Of all the things that had to happen in the middle of an earthquake—and Riven was sure this was no ordinary earthquake, perhaps even the work of the Deadmage—the patient he’d been quizzing had to turn into a Spectre. Riven picked up his carpet bag and shoved the contents back in fast as he could. Shirts, trousers, another pair of shoes, embarrassing underwear. He snatched the Sept crystal and shoved it in his bag too. Scions knew what the others in the rooms had seen. His secret might very well be out.
Unless of course, the Spectre stole all the attention.
The man, no the ghost of the man, had gotten off his bed. His shrieking had finally stopped and he was staring around, eyes wide and face blank as though he’d never seen this place before. The air was tense. Taut, and Riven had to suppress the manic energy to pop up and scream. Who knew what the medicers and the other patients felt. It was up to him to make sense of the situation.
“Hello there,” Riven said. He stared at the ghost before him. So foolish to address him like some long lost friend from yesteryears. But he had to start somewhere. “How are you feeling?”
The ghost looked at him like an infant staring at a completely new object. Judging its place in the world. Deciding if it was edible or not. Maybe even preparing to lick. “I must get to the Sundering.”
Sundering. Sundering. Why did he keep hearing that damn word everywhere? “Do you… remember who you are?”
“I must seek the closest path to Ascension.”
“I’m going to take that as a no.”
Behind Riven, the others were silent and gawking. He couldn’t blame them. If he didn’t feel responsible for the whole mess, he’d be content and just sit and watch the whole thing play out as it would. This Spectre was more in line with the Spectres from the first Deadmage he’d fought two nights ago, not the aware ones at the refinery. What in the Chasm was the difference between the two?
“Listen, I—”
Another tremor, and this time, the whole hospital seemed to careen sideways. Shrieks and shouts blasted through the whole area, and Riven was thrown to the floor again, his elbow colliding hard with the ground. His eyes watered, and he stayed down. Good thing he’d kept a tighter hold on his carpet bag this time around.
Though that was mostly because the Spectre passed right through the floor.
For just a moment, he though the floor had broken and he’d fall through. But no. This was something more akin to what Mhell did, passing through solid surfaces at will.
Riven sighed, then shot to his feet. The others looked fine. Holding the carpet bag close to him, he dashed out. Down the stairs he flew, passing more startled medicers, leaping over fallen cabinets and shoving past people who got in their way. He had to damp down the urge to apologize to someone he knocked over in his haste. The rush was worth it, though. Soon as he were out the main doors, he staggered to a halt.
A huge tornado had shot up north, the top of its funnel shading the sky grey. The Deadmage had attacked the Consulate.
“Was that a Spectre I just saw?” Viriya asked.
“Is that a damn tornado I’m seeing?” Riven asked. He blinked a few times, then stared around. No sign of the damn ghost. “Where did you see a Spectre?”
“Right here. He ran off towards the tornado.”
Ran off. Stupid thing could float through walls but still had to run on the ground? “Where’s Rio?”
“He charged off on his horse.”
“Of course.”
Riven looked back north. A Deadmage was causing that, but it seemed so hard to believe. Even at this distance, the tornado looked enormous, a twister of winds so vicious and strong, his hair blew and his clothes fluttered even here near the hospital. Dammit, would Glaven and Rose survive? They were strong Essentiers, sure, but this Deathless seemed insane.
“What are we waiting for?” Riven asked.
Viriya didn’t reply immediately. She was looking back, towards the side of the small hospital. A few moments later, an old car trundled in. “That.”
She led the way inside. Riven didn’t question and followed her in. The car took off.
“I didn’t know there was a car here,” Riven said.
“It’s an ambulance. Demesne rules—every hospital needs to have at least one in working condition.” The ambulance gave a jerk as if to contradict her words. “That Deadmage found a perfect time to attack.”
“And the perfect place too. What in the Chasm might be at the Consulate?”
“People.” Viriya’s tone changed, a cold creeping in and taking hold. “He’s got all the Sept he needs, and now he wants to use them,”
“You said something about graves…”
“Don’t you see? If the guy—or I guess he’s a ghost now—was telling the truth, then the Deadmage used to be a Sept miner. It’s very likely he knew of a large stolen stash kept near the Haven and came to retrieve it. And now that he has it, he wants to use it to turn as many people as he can into Spectres that he can enslave.”
Riven swallowed. It made perfect sense. “Shit.”
“Where did the Spectre pop out of? I could swear he looked like the patient we were talking to.”
