felt connected to the flowing steel somehow and he knew he could manipulate it. Jerome weaved and bobbed around, dancing to a strange tune only he could hear. The liquid steel responded to his every move. Gasps sounded around and people stopped what they were doing to watch him.

“How is he doing that?” someone said.

“That’s Rihal’s boy, isn’t it? I thought he died!”

Jerome flinched a little. He guessed many knew about him ‘dying’, but not so much about him coming back from the dead — literally! Before long, huge globes of liquid steel were hovering in the air. Many of them, as big as five stories. Jerome continued long after thirteen such globes had been formed. Soon after, he felt his strength drain out of him and someone put an arm on his shoulder to stop him.

“That’s enough Jerome,” Rihal said. Jerome held the globes of liquid steel in the air for a while.

“Get to work, everyone!” Elder Fesir Vorthe’s voice resounded again, bringing the rest of the sacred artist there out of their stupor.

Jerome began noticing the telltale signs of the assassins among them — or at least he thought he was. Some of the people in the crowd were too smooth with their movement, some were moving as though there were no obstacles in front of them — even they were in a crowd of people setting up tents and carrying large boulders around. Yet none were putting on the signature black leather sleeveless vests and cloaks that he had come to know Rihal for.

Some of the people in the crowd waved their hands in the air and giant crates appeared midair spinning, not unlike the ones that were used to store his crystal stones — only these ones were huge! Jerome watched as the crates quickly absorbed the living steel as they spun, without even opening up. They must have been made from living steel themselves.

“Sometimes I wonder, Rihal, how many secrets Vorthe has,” he said in wonder.

Rihal chuckled. “Let’s get you home, Jerome.”

Someone cleared their throat behind them. Jerome turned around to see the Elder glaring down at him. But his eyes softened a moment after and he cleared his throat again.

“Thank you for assisting in mining the visha stirh’aun. The Royal Family owes you a depth of gratitude,” the Elder said.

Assisted my ass! Jerome complained to himself.

But then the Elder added — with authority. “This also absolves you of every punishment I had planned for you!” Jerome felt his heartbeat spike for a moment. What?

Elder Fesir Vorthe was a Sage and the weight of his presence was crushing him as he stood listening. Jerome bowed low to the Elder who continued. “On reaching your chamber in the Royal Estate, you’ll find my payment to you.”

“If I may Elder,” Jerome said, clearing his throat. He watched Elder Fesir Vorthe cock his head at him. “Can I request to be compensated in other forms of resources besides… you know… crystal coins?”

“No,” the Elder said and disappeared. Jerome breathed out a sigh of relief as the weight of the Sage’s presence was lifted off him.

“I literally mined the whole thing!” he complained. “And I can’t get to choose how I get paid?”

Rihal chuckled. “You should have said so when he was here.”

“I should have, shouldn’t I?” he answered dryly.

His master shrugged. “That’s a good way to get your head blown up. And what punishments did he absolve you of?”

Jerome scrunched his face in annoyance. “I take it you’ve not heard of the ‘Projector’, have you?”

“No?” Rihal replied, with a bit of curiosity in his voice. Jerome smiled but raised his hand to express his helplessness.

“Not my secret to reveal.” There was a knowing smile on his face, however.

“Just make sure not to get on the Elder’s bad side,” Rihal said, brushing off the topic like it didn’t matter. But Jerome knew better. He could almost see the gears turning in his master’s head.

“With all this living steel around? Not a chance!”

