The consequences of the fight with Spax were more far reaching than Kayden expected.
Spax was expelled from the training program for attempting to kill one of his fellow initiates. He had hardly regained consciousness when he was being forced out of the compound.
He of course did not take it lying down. He was escorted by Bog to his room to collect his things, and although he wasn’t stupid enough to fight back against them, he made sure to create a racket nonetheless.
As they came down to the training rooms where everyone still waited, he stopped to express his anger at what was taking place. When Rem went to put a stop to it, Cassius held out a hand to let him speak.
“Is this what Nikiphero has become!” he yelled, the anger plain on his face. “Allowing Uptowners into our ranks! She”--he jabbed a finger at Kayden--”does not belong here! C&X Holding Company! This organization is nothing but a lapdog for Uptown! We should never have gotten involved with them! Cassius is leading Cliffside to ruin! We don’t play their games! We play by our own rules!”
He stood there huffing in anger and Cassius came to stand before him. He walked slowly so that all eyes rested upon him by the time he came to a halt.
“Why did you join Nikiphero?” he spoke the question to Spax but turned around to face the entire room as if to address everyone.
Nobody spoke a word. Spax clenched his fists at his side as Cassius continued to address everyone.
“This whole organization was built from the ground by me,” he turned to Kayden, “And by her father.” He swept his eyes around the room. “Whenever we faced insurmountable odds, we came out on top, and not only that but we became more powerful than ever before. And so, when I say that this plan, C&X, a legitimate business recognized by Uptown, will spur us on to unimaginable heights, you understand that this is not a shallow boast!”
Roars of approval filled the room, but Kayden saw that not everyone joined in. Some, those who were friends with Spax and sympathized with him, stood unsure, looking around.
“Uptown,” he scoffed the word, “They will know what Cliffside is capable of. For too long we have hidden in the shadows and allowed them to stomp all over us. Spax--this boy--would have us go backward. He would have us descend into barbarity and savagery. Attacking each other on the street for a few scripts.
His voice rose with passion. “I would have you become something greater! You can not comprehend the scope of my vision! You can not comprehend what I see inside each one of you! You are warriors!”
More cheers even louder than before. This time even those that held back joined in.
Cassius lowered his voice and everyone pressed in closer to hear. “There is something I was waiting until after the tournament to announce, but this is a more opportune occasion. Nikiphero is entering a new phase of our development.”
He cast his eyes back at Spax who stood by the door. “I do not love Uptown as you said. I hate them with a passion you can not begin to fathom.”
Spax looked away, unable to meet Cassius’s level gaze.
Cassius turned back to everyone. “But, I have come to learn that my hatred blinded me. It prevented me from seeing the true path to victory. The true path to greatness! For too long we allowed Uptown to dictate our lives. Our hatred for them was only another tool they used to subjugate us. It stopped us from seeing beyond our petty squabbles. While we played in the dirt, they were playing in the heavens.
Cssius paused before continuing and there wasn’t an indrawn breath in the whole crowd. “Well, I’m going to take the heavens from them. Nikiphero will no longer be confined to the Cliffs. Already vast shipments of our product are leaving the harbor in vessels owned by C&X Holding Company. For the first time in the history of Cliffside, we will have a reach outside of Mitros.
“Territory--holding a few street blocks or even a whole cavern is a thing of the past. Nikiphero will take control of the world! And how will we do it? Not by petty means as was done in the past, but through politics, the world of the truly powerful. Kings will be our footstoles, and queens will be our concubines.”
Kayden could see the fervent light burning in Rem’s and the other full members of Nikiphero’s eyes. This wasn’t news to them, but it still held the same profound effect as if they were hearing it for the first time.
The others--the initiates--were overcome with awe. She could see them converting completely to Cassius’s vision, to his leadership. Before his speech, they had been kids off the streets, just trying to make something of themselves by joining one of the most powerful gangs Cliffside. Now, they were believers. Acolytes willing to sacrifice everything to make Cassius’s vision--their vision--come true.
“I’ll ask you again,” Cassius said. “Why did you join Nikiphero if not to become a god?”
He walked over to Spax who was so thoroughly seized by Cassius’s words that he stood dumbfounded. His eyes were wide as if realizing everything that he had lost because of his arrogance.
“Please,” he said to Cassius as Cassius came to a stop before him. “I didn’t know. Please, forgive me.”