Riven swallowed, though that went hidden when the car jumped. “I’m not sure. Everything was shaking, and I fell. When I got up, he’d turned into a Spectre and was floating downstairs.”
“Hmm. Maybe you have bits of Sept on your clothes, and the man died from his injuries…”
He tried to change the subject. “Has an Essentier ever turned into a Deathless?”
“Probably. We have Sept all the time with us, so. But I don’t think we’re ever that different from normal people turning into Deathless. Why this man though…?”
Riven’s stomach twisted into knots, partly at the car’s sickening motion, partly at what was waiting for them at the Consulate, but mostly at the continued lie. No, enough was enough. He couldn’t carry a lie forever. “I think there was a stimulus though. I think I saw a dark crys—”
Another tremor rent the land. The very earth seemed to jump, and for just a moment where his heart had seemingly disappeared from existence, the car was airborne. Then it crashed down. Riven hit his head on the roof and cried out. Curse the Chasm, but his whole head felt like it had caved in.
He took his good time getting a grip on the tears in his eyes that had sprung up. When he looked outside, the tears let themselves free. Holy Scions, what was he looking at?
An army of Spectres was attacking. The military of both nations had fallen back, retreating step by step as they were pushed back by lines upon lines of ghosts before them. Shots whizzed though the air, pops perforating the whole area, but their damage was minimal. The little injuries that had Sept spewing from the Spectres did nothing to stop them. Even as the car skidded to a screeching halt, Riven gawked at the ghosts pulling men and women out of ranks and off their horse, before killing them.
Turning them into more Spectres.
Of course. The ghosts had the Sept with them, right inside their bodies, though they faded as soon as they were released. But maybe it still counted. The living were still turning into Deathless.
“Don’t stop now, driver!” Viriya yelled.
The driver was frozen in his seat. “It’s not working!”
“We can run,” Riven said. He stepped out of the car as the driver tried to get it working again to no avail. “Let’s go.”
Practical Viriya made no arguments. They rushed off, and the driver exited the car and ran back without a second glance. Riven had remembered to bring his carpet bag with him, though what in the Chasm he’d do with it was another question entirely.
Viriya, who was faster, paused at a safe distance from the brawl. Her eyes were jumping everywhere, taking in everything with the precision of a hawk readying for a killing dive.
“What’s the plan?” Riven asked.
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“Well, I’d ask you to run in the opposite direction and save your powerless self, but I couldn’t bother.”
“No, seriously.”
She sighed, then relaxed a little. At least, she stood with less tension billowing off her like smoke from a bonfire. The fierce wind had pulled her bun loose and her hair whipped around like agitated vipers. “We need to find a way through to the Consulate. Rendezvous with the Essentiers there, and figure things out from there.”
“And if we find the Deadmage on the way?”
“Rendezvous with the main Essentier force. Your brother, or your sister. No fighting the Deadmage.”
Riven glanced at Viriya. How much would she keep to her own plan? Especially when he had no idea how his siblings were doing in that swirling vortex of destruction. He swallowed, a wave of cold possessed. Rose had to be alive. He’d make sure she was. Well, Glaven too, bastard though he was, but concern for him was more obligatory than caring. “Let’s go.”
She glanced at him. Her hair lashed her face, and she scowled for a moment. Then grinned. Riven gulped. Not a nice grin at all.
Her star was back, a dark arboreal shade overtaking the area. Several soldiers near the back of the press were distracted, but Viriya paid them no mind. She pulled out her gun with her glowing hand. Paused. Took a moment to consider. Then fired at the abandoned car, the green glow of the shot enveloping the whole vehicle on immediate contact.
Then she pointed at the scuffle. “Get back!” she shouted, voice loud over the tearing wind. “I am an Essentier. Get out of my way if you want to live.”
The warning was clearly for the soldiers, and most of them heeded it after one look at her green star. Chasm, Riven was having trouble not rushing backwards. Nothing good was going to come of this.
Viriya pointed her gun at a gap in the press. Then fired. The golden-green bullet lanced through the gang of shrieking Spectres, a tunnel of holes opening up in the ghostly masses, spewing bit and pieces of adding Sept.
A second later, the car flew in and rammed into the Spectres.
Riven’s eyes widened, a rush prickling his whole body. Ingenious. She had locked the car to the bullet, though it made him wonder how that worked. Why wasn’t the car’s inertia pulling back the bullet, instead of the bullet’s momentum pulling on the car? He shook his head. Essence was magical, not physical.
