JAST

It’s a hazy memory, fleeting and incomplete, adrift in the vast waters of a wine-dark sea. But Jast feels himself anchoring to a distant shore, a rocky outcropping buffeted by the swelling waves of nepenthean foam. He steps onto the outcropping, one foot after the other, of memory and dream. Stone turns to wood, the old flooring of his family home falling into place as time and meaning crystallize into a foggy, uncertain clarity.

The world seems so large and unknowable at four years of age. Especially when his entire world comprises the rooms and halls of Clan Lunurian’s gated Midtown compound. He has never seen beyond the wrought iron bars that enclose the complex, a third layer of walls inside Nuaranth. He approaches the gates, hands outstretched, longing for something he lacks the faculties to express or explain. A bird reaching for the sun. A moth to the flame.

“Jast!” He’s snatched up, firm arms holding him close to tender warmth. He recognizes the feeling and sound of his mother, recognizes her strength, both physical and shadowarchological, thrumming beneath her salt and sun-darkened skin. When he looks at her face, it appears lost in a haze of fog and forgetfulness.

“I’ve told you a billion times to stay away from the gate,” she admonishes, turning on her heels and walking to the open atrium that allowed Jast to escape the inner confines of their home. “It’s dangerous out there. You are too young to understand, so please believe your mother when I say you are not ready.” Jast doesn’t believe any of that.

“I want _____,” Jast says, the words jumbled in his mouth. His mother’s face, though shadowed and illusioned, still expresses a compassionate sorrow.

“Jast…” she starts. The iron gates scream open, torn asunder by blades of hardlight. Men in thick looking armor rush through the opening, visages and forms shrouded in full plates and ephemeral darkness, like nightmares given terrible shape: Praetors.

Jast’s mother sets him down, pushing toward the confines of their house. “Inside, now! And don’t you dare look back!”

Jast ran as fast as his little legs could take him, a feeling so desperate and slow as the surrounding space melted into syrupy slowness. He looks back, eyes taking in crystal clarity, his mother forming a triangle with her hands, palms facing away from her, and the shadows at her feet roil and twist at her command. Jast can feel it in his bones. It’s her Demesne.

Jast faces forward, the scene melting away into the backdrop of his bedroom. Another hazy form stands beside him, an older sister, he believes, somewhat older yet stronger. She weaves her hands together, her shadow criss-crossing the door like a barricade. Invading Praetors wield light crystal forearm blades, slicing through air, kicking doors down, flooding rooms with blinding light. Jast hears a scream, then another coming from his own throat, before the light fades and his memory progresses.

This one is far more concrete. Leather straps keep him pinned to a gurney, tightened too much, and rubbing his arms raw. The light, while not bright, diffuses the room, obliterating every hair’s breadth of possible darkness. The interior is earthy and damp, with the red rock bleeding milky water from the cracks in the rough-hewn walls and square ceiling. A steel door keeps him locked in, an unnecessary addition considering his restraints.

Well-dressed men and women from noble families file through the open door, one by one. Jast recognizes a few of them from the times they visited his parents at the Clan Lunurian compound. They are Bright Casters, every one of them.

“Is this wholly necessary?” asks Fenoiryne sett Kinkara. She’s a tall, thin-faced woman, her eyes brooding dark and contemptuous as they scan the room. “Isn’t throwing the Shadowarchs in the ghetto sufficient? Let’s wash our hands of this sordid affair already.”

A man snorts, short set and stocky, his silken jacket more narrow at the shoulders than at his hips. Quinlan sett Harros. “How else do you expect us to keep the peace, Fen? The Garrison needs the manpower and, if House Talivar can deliver, I’ll do whatever is required to maintain order.” Fenoiryne dismissed the comment with a shake of her head.

“You are free to leave, Lady Kinkara,” a third voice from behind them says. It’s a brittle voice, calm and fluid, gentle in strange ways while vitriolic in others. It closes an icy grip around Jast’s heart, bones trembling in his skin. Fenoiryne purses her lips but stays. The nobles step aside, letting the voice’s owner enter the underground room. In walks in Gwydion sett Talivar, High Councilor of Nuaranth.

He walks up to where Jast lies restrained, setting a thin hand on the boy’s forehead. His eyes, keening sharp, glimmer with his inner Light and his pale, thin lips stretch into a grin that doesn’t meet the corners of those eyes. Face smooth and unwrinkled, he peers deep into Jast’s eyes. He grabs a fistful of hair and yanks his head back.

“The process really is quite simple,” he says. He picks up an iron rod and presses it against Jast’s chest. The cold metal burns as the Bright Caster forces the rod through his skin and in his sternum with slow deliberation, but no sound escapes Jast’s throat. And then Gwydion stops, four inches of iron sticking out of the boy’s chest. The pain is excruciating, getting worse as the heartbeats thump on and on. It’s searing hot, bitter and frigid, and spreads through each blood vessel and scrapes raw every nerve. Jast loses all sensation in his limbs, then his chest, then his sight.

“The Ironwood’s work can now start,” Gwydion says, his voice tinged with glee.

Jast blacks out, and memory becomes a distant, shattered thing.

