Matt swallowed nervously under King Lemings’ pressure. He thought that King Escar was an egotistical asshole, but this man made Escar seem like a stern teacher preparing them for the real world—the world with people like King Lemings. The king sat on his throne with an iron face that wouldn’t move if someone hit it with a baseball bat, and he refused to let anyone speak unless he addressed them. So far, Matt, Riley, and the rest were kneeling in a line as mages probed them with divination spells, something that they didn’t have to worry about. Or so he thought.
“We’ve concluded, Your Majesty,” an advisor said.
Your Majesty. Your Excellency. Your Perfectness. Matt was dreading what life would be like working under this man.
“Present your insights,” King Lemings ordered.
“Their cores are indeed pure…” the advisor said, “and abnormal.”
Matt felt his heart sink.
“What do you mean by… abnormal?” King Lemings asked.
“They seem… incorrectly established,” the advisor said. “Strong and pure, but weak.”
Matt looked at Riley, and they shared looks of betrayal. Then Matt clenched his fist and thought the name, Jason with such ferocity he had to prevent himself from showing anger. So he did do it! In a twisted stroke of irony, Sara was right: Jason did fuck them! Or… maybe Sara fucked them and blamed it on Jason. Either way, it made him sick!
King Lemings narrowed his eyes. “Were you discarded for your incompetence?” he asked bluntly.
“What?” Riley asked with panic in her eyes. “No. We weren’t the strongest, but we were far from the weakest.”
“Far from the weakest of the heroes,” Matt said hurriedly. “All of us are far more powerful than normal soldiers.”
King Lemings looked at his advisor. “Is that true?”
“We are unable to determine their power, Your Majesty,” the advisor said. “We only know that their potential exceeds our strongest. That’s true.”
King Lemings looked at Matt and Riley. “Then show me.”
2
King Lemings donned a thick coat and walked with soldiers into the garden, which was spacious enough for a large attack. Let’s see if they can split the earth, he thought. Or if it was just that sword. There was so much hysteria about the so-called chasm in the Escaran Kingdom, so he wanted to know whether it was caused by the summoned people or by the sword Lady Reece was noted as having. If it was indeed Rinus Kemot’s Godslayer, it could be a legendary artifact at play. If that was the case, his full attention should be spent on obtaining it from Lady Reece. But if these summoned “heroes” were as strong as Prince Halter claimed, then it would be another story.
“Use raw mana in a sword strike,” King Lemings ordered.
Lord Bower—the one who called himself “Matt”—looked at him like a worthless child. “We aren’t able to do that. We’re mages.”
King Lemings’ face twitched, and he looked at his head mage, Rogal Kell, a man in his sixties with graying hair. “Simulate.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Rogal understood his request to simulate the distance of the notorious sword strike in Lemora and issued orders to set up the test. A group of mages disappeared and returned with a siege tower that they rolled over 100 yards away. Once they were finished, King Lemings turned back to Lord Bower: “Don’t hold back.”
Lord Bower swallowed, walked to the front of the other summonees, and put his hands up. Chanting aloud, he created a fireball that was the largest King Lemings had ever seen… but the young man was sweating like an animal and taking large breaths. Still, once he finished, a massive fireball shot across the garden and slammed into a barrier that mages threw up in front of the siege tower. The barriers broke, but by the time the fire hit the siege tower, it had a fraction of its power, and the mages quickly extinguished it, leaving trails of smoke and steam billowing in the frozen air.
How disappointing... King Lemings thought. When he turned back to the “heroes,” Lord Bower had taken a knee and was clutching his chest as the other heroes asked him what was wrong. Then, the king turned to Rogal. “Well?” he asked.
Rogal studied Lord Bower. “I think that this is as strong as he’ll get,” he said. “More than that, and his core will crack. It’s still impressive.”
“But nothing world-changing,” King Lemings said. “How deformed are their cores?”
“They’re not deformed—they’re just… weak,” Rogal said. “If the core was strong, the mage could use that attack without… that.”
King Lemings looked at Lord Bower, dry heaving in the snow, trying to tell the others he was alright but incapable of it. “So you don’t think they’d be much stronger?” he asked.
