Once in the street again, I doubled back towards the Academy until I recognized the surrounding buildings, then retraced the path to the Empress' abode. The maroon brick building with shuttered white windows looked the same as before, except that the black doors were standing open, and there were no imperial guards or other sword artists present. The entire street was deserted. By now the sun had long set, leaving only the cloudy night sky to light the area.

I stopped in front of the open doors, squinting to make out what was inside, but a heavy darkness swallowed what little moonlight entered the building. I couldn't see anything, or sense anything with my heightened awareness, either. With one hand on Terminus at my side, I entered the building.

When I stepped inside, the heavy darkness remained all around me. There were no alchemical lights like last time, and not even a trace of aura. I could hear nothing or see nothing, as if all remnants of light and sound had been sucked away by an unseen force. The door behind me was still open, but the soft moonlight from outside made its way inside no further than the entrance before disappearing. A strange alchemy was at work here.

"Hello," I whispered softly.

There was no reply. Heading forward into the blind darkness would have been foolish. My former anger had been tempered by the confusing surroundings, giving way to caution. I was on the verge of turning around and leaving when a light appeared on the ground ahead of me. I could make out the faint outlines of a staircase descending into the level below.

"Come, Talen," a woman's voice called from all around me. "We're waiting."

We? I had no doubt that was the Empress beckoning me. But who else was with her? Five? Whether I sought to placate the dark alchemist or kill her, there was only one direction to go. Forward. I readied myself for danger, sending currents of qi through my body as I descended down the stairs.

The staircase led to a narrow hallway that opened up into a large circular chamber covered in an intricate pattern of glowing, golden lines. The golden lines were similar to the qi etchings that the nobles used, but they were carved into what I took to be stone walls, ceiling, and floor. There was no other light besides the dense pattern of golden etchings, but it was bright enough to see shapes within the circular chamber. At first, the convoluted pattern of golden lines confused my vision, but a moment later, I sensed the presence of two individuals across from me.

Empress Shih reclined on a large black chair that gave the impression of a throne. She wore the same garb as before, the gold-trimmed silver robes and the diamond crown. She leaned to her right side, her elbow propped up on the armrest, her head resting on her closed fist. Five stood to her right, his head lowered so that I couldn't decipher his expression.

"You," I growled. "What are you doing to Elder Gri?"

The Empress' laugh was loud and grating.

"I'm giving him what he wants," the Empress said. "Is that so wrong?"

I drew Terminus. "I'll ask you once. Leave him alone."

The Empress lifted her head off her fist, sitting upright. "It's treason to draw a weapon unbidden in the presence of royalty. I thought we were done discussing treason." She turned her head slightly to Five. "You said he was the obedient type."

Five didn't reply.

The Empress pursed her lips, then turned back to me with the hint of a smile. "Do you want me to take back what I've given him? The bounty as well?"

I hesitated for only a moment. The gold didn't matter. With my current strength, I could find some other path to gold if I had to.

"Yes," I replied. "Take it all back."

"A pity," the Empress said with mock regret. "He'd lose his life, then, if I took it all back."

My hand tightened around Terminus' handle, a surge of fresh qi pouring into its resonant chamber. I shifted the weight onto the balls of my feet slightly, ready to pounce across the twenty or so feet that separated us. Five would probably try to stop me, but I wouldn't stand here idly while the Empress threatened my clan.

The Empress raised her voice, as if telling me to hold. "Had I not intervened, your beloved Elder Gri would have been killed three times by now because of would-be thieves. Not only would you have to pay back the gold he already spent, but you'd owe me his life. Seeing as you don't have a spare life lying around, I'd have to claim his. Unless you changed your mind."

I was on the verge of striking the Empress. I recognized that the urge was more than a little irrational. There would be retaliation. The clan could be destroyed. But if I did nothing, if I let the Empress do as she pleased, wouldn't the clan also be lost? She had already broken Elder Gri, and I didn't know if he could ever recover. It was better to uproot her influence now, rather than to let it fester under the guise of short-sighted moderation.

In better circumstances, I would have asked for the clan's decision as a whole. Who was I to decide their fate? But delaying through inaction was as grave a choice as attacking the Empress. For she was destroying the clan this very moment. She was the enemy. Even the Academy thought her so.

