Light streamed in through a fist-sized portal, bright and beautiful and pure. It had been so long since he’d felt the touch of its heat on his skin and he took some time just to bask in it.
He had to force himself to snap back into focus, only affording himself that indulgence for a few minutes.
All of Wichita was depending on what he hoped to accomplish here.
Tying off the portal as Marlon had taught him, he turned his attention to the cataloged Light Shift Skill. No matter how he tried to force the issue, the System wouldn’t let him Affix the D-ranked magic. But there had to be a solution.
It was right there in his Quest; he was tasked with creating or hybridizing a new D-rank Skill. Which meant it was possible for him to create something more powerful than his current rank.
His portal Skill was a prime example of the System artificially downgrading one of his abilities. Though he had upgraded it to the D-rank, the Affixation was still active, purposefully capped at the E-rank.
With those two facts, the conclusion was obvious. He had the capability to work with his D-ranked Light Shift, even if he couldn’t Affix it at its advertised rank.
A thought was all it took to bring the cataloged Skill into focus. The genetic and metaphysical mold appeared in his mind, forming a latticework, a template, that would eventually shift his aura into an Affixation.
But he wouldn’t let himself worry about those limitations. If he’d learned anything from Marlon, it was that the use of aura was both flexible and powerful outside of what was evident on the surface.
More than that, the System appeared to actively handicap supers and their use of aura. Almost as if it preferred when Awakened were reliant upon its frameworks, rather than discovering new uses themselves.
He considered the System he had met during his Awakening, wondering for the hundredth time just what their endgame was. They had claimed there was a shadow war for the future of Earth being waged by the various Wakers. But if this was war, then why limit your soldiers? Why not actively guide them toward this versatility Marlon had perfected?
He supposed they did, in a sense. At least one of his active Quests was dedicated to advancing his rank and increasing his power. But it was so rigid, so unhelpful.
Create a new D-grade Skill? Really?
Even the simplest of instructions would have advanced his efforts by months.
But none of that mattered now, because Marlon had awoken him to the possibilities of auras and their frameworks. He now understood that the Skills didn’t need to be followed rigidly, that there was an ocean of variance in the way he configured his powers.
He turned his entire being toward the framework of Light Shift. He studied it—not the rote memorization like when he had first cataloged it—but really studied it. He looked for similarities in the structure, synchronicities between his other Skills, folds and patterns that obviously served a purpose.
Once he felt that he had the mold firmly entrenched in his mind, he turned to the portal still streaming light at his side. He ran his senses over the portal framework, feeling its folds and patterns, looking for similarities, but also inverse positions. Areas where the two aura frameworks could be folded together.
It was slow, mentally grueling work. Each time he thought he had found a synchronicity, he had to forcibly shift his aura to recreate the matching component from his Light Shift mold.
At first, he was met only with failure. The framework frayed when he altered it, the portal fizzling as it lost its structure.
Hours passed before he hit on his first sign of progress.
A section of the Light Shift framework that he had mentally dubbed area seven, section two, had slotted into the portal framework without degrading the entire structure. His mind felt numb from the fruitless hours and he almost didn’t recognize the success as he moved on to try something else.
But then, his focus snapped back, recognizing that the portal framework was undeniably altered, yet still stable.
He let out a wild whoop and redoubled his efforts, searching the Light Shift mold for another section to slot into the portal framework.
Another hour passed and his excitement grew.
Sections of Light Shift had been grafted onto the portal framework, until nearly all of his cataloged mold was accounted for in this new paradigm. He could feel it—the new Skill was nearly finished.
But as he was scouring the framework for the last few slots, a commotion on the warehouse floor pulled him away from his work.
He moved over to the office windows and was shocked to see the warehouse floor ripped open like a can of sardines. Tania was shouting up toward him in a panic as the others raced over toward the gaping maw torn into the concrete floor.
Bursting from the office, he sprinted the hundred feet to her, his eyes going wide as he came around the stone that had been blocking his view.
A pool of blood spread out before him, growing visibly with every passing second.
And lying in that pool of blood, was Vlad.
“What happened!” Terry shouted, crouching beside Tania, his sneakers slipping in the blood.
She held her hands to his throat, trying in vain to stem the flow from his neck. Her eyes were wild, panicked as the blood slipped between her fingers. Before she could answer, Vlad’s hand snapped out, gripping Terry’s wrist tightly.
“Sanguine…” His voice was weak, in contrast to his grip. “Ambushed…outside.”
It took a moment for his mind to process those words, but when they did, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Crunch was standing over him, his aura flickering in acknowledgment. He loped off across the warehouse, preparing to hold the doors.
“Tristan!” Terry called. “Get ready to use your light!”
The Elementalist ran over, his face scrunched in confusion.