“Let’s go!” Viriya held her star aloft like it was Scion-blessed banner, and charged into the hole in the Spectres’ gang.
Riven charged after her, keeping up as best as he could. The car had damaged the Spectres enough that most were dying, falling apart and crumbling into piles of Sept that disappeared in the whirling wind. Still rather disgusting when he did have to step on a body. Thankfully, they were all ghostly. No way would Riven step on a fallen soldier.
Those of the military who weren’t engaged with the Spectres on the sides cheered. They fell into step behind him, infantry shooting and cavalry stabbing the Spectres on the sides, a messy amalgamation of troops from both nations. He didn’t dare look back. Who knew how many of them fell and were trampled over by the press from behind.
Viriya took care of any Spectres that dared to stray too close, or worse, actually thought of attacking her or Riven. One screamed at her and she shot it through the head. Another jumped, and she pummelled it away whit her star, her glowing fist crushing its head.
Riven had his gun out, but he focused on running for his life. Viriya and the soldiers were doing a perfect job of keeping him safe.
They came to the gates of the Consulate and staggered to a stop there. The Spectres gave them only one heartbeat to assess where in the Chasm they were, and what in the Chasm they were seeing, before rushing into them all. Riven though, safely ensconced by the soldiers who refused to give ground to the Deathless, had all the time in the world to deal with his shock.
The Consulate was simply gone. In its place, the twister rose to the heavens like a drill aimed straight for the world’s core. He looked around, trying to make sense of the devastated ground. Recognizable chunks of the building littered the area, interspersed with bodies. Half the staircase lying on its side there, the drinks counter closer at hand and torn mostly to shreds, pieces of the ceiling, walls, and floor carpeting the ground like spoiled shrubbery. Sept dusted all of it. A film of the glowing bits covered the ground and all on it, and more swirled in the air, carried by the gale. It was supposed to be dangerous to the living, but at this point, Riven had probably inhaled too much of it to care.
“We need to find them,” Viriya reminded him. “Let’s go.”
She jumped over the fallen gate and rushed towards where the Consulate was supposed to be. Riven followed as best as he could. It was hard to ignore the shouts and cries, but the sight of bodies pulled him along. So many bodies. Had they all become Spectres? No, the patient’s body had become part of the Spectre, so they might very well be survivors.
Viriya didn’t stop at any of them, though. She charged into the wind, her uniform whipping around her. When Riven made to check on a body, she yelled at him to keep moving.
“They might be alive,” he yelled back.
“Leave them. We don’t have time to look after everyone.”
Riven ignored her, bending over to check the nearest prone figure, and Viriya muttered something unflattering before rushing off. The body belonged to one of the servers from the Consulate. Blood was seeping out from his cracked skull, but he still had a pulse. Not dead. Damn Viriya for leaving him alone.
Riven grabbed him under the armpits and pulled him back towards the ruined gates, which might have been a mistake considering the melee going on there, but the soldiers were pushing through the Spectres. A cordon was forming, the military keeping the Deathless at bay.
“Hey.” Riven placed the body back on the ground as gently as time allowed. Several of the soldiers who’d freed themselves from the fighting stared at him like he’d gone insane. “If you’re not busy defending yourselves, bring the other people to safety.” They only stared at him even more. “I’m a Morell, and I speak with authority. Go get the other bodies.”
One of the Resplendian horsewomen pulled in and dismounted, giving him a once over. “Sir, this is a carefully orchestrated tactical manoeuvre. I cannot break it apart.”
“There are lives at stake here. Lives beyond yours and your soldiers.” Riven checked the woman’s uniform with a quick glance. Her black coat had two red bands on the right sleeve, and there were two plumes on her cavalry helmet. “Captain, isn’t it your duty to protect the ones who were in the Consulate?”
“I cannot endanger the lives of the living and the active any more than is necessary. Nor do you have the authority to command me.”
“Oh but I do have the authority to report all this straight to Invigilator Morell when I return. So I suggest you not leave me alone in the noble and heroic act of saving lives.”
The captain was about to argue more, but then the twister shifted. Its winds whipped, and Riven had to crouch down to not be pulled off his feet. The soldiers weren’t so lucky. The twister broke their formation and several of them cowered and fell back against the force of the winds, providing an opening for the Spectres. And into this opening, the ghosts dived in.
Everything devolved into chaos. Riven crawled away from the shouting and screaming, from the death and blood and fading Sept. He had to find safety. Unlike the soldiers, he wasn’t only saving his own skin, but that of all those who couldn’t fend for themselves. The gusts tore at him, his shirt ripping at the seams, and he resisted the urge to dig into the earth. Any moment now, he’d be thrown into the air.