As for the consequences of such an act...I could find refuge within the Academy. The clan could renounce me, and I them, if that would give them safety. My bond with Elder Gri was all but severed already, and while I would do what I could for the others, their loyalty would be to him, not me. For that was the way of a clan. And if the Emperor still planned a retaliation, I could certainly make him think twice about doing so. The imperial guards feared me already. I could make them fear me even more. The only ones to stop me would be the students of the Academy, but perhaps the Swordgeists could exert their influence over them, since they had given me the Assignment in the first place.

I stared at Empress Shih. She lifted her chin and gestured with one upturned palm, asking for my response. Five still had made no sound or motion. I lowered Terminus, wondering for one last time if I was being a fool. But then, the Empress smiled, and a dark expression flashed across her face--a mix of hunger, desire, and triumph that repulsed me unlike anything I had experienced before. A faint wisp of foreign aura, putrid and rotten, reached me. Even the Void Beasts had not carried such a scent.

I knew, then, that there was something gravely wrong with her. I had to kill her. I had to carry out the Assignment the Swordgeists had given me. One strike. I needed just one strike to end her.

I willed my body across the gap between myself and the Empress, my body hurtling nearly horizontally across the ground like a striking viper, Terminus' bright metal tip a single fang seeking the pale flesh of her throat. Qi swirled about my body and blade together as one as I stretched the limits of what I could achieve. The speed and strength of my strike would have easily killed the two sword artists the Empress had sent after me earlier. This strike would have killed most of the students at the Academy, I believed, even Naisha with her Scrying technique, or Alanna, who was too slow. It should have been too fast for even Five, based on what I had seen of him.

I poured everything into that single strike.

The space between the Empress and me exploded with golden light. Terminus slammed into something hard and impenetrable, and the shock of the collision nearly crushed even my Grandmaster's body. I was thrown sideways at angle, pain burning through my arms, my back, my legs. I righted myself while still hurling through the air, then stabbed hard into the ground to anchor myself before landing on my feet.

Five stood between me and the Empress, his own sword drawn and glowing with golden light. An intense flood of aura, far more powerful than I had witnessed from any but the instructors, washed over me. Crackles of golden lightning laced about his limbs and torso for another second before dissipating, taking the aura with it. Five stood straight, ready for battle, but he clenched his jaw tightly as though he was in pain.

"What was that?" I pointed at him with Terminus, my own arm aching. He had never displayed any technique like whatever he had done to negate my attack. "Never mind. Out of my way, Five. This is Academy business."

Five's eyes narrowed and flicked to the side, but I couldn't tell what his expression meant.

"Go on," Empress Shih said, her words fast and sharp. "There's no need to hold back. Fight, boys, fight!"

I kept my eyes on Five, not daring to look away from him. "Five, I have to do this. Move!"

Five's lips pressed together into a thin line. There was no preamble or warning. The next instant, he whipped the tip of his blade at me, its triangular head shooting out on twin chains towards my head. But I had sensed the attack the moment Five had directed his qi, and I easily knocked the sword tip aside while lunging forward with my own attack.

The fight had begun.

We traded straight slashes at first, our attacks turning into parries, our parries turning into further attacks. On the sixth exchange, our swords met at crosswise angles, but Five whipped his sword's tip at me, the chained blade whipping at my head with its own, unnatural momentum.

I scraped Terminus high up his blade, then across the twin chains even as I ducked and moved away, fending off his two-pronged attack. Five twisted his sword and sent a stream of golden qi up the chains. His sword tip spun about Terminus quickly, wrapping my blade within chains. Five used the snare to knock my sword aside for a brief moment as he kicked at my midsection.

I had kept Terminus' charged until now. I released the pent-up qi in a golden flash, intending to break free from the chains and cut at his leg. But Five pulled back both his chains and leg, too fast for me to attack either.

"Again, again!" the Empress shouted from behind Five. This time, the disgust on Five's face was obvious. He clearly hated her, as he hated everything.

"Why are you even on her side?" I asked.