Rihal raised an eyebrow at him. But Jerome smirked and walked toward the hole in the ground where the living steel had come out of. He took a deep breath and dived into the hole.

~~~

The Royal Estate. Farryn.

“Whatever happened to Idrel … and Fifteen?”

“They’ve been apprehended,” Rihal said.

Jerome studied him for a moment. “You once told me that those with the blood of Vorthe can use the force of light to ‘illuminate the dark corners of their hearts’ —”

“I also told you that there are exceptions. Idrel is one such exception.”

Jerome frowned in thought, looking away. “He would have sold me into slavery, Rihal. I’m not complaining. I understand that strength is king. I just think that Vorthe should make that … whatever it is you do to illuminate the heart or whatever … I think Vorthe should make it mandatory so you can root out sacred artists like him who would abuse their power.”

“Well, aren’t you wise,” Rihal joked. “We can’t make it mandatory. There needs to be some willingness on the part of the individual.”

“So bad guys just get to walk around … even though you can potentially find out if they are bad?”

“Yes, Jerome. Until they do something bad, we can’t do anything against them.”

Jerome shut his mouth for a moment, wondering when he became such a person who would take away someone’s freewill because they’ve got some darkness in their hearts. That was where the conversation was leading to if he had continued. Perhaps the darkness inside him was influencing him without his knowledge. He shivered slightly but clenched his fists to hide his shaking hands.

“You’ve seen the village, haven’t you?” he said, changing the subject. He adjusted himself on his bed for comfort. “The one who massacred its people was called Lokta, son of Grogg. The one I killed last.”

“We saw everything, Jerome,” Rihal said. The way he responded, Jerome felt that he had been waiting for this discussion to happen. “We’ve been hunting them down for a while now. But I guess we didn’t get all of them.”

“I thought Vorthe had eyes everywhere?” Jerome asked playfully. What he didn’t expect was for his master to frown and look away at that. But Rihal’s eyes glazed over for a moment before focusing back on him.

Jerome had come to understand that action as someone communicating psychically with another. Their eyes glazed over for a moment, just like the eyes of the guard who had caught him and his friends back in the slum many years ago. He hadn’t understood it then. He wasn’t a sacred artist then.

Jerome sighed as memories of his time in the orphanage came back to him. He didn’t want to think about the night at Blade’s Edge Canyon but those memories were the hardest to shake off. He heard their cries and screams, Doti’s emaciated form filled his vision and he had to blink back tears as he watched his friend’s throat slice open.

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“Jerome?”

He came back to his senses, still blinking back tears. “What?”

“Do you need a moment?” Rihal asked, noticing his change in demeanor.

“No, I’m good. You were saying?”

Rihal studied him for a while before continuing. “I said, they came into Vorthe through the south — Alvric lands.”

Jerome scoffed. Of course it’ll be those sleazebags. Alvric lands were in the south of Vorthe which meant the islands would be located off the coast of the southern sea.

“But more than that, they had something … some type of artifact, we believe. It helped to cloak them from our sight. We didn’t notice them until whole villages started disappearing.”

Jerome’s breath caught in his throat. “You mean they’ve done that to many other villages?!”

Rihal nodded with a frown. “Did you notice any strange artifact with any of them?” he asked.

Jerome remembered the strange giant claw. For some reason, he felt like there was a hole in his memory though. “As a matter of fact, I do…”

Rihal remained still where he sat but Jerome could almost feel the weight of his attention focus on him. He had a feeling Rihal wasn’t just asking as his master. Whatever was said here would be repeated somewhere — possibly to someone higher up.

“If I recall correctly, there was a claw. A huge, curved, three-foot long claw!” Jerome perked up. It was all coming back to him now.

“This claw,” Rihal said. “Where is it now?”

The fight played like a movie in his mind. Jerome remembered everything up to the point of stabbing Grogg with a spike of living steel and then…

“He stabbed me with it!” He almost couldn’t believe that he forgot such an important detail from a fight. “And then … and then …”

“Go on,” Rihal encouraged. Jerome tried to remember what happened next but it was like there was a hole in his head and it began to hurt to think about it.

“I can’t, Rihal…” he sighed. “I can’t remember.”

Rihal also sighed. “No worries,” he nodded. “If you remember anything though, just make sure to let me know.”

“Sure. Did they wield some sought of mutated dark power?” Jerome asked.

“Why do you ask?” Rihal asked.

“The Sovereign said there were others who wielded darkness like me — or like I would. He also said there were others who wielded light like Vorthe.” Jerome had thought he wouldn’t have to worry about it for the time being.

“The church is the other light wielding entity on this continent. They occupy a large portion of it as well, though not as large as Vorthe. They call it divine essence … as if.” Rihal snorted.

“That sounds … flawed,” Jerome said, marveling at the new information.

Rihal chuckled. “It sure is.”

“What’s their threat level?”

“Good thinking there, Jerome,” Rihal said with an approving smile. “With a Transcendent as the Sovereign of Vorthe, they don’t stand a chance against us. And trust me, they do want to take Vorthe down really badly.”

“Which means they’re very powerful then.”

Rihal nodded solemnly. “They receive help from higher planes, that’s why.”

Jerome’s jaw dropped in shock! “Rihal, that’s…” He had no words!

“Dangerous for us. They’ve got a lot of highly advanced artifacts — most of which we have no names for. If the church started a war with Vorthe today, many would die. But Vorthe would still win that war — or at least, we wouldn’t fall. We’d pick ourselves up far quicker than they would. And their empire would be ours for the taking.”