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Jast awakens encased in a black iron prison, a cold sweat running down his face and back before pooling in his boots. His ragged breath is loud in his helmet, crazed eyes peeping through the slots of his helmet. Time had no meaning for him until it violently returned, a feeling rather than a memory, a dream’s ghost. The bridge between his capture and the present day is precarious and thin, blotted by fragments and glints of his actions as a Praetor, a near lifelong career at this point. His hands are stained black with blood, but shock gives way to rage and lust for revenge. House Talivar will pay and the Bright Casters will suffer. Gwydion must die.

Cool air leaks in through the gaping hole in his breastplate. The damage dealt by that fire-haired woman was enough to arrest whatever power held control over Jast. He can still feel the iron rod in his chest, but it’s gone inert. With a grunt, he tests his limbs. They can move, but struggle against the heavy, immobile plates. Jast struggles again, hefting his arms and grabbing hold of the helmet on his head and ripping it off, letting it crash into a heap on the floor.

He’s in a barracks, coffin style, with racks and racks of Praetors leaning immobile against the wall. They stand shoulder to shoulder, facing straight ahead, their soft breathing the only sign of life beneath those dark, encapsulating helmets. Twinkling lights line the rows of racks at even intervals, soft yellow and white, like crystal growths sticking straight up in the air. The room goes on and on. Jast can’t even see the far wall, no matter how he cranes his neck. However, he relishes the cool air against his sweaty face. If he can only remove the armor.

Jast wiggles and struggles again, intending to rip at the hasps and buckles, keeping him sealed inside. But he finds his helmet acted as a keystone of sorts, holding together his armor through secret means. With its removal, the other pieces fall away from his body with ease. His destroyed breastplate falls away with a hollow clatter. With it no longer keeping his pauldrons in place, those fall away too, soon followed by the rest of the armor on his upper arms. A vertical split cleaves the lower half, the front peeling away like fruit skin, and Jast steps out onto the catwalk. He finds the bracers still stuck fast to his arms, thicker on top to house the light crystal Praetor blades he’s far too familiar with. He prods at the iron sticking out of his sternum, feeling a tingling in his chest as he does so. Much of it burnt away into slag. Jast fumbles his fingers against the stub, unable to grip and tear the metal stud out. For now, surgery is not an option.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

A shocked gasp draws every ounce of Jast’s attention and he whips around toward the source of the noise. A Garrison Officer, doubtless investigating the racket from Jast’s shed armor, stands with jaw slack and eyes wide. There’s a pregnant pause between the two men before Jast springs into action. The Garrison Officer attempts to scream, but Jast swiftly silences him. The only sound that leaves his throat is a strangled yelp as the freed Shadowarch claps a hand over his mouth and around his throat. They fall to the floor, the metal catwalk rattling from the impact, the officer thrashing against Jast as he squeezes down. There’s a hideous crunching sound as Jast crushes the man’s trachea, staring into his bug-eyed expression with a stoney face. The desperate thrashing turns to weak flailing, then to limp surrender as the officer’s bloodshot eyes go dim. Jast keeps up the pressure for a minute more.

Jast rises to his feet and lets out his held breath. He has precious little time before someone comes to investigate the murdered officer’s absence.

Jast kneels back down and begins stripping the uniform from the man. He can’t very well waltz out of here as he is, drenched in clammy sweat and wearing the braces of a Praetor Solus, the inner fuel and engine of those hateable suits of prison armor. An ill-fitting uniform: pants too short, jacket too long, shoulders too narrow. The boots fit just right, comfortable even, well broken in by their previous owner. Jast examines the military cap. He wasn’t paying attention to how the officer wore it while doing the deed and hopes he puts it on correctly as he walks down the catwalk, arms folded behind his back. If the jacket fit, he would have buttoned it up. Now, he hopes his loose undershirt can hide the rod in his chest.

Jast descends the iron stairs inside the barracks to their lowest level. He’s aware of where the exit is, feet acting on muscle memory as they carry him toward a truer freedom. He holds his breath as he passes by a pair of officers heading toward the stairs.

One of them stops Jast. “Have you seen Holver?”

Sweat beads on his forehead, but his heart remains calm. This “Holver” must have been the officer he killed earlier.

“I haven’t seen him, sorry,” Jast says. “I finished investigating that crash, though. One praetor fell over.” The pause after he closes his mouth seems to draw on forever. Did he say too much? Did he reveal information he shouldn’t know? The clanking of his abandoned armor was loud, but was it loud enough to warrant multiple investigations?

“He must be hiding.” The other officer shakes his head. Relief washes over Jast. “Knowing him, he must be hoping for someone else to do the heavy lifting.”

“It works, doesn’t it?” the first officer says. “Let’s go, it won’t pick itself up.”

Jast’s relief turns to panic as the two move toward the stairs. It won’t be long until they see Holver and his crushed throat, exposing Jast’s true nature. He hastens his pace, hands gripping his forearms as he nods at officer after officer.