Five replied with a whirling series of slashes, spinning with each one so that each strike gained even more power. I danced away, rather than risk him unleashing his chained sword tip on me again. For my aim wasn't to defeat Five. I would be happy to avoid him altogether if that meant that I could land a blow on my true target--the Empress.

I dashed to the left, and when Five matched me, I hurled myself to the right instead, rebounding off the wall to leap at an oblique angle past Five's reach. As expected, he threw his sword tip at me again, but I deflected the triangular blade easily, landing within a sword strike away from the Empress. She sat in her chair, smiling eagerly, showing no sign of fear.

There was no way Five could interpose himself between us before I landed my next attack. Or there shouldn't have been, but I suspected that Five had some technique that I didn't know about. I jabbed with Terminus at the Empress' heart this time, but at the last instant, I held my strike back.

This time, I was prepared. I sensed the sharp spike of aura a moment before Five's body exploded with golden light. His movement was too fast to track, faster than even the Void pythons. In the blink of an eye, he appeared next to the Empress, his gleaming blade blocking where Terminus would have struck. The flash of light subsided again, but crackles of yellow lightning persisted about Five as before.

I waited a fraction of a second, as long as I dared. I didn't know what kind of power Five was drawing upon, but it was clear that I couldn't face it head on. It was also clear that the power was brief, and he paid some hidden cost for drawing upon that strength. Strike too soon, and I would be repelled. Too late, and he would have recovered.

I waited a quarter of a heartbeat. Then, I flicked Terminus across his right wrist. It was a shallow cut, but Terminus found flesh and tendon, severing the cords of his wrist. His hand went slack, and his sword began slipping out of it.

Before I could finish disarming Five, his left hand, sheathed in golden qi, shot forward like a spear point at my ribs. I dodged by swaying out of the way, determined to take his sword away, but I soon realized that Five had committed entirely to the attack, risking his arm and hand to do so. At this distance, I couldn't bring Terminus about fast enough to parry.

I sheathed my right elbow instead with a layer of qi. It was an unconventional move, but all the hours wasted on trying to condense sword qi had at least made me even more comfortable manipulating qi on my body's surface. The qi-forged edge on my elbow would have been enough to cut through steel. The fabric on my tunic split apart as I met Five's hand with my elbow.

Our bodies clashed, but neither cut the other. Five let go of his sword completely, snatching back his ruined hand to avoid the next swing from Terminus. In the meantime, he lunged at me with a raised knee. A thin line of golden light splitting the fabric across his knee told me that Five had adapted the same technique as I had.

His knee would cut clean through my stomach if unstopped. I channeled qi into my hand even as I fended off another one of his palm strike's with my elbow. At the same time, I pivoted my forearm down to block his knee with my now qi-sheathed hand. We traded two more blows in the blink of an eye, knee to hand, hand to elbow, then swapped, knee striking elbow and hand blocking hand.

Five's sword had fallen about six inches in that space of time, but his last strike had left him in position to snatch the falling blade with his good hand. He grabbed the sword, and I leaped back a moment before he spun his chain to form a deadly golden blur between us.

Sometime within the last exchange, the etchings lining the stone surfaces in the chamber had flared to life. They glowed even brighter than before.

"What is this place?" I struck at a golden tracing at my feet. The etchings around me flickered briefly, then held steady.

The sensation of a hollow pressure drawing upon my aura grew stronger and stronger, similar to what I had felt before when the Empress had touched me. Something was wrong. I shifted towards the staircase, wanting to keep my escape path clear, but the staircase lifted into the ceiling.

"Don't let him leave," Empress Shih called out from behind Five. "We've barely begun.

I could carve my way free if I had enough time, but not with Five attacking. I faced Five again, who was staring at his ruined wrist. Dark blood dripped to the ground freely for several seconds before the flow subsided. He must have had some kind of healing technique to staunch the flow, as I had surely sliced through the veins.

"You cut me, clansman," he hissed. His face twisted in anger as he spat out the last word. He almost seemed more angry at himself for being cut than for me at cutting him.

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"I don't know what she does for you." I gestured to the Empress' leering figure with my sword. "But you have the Academy now. You don't need her. Five, move."

