“Sounds dangerous,” I muttered. It sounded like the kind of plan that could get people hurt.
People like my mother.
A mighty thrum filled the air and the harpoon took flight, trailing a spiral of shadows behind it. I watched as it reached the height of its arc, rotated, and plunged straight down toward the top of the building. The golden spike grew brighter with every foot it descended, and its trail of darkness became an impenetrable cloud.
“Get down.” Hagar dragged me behind the edge of the building’s roof. A handful of soldiers stationed with us had also thrown themselves prone.
It was a good thing, too.
An explosion rattled every building within a mile. A shock wave rushed past us, a screaming wind filled with terror aspects that lodged in our auras.
I cycled my breathing and purged that fear before it could force me to run off the edge of the building.
Not all the guards were as lucky. One of them screamed and hurled himself headfirst off the roof.
“You okay?” I asked Hagar.
She trembled next to me, but nodded and pointed at the ground below.
I followed her gaze and watched the banelance belch forth a bar of colorless light that ripped through the front of the warehouse and almost instantly blasted out the backside. Anything that had been in its path was gone now, torn into aspects and scattered.
The attack teams surged through the dual breaches, and the rattle of small arms fire echoed from inside. It went on for what felt like a million years. Every one of those reports could end my mother’s life. I balled my hands into fists so tight my nails chewed into my palms, and drops of blood dripped down to the tar beneath my feet.
“They’ll capture her,” Hagar promised. “She’s too valuable to kill.”
That was true, but it didn’t make her safe. The banelance breacher could’ve easily snuffed her life out.
And then, when I thought I couldn’t stand the suspense any longer, the assault teams poured out of the building. Some of them carried crates on skid lifts, but the lead team had someone with a bag over their head, their arms manacled behind their back.
Even at this distance, I recognized my mother’s aura.
She tilted her head back and stared directly at me even though there was no way she could’ve seen anything through the black hood that covered her face.
“Something’s wrong,” I said quietly. “Where is everyone else?”
Hagar pulled a pair of binoculars from her satchel and surveyed the scene below us. While there were plenty of assault team members down there, the only heretic we could see was my mother. If the blast of the banelance hadn’t killed her, there had to be some other survivors, too.
Only, there weren’t.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Hagar said. “I’m calling it in.”
“No time.” Before Hagar could say anything or the guards who’d been watching us could stop me, I bolted over the edge of the roof.
What I’d recognized down there wasn’t my mother. It was the twin of the core now inside me. The power that surrounded it was a scrivening.
That was a construct.
I forced jinsei into my legs to strengthen them against the ten-story fall, and my heels shattered the asphalt where I’d landed. Pain rocketed up through my shins, and I ignored it. There were more important matters for my attention.
“Get away from her!” I shouted as I charged across the ground.
I pushed more jinsei into my legs and accelerated far beyond my normal running speed. My steps hit the ground like gunshots, rapidfire cracks that