“No entry. Sodality objections — not merely post-genophage. Permanent. Nobody goes in to the inner sanctum. Nobody sees the source. Where does the Symbiont come from? Heavenfall legend, again?”

—Scribbled notation in journal of Magus Comes Masaki Generosus Ortus Takahashi

---

The Chasm

Tumbling Seeding 20, 1885 CE

Tvorh didn’t know what was worse: the pendulous swinging back and forth or the burning in his lungs. Probably he’d have been able to handle one or the other, but as Senrii, his sisters, and he clung to the wall above the depths of the Chasm, he was enduring the worst of both possible worlds.

Tvorh coughed twice more to clear the embers from his throat, then dared to open his eyes and look around. Silk webbing covered his body and stretched upward to Senrii’s waist, from which two more cocoons hung. His sisters’ hoarse, muffled screams emanated from within them. The Maga herself clung precariously to the wall, coughing and hacking. Apparently, being a blue-blood didn’t make one invincible.

Tvorh blinked the tears out of his eyes and looked downward across the chasm. A glowing purple-gray mist still enveloped the cliff. Somehow, Senrii hadn’t just gotten them above it, but also to the wall on the opposite side of the Chasm.

Just as he was thinking about how impressive that was, Senrii rasped, “I guess I had a bad idea.”

Tvorh shook his head. The act sent spasms of pain shooting up his esophagus. “No,” he said, his voice scratchy. “You saved us. You saved my sisters. Thank you.”

“Turnabout’s fair play, kid. But I don’t know what I was thinking, trying to get a lungboat running in that stuff.” She grimaced. “Look, kid, we don’t have a lot of time, and I’m strong, but I’m not that strong. Could you—”

Tvorh spun himself about and gripped the wall, transferring his weight to it. Senrii sighed above him. “Thanks. Hey, kid, we gotta climb.”

“Climb? Climb where?”

“Out of the Chasm.”

Tvorh glanced up at the wall that seemed to stretch away forever above him. It was at least six times as high as the ramp in the libraratory had been. “Is that the only way?”

“Well, I guess we could jump back down and say hi to Ilhicamina again once the gas dissipates.”

“Up is okay. It’s fine. It’s… good.”

“Attaboy.” Senrii reached up, gripped at the wall, and hissed. “Blood and bile.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“What?”

“Beast nicked me with one of the swords. It’s all right, but I’m —”

Tvorh grabbed hold of the strand connecting him to Senrii, set himself against the wall, and heaved himself upward past her.

“Hey!” Senrii said, but he paid her no mind. It was all he could do to fight off the urge to vomit or break into a coughing fit, and now that he had taken out the slack from the strand, any relaxation could mean falling and braining himself on the rock.

“Give out more stranding as I go,” he wheezed as he found the next handhold, turned his waist in to the wall, and pulled himself up.

“Kid, hold on.”

“You’re hurt. I’m not.” Other than the torn-up feet from his climb in the libraratory, the chimera claws to the face, the bash on the back of his head from when Senrii had flipped him, the lungburner gas — yeah, Tvorh was fine.

And climbing was what he did.

“You took in a lot of —”

“Just give me slack.”

Senrii complied as Tvorh ascended the wall. Climbing was a matter of putting one hand above the other, then mirroring the motion with the opposite foot. Luckily, the Chasm here had a rough and well-spiked wall, less slippery than other climbs he’d done. Still, the distance was daunting.

Tvorh set aside his fears, his pains, and his fatigue. He had to get out of here. He had to get his sisters out of here. And though Senrii had brought this trouble down on him, she’d also not left him behind, and she had promised a better life. Repay good for good, his father had always said. He couldn’t leave her behind.

Not that there was even a question of that, considering that his sisters were hanging from Senrii’s waist.

He reached a wide, flat rock jutting from the wall, large enough to sit down on, and he took the silk rope in hand, bearing upward on it. It took a moment, but then he felt the strand go slack. He tugged, and it went taut, then slackened; tug, taut, slack. Minute after agonizing minute, he drew the line hand over hand as the fatigue in his muscles threatened to overwhelm him. He looked up again at the open sky, which was glowing with the light of the noonday sun. It seemed as far away as it had ever been.

A distant noise, the sound of heavy, regular breathing, reached his ears. Lungboat! He watched helplessly as the gray-and-forgebone-white vessel descended down the Chasm above him. The Dux must have alerted his lackeys and ordered them to send reinforcements.

A voice wafted up from below the ledge. “What is it? Why’d you stop pulling?”

“Lungboat,” he said. “Coming from above.”

The line tugged twice, slackened, and vanished from his hands, melting into nothing in the space of seconds. “What are you doing?” he asked.

No response.

The lungboat descended even to the platform, and Tvorh stared down the barrels of a dozen guns. The captain of the boat stood tall and proud at the open-aired helm just next to the pilot. “Cease your flight, child,” the captain shouted, though over the pumping of the lungs, the words came out as a whisper. “We have barrels on you above and below. Surely you would not conspire with Nethress dogs, hmm?”

There was no way out of this one. Tvorh waited for Senrii to take action, but the boat simply heaved and tilted in the air in front of him.

Senrii had Tvorh’s sisters, and perhaps if he gave himself up, that would satisfy the Nxtlu long enough for her to get them to safety. Tvorh looked the captain in the eye and nodded. “All right. I’m coming aboard.”

“Smart lad,” the captain said.

Without waiting for more, Tvorh took two steps and leapt. He sailed out over the empty blackness and struck hard on the nose of the boat, which bucked with his weight. He scrabbled at the bone plating, digging his fingers in between the slabs of armor and steadying himself, and smiled grimly up at the captain and the skull-masked warriors whose guns had followed his leap. The the captain caught him by the hands and hauled him into the boat, which began to descend as soon as he was safely on deck.