“What have you done?” Snapped the Duke, eyes frantic. “You’ve doomed yourself! To enter an event into your Chronicle before it has come to pass. You know what will happen if you fail!” Despite his words, he sounded more like he was trying to convince himself.

Sure enough, Zeke, or rather, the version of the Duke that was Zeke, looked amused. “Oh I’m so happy to hear you’re worried about me. Most people would be more concerned about the identical copy of them that had to kill them to make sure his soul didn’t shatter like cheap sugar glass.”

The Duke flinched. “Fool!” He sneered. “So you’ve taken my shape. Maybe you have my stats, or over my Skills, but you don’t have my equipment. What good is a duellist without a sword.” He brandished his rapier with a slight wince, obviously trying to look threatening.

It explained some things. I’d been wondering why he didn’t run, but he was in tatters, and if Zeke had all his abilities there was no way he could escape as wounded as he was.

He had a point about the sword though, or I thought so until the Zeke-Duke grinned. “Oh you’re right. I definitely should have a weapon to take best advantage of your Skills. And I don’t have a rapier.” He snapped his fingers, and suddenly a MASSIVE claymore appeared in his hand, which he hefted cheerfully over his shoulder.

“Why do you have that?” The Duke spat. “And do you think you can really defeat a master duellist with that oversized hunk of iron.” Despite the derision in his tone I saw his eyes locked on the huge blade.

“Maybe not.” Zeke said. “Than again-” He blinked out of existence and suddenly he was smashing the blade down on the mutilated form of the original Duke. There was a crash and the damaged A-ranker was sent hurtling into the ground with a crash. “You only have one arm to block with. And it’s wounded.”

The Duke climbed out of the crater he’d left in the ground, glaring up at my uncle. “Imposter!” He spat. “You’ll never surpass the real thing!”

“Probably not.” Zeke admitted cheerfully. “But do I need to? This is math, my friend. Seventy percent as good with your abilities is still twenty percent better than a version of you operating at half capacity.”

Gritting his teeth, the Duke flickered forward, rapier flashing. I stared in awe as he engaged Zeke, his single arm blurring, sword licking out like a storm of steel, so fast my eyes could barely track it. I was getting a headache just trying to follow it. Zeke wasn’t, and his blade intercepted the other man’s before it made contact, holding the big claymore in front of him and using small economical movements to knock aside dangerous attacks.

“How are you doing this?" Hissed the Duke. “I refuse to believe you are my equal with the blade!”

Zeke just shook his head. “I’m not.” He said with a sigh. “But right now, neither are you. You’re slowed from injury and blood loss, and while I don’t have the kind of training you do, I DO have your Sword Skill.Lucky I had this A-ranked sword I picked up traveling, or this might have gotten awkward.”

“I refuse to lose to a cheap copy!” The noble howled. “I will not be killed by a pretender wearing my face! You’ll have t-” There was a flash of light, and he stopped talking, he coughed, blood leaking from between his lips, and looked down. A golden arrow was sticking through his chest. “What? That’s not…”

He plummeted from the air, slamming into the ground with a bang and leaving another crater, this one smaller. Zeke put the sword away and followed him down. Peeling away the mask, he laid it on the Duke’s face.

The Duke’s body cracked and dissolved, turning to golden dust that flowed into the mask. Setting it on the ground, Zeke started taking out vials and bottles, then a set of brushes and chisels. He laid it all on the ground and began working on the mask, carving and painting and filling in details.

None of us moved, frozen in place, transfixed by the sight of a soul of Mercury captured and stuffed into the mask. He worked on it for about fifteen minutes before he finally stopped, sighing as he gingerly picked it up and set it in a box that he then closed and stashed away.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“That should do it.” He muttered. “Cut it kind of close there.” He glanced up at the hooded figure with the bow. “You come back too. All of you. I have four replacements to make and several upgrades planned.” He snapped and the figure collapsed, the robe wrapping the mask and the whole thing flying back to his hand. Six more masks returned and he stashed them all away.

He turned to us. “You can move now.” He said wryly. “Thanks for not trying to run off. You’d probably have died.”

“We assumed.” I said as we approached, staring at the spot where the Duke had been. “Is killing him going to cause a problem? Because I feel like it’s not ok to just show up in Empire territory and off an A-ranker from a major force.”

He waved it off. “He attacked you directly. Taking issue with his death would mean taking issue with the candidacy process. It’s why guardians exist. Granted I’m stronger than most, which is why I’m so limited, but still, just doing my job.”

I’d never considered that. I’d seen Nat’s guardian and she wasn’t anything special in the grand scheme of things. Zeke was far and away more impressive, plus Nat’s guardian was from another Branch. Was the reason for Zeke’s absurdly strict geas that it was necessary for dad to leave him with me? It made me rethink a lot of things. Though speak of the geas. “Can you tell me what…” I gestured around us. “That was? Or is that cultivation shit you can’t share.”

