Mount Arcadia rose like a Titan’s fist from the centre of the Jade Sea, punching through the clouds to reach for the stars. The enormous mountain was composed of seven ringed plateaus that served to stratify the Imperial City built into it. On the topmost plateau of the mountain, beyond sight of mortals, stood the fabled Celestial Palace, home of the Imperial Pantheon. The plateaus below the clouds were studded with gravity-defying spires that glowed with magic, growing more and more packed and less and less impressive the further down the mountain they went, until the city reached sea level. There, it continued to spread outward like tenacious mould, with densely packed buildings crawling over the water and each other, the ramshackle hive impressive in its audacity given the basic building materials and lack of magical construction to safeguard its inhabitants.
“Bastards,” Shaya Amon muttered as she glared at the distant heights of the Empire.
The inhumanly tall, horned girl stood alongside her younger brother upon a dilapidated wooden roof in the ever-growing slum district known as “The Blight.” The impossible heights of Mount Arcadia were limned in faint silver as they blocked the moon, but the slums were still faintly illuminated from the magical light bleeding down from the upper districts—the territorial colour-codes of the nobles above turning into a bruised riot of light down below. The Blight’s permanent stench of rotting fish clung to everything like a drunken lover.
Damp wood groaned as Shaya crouched, doing her best to ensure her long, lanky limbs didn’t stick out over the edge of the building. A street cat hissed at her from the opposite corner, asserting dominance over the territory and the dead snake it hunched over. She shot it a glare and it quieted. She turned away from the cat, her own golden, feline eyes scanning the streets and alleys for signs of trouble.
“While I appreciate your audacity on Mom’s anniversary more than the brooding it brings out in you,” Relios stated from beside her, her brother’s cynicism at odds with how young his voice still was, “can we look through our hard-earned loot? My skin’s still crawling from the mage’s wards.”
“Alright, Rel.” Shaya sighed, but didn’t push back.
He wasn’t even ten years old when their family was destroyed; far too young to remember how good they should have had it. They were the children of Phaedra Amon, one of the Empire’s greatest heroes from the last War of Succession. Their mom was made a saint after she died in battle against a Titan and its spawn, preventing it from overrunning the Archon’s armies and plenty of villages too. Only Shaya carried the weight of that potential with her—the weight of what could have been.
And what she still hoped to become, despite what the Empire had done to them because of their other mother. The one no one ever spoke of. Barely even thought of.
Devi Amon. Heretic. Traitor.
Shaya’s calloused, clawed fingers undid the knot with smooth motions despite the heavy scar tissue on them and the poor light. As she finished with the bag, her young brother crouched down across from her.
“What do you think, Rel?” She kept her deep voice a whisper. “Anything worth stashing for ourselves before we show this haul to the boss?”
Small, delicate hands rummaged through the bag, pulling out the occasional brass orb or rune-etched gemstone to examine with golden, feline eyes that matched her own.
Relios, several years her junior, was still an adolescent, yet to hit the growth spurt that had turned her into an awkward giant. “I think these gemstones are probably the most valuable and easiest to hide from the gang. It’s a great haul, I can’t believe our luck.”
His voice cracked a little in his excitement, and Shaya saw her brother flinch in embarrassment. She ruffled his dark hair with a grin, knowing he hated it as much as his changing voice. “Well then, let’s keep a gemstone each—for good luck.”
Her sleeveless tunic and breeches were thin, ragged, and patched, but concealed plenty of pockets given the direction life had taken her. Her eyes were drawn to some deep blue sapphires, but she settled on a bright yellow topaz. It was etched with a rune shaped like a simple sword within a shield, which reminded her of her mom. She pocketed the gem and looked through the bag again, pulling out a small leather-bound book before offering the bag to her brother.
Rel rummaged through it, its contents rattling as his excitement got the better of him. They were safely away from the authorities and back in their home territory, so she didn’t chide him on it—at least not this time. She flipped through the little book, her keen eyes just able to pick up the dark ink everything had been penned in.
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She realized she was looking at a book about magic. The pages she saw contained low-level spell formulae—runes and accent glyphs that mages connected to produce wondrous results. As long as a person had access to aether to power it.
“Hey, Rel, do you remember Arro?”
“Huh?” He looked up from his enthusiastic looting, expression twisting in confusion then into annoyance when he realized where she was going. “Oh. The animal-loving kid that awakened.”