As if it wasn’t bad enough already, the tornado grew stronger. Riven shrieked as he was pulled off the ground, his limbs cavorting in the air for a few moments before the vicious tearing forced him to curl in. His eyes were closed, but the noise was like an unending peal of thunder in his head, and he was being pulled apart. Hair by hair, bit by bit, the twister was shredding him alive. He wasn’t going to survive. Dreaded Chasm, he couldn’t even scream. Couldn’t even breathe. The twister stole away all air straight from his lungs.
Out of nowhere, Riven collided with the ground. The wind was still trying to rend him to nothing but he wasn’t flying anymore, and curled over as he was, there was a tiny pocket of undisturbed air he could breathe in. He wasn’t dead.
Thank the Scions, he had survived a Chasm-damned tornado.
Riven breathed in deep, trying to calm his galloping heart. Once he had blinked hard and accepted his time hadn’t come yet, he pushed himself up. There was no rhyme or reason to what he saw. Bodies had been flung about everywhere. He couldn’t see the soldiers, couldn’t tell where the Spectres were, couldn’t begin to fathom where he’d landed. The twister might have thrown him to the other end of Providence Demesne and he wouldn’t be able to tell.
His eyes fell to the centre of the carnage, and he froze. The Deadmage was right in front. He was just as the patient had said back in the hospital. Blue skin, white hair, emaciated body wrapped in ashen cloak whipping still as though petrified, he stood in the eye of the twister, head and arms raised towards the heavens.
But Riven didn’t linger on him long. His eyes slid past the witch, falling on the figure at the other side of the tornado, lying unconscious and broken. Nearly dead, and oh so familiar.
Rose.
Riven made to dart forwards, but then his eyes caught the Deadmage. The witch was looking straight at him, eyes darker than ink. With a nasty grin, the Deadmage raised his hands higher and the winds picked up speed again. It tore at Riven, shooting at Riven and needling him all over, poking with the force of arrows trying to puncture his skin, dig through his flesh, and rupture his bones. Trying to pin his very soul in place.
With trembling hands, Riven pulled out his Sept gun. It shook in his hands, or maybe it was his hands that shook. Never mind he was getting past that damned witch no matter what. Rose needed him.
The shot that blasted in wasn’t his. A golden-green bullet bolted at the Deadmage, but it veered off-course at the last possible moment and flew off into the distance, glow fading behind the curtain of rending, spinning wind. Riven looked back. Viriya was stepping forward, low towards the ground, star glowing in the same hand she held her gun.
They met eyes. She nodded at him. That was his cue to leave to the fight to her, and get going. Unlike the stupid soldiers, at least Viriya gave a damn about others. Though that might be because Rose was an important Essentier.
Holding his gun close to him, Riven went around the centre of the twister in a wide circle. It was calmer there with the slower winds, but the Deadmage was whipping the air into a frenzy near him. Best to steer clear. Without getting caught up in the tornado of course. The witch swivelled towards Riven when he passed, but Viriya provided a great distraction. She shot the ground, just as she’d done with the last Deadmage, and green bloomed all over it like a carpet of glowing emeralds. When she fired her gun again and the bullet was deflected away, the ground imploded, tearing into Deadmage.
Riven didn’t have time to linger on the shrieking. Didn’t even have time to see if the Deadmage had survived or not, though the continued shrieking was very telltale. Every step Riven took brought him closer to Rose, and the closer he got, the harsher his heart thudded. His sister didn’t look good. She didn’t look good at all.
Swallowing, Riven fell to his knees his beside her, his gun clattering to the ground. Rose’s right arm was sheathed in blood, and her face had gone pale. Her Essentier uniform was dotted with too many tears, and lacerations scrawled lines of pain all over her exposed skin. What had that bastard Deadmage done to her?
He shook her. “Rose.” No response. “Rose.” No, she had to be alive. Had to have survived. “Rose, answer me.”
Rose was still as a corpse. No.
He pressed a finger to her neck, but felt nothing. No not dead, he was just shaking too much, overstimulated and unable to process little sensations like a pulse. He pressed a hand harder over heart. And breathed. A pulse. Slow, faint, but there still. She wasn’t dead, and Riven was a fool for thinking do.
His relief was short-lived. With an enormous crack, Viriya’s green star blew up and Riven covered Rose with his body as the whole world ruptured around him.