“What?”
Terry ignored the question, reaching up toward the sky. It took him a few moments to send his senses high enough, but when he reached what he felt was his maximum range, he began forming a portal with his aura.
He forced the portal wide—wider than he ever had before. It stretched, straining his aura as it sucked more and more power from him. When he felt he was at his limit, he mentally hit the light switch—as he’d come to think of it—and they were suddenly bathed in brilliant golden sunlight. He tied off the portal and turned back to Vlad.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
He almost asked if the man was positive it was the sanguine and not some trick by his grandfather. But before the words could leave his lips, he realized just how fleeting Vlad’s life was.
“Stand back,” he ordered, bursting to his feet.
Reaching out his hand, he began to coax space apart for the second time, focusing on Dr. Wong’s office. Even yesterday, the distance and the spatial-locking Artifact would have made the feat impossible. But Terry could picture that location so clearly and his relationship with space had taken leaps and bounds in the past day.
With enough effort to nearly make him faint, he managed to stabilize the portal into the Emperor’s palace.
“I’m taking him to the doctor.” He bent down, hoisting Vlad into his arms. Tania held the pressure on his neck until the last second as Terry carried the dying man through space.
As soon as they cleared the portal exit, he let it drop and began to shout.
“Dr. Wong!” He turned in a circle, searching for the man. “Dr. Wong! We need you!”
But no one answered.
In a desperate rush, he sent the doctor a System message, but the man didn’t immediately reply.
Racing to the door, he wasted precious moments trying to grasp the knob with Vlad in his arms, then growled in rage and simply kicked it down. As he raced out of the office and into the hallway, two ghouls turned, their auras flaring in surprise.
When they noticed Terry, one of them immediately loped away to fetch help. He silently thanked their quick action, but knew Vlad only had minutes, if not seconds.
He looked down to see the man’s eyes closed, the urgent flow of blood slowing as his life trickled away.
“Fuck!” he shouted. He sent another System message out to one of the few men he trusted, despite their recent altercation.
> [Terry]: Whip! I need you! Where are you!
The reply came back almost immediately.
> [Whipvine]: Throne room. What’s wrong?
He didn’t reply, instead parting space so suddenly and violently that his ears popped.
As he leapt through, he found himself in his grandfather’s throne room.
“Help!” He turned in a quick circle. “Anyone! Help!”
The sound of pounding feet moving with superhuman speed made him whirl around. Whipvine burst into view, his eyes wide as he took in the bleeding man in Terry’s arms.
In a flash, he dashed over faster than Terry could follow, pulling Vlad away and racing to the back of the throne room. A shocked daze took over Terry’s mind and he followed as fast as he could, not quite understanding where Whipvine was taking the man.
When they rounded the throne’s dais, he noticed the two large doors hanging open at the back of the room. He burst past the threshold, taking in the sight in an instant.
It was a war room of sorts—one he’d never seen before. Inside, there was a large circular table, big enough to fit ten chairs or more.
Whipvine had laid Vlad down on the table, holding his hands to the wound.
And standing beside him, were Mesmer and the Emperor.
“Terry?” his grandfather shouted in surprise. “What happened! Who is this?”
He was stunned silent for the moment, unable to process the sight of his grandfather after everything he had recently learned. But then his eyes snapped back to Vlad, unconscious and clearly on death’s door.
“Where’s Dr. Wong?” he asked, rushing over to help. “We need the doctor. Now!”
The Emperor shook his head sadly, glancing down at Vlad. “He’s deep in the Catacombs. It’ll take too long to fetch—”
“Where!” Terry demanded, his body vibrating with the need to act.
When his grandfather didn’t immediately answer, Terry turned and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, injecting all the anger and need he felt into his voice.
“Where?”
The Emperor regarded Terry’s hand clutching him, his lips pursed with displeasure. But Terry felt his own eyes burning, staring so deeply into his grandfather that the man seemed to feel that he would take this all the way if needed.
“Tenebrous tried to take his own life. He’s administering aid—” He cut off as Terry turned and began to split space.
Terry didn’t have the exact location sharply in his mind, but he could get close enough. He felt the connection solidify, then the portal whooshed open.
“That’s—” The Emperor turned a shocked gaze to his grandson. “That’s not possible…”
Terry ignored him, preparing to jump through, when Whipvine’s hand gripped his arm tight.
He looked down at that hand with unbridled rage.
“Let go, Whip.” His voice was low, full of latent threat. He prepared to re-liquefy his ball-bearing bracelet, form razor-sharp blades to slice at the revenant, when he noticed Vlad on the table.
He was dead.
Terry broke Whipvine’s grip on his arm with a shove, stumbling to the table. He put his fingers to the man’s neck, then leaned his ear over his mouth. There was no mistaking it, he had been too late.
