Lyria

I looked back over my shoulder at Brynn every once in a while. He had on that horned helmet that looked like a slice of the night sky. When I looked at it too long, it did funny things to my eyes.

Some of my molten shield techniques had apparently caught part of his boot on fire back in the training arena. His big toe was sticking out of his right shoe. The robe was ripped and shredded in places, showing strips of his bare skin beneath. He was skinny but with a broad-shouldered frame and long legs. I couldn’t quite believe he was somehow supposed to be Seraphel. Then again, there was something about him.

Brynn wasn’t quite like anybody I had ever met. He had a kind of striking intensity to his eyes that was unnerving at times, as if he was constantly calculating and planning. But when he spoke, his words came easy and he was usually kind and honest. I had worried it was an act to catch me off guard, but more and more, I thought that might actually just be who he was.

Still, I was still struggling with the idea that stories of The Nine were even true, let alone the idea that one of them had wiped his memory, reset his progress, and was currently walking a few feet behind me.

It all still messed with my mind. He did look like the painting of Seraphel in Circa’s personal space, but who says the painter got it right? And after a few hundred years, somebody would certainly come along who looked like one of the old gods. The helmet was a little trickier to explain. It matched the armor in the painting almost exactly.

If Brynn wasn’t Seraphel, he still might be working with somebody who knew Seraphel. At the very least, he was in league with somebody powerful enough to give him that helmet. That alone was a mystery and a half. I supposed it didn’t matter in the end. Doing my job right now meant sticking near Brynn. That was all I needed to worry about because I was going to do my job so damn well that Jarn would eventually realize he had to promote me.

I had to admit all this destiny crap with Brynn was making me question my plans, though. For years, all I had focused on was passing the entrance training to become a guard. Once I did that, I had shifted my focus to getting promoted.

A promotion would mean Inner Circle resources and training. Without that, I was quickly discovering that I was somewhat hopeless. Years and years of trying to learn the abilities of my Sword corestone had been nearly useless. I was making so little progress that it often felt like standing still.

So what else could I hope for but to crawl my way to Iron and maybe live a soft life in the city?

A small voice whispered the answer to me. You could follow Brynn. You could see where his path goes and maybe some of the glory along the way would be contagious.

But those were foolish thoughts. It was the kind of thing that had gotten my mother killed. It was exactly the kind of thinking my father spent years trying to prune from my mind.

We were out of view from Riverwell and approaching a large rocky hill.

I felt odd hanging at the back with Brynn, Circa, and the strange tomte named Rock. The other guards were so far up ahead that they looked like ants snaking up the rising hills. In the distance ahead of them, I could see the hint of a crumbling structure on top of the largest hill. Those were the ruins. They’d been there since I arrived in Riverwell last year, but our scribes only noticed the infestation a few months back. Jarn sent word through the guild, and the adventurers had finally come.

If Brynn had shown up a few days later, he would’ve found a much less busy Riverwell. Without adventurers in town for the commission, the place would’ve been its usual, sleepy, mostly boring self.

An Iron level infestation. I wouldn’t have admitted it to a soul, but I was already terrified of the prospect when we had planned to bring a party of thirty. I didn’t want to scare Brynn, but these things were famous for going wrong. Infestations grew, morphed, and evolved like a godsdamn sickness. And we’d been letting this one fester for too long while we waited for reinforcements. Now Circa had basically confirmed the worst-case scenario was waiting for us down there. It was exactly the kind of thing that made people bring such large parties.

Technically, an Iron level infestation should be something a group of five or six capable Irons could handle alone. Due to the unpredictability, though, it was far more common to bring much larger groups, just to be safe.

And now we had a Silver with us. The guild had promised us at least ten Irons and sent five, meaning we only had six, including Jarn. But having a Silver should balance out for it and then some, especially with her epic corestone. I still got chills when I thought about it. You didn’t hear about those every day, much less see one casually on display for everybody to look at.

Normally, an Iron would be worth about five or ten Woods in a fight. A Silver was supposed to be worth five or ten Irons, and so on. But with that corestone… who knew? Then again, I’d only heard that formula from a drunken adventurer at a bar one night. Maybe it was all bullshit.

“...should at least try,” Circa said. She’d been talking to Rock, who she was now gently urging to move in Brynn’s direction.

I’d been drifting closer to the two, trying to overhear what they were talking about so quietly up at the front of our little squad.

Rock sighed, nodded his head, and turned toward me. I hesitated, then watched him walk right past and head toward Brynn. The supposed god walked slowly at the back with his potion bottle in one hand. He was waving his free hand around absently. I couldn’t be sure behind the helmet, but it almost looked like he was walking with his eyes closed.

Rock stopped a little in front of Brynn and spoke. He looked like a reluctant child who was being forced to play nice. “If we’re going in there together, I suppose I should—”

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Rock cut off his words with a small scream as a liquid sprayed out of Brynn’s empty hand. The tomte ducked and swiped an arm in front of himself at the last second. Blue light pulsed in a semi-circle, deflecting the hissing liquid away from Rock.

Brynn was staring at the liquid on the ground with his hands still held out wide.

Rock had his quarter-staff in both hands now, like he was about to start bashing Brynn’s head in.

I pulled out my shield and got between them at the same time as Circa.