Cassius looked down at him like a vengeful god and spoke as if he hadn’t heard Spax. “This child’s sin wasn’t that he wanted to kill Kayden and take her dagger for himself. We should all aspire for greater power.”
Spax looked up at him with full, pleading eyes. Cassius grabbed Spax’s head harshly, pulling him close.
“His sin was his blindness. He only saw what was right in front of him. His vision was short-sighted, pathetic. He settled for something insignificant when he could have had the world. The blind have no need for their eyes.”
With lightning speed, Cassius reached out, summoned his blood dagger, and in a smooth continuous motion jammed it into Spax’s left eye.
Spax fell to the ground with a scream as Cassius turned back to the stunned onlookers, his dagger hanging in his hand. It didn’t drip any blood but drank it all up.
Spax writhed on the ground, cradling the hole where his eye had been.
“The choice is yours. Join Nikiphero and become a god, or be blind and end up with nothing. Throw the trash out to the gutter where it belongs.”
The only people to move were two of the full-fledged members that Cassius had brought with him. They went over to the whimpering Spax, picked him up, and took him out of the building.
After a second, Shiloh rushed out after them. He didn’t look back as he exited the room.
“Is there anyone else that wishes to join them?” Cassius asked.
No one moved.
“Then from this moment on, I need you to see beyond yourselves. I need you to train harder than ever before. I need your obedience and loyalty. I need you to be soldiers the likes of which even the Legion of Thass can’t compare. Are you one of us!?”
The answering response was deafening. Kayden was the only one who didn’t join in. She studied Cassius as he observed his newest followers in the light of their adulation. He stood straight, his stance powerful, confident, the bearing of a general.
His eyes met hers. They were wide, and filled with the same fervent energy she had seen in Rem and the others.
When he saw she wasn’t joining in with the uproarious cheering with the rest of them, his expression sobered and his brow furrowed, but not as if he was angry but as if something troubled him. They held each other’s gaze for a moment when he abruptly broke away, turned, and strode out of the room.
Rem and the other members of Nikiphero rushed after him. Chanting filled the room long after he was gone. “Nikiphero! Nikiphero! Nikiphero!”
*****
Cassius’s speech had a transformative effect on the whole atmosphere of the compound. Before, there had been a laid back air to the place. Not that the initiates weren’t working hard to prove themselves, but there had been an element of everyone being in on this on their own.
Now, everyone seemed to be aligned with the same cause. There was no more infighting. There were still rivalries, maybe even more than before, because everyone wanted to be on top, to be the warrior Cassius spoke about.
But there could only be one on top, and that person quickly proved to be Launi.
He had always excelled, but he was one of the newest initiates and didn’t have as much experience as some of the others. However, with Cassius’s speech, he drove himself even harder and quickly bridged the gap.
His rapid progress had a compounding effect. As others saw him become stronger, that spurred them on to become stronger which in turn spurred him onward. The whole result was that everyone improved at a whiplash pace.
As for Kayden, she was no longer ostracized as she was before. Many of them were still unsure about her presence, but if anything, they were too preoccupied with their own training to pay her any attention.
She discovered that the rest were much more warm and welcoming to her. No longer did she enter the training facilities and find it hard to find space to train, or that all of the equipment was suddenly being used.
Even Bog lightened up with the workload he required from her. That wasn’t to say that her duties diminished in any way, but people were more considerate of cleaning up after themselves so she wasn’t so overwhelmed with everything.
A part of her thought that she might get other people assigned to help her with her duties, but that never happened, and she had a feeling it wasn’t because Bog didn’t want to, but that he was still following someone’s orders. One guess who that person was.
Where it seemed as if everyone’s attitude toward her had shifted slightly, Rem was the only one who still seemed to hold something against her. If anything, he seemed more antagonistic toward her.
One evening, she was cleaning up the dinner meal alone in the kitchen when Rem walked in. She was supposed to train with Cassius tonight, so the mohawked right hand of the leader of Nikiphero must have accompanied him. It was the first time she would train with Cassius since the night of the fight and his speech.
“Cassius would like to see you,” he said after a moment of silence in which he stared her down like he had just found a rat in the kitchen.
For a second she thought she had gotten so immersed in her work that she lost track of time, but she looked at the clock in the corner of the room and saw that it was still an hour until they usually met. She hurried to finish up what she was doing and to take her apron off.
“We lost two good initiates because of you,” Rem said as she hurried up to him.
“Spax disobeyed Nikiphero, not me,” Kayden answered. “That is why he was thrown out.”