Five replied again with his sword, this time using the chained blade as a wild whip. He had the superior range, with his extended sword streaking towards my head and limbs. I parried the first attack, knocking the triangular piece of metal back at Five. The next time, the sword tip coiled in a spiral pattern to evade my parry. I dodged to the side and let the tip fly past me, intending to cleave the two chains with Terminus' full power. Five must have sensed my intent, as he jerked back the weapon.

We traded feints and counterattacks from a distance, Five striking with his chained sword from a distance, only to retreat when I threatened to rend his chains. I tried to close the distance, but then a flurry of quick whip-like snaps of his sword, too fast to block properly at close range, would force me away again. It was a stalemate.

"Five!" I leaped backwards and lowered Terminus. "The Swordgeists demand her death. The Swordgeists! Don't be a fool."

Empress Shih murmured something inaudible from behind Five.

"You're a poor liar, clansman," Five said. "You're just mad about your precious elder, aren't you?"

He wasn't entirely wrong. I could admit that. But he wasn't entirely right, either.

"It's the truth," I said. "I have an Assignment. You probably have one, too, don't you?"

Five frowned at that, hesitating. "It doesn't matter."

I tried to maneuver past Five by outrunning him to the side again, but he matched my steps this time. I barged forward, trying to break past his ranged defense in that hope that I could spin past him, but he again stymied me. I couldn't find an opening as I traded sword strikes against the snaps of his whip-like weapon.

"Five, why? You've the Void's threat. The snakes--Euleban says those are the weakest of them. If she stands against the Swordgeists, she'll bring nothing but ruin."

Five remained silent. It made no sense, the more I thought about it, how Five had blocked my attacks against the Empress. He could have used the same power of that technique against me directly, eliminating the threat entirely. Was he reluctant to fight me? Did the Empress have some hold on him?

"I don't know what she's done to you," I said in a softer voice. "But I'll pay whatever it costs to free my clan and myself--from the Empress or the Void."

I was talking as much to convince myself as to convince Five. For I wasn't entirely sure if I meant my words. The cost could be steep. It would almost certainly be so. I saw one possible path before me already.

The only question was whether I would walk that path. Did I trust the Swordgeists? Would I place my fate in their hands and make them my true masters?

My link to the clan was crumbling already. Without the clan, I would only have the Academy and the Swordgeists. If I went forward with this, it would be my last act for the clan, dealing with this threat that they didn't even know existed. Afterwards, I'd have no choice but to trust the Swordgeists.

No, that wasn't quite true. There was always a choice.

Five's dark eyes met mine. He grimaced. "They never stop testing us."

It was as if he was giving me permission, even though he couldn't possibly know what I intended. Five tightened his grip on his sword, readying another round of attacks.

"What are you waiting for?" Empress Shih pounded on her armrest. "Get to it!"

I made my choice.

The last time I had selected a master, the question had resolved on its own. This time, I spoke the words in my mind. Question Log.

Question Log

Instructions: You may select more than one answer. Use the plural command, Final Answers, if you have multiple choices.

Choose a life to sacrifice in exchange for power:

A) Alanna Vox

B) Naisha Leshander

C) Unit 5

D) Talen Koroi.

I was not being forced to do this. I would bear the burden of my choice. I would choose to trust the Swordgeists, however imperfect my decision may have been. It was a cold decision, but I had no room for hating myself right now. Not when worse fates awaited.

Final answer, C.

Five tilted his head to the side, his brows furrowing as he sensed that I had done something. "Clansman..."

I didn't know what to expect. Would Euleban show up and kill Five, as he had offered to do so earlier? Would Five simply collapse or disappear. Would a Swordgeist descend from the heavens in all its glory? Whatever happened, if Five was removed, I could deal with the Empress.

The golden etchings lining the stone surfaces flared even more brightly than before. The Empress fell out of her chair, shrieking as she huddled on the ground.

She screamed. "Stop him! They chamber's failing!"

Five's eyes widened in shock. A high, keening screech arose around us, but it had no human mouth. The etchings flared wildly, the pattern of flashing lights erratic and uncoordinated. Five and I both stood frozen, unsure what was happening in our own ways.

"What did you do," Five asked coldly.

I didn't look away. "I chose your death."

Five frowned but didn't flinch. He could probably guess the meaning, that I had involved the Swordgeists directly somehow. The Empress screamed as she crawled on her hands and knees towards Five from behind.