“I can’t say for certain. We’ve never seen pure cores before.”
“I’m asking for your thoughts, not for your caveats.”
“I don’t, My Liege.” Rogal watched Lord Bower carefully. “These kids are already strong. If the target was closer, it would’ve shattered the barrier and target without effort. That shows that they are already formidable. If they had stronger cores, they would be seriously destructive.”
“And about the crevasse?” King Lemings asked, referring to the crevasse in Lemora.
Rogal stroked his beard in thought. ”I believe it was the Godslayer…. It has to be. These attacks can barely reach 100 yards without losing energy. Lady Reece would have to be four times stronger than Lord Bower to crack the earth for such a distance.”
“I see.” King Lemings stood and turned to Riley. “Your turn.”
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Riley swallowed nervously, and stood up and did the same—
—with the same outcome.
One after the other, the summonees released blasts and fell to the ground, equally confused.
“Do you think they were poisoned?” King Lemings finally asked.
Rogal pressed his fist against his lips. “I don’t see how. If their cores were sabotaged, they would’ve known. It would’ve been like losing a limb, and these children seem genuinely confused about their performance.”
“Interrogate them,” King Lemings said, standing up and watching the heroes looking at each other in terror. “And don’t underestimate Lady Reece.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Despite King Lemings playing things safe by overestimating them, he left that day feeling far better. His army would be enough.
3
Matt couldn’t sleep that night. It was clear as day that there was a setup. Tyran poisoned them. Elizabeth betrayed them. Yet… there was nothing they could do about it. King Lemings regarded all humans as pawns, and Matt and the others truly believed that if King Lemings deemed them as unnecessary for the war effort, he would kill them to prevent what happened in Lemora from happening within his kingdom. Thus, they agreed that night that they would tell King Lemings that nothing had happened to their cores. Instead, they planned to use their knowledge of Sara and the others to make themselves indispensable.
That day started the coldest winter of Matt’s life.
4
Sara walked through the halls of the castle, issuing orders. Alecov was in the audience chamber, slowly taking over kingly duties as she worked with the military. At the end of a long corridor, she entered the war council chamber where Edico was waiting.
“How many troops have we received?” she asked.
Edico frowned. “With so many nobles stripped of their titles, we weren’t able to obtain even half of our forces.”
Nobles weren’t politicians in the modern sense of the term. They ruled territories like miniature countries, enacting their own laws and customs and raising armies. Then, they sent a portion of the taxation and troops to the kingdom. So, without nobles, there weren’t soldiers, and the governing structure had collapsed. Sara’s actions had serious consequences.
“Number,” Sara said dryly.
“Around twenty thousand,” Edico said grimly.
“How many have we seen from the other countries?”
“A combined total of ninety thousand,” he said. “Fifty from Lemings, twenty-five from Quell, and fifteen from Markon. We’re surrounded.”
Lemings was to the west, Quell was to the east, and Markon was to the south. To the north was the Prenth Kingdom—the Escaran Kingdom’s greatest enemy. If they weren’t also the great enemy of the Lemings Kingdom, there would be a serious problem.
Sara sat down slowly. They didn’t react like this last time, she thought while rubbing her eyes. Did he get to them? She refused to believe that Daniel had convinced them that the kingdom was a problem. It had to be the sword strike. She had used it to break the Escaran soldiers’ will to fight, yet it seemed to have had international consequences far beyond anything she would’ve believed. Sara wasn’t an omnipotent god, and she didn’t think something so minor would have such a devastating effect.
“Do you think we have the power to overcome these odds?” Edico asked.
Sara wiped her mouth, feeling a sharp desire for a strong drink. But she held off and let the desire corrupt her thoughts. “Yeah,” she answered.
“Yeah?” Edico asked incredulously.
“Yeah. We do.” Sara sat up straight and looked at him. “It’s just going to get nasty. What do you think we should do?”
“I think that we should concentrate our forces in Lemora,” Edico said. We’ll let them bring their armies and have the heroes strike and then rest.”
“Brutal plan,” Sara said. Get all the enemy soldiers together in one location, and then kill and massacre as many as possible with each strike. It was disturbing.