“I am so sorry,” Brynn said. The helmet made his voice sound deeper and more sinister than when he had it off. “My eyes were closed, and—”

Rock spit on the ground and stalked off, muttering under his breath. “Introduce yourself,” he said in a mockingly high-pitched voice. “He’s kind. You’ll see. Rock sees why he doesn’t trust people. That’s what Rock sees.”

Circa looked after the tomte but seemed more interested in the hissing liquid on the ground. “Is this from your ability?” she asked.

“Why did that feel like throwing up out of my hand?” Brynn asked. “God. That was disgusting.”

I shook my head in disbelief. There was simply no way he’d managed to use an active ability that quickly after attuning his corestone. I thought back on all our interactions and suddenly wasn’t so sure he’d been honest with me. Was he more experienced than he was letting on? But why would he lie about something like that?

“Incredible,” Circa breathed.

Rock watched from a distance. His bushy gray brows were raised beneath the shadow of his hood. He didn’t seem to understand the fuss, which answered one of my questions. The tomte didn’t know who Brynn was supposed to be. To him, Brynn probably looked like some high-born who had been handed down a family heirloom helmet. It looked like he was still considering attacking Brynn for trying to spray him with poison.

Once Brynn recovered from the shock of making his ability work, he jogged up to Rock. The two of them talked softly as Brynn gestured his hands, finishing with what looked like a reenactment of the moment he sprayed poison at Rock.

After a while, the tomte relaxed his posture, gave a curt nod, then continued toward the larger party ahead.

There was a bounce in Brynn’s step as he followed after Rock. Potion still in hand, he stuck a palm out and produced a paltry spray of poison about as impressive as a stream of piss.

Circa was at my side. The woman was quiet as a damn ghost.

“You still doubt him?” she asked.

“Never said that.”

“It’s written on your face, girl.”

“If he’s who he says he is, what does it matter if I doubt him or not?”

Brynn pumped his fist after making another stream of weak poison jet out of his hands. He yelled something up to Rock that I couldn’t quite make out, and the tomte seemed to ignore him.

Brynn squatted like a wrestler, both palms out as he jerked his arms back and forth, producing about as much liquid as a firmly squeezed lemon with each pump. I caught myself smiling and wiped the look off my face. If this really was his first time using an active ability, I couldn’t blame him for being excited. I remembered my first time.

That feeling of power had been like nothing I’d ever felt. I hadn’t slept a wink that night because I was too excited to get up and do it again in the morning. If only I had been able to repeat it with more abilities since then. But I hadn’t. One damn ability. It was all I could activate out of the four I had unlocked when I tethered to my Sword corestone.

“He has a very hard path ahead of him," Circa said. "Impossible, maybe. He’ll need loyalty and friends he can trust more than anything.”

“That’s tough rocks for him,” I said. “The way he is, he’ll be lucky if he makes it another week without getting robbed and stabbed in a back alley somewhere. Assuming he survives what we’re about to do, that is.”

Part of me was hoping she’d reassure me that he wasn’t in danger within the ruins. I expected some line about how I shouldn’t doubt her power. Instead, she squinted ahead, face serious.

“You’re right,” she said.

I lifted my eyebrow, surprised at her honesty.

She didn’t exactly smile, but her expression softened. “He’s lucky to have found you when he did. I tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted on including you in this. It seems he had some sort of feeling about you,” she added with a mischievous twist of her lips.

I felt myself blushing. What the hell did that mean? “Well,” I said, feeling awkward. “You can stop looking at me like that. I’m not betraying him, Oathbinding or not. I plan to forget he ever existed once he leaves Riverwell.”

“You don’t plan to follow him?”

“Follow him?” I laughed. “He’s not as bad as I thought, but that’s not for me. I won’t drop my life to become his dutiful little follower. I’ve got my dreams and a future ahead of me, and I wish him the best of luck with whatever he’s got coming, too. But I want no part of it.”

The little voice in my head was back, and it was whispering that I was a damn liar.

“Listen, Lyria,” Circa said seriously. “I can’t promise you riches or favor with a divine house. Ours is scattered and weak. I can’t promise you success. All I can promise is the reward of following a worthwhile cause."

I snorted. “That’s the thing about causes. Everybody thinks theirs is worthwhile.”

“Tell me, what do you know of The Nine?”

“Same as most people, I suppose. Old stories parents told their kids about nine gods in the old days. Constantly at war and trying to get their fingers in everything. Mostly bullshit I thought Ithariel made up to prop himself up as our savior.”

“And what do you know of The Rifts?”

I squinted. “Tears in the world that open up in distant corners of Eros. Strange things come out of them.”

“Yes,” she said. “And they’ve always been a part of Eros, but a few centuries ago, the gods began to venture within them. And they found something that terrified them.”

"Not to be rude, but call me skeptical. I can’t imagine a god admitting they’re scared. Not even to a Silver.”

Circa smiled a little. "You’re correct to be skeptical. I didn’t say they admitted it. I know from the writings they were very interested in the changing rifts. Beyond that, I only have to look at the evidence on display. Something made them believe they needed to resort to this for more power, yes?" She gestured to Brynn. He looked like he was out of mana now. He shook his hand, gave it a disappointed look, and kept trudging up the hill.

A chill ran through me. If she was right, what in the hell could make a god think they’d need to reset their progress for more power? To make all of them but one think that?