“Yeah,” Shaya replied, continuing to flip through the pages, trying to tie spell formulae she saw to abilities her mothers or their group of friends had displayed. Her brow furrowed as she failed, the book’s lack of invocations leaving her in the dark.
Cocking his head at her distracted response, Rel looked over at the book she was looking through. “Ah, hells, sis, you’re not thinking about what could have been again, are you?”
“Well, what if it happened to one of us? Arro was adopted by some highborn family days after he awakened. Maybe one of our mom’s friends could find us if we went back to the orphanage with that kind of power…”
“I don’t want that kind of power or responsibility. And you’d have to survive first. Arro spent those days unconscious, because he couldn’t figure out how to stop shooting magic out his ass.”
“I bet I could handle it better. I saw Mom and her friends work magic regularly.”
“I’m sure everyone thinks that, sis.” He turned his attention back to the loot, eyeing each gem as if it might be his last. “Even if you awakened now, you’d be a First Circle fledgling while others your age have probably pushed into Second, or even Third or Fourth if they’re a true nephilim.”
“I wouldn’t let that stop me,” Shaya shot back. “Besides, becoming an amazing mage can come after I get us off the streets and someplace safe.”
With a sniff, Rel turned his attention back to the bag of loot. “What makes you think an esper would even want to bond with you?”
“Uh, I’m pretty awesome? I mean, we just robbed a mage without a hitch.”
“Except for that little run-in with the Canal Snakes on our way back.”
“Yeah, but we didn’t get disintegrated by any wards or caught by any Imperials. That’s the real win here. The Canal Snakes—and especially their thug Jikni—aren’t spit.”
“Sure. Let’s not exaggerate that mage’s power though—they clearly suck. It’s not like we actually disabled any lightning-shooting wards or had a duel of wits with sphynx guardians or—”
Keen ears twitching, she reached over and clamped down on his hands to stop his rummaging and nay-saying.
“Hey, you got your tur—”
“Shh.”
Head turning, Shaya focused on a commotion coming their direction from a few blocks away.
“Hey, foxy lady—where ya going?” The smooth voice belonged to a familiar young man. Skirts swished as footsteps quickened, followed by others walking fast to close the distance. “Hey! I’m talking to you!”
Not on my turf, you piece of spit.
“Rel, we’ve got incoming. Sounds like Jikni and some of his thugs are going after a girl in our gang’s territory.”
“That’s not your job anymore. We should leave it to Jericho’s enforcers,” he whispered back, heat entering his young voice. “We can’t risk this haul!”
The crowd in the street below quickened their pace—away from the approaching incident. Most of the people were human, but Shaya spotted the occasional kitahm in the crowd by their height and breadth as well as a few demigol by their varied bestial aspects—feline eyes on some, fox ears on others, small antlers on one.
“I’m not going to let them hurt her.” Shaya’s eyes narrowed as she turned back to her brother. “It’s not what Mom would have done.”
“Mom’s dead!” Rel shot back, voice barely a whisper anymore. “And it’s that stupid thinking that got her there! Besides, you don’t want to help that person—you just want to put yourself in another dangerous situation to trigger an Awakening!”
“I’m not going to live the rest of my life on the streets, Rel!” Shaya growled back, temper flaring as the old argument resurfaced. She stabbed a finger at the towering spires in the distance. “I’m not going to live the life they intended for me. They’re going to respect us and our achievements, gods damn it!”
They glared at each other for precious seconds, the thugs and their victim drawing closer. She hated her temper. And his! They were always so gods damned quick to anger because of the stupid demonic blood they’d inherited!
After a breath to compose herself, she continued with a level tone: “Hey, just because we should do the right thing, doesn’t mean we should be stupid about it. I’m not saying we should put us—or this haul—at risk. Okay?”
Her brother glared back at her, but she recognized he was frustrated with his own outburst as well. “Fine. What’s the plan?”
Shaya paused to think it over for a moment, ear still focused on the noises coming their way. More than one thug was trailing the woman, but she couldn’t tell how many despite the closing distance. It would be stupid to walk into another gang’s territory without backup, even just edging into it… but plenty of people were just stupid, so that didn’t preclude the possibility.
Seconds passed and the sounds grew closer. She shook her head to dismiss her hesitation and responded, “Hawkwatch.”
“You think there’s that many and you still want to deal with them?”