She was getting tired of this grudge Rem seemed to be holding against her for no reason. If everyone else could get past their prejudice toward the fact she was raised Uptown, then so could he. Even after Cassius’s speech about seeing past petty things such as that, he still hated her.
“You better be worth all the trouble we’ve gone through because of you,” he said, then turned around to lead her out of the kitchen to where Cassius was waiting.
They found him in the middle of the training room, kneeling in dark robes rather than his usual suit.
Even though he was early, it was still late enough to be dark and for the training rooms to be empty of other occupants.
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“Come, kneel,” Cassius commanded even though his back was to them and they hadn’t said anything to indicate that they had entered the room.
Rem didn’t make any movement so the order must have been directed at Kayden. She walked around Cassius and saw that his eyes were closed. His blood dagger was placed on the ground in front of him. As she knelt in front of him, he opened his eyes.
“I will be going away for some time,” he said. “Nikiphero’s reach is expanding rapidly with the resources available to us through C&X. I need to ensure that our hold is stable in these new regions. I want you to come with me to continue your training.”
At first Kayden was surprised, then excited, then uncertain. It was a whirlwind of emotion that she didn’t have time to puzzle out before Cassius continued.
“This would mean putting a delay on seeking out your father’s killer, but I believe that you are not yet ready for that task. You have made great progress, but the people you are after are powerful and you still have much to learn.”
Seeing the world. It was something she had long dreamed of. It was what her father had wanted for her. Not in this way, but still, it felt surreal to have the opportunity suddenly presented to her without any warning.
But what about finding her father’s killer? Her father’s killer was here in Mitros. This was where she needed to be. The thought of leaving, even if it was under the guise of seaking out more training, felt like abandoning that purpose.
“Where would we go?” Kayden asked, more to stall her answer, but also out of genuine curiosity.
“The eastern kingdoms, Jorri and Seech. We have made allies there who are interested in doing business with us, and who are sympathetic to our cause.”
That explained why he was dressed the way he was. She wasn’t that familiar with eastern culture, but she knew enough to recognize the style of clothing.
“When would we go?” She was already saying we, as if she were planning on going with him, and she couldn’t deny that she didn’t want to.
Not just to see more of the world and continue her training with him, but because the east was where gate magic originated from. She might finally be able to learn more about it.
“I leave tonight. Once firmer relations have been established we will open trade with the East. That is when you will come. If all goes well, the first shipment of product should go out shortly after the tournament.”
That meant she would have little less than a month. Could she really bring herself to abandon Mitros?
Not abandon, she told herself, take a leave of absence. When she came back she would be stronger than ever. What’s more was that she would be more knowledgeable than ever. It was that knowledge she would need to find her father’s killer in the inner workings of Uptown.
As well as that, she would be able to work herself deeper into Cassius’s good graces and learn more about how Nikiphero functioned.
“Okay,” she said after careful consideration. “I’ll go.”
As she pronounced her commitment she couldn’t help but feel like she had just made a huge mistake, like she was making a selfish decision. What if something happened and she couldn’t return to Mitros? Traveling with a gang to deliver illegal goods to a foreign kingdom was sure to be rife with all kinds of danger. Worse, what if this decision to go indicated that she really didn’t want to find her father’s killer. Maybe she would lose her drive if she left Mitros and give up the pursuit.
She clenched her fists which rested in her lap. No, never. She would never let her father’s killer get away. No matter how far away she got, she would hunt them down. No matter how long it took. It didn’t matter if she was in Mitros or not, each day she would grow stronger until the day she was ready to drive her dagger into their heart.
Cassius reached down and grabbed his dagger. “I will need you to show your commitment by making another contract with me.”
This took her aback. Cassius should know that she was more committed than anyone. She had a real reason for being here. The other initiates had only joined because Nikiphero offered them a chance at a better life. Their self-interest may have evolved since Cassius’s speech, but that didn't change the fact that everyone had their own motivations for serving. Hadn’t she proved herself enough to warrant his trust?
“What would it entail?” she asked, keeping the hesitation from her voice.
She wanted to trust Cassius, but there was a part of her that couldn’t help but be cautious. He was the leader of a notorious gang after all. One that had become so powerful by ensuring every deal he made was in his favor, one who used blood magic to prevent anyone from pulling out of a deal.