"Useless! Come here, then." Empress Shih latched onto Five's ankle with one hand.

Five looked down in alarm, but he didn't move away. The Empress curled her hand tightly, and Five grimaced in pain. Then, he too cried out, his composure breaking, as his body flared with golden light. An intense aura drove me a step backwards, and I had to shade my eyes from the accompanying glare. When I looked again, a golden aura enveloped Empress Shih briefly before disappearing.

"More!" Empress Shih shook Five's leg viciously, somehow knocking him to the ground.

Five should have been strong enough not to stumble from the strength of an ordinary human hand. I started forward but stopped, unsure if I should interfere, wait for a more opportune moment to strike, or use the chance to escape. Five's prone body flared again with multiple explosions of golden light, one after another. He was screaming now, his body convulsing, as the Empress leeched more his qi, as that could be the only thing she was doing.

Five shuddered one last time, then went silent and still. Empress Shih rose to her feet, her body no longer glowing. I could feel the weight of her aura, though, a heavy, ponderous thing. She stared at me with shining eyes. The blue words appeared in the air between us, taking my attention off her for a moment.

Question response failed. Please provide your answer at another time.

Was he still alive? I glanced at Five's body. Yes, there was a faint aura.

Empress Shih followed my gaze and smiled. "He was wrong about you. Not quite as docile as he claimed. You tried to kill him somehow, didn't you? He didn't think you'd go that far."

I didn't think so, either. The situation was spiraling beyond my control. The Swordgeists' power had somehow failed to penetrate the Empress' chamber. Five had fallen, his hidden strength stolen by Empress Shih. I stared at the Empress. At least Five was no longer an obstacle, although I wasn't sure what kind of power she now possessed. I lowered myself into an attacking stance, body low and coiled, Terminus high and angling downward.

"If you insist." Empress Shih bared her teeth at me.

In the blink of an eye, she was in front of me. Her body glowed a bright golden hue, and I found myself unable to move. A great pressure squeezed me from all sides. I was trapped, much like what Chalisa had demonstrated in her class.

Once again, the Empress sunk her nails into the flesh of my wrist. I couldn't move, but I could watch as bright orange nails penetrated my skin, drawing drops of dark blood. The Empress' face leered in my face, her unnaturally yellow eyes taking on a wild, manic expression.

"Mm, you've grown so nicely since last time," she crooned. "So many more flavors."

She rested her free arm on my shoulder, half-embracing me as she continued to dig her nails into me. Qi leaked out of the light wound on my wrist while she laughed and drew her face even closer to me. I had the crazed thought of biting her in the throat, if only I could move my head and jaw. I sent a surge of qi through my neck, straining, but I still couldn't move.

"That's it," Empress Shih said with a light laugh. "Bite me, if you can." She flicked me in the mouth with her fingers.

She had read my thoughts? No...I hadn't been prepared for that. In a flash, I withdrew myself into the cocoon of my core, trying to empty my mind of all surface thoughts. She was draining my qi at an alarming rate, unlike before, but I calmed myself, focusing on cycling my core despite the perturbation. I slowed my breathing and delved even further into my inner depths.

What I discovered with myself would have shocked or disgusted me, ordinarily, but I merely watched the new thoughts drift by me.

I had become too agitated. I hadn't lost control of the situation. I had lost control of myself, and not because of the Empress or Five.

Choosing to kill Five? What insanity was that?

The Swordgeists constantly tested us, as Five had said, but to readily give up a former teammate, even if we were clashing now...this wasn't who I was or who I wanted to become.

I dug even deeper into the comforting rhythms of my core, too deep within myself to notice the Empress at the fringes of my consciousness. She made a sound, but I couldn't make out her words, and I knew with a certainty that she couldn't hear my thoughts here, either.

There. An alien presence circulated within my core. It wasn't her. It was something else...

The Void Beasts.

The answer came unbidden to my mind. I had absorbed a small amount of foreign essence from the Void pythons in the Stables. I had thought it too small for any purpose but training my sensitivity, but I had been wrong. The essence I had absorbed had already incorporated itself into my qi--not purified and eliminated as usual, but present and functional. Retaining its identity.