The mere mention of the word empire brought to mind his question about why Vorthe wasn’t an empire. That was a long time ago now, when he was preparing for Pilgrims’ Keep. Then it dawned on Jerome.

“They’re the reason why Vorthe isn’t called an empire, isn’t it?” It made sense, recognizing another empire would skew the power balance on the continent! The look on Rihal’s face said it all.

“It’s not just them Jerome. If all three other superpowers on this continent formed an alliance against Vorthe…” He left the rest of his words unspoken but Jerome got the gist of it.

“What about the other creatures of darkness?” Jerome asked. He felt no need to carry on that conversation right now. Maybe when he was stronger. Afterall, what could a young Sprout like him do?

Rihal sighed again. “You’d have to find out about that yourself, Jerome. They’re a mysterious bunch from what I’ve been told.”

They both looked at the door and smiled as they sensed someone rushing towards them.

“We’ll continue this discussion later,” Rihal said and vanished.

Ash burst into the room just as Rihal vanished. She tackled Jerome to the bed, hugging him with all her might. Jerome laughed and hugged her back. He welcomed the change in mood. He’d missed her. They stayed like that for a while, enjoying each other’s company in comfortable silence. After a while, Ash sat up on his stomach.

“I heard you took down a psychopathic murderer!”

“‘A’?,” Jerome asked with a raised eyebrow. “It was two!”

Ash tsked, waving her finger. “The second one doesn’t matter. I heard he was Blank.”

“And who’s spreading those lies?” Jerome balked at her. “Just so you know, I have the ear of the Sovereign. I can tell him someone is downplaying my achievements!” Of course, he could sense the presence of Ash’s roommate at the door. How else would Ash have heard about this if Layla wasn’t involved.

“Are you calling me a liar?!” Layla barked from behind his door. She slammed it open, marching into the room like she owned the place.

The sight of Ash sitting on Jerome’s stomach stopped her in her tracks. It wasn’t that they meant to be intimate with each other, it just sort of happened. Layla’s hesitation at the sight of them brought their positions to the forefront of his mind. The awareness that Ash’s round, supple rear was parked on his abs sent all his blood south of his body and pressure started to build between his thighs.

“And the talebearer shows herself,” Jerome said with mock annoyance, trying to downplay the scene but failing.

“Uh… if this is a bad time, I can come back later,” Layla said, turning to go.

Ash quickly scrambled off Jerome, her face and ears turning red as she did. Jerome just smiled at her as he sat up, determined to play it cool. In fact, he had made up his mind that he was going to pursue a relationship with Ash … after he came back from Terra Praeta.

“You don’t need to leave,” he said. Layla turned back and glared at him. “So?” He smirked at her.

“I’m not spreading lies!” Layla spat and huffed.

“I’m just saying. Both sacred artists were Sprouts, even though one was a young Sprout. The other though, was at the peak of the Core Formation Realm!”

“We’d like to see your compensation!” Ash said, leaning closer to him. Jerome felt her bust press into his side. It was full and soft that he felt like he had attained nirvana for a moment and just enjoyed the feeling. He wasn’t even sure Ash was aware of the effect she had on him. But of course she doesn’t, he reasoned. She’s fifteen. But technically, he was sixteen so … he shook off the thought, not liking where his mind was going.

Jerome got off his bed and brought out the storage bags he had found on his bed when he got to his room. He hadn’t bothered to check them out. There were eight of them in number and he laid them all out on his bed.

“They gave you all this for slaying two Sprouts?” Layla asked as she looked through the contents of one of the bags. “I don’t understand.” She sounded almost offended.

Jerome’s brows rose before he quickly schooled his features. They must not have told her about the mine of living steel. He reasoned that wasn’t something the Royal family would want to spread around though because this time they didn’t need the Itakars resources to mine it. That was grounds enough to shut everyone up who was present at the site so he held his tongue.

Jerome looked into one of the bags himself and was pleasantly surprised. It contained uncut high grade stones.

“This one contains fire crystals,” Ash said, a little disappointed. “They’re uncut too.”

“Huh!” Jerome had never seen a fire element stone before. He collected the bag from Ash and looked inside. Heat blasted him just as he opened it. The red glow of the fire crystals brightened his face. Jerome breathed in the rich essence emanating from them. “Guess he had a change of mind.”

“What?” Ash asked.

“Nothing.” He observed the runic symbols around the edge of the bag’s opening. They were identical to that on the coins.

“So four bags of pure uncut highs and four bags of fire crystals. You’re rich, Jerome,” Layla teased.

Jerome threw one of the bags containing the pure uncut stones to her and one to Ash. Ash jumped into his arms again in glee, hugging him. Jerome only laughed and hugged her back. He also had to hold her in such a way that she wouldn’t feel the discomfort in his pants.

“Thank you, Jerome,” both girls said. He smiled at them. Although Layla was a bit uncomfortable around them like this, her smile was genuine as she cradled the storage bag in her hand.

Ash jumped up with agility that bellied her feminine frame. “I need to go prepare. I’ll be going for Pilgrims’ Keep after you leave for Terra Praeta.”

“Wow!” Jerome exclaimed as he walked them out the door. “I almost forgot about that.”

“I need to go prepare too. We don’t have much time anymore,” Layla said.

Ash shrugged. “Not a problem, Jerome. You were dealing with a lot.”

Jerome was glad she didn’t know about the kidnapping. Now that he thought about it, what must have happened to Idrel and fifteen?