His mind went numb and he turned away, letting his body slump against the table.
Whipvine was saying something to him, but he wasn’t listening.
There was no denying it, this had been the sanguine retaliating for Terry’s invasion of their home. For saving that family they had been preparing to eat. He had considered another setup by his grandfather, but the three conspirators were here. And the Emperor had said it himself, War Crimes didn’t have the finesse for a setup.
As much as he might have wanted to shift the blame to them, Vlad’s death was on him. His arrogance had gotten the man killed.
He had invaded their home, but they had invaded his first. No, he corrected, they had been invited in.
With a flick of his aura, he dropped the portal leading into the Catacombs and shot to his feet, whirling on his grandfather. The man was staring at him, his green eyes searching Terry with confusion and open curiosity. But Terry had no interest in sating that curiosity, his anger flaring so bright he thought it might burn him up from the inside.
Despite that intense heat, his voice was low as he spoke to his grandfather.
“Bring him back.”
The Emperor simply shook his head.
“I cannot.”
Terry snarled, slamming his fist on the table.
“Bring him back! I know you can make another revenant.” He pointed to Vlad’s corpse. “So turn him.”
“Listen to my words, boy,” the Emperor said quietly. “I. Cannot. Six is my limit. Nor would I waste my power on someone so weak—”
Micro portals split the air near his right hand, parting space with tiny pops. Liquefied metal shifted into six-inch blades, flying through the portals and appearing around the Emperor’s head. They pressed in tight, so tight that if the Emperor even flinched, he might impale himself.
One blade hovered a quarter inch from the man’s open eyeball.
“Terry! No!” Whipvine shouted.
Mesmer looked on, wide eyed in shock.
“Listen to my words, grandfather,” Terry spat. “Turn him or I’ll skewer your damn eye from your—”
Aura blasted out in a wave, so dense and powerful that it rattled Terry to his very core. His control over his portals, his grip on the tiny blades, his very hold on his thoughts, were torn away in an instant—like a flashbang on his mind.
He staggered back, unable to see or shift his aura for a moment. When he came to, blinking away the overpowering sensation and coming to his senses, he felt a cold press of something sharp against his throat.
Looking down, his eyes traced over the bone blade, down the blackwood scythe, and up to the man gripping the deadly weapon. An ivory mask of bone covered his grandfather’s face, embers burning bright in his eye sockets.
“How dare you,” the Emperor growled.
Terry held his arms out to the side, pressing his neck tight against the blade.
“Do it,” he whispered, locking his eyes on those burning embers. “Do it! Kill me now. Because I refuse to live another second under your rule!”
Mesmer stepped forward, his hands held out in a placating gesture.
“Please! Everyone calm down. You are family. There’s no need to—”
“To what, Mes?” Terry demanded. “There’s no need to fight?” He laughed bitterly. “That’s all my grandfather’s been doing, is fighting me. His draugr nearly killed me last year. He murdered Flore to sabotage my farm and trick me into doing his dirty work. And now Vlad’s dead, killed by the sanguine he invited to Wichita.” He pointed an accusatory finger at the Emperor. “He is my enemy and I am his.”
The Emperor snorted, dematerializing his scythe and mask with a flash of aura.
“You’re not my enemy, Terry.” His eyes looked down upon his grandson, full of contempt and dismissal. “You’re too insignificant in the grand game to be my enemy.”
Terry laughed at that, a full-throated laugh that echoed his grandfather’s contempt.
“I’m insignificant?” Terry nodded, pursing his lips. “Maybe so. But I’m okay with that. Unlike you, I don’t need to measure my self-worth through tyranny or power.” He nodded toward Vlad’s body, his face turning icy cold. “But you better bring him back, grandfather, for your own sake. Because if you don’t, if you leave him lying there in a pool of blood and shit—” He stepped forward, coming face-to-face with the Emperor. “—then I will make it my mission to become powerful. I will become someone worthy of being called your enemy. And you will think back on this day and wonder what if. What if I had just done what he had asked?”
His words hung heavy in the air, not a flicker of sound or movement betraying that silence for seconds that seemed to stretch on.
When the Emperor finally moved, it was to shake his head.
“I already told you, boy. Six revenants is my limit. There’s nothing to be done for him—” He waved his hand toward the two revenants. “—unless you want me to sacrifice Whipvine or Mesmer?”
Terry studied the man’s eyes, searching for a tell. He was lying—he had to be—but why did he look so stone-certain.
“My mother…”
He trailed off, reeling back as the truth hit him in the gut.
The Emperor pursed his lips, nodding in agreement to Terry’s silent revelation.
“That’s right, Terry. Your mother wasn’t mine.” His eyes softened for the briefest moment. “She was your father’s.”