“This is a special kind of contract,” Cassius said, not letting on whether he had noticed Kayden’s reservation, but knowing him, he made a career out of reading other people so it wasn’t a stretch to intuit he could sense Kayden’s fears. “It is one I have made rarely in the past, but as Nikiphero continues to rapidly expand it is one that I have needed to make several times over the past couple weeks. It is called a sycophantic bond.”
“Sycophantic bond?” Kayden asked, confused.
“It is a bond that has several significant benefits. It allows the recipient to control blood magic to a small degree. You will even be able to make limited contracts in my name which will have a binding effect as if I made them myself. It allows you to create a copy of my blood dagger to focus your aura through. And most importantly, it allows me to communicate with my sycophants from a great distance, making it significantly easier to govern Nikiphero. Since we will be in a foreign land, this is an essential component.”
It might not seem like it, but that was actually a significantly powerful ability. One of magic's greatest obstacles was that of distance. The greater the distance a caster was from their target, the more power it required, and that cost grew exponentially. That is why portal magic was so difficult.
There were workarounds of course. One could charge an external device which would act as a caster of sorts. So instead of a caster having to travel with every aircraft, for example, a device could. That was the basis of how all magical tech functioned. But runes were needed to regulate the magical energies, and without the right runes then the spell wouldn’t function properly.
For this reason, communication technology was absurdly complicated. There were devices that could record sounds and messages, but relaying them over a great distance ran into the same problem that a regular caster would have doing the same thing. That was why even with tech, portal magic still wasn’t a viable means of transportation, and communication magic was even less so. Few had the magical reserves available to expend on such a task, and those that did utilized it only for emergencies.
She wondered how far Cassius’s magic could reach? Would he be able to communicate with Mitros even all the way from the eastern kingdoms? It was mind boggling, and the researcher that the Academy had bred into her wanted to ask more about it, but as much as it interested her to learn more about that and what its implications were, Kayden had to keep on topic. So far Cassius had only mentioned the benefits the sycophant received from the bond and not the drawbacks. There were always drawbacks.
“What else?” she asked.
“I of course would never ask you to enter into a contract without all of the details,” Cassius said. “You will receive all of those benefits and in return I will have the ability to draw from your life force, the energy which connects your aura to your physical body. This would mean that if I should desire it, I could kill you at will. It is for that reason, I understand why you may wish not to enter into this contract. But due to the severity of circumstances in traveling east, if you wish to accompany me, you must form the bond.”
That was certainly a large amount of trust to put into someone, giving access to her life force. He had said he could kill her, but there were probably a lot of other things he could do with her life force, like what she had seen him drain Kauru’s energy.
And Cassius wasn’t just any person. He was the leader of a gang. It was one thing to entrust that level of vulnerability to a regular person, but he was a killer. It was like bearing her throat to a wolf.
Rem stood in the background, wearing a scowl. She couldn’t tell if he was angered because she was taking so long to respond or if he saw this as an honor she didn’t deserve. She knew he had a sycophantic bond from when they were fighting Mistech.
True, she would be exposing herself by forming the bond, but Cassius would be as well. It gave her access to his power. She might not be able to kill him like he could her, but it was still a potential liability. He probably only formed this bond with his most trusted subordinates.
What decided it for Kayden was the fact that it would give her access to more power, power she would need if she wanted to avenge her father. She had no reason to distrust Cassius. In fact, she had every reason to do otherwise. He was the one that would lead her to her father’s killer.
She met his eyes as he waited patiently for her to respond. “I want to form the bond.”
Cassius nodded and brought the blade up to his cheek where he cut a thin line among all the other scars. “With this blood oath, I make a contract to be your liege lord and for you to be my vassal. You will devote your life to mine and I in return will devote to you my power.”
He held out the blade for her to take, but before she took it he added. “There is no need to scar yourself on the cheek like last time. I do it in defiance of Uptown and their regulations, so it is plain to see who I am and that I am a man of my word.”
Kayden reached up and ran her fingers along the sloppy scar she had left on her cheek from the last oath she had taken and nodded. It was probably best not to scar herself there again even if she wanted to make a statement like Cassius. If she was going to hunt down her father’s killer then that would mean she would be working with people who were not friendly to Cassius’s, and if they made any connection to her and him then that could drive her father’s killer further away. One scar on the cheek could be easily excused as an accident, but two scars might link her to Cassius.
She took the dagger and drew it across her palm. She was much more careful this time to only make a thin cut. It would most likely be hardly noticeable when it healed.
The blood began to glow as it always did when forming a contract with blood magic.