It had influenced me.

I traced the lines of influence extending from that minute swirl of foreign essence. Violence. Murder. An insatiable desire to destroy. The decision to sacrifice Five was still my decision, but I wasn't entirely in control of how I was changing.

There was also a hint of power in that essence. The essence was too dilute and weak, but I could sense the echoes of a technique or something else waiting just beyond. If I absorbed enough of this foreign essence and mastered it, I knew that power awaited me.

But there was more. I contracted my consciousness even further within my core, and, with my new awareness for the shades of my qi's essence, I found more foreign essences. Four, to be precise, although they mixed with each other, barely distinguishable. The Swordgeists. They had left their imprint on me. They were changing me, not just with their lessons, but from within as well. I shouldn't have been surprised. There were lending me their power, after all.

Several seconds had passed while I examined myself. I had uncovered new insights, but they would do nothing by themselves to free me from the Empress' grasp. I didn't know what she was doing, whether she was simply consuming my qi, or if she was trying to pry some way into the Academy itself.

I had to stop her, though. I had to kill her. I was still committed to that task, and that decision was fully mine, Void Beast essence or not.

I couldn't delve any further into the depths of my core, but something else, not quite foreign but not quite of myself, drew my attention. This new essence, though, wasn't from within me. It was from outside me.

From Terminus, to be precise.

While my body, along with the qi within, was sealed by the Empress, I had left a portion of qi within Terminus' chamber. I had compacted that qi, not quite into its own core as before, but enough for me to sense the spontaneous proto-currents of power ready to awaken.

Another second passed as I reached out, quickly compressing and spinning that ball of qi, hardening it into a core. A Sword Core. The core wasn't as powerful as the one I had made when fighting the Void python, but it was stable. With a start, I realized something else. With a Sword Core, Terminus was a living limb, a part of myself in a way that I had never imagined possible.

I had used the Sword Core technique before as a brute would, simply exploding the pent-up power. I understood, now, that the technique allowed so much more. My sword was partner, an entity of its own yet coupled to my will.

An entity likely outside the grasp of whatever force the Empress used to suppress me.

A quick test of motion proved my guess to be true. I wasted no further time. While my hand didn't move, Terminus spun sharply in a tight arc of its own accord, the blade slicing the Empress across her shoulder. She cried out and released her grasp on my wrist. The force holding me in place quivered for the briefest instant, but that was all I needed to take Terminus back into my hand and drive its tip into her chest. A thick resistance pushed back, but as soon as my blade entered her heart, her defense broken and Terminus slid freely through her body.

I didn't know what healing secrets alchemists possessed. I immediately slashed upwards and to the left, cutting through her chest and neck. Before the blood had yet burst from her broken body, I cut once more across her skull, following a line straight through both of her eye sockets.

What was left of the Empress collapsed in a gory pile, but I still didn't trust that her death was complete. I stabbed her lower abdomen, where the physical remnant of her core would have resided, if she had possessed one. My blade met only bone and sinews, but I wasn't an expert on the anatomy of core formation. I finally released a portion of the qi stored within Terminus' chamber in a bloody explosion separating her legs from her upper torso.

She had to be dead beyond healing now.

As if in reply, the golden etchings around me grew dim, leaving only the barest hint of soft yellow light. A second later, a flood of blue letters scrolled across my vision.

Assignment completed: Kill Empress Shih

+1000 xp. Total: 1901 xp.

Retroactive exam points awarded.

+1060 xp. Total: 2961 xp.

Bonus exam points awarded.

+1180 xp. Total: 4141 xp.

Further bonuses are now available. You have one unclaimed bonus. You have two unanswered bonus questions.

I didn't have time to check for my bonuses. My first thought was to escape. It was still the middle of the night, and I hadn't run into anyone on the way here. The Empress may have left word of her plans with someone else, but there was still no proof that I had killed her yet.

Other than Five.

I glanced over at him. Five stirred with a groan. In the low light, I could make out the outline of his silhouette rising slowly from the floor.

He coughed once and spat onto the ground. "Where is she?" A second later he sniffed. "Is that her blood or yours?"