The non-Praetor section of the Garrison is less industrial, with metal giving way to stone and wood. Double-wide hallways allow for two Praetors to stand abreast without touching shoulders or the walls. Signage points to non-Praetor barracks and Officer Dormitories, but Jast is looking for an exit. In the better light, his disguise is paper thin, the obvious ill-fitting uniform not belonging to him, which necessitates a path that goes through as few people as possible. Before someone raises the alarm.

Jast grits his teeth as he’s forced to go through the main entryway, a large open room that acts as the face of the Garrison, where Nuaranth’s citizenry can bring their qualms forward to the law enforcement sect of the Garrison. At this time of day, the lobby is bustling with activity, dozens upon dozens of people crowding the front desks in attempts to report crimes and collect their awards. Young men and women look on with chiding smiles, fresh recruits on the next step to advancing their careers.

Jast keeps his head held high and his pace even, walking with authority toward the front doors. A security checkpoint guides people through two stations, where personal items and bags are inspected manually. Troops of four Praetors stand beside each checkpoint, ominous deterrents for even the most foolish. Jast steels his resolve and attempts to walk through the exit checkpoint without stopping.

The young man manning the station holds up his hand with uncertainty. “I’m sorry, sir. I have to check the officers, too. Them’s the rules.”

He’s not an officer, his crisp uniform lacking a jacket and timid voice lacking an authoritative sense of self-importance. He shrinks under Jast’s withering glare but stands firm.

“How admirable,” Jast thinks bitterly, lips peeling back in a grimace. He wonders if he can knock the boy aside fast enough to elude the Praetors, but a loud alarm screaming through the building arrests his thoughts. He glances at the source, a waist-high hand-cranked device sitting on the floor. A haggard-looking officer cranks the handle at an irregular pace, breaking the klaxon into distinctive pitches as the alarm blares out the rectangular cone of its mouth.

“Stop that man!” someone hollers over the blaring alarm. Jast turns to see the two Garrison officers he spoke to earlier pointing their fingers at him. Their eyes are wild with frenzy, faces red and twisted in anguish and anger. “He’s a murderer! Murderer!” The room erupts in panic, the citizens screaming, the non-Praetor soldiers freezing in place as their reactions fail them.

The light crystal blades extend from their housing on instinct and Jast goes to bear down on the younger man blocking him. But he stops, the man—the boy—having fallen back on his rear, legs shaking and color draining from his face. Jast still needs to focus on the Praetors. Knowing what he knows is stopping him from driving his blades through their helmets. The fire-haired woman saved him. She can save them, too.

Jast twists to avoid the incoming attacks of the eight Praetors targeting him. His muscles and nerves move and fire of their own accord, the work of the Demesne implanted inside him. Unlabored Flawlessness, a Demesne of supreme martial prowess, stolen from someone he can’t remember through means he does not know and shared among all the Praetors of the Nuaranth Garrison. Jast deftly weaves through attacks, even those from blind-spots, but can only dodge. He knows that any attempted counterstrike will meet the same end, connecting with nothing but air. A crack rings through the air and alarum, Jast bending back in response as a spray of metal flechettes peppers the air where his head used to be. His eye glimpses the culprit, a senior officer reloading a now spent arquebus with black powder. It’s beyond time to leave.

The Shadowarch dives through a narrow opening between the Praetors, colliding light blades lock together as he rolls into a crouch. He dashes forward, slamming into the door with his shoulder. It holds fast, barred from the outside, and Jast resorts to hacking away at it with the blades affixed to his forearms. He cranes his neck to the side as another blast of flechettes peppers the door and he gives it a firm kick, knocking out a hole large enough for him to squeeze through. Knowing that something is waiting for him, he sticks out his arm blades and cuts in a scissoring motion across the width of the door before squeezing outside. The wailing of Garrison officers, severed legs on the ground, is dim and indistinct in his ears.

Outside, the present city of Nuaranth astonishes Jast’s senses. His limited worldview encompasses only the Lunurian compound and the dreadful Garrison. The sheer scale of the city arrests his autonomy. He always knew the city towered around the Clan Lunurian compound like rotten teeth, but they seem even taller now that he’s in his adulthood. He doesn’t know where to go.

The piercing pain of a flechette ripping through his torso shocks his system back to ground level. A surge of adrenaline pushes his feet forward as Jast sprints into the parting crowd. It turns to a screaming torrent of bodies pushing against one another to elude him. Still, Jast uses them as cover, even if he doesn’t know that the Garrison won’t fire into the crowd.

He ducks into an alley shaded by the buildings on either side of it. Unchanged by the city, the ground was red rock, worn smooth by many passing feet. A soothing darkness calls out to him and Jast runs headlong into a shadowed wall, arms outstretched and reaching. It swallows him, swaddles him, and renders him invisible to anyone who comes searching down the alley.

In that cool, dark pocket, Jast’s heart steadies as his breathing slows. The dull pain of his pierced side becomes prominent, and he feels around for the needle sticking out of his torso. He grunts and pulls it out, a thin sliver of metal no longer than the tip of his pointer finger. His stolen jacket took most of the energy and the wound was shallow. He drops the needle, and it falls out of his secluded hideout, tinkling against the red rock below.

The Shadowarch plans to wait, unsure of what lies ahead. He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know who he is. Nuaranth is dangerous, as his mother warned.