I tried to keep my tone even, but Zeke knew me well enough to know when I was pissed. Callie put a hand on my shoulder. “Shane, honey.” She said lightly. “Maybe now isn’t the time for that conversation.”

“No, he’s right.” Zeke said, shaking his head. “This falls into the ‘so high level I’m allowed to talk about it’ category, and you could use some context here. We should get somewhere safe before we talk. How about the Inn?” He glanced at Anna. “The Imperial Fork I mean, it’s closest, and you have that safe room Shane installed.”

Anna looked…green. Half horrified half in awe as she stared at Zeke. Like she was standing in front of a wild tiger. It took her a second to process everything, but she eventually nodded dully, and we all headed for Saltzburg, which was pretty close by.

I hadn’t really noticed how far we’d traveled to get to Spencer’s place, but we’d gotten near town, and it wasn’t a long walk to Anna’s place. When we entered, she waved off her niece and led us to the back and then down into the secret room she’d wished for. Once we were inside she activated a device I recognized as one of the isolators Camden had been using.

“Alright.” I said once the field went up. “That should be enough. You’re the only A-ranker on the planet, and that’s the best security we can get, so why don’t you tell me what the hell that was about?”

He blew out a breath. “Alright.” He said after a momentary pause. “I assume you’re asking about the comment he made about me dying?”

“No shit.” I snapped. “What did you do? If your soul shattered we could never bring you back. Not unless you managed to get a Mirror Soul Body, which I know from seeing yours earlier you didn’t!”

He smiled at me. “You’re learning. Good. To explain what I did, you’ll have to understand how I did it, and to understand that, you’ll need to understand what B-rank is.”

I blinked. I’d been curious about this for ages but he’d kept putting me off. I wondered if seeing him do that had been some kind of condition in the geas. It must have been, or he wouldn’t be telling me this. “So you’re finally going to tell me how to reach B-rank?”

“Yes, but you can’t try to do it.” He warned. “There’s a reason B-rank is so high up. Trying too soon is dangerous. To reach B-rank, you need to condense your Solid Path inside your soul to create a Chronicle. It’s a book that you use to record a hundred of your most important deeds. Your soul is needed to fill in pages, as you saw, which means it has to be formed inside you.”

I raised a brow at that. “But yours wasn’t?” I asked cautiously. “And why record them at all? What does a Chronicle do?”

“Short answer? It’s a method to control recursion.” He said with a shrug. “By carefully selecting your deeds you can shape the way outside perception changes you. It allows you to more closely align your stats and the renown that shapes them with your soul in preparation for S-rank.”

That sounded amazing, and I was so tempted to try to form one, but he’d just told me how dangerous it was so I just focused on what I’d seen. “You said it’s in your soul. So how was yours outside? And what did you do with it that was so dangerous?”

“I’ve been at the peak of B-rank stat wise for a while.” He admitted. “And at ninety nine of one hundred pages Chronicled. But the legends you write in a chronicle have to be true. If they’re not the book destabilizes and shatters, and since a Solid Path is part of your soul…”

I nodded. “You die.” I said hollowly. “That’s what he meant about doing it early. You gambled your advancement to A-rank when you did that. If you hadn’t killed him you’d have failed and died.” My tone was flat and angry, and I glared at him, willing to hear how pissed I was he’d taken that risk.

“I did.” He said unapologetically. “And would again. If I hadn’t done that I would have died. You would have died.”

I growled in frustration. “Ok, well what about now? Your Chronicle is filled in and you’re an A-ranker, so what do you do next? How do you continue to…what was it you said? Align your renown more closely with your soul in preparation for S-rank?”

“That’s none of your concern.” He stated bluntly. “I’ve already told you more than you needed to know. We’re done.” He stood up, and I was confused. Why even bother to tell me this? Why not just blow me off if he was only going to answer a handful of questions. He headed for the exit, but before he got halfway he stopped.

As if stating an afterthought, he tossed one last comment over his shoulder. “Oh, by the way. Forming a Chronicle isn’t something just anyone can do. The more perfected the Skill your Solid Path is based on the better your chances of managing.” He stopped talking, teeth snapping shut so loudly I heard it from where I was sitting.

He strode forward stiffly, looking like he was in pain, and I stared after him in shock. The geas, he’d tripped the geas. And judging by this whole conversation he’d done it on purpose, using the farce of answering my questions to slip me extra info.

Sighing, I shot a sad smile after my uncle as Callie put her arm around me. I was so glad he was safe, and he was still doing his best to help me even after all that. The old man might not say it much, but he showed how much he loved me every day. I was damned lucky to have him in my family. Someday I was going to pay him back for all this. I swore it to myself.