"She's dead." I approached him warily with Terminus in hand. I had expended a great deal of qi just now, and combined with the Empress' leeching, I must have been at less than half my strength. The Empress had done something to Five, too. He had to be weakened as well.

"Stupid clansman," Five muttered. He bent over and moved unsteadily towards the Empress' remains. I saw the glint of steel in his hand.

"Are we finishing this?" I asked warily, readying Terminus.

"Quiet. We don't have much time." Five stabbed downward with his blade, then paused. I could sense his stare in the darkness.

"What?" I asked in a quiet voice.

Five laughed. "Nothing." He was slashing at the Empress' corpse.

We had been fighting just a minute ago. His rapid change of demeanor was jarring, but not entirely unexpected from soldier. I watched as he took something from her upper torso. Was her core there? I knew he was unlikely to volunteer an answer to my question. I still had to deal with one last thing, though, whether he liked it or not.

"Does anyone else know I'm here?" I asked Five.

Five was no fool. He understood what I was really asking. He stood wordlessly. His hands moved about him, briefly. Then, I heard the splatter of liquid on the floor when he swung his sword sharply downward, followed by the sound of his blade sliding into its sheath.

"I did this," Five said. "I'll tell them I did it. Satisfied?"

"No. I don't trust you."

"Too bad. I'm leaving."

"Not until you explain yourself." I began sending my remaining qi into Terminus, and the glow of its blade doubled the light of the underground chamber. I could see Five's face clearly now.

Five shrugged. "I needed her implant." He held something metallic and round in his palm.

"Is that her core?" I asked.

"Something like that. Happy?"

I shook my head. "You needed to kill her? Why didn't you do it yourself, then?"

Five grinned. "You think so highly of me, don't you? But to answer your question, I couldn't before I had this." He held up the hand with the implant. "But if I had this, I wouldn't need to kill her. Understand?"

Something prevented Five from taking the implant from the Empress, because he was certainly ruthless enough to kill her if he had the means to do so. I could only deduce one meaning.

"She had some power over you," I said.

"Yes. And soon she won't."

His words didn't quite make sense. "She still has a hold on you? But she's dead."

"Is that so? You really don't know anything about alchemists, do you?" Five held up his hand to stop any further questions. "Later. Clansman, we need to go. Now."

He walked past me and reached the area where the staircase had been. Five leaped upward and pulled at something that lowered the staircase, then glanced once more at me before running upward.

I ran over to the staircase and jumped upwards to land on the ground floor. The inky blackness that had been here was gone, inactivated by the Empress' death. Tables and shelves of alchemical equipment filled the edges of the wide room. A cluster of barrels were stacked high against one wall. I raced out into the street, and we both sprinted back towards the Academy.

I couldn't make sense of Five's last words. All signs pointed to the Empress being dead. The Assignment completion had even triggered. What had he meant?

I trailed slightly behind Five, thinking it safer to keep an eye on him. He had been forced to fight me, then, by the Empress. He didn't seem to hold any grudge for our earlier fight even though I had injured him. But I had also helped him, if he had needed that implant. And he would help me, too, if he kept his word and diverted the blame for what had happened. Could he even do that? Face the imperial wrath on his own? Trusting the Swordgeists was one matter. Trusting Five was an entirely different one.

If I was to kill him now, this was my best chance, while he was weakened.

No! I had lost too much this night. I didn't know what the future held, but moving forward blindly without each other's trust would only lead to disaster. I was sure of that.

I quickened my pace until I was sprinting at Five's side. Up ahead, in the distance, I could make out the dark shape of the looming Academy.

"I have to admit something," I said.

Five didn't say anything, but I knew he was listening.

"I tried to kill you back there," I said.

"And I tried to kill you." Five let out a short laugh. "So what? We're sword artists."

That simple statement convinced me more than anything else Five could have said that he had put our conflict behind us. But it wasn't what I had meant. I couldn't leave any seeds of doubt between us.

"I mean I tried to have the Swordgeists kill you. If it wasn't for whatever the Empress was doing with that chamber, I believe you would have died." I paused. "It was a poor decision, one I don't intend to repeat."

Five fell silent for several seconds. "I knew it! You--"

I raced ahead to the Academy, dodging his curses and at least one swing of his sword.