“What do I say?” she asked.
“With this blood oath, I pledge myself to become a vassal of Cassius Sagent. That will be sufficient.”
She nodded then spoke the words slowly and carefully. “With this blood oath, I pledge myself to become a vassal of Cassius Sagent.” After a moment just as the glow was fading and Cassius was reaching out to take his dagger, Kayden added. “On the condition he leads me to my father’s killer.”
Cassius’s hand froze as his and her blood both flashed once more. He raised his eyes to meet hers.
Her pulse quickened. She wasn’t sure why she had suddenly added the condition, only that she thought it had been necessary. She didn’t want Cassius to forget why she was doing all of this. It had been spontaneous, but she didn’t regret her choice. Still, she was nervous to see what Cassius would do.
“Sir,” Rem broke in. “That wasn’t part of the terms. Break off the contract.”
Cassius held up a hand and Rem begrudgingly fell silent. “I agree to the stipulations, you have added.”
The glow faded away from their blood and Kayden felt as if something had settled on her chest. Curious, she opened up her aura sense.
Her aura appeared as normal, but as she delved into it, she discovered there was something else there. It wasn’t anything that anyone would be able to detect without knowing what to look for, like a hidden compartment in a drawer. It was a red tether. As she followed it, she found it connecting her to Cassius. It pulsed with red energy.
“Summon the blood dagger,” Cassius invited.
She did so. She wasn’t sure how to go about it, so she tried to draw upon the red tether as if it were her own aura. Nothing happened.
As she studied the tether more to figure out what happened, she discovered that the reason it wasn’t responding to her was because the tether was only the conduit sending the power from one place to another. It would be like instead of sucking through a straw to move the liquid from a cup to your mouth, you just tried to eat the straw.
So she instead closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and envisioned herself drawing energy through the tether into her own aura. Her aura immediately began to crackle with red energy.
She drew upon that power. It was warm in a comforting sort of way, and filled her with life. There was no better way to explain it.
She opened her eyes. Color was more vibrant. She felt as if she had just had the best sleep of her life. Every lung full of air brought a euphoric feeling.
It was like a drug--not that she had any experience with drugs--but her senses weren’t dampened in any way. If anything they were heightened. It wasn’t like when she did her full body imbuement and her mind was processing information more quickly. This was more like she simply saw more, felt more.
An uncontrollable sob escaped her throat before she could gain control of her emotions. Everything looked beautiful and bright. She could feel the air on her skin. Even things which she would have thought were gross like the smell of sweat from the gym felt new and unique in a way that brought her joy. In short everything was overwhelming.
“It takes getting used to,” Cassius said. “Familiarize yourself with it so it doesn’t take you off guard when you use it in a fight.”
Kayden nodded, still lost in all the sensations.
“Summon the dagger.”
She quickly did so, remembering the purpose of having drawn upon his power. If she was only experiencing a small amount of it, she wondered what it must feel like for him.
The knife appeared in her hand, an exact replica of Cassius’s, broader and longer than her shadow dagger.
“Good,” Cassius said. “Usually it takes much longer for people to grasp how to control it, but since you are already familiar with how a focus works I suppose that this isn’t much of a surprise.”
Kayden wasn’t really listening. She was still trying to get used to this sensory overload as well as feel out the dagger and power that accompanied it. Her entire aura was suffused with the crackling energy even the part with her shadow dagger.
Acting more on instinct than any coherent thought at the moment, she released the blood dagger and it dissolved away.
Cassius stopped what he was saying as he saw that Kayden wasn’t listening and seemed to be immersed in something else.
She continued to feel out the energy coursing through her, and instead of drawing it through her regular aura, she drew it through the portion devoted to the shadow dagger.
Her shadow dagger popped into existence in a cloud of darkness, but this time it contained dim veins of red.
When the dagger settled into her palm, it wasn’t her usual shadow dagger. It was black, but now with a distinct reddish hue, and it was a mixture of her shadow dagger and Cassius’s blood dagger. It was still as thin as hers like a stiletto, but longer, and it bulged down toward the hilt with two points on the side. There was also a black gem in the hilt that was slightly opaque and contained a red liquid that could only be one thing; blood.
Her eyes rose up to meet Cassius’s.
“Well, that’s interesting,” he said.
Kayden let out a surprised bubble of giddy laughter before she clasped her free hand over her mouth. She really needed to get used to using blood magic so she didn’t keep making a fool out of herself.