“It’s necessary,” Edico said. “With twenty thousand soldiers, we would get decimated if we split our forces.”
Sara took a deep breath.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether your plan will work without me.” Sara stood and walked to the window. There was still snow on the ground, but it was thawing at the onset of spring. Large slogs of mud pooled together from melted snow, and heaps of ice glittered in the sunlight. “I’ll prepare them. We’ll see what they can do.”
Sara turned and left the room. It was time to teach people multi-tiered spells, the type that builds strength at the cost of time and longer incantations. If the soldiers were sieging Lemora, then there would be nothing but time.
5
Sara stood before the heroes. They were nervous, showing that they were capable of reading the room. They were wet from slogging through the knee-length snow, but they didn’t so much as shiver. That was a good sign that their body tempering was working.
“Listen up,” Sara said. “We have confirmed that Matt and the other traitors have reached the Lemings Kingdom. From accounts, they convinced King Lemings to attack with their full strength. Soon, there will be overwhelming soldiers coming to siege Lemora.”
“Those fuckers are trying to kill us,” Darius said.
“I can’t believe it….” Tara whispered.
The rest shifted nervously.
“That’s why today, we’re going to learn about demonstrations,” Sara said. “Our greatest strength is the ability to break people’s spirit to fight. Andy, have you completed it?”
Sara turned past the river and saw a massive 25-foot wall of solid rock from Earth magic. It had massive fortification arrays tattooed on it, each loaded with the full power of a pure golden core.
“Yeah,” Andy swallowed.
“It’ll get better,” Darius said preemptively. Wiles and Will laughed nervously.
“Good enough,” Sara said. “Then observe. Sferíki fosforésce, to spíti ton astraí, ilumináva tis enigma pleúres. Rom, péma stin ámichos órasi, éklausen stin êcho tou….” Sara’s chanting became hypnotic, and the way that the mana swirled in the atmosphere as she spoke line after line chilled them to the bone. She had spoken five full lines before a small water ball developed thirty feet in front of her. Then, when she reached her tenth line, the water exploded in size, pulling all the water from the river in a massive vortex. The leaves on nearby trees shriveled as the water was sucked from them, and the heroes recoiled when they felt their skin dry up like cracking lips.
“Barriers!” Emma yelled, putting up a barrier to shield their bodies.
“Tóra, antícho tes phýsis amfiétai!” Sara yelled, “kymáton tis thlípseos pou rígnoun katá ton ákra tou chronou!”
Suddenly, the entire world’s atmosphere shifted as a gale force blew the house-sized water ball forward. It rocketed into the distance, slamming into the fortified stone wall—shattering it into gravel and making the wall collapse like a sandcastle. The water then crashed into the forest, tearing trees from their roots, and creating a torrent of brown and green sludge that destroyed everything in its path.
Sara took deep breaths. The power of high-level spells was more destructive than Qualth—but it was her power. Qualth amplified power, turning normal attacks into warheads. That was the profound difference.
She turned to the other heroes, who were staring at her with doe eyes and barely breathing. Once she saw their expressions, she smiled thinly. “Who wants to fight me?” She chuckled and walked up to them, watching them part like the Red Sea as she walked into the center. Then she turned to Wiles sharply, and he scrambled backward. Then Sara turned to Emily, who seized up. “No one?” Sara asked. Dead silence. “Exactly,” she said. “No one wants to fight me—and when you give a demonstration like this, no one will want to fight you.” She gave them all a thin smile, but it quickly faded. “In one month’s time, three kingdoms will march on Lemora. There will be heavy casualties, but the stronger you are, the more people will give up. So that’s what we will be working on. Now prepare yourselves—because we will all be learning.”
The heroes chuckled awkwardly, picking up vitality and strength as they considered what they would be learning. Darius said he was living out his dream of becoming a nuclear bomb, and the others made similar jokes. As for Raul, he just sat on a stump watching. Only he understood the grave implications of such power. Either way, he didn’t turn away. The Lemings Kingdom would soon attack, and if they didn’t fight, they would all die. He would be ready to do what needed to be done. Sara was certain of it.