~~~

Yun Vorthe

“It’s as you predicted, my Sovereign,” Damien said, kneeling before him. “Zatirah has begun to move.”

Yun clenched his fists so tight, the fabric of reality warped around him and the room he was in threatened to implode in on itself.

“Calm your anger, my Lord,” Thorlin Vorthe said.

“Father…” Aeldra’s voice spoke softly in his ears. “Please, calm yourself.”

Yun shut his eyes and took some effort to calm himself. When he opened his eyes, he noticed that the brightly lit council chamber walls already had cracks and tears in them. The debris from the cracks that should have fallen to the ground had been banished to void.

“And are you certain about this, Damien?” Thorlin asked.

Damien shook his head in uncertainty. “I am not, Elder. The boy’s mind is a fort that cannot be read. I only know what I know from what my disciple reported. He was stabbed with a severed claw bone that was at least three feet in length.”

Aeldra gasped, covering her mouth in shock. “Is he well?”

“Hmm,” Yun answered and all became quiet. “He did not lie. Whatever the dragons want with him, we must find out. Thorlin,” he turned to the First Elder. “The Feis only know to please their dragons. Employ caution.”

“As you wish, my Lord.” Thorlin Vorthe stood up, bowed, and vanished from the chamber.

Yun always knew the dragons were better scryers. There were none compared to them in all the worlds. He just never expected that he would not be able to sow a piece of himself inside the fated Dark One before they did.

Brilliant. How brilliant the way the threads of fate converge. Perhaps he should meet with Zatirah herself — have a discussion with her. The true Matriarch of the Fei clan. Perhaps then this ruse they’ve kept on for so long would end. And then he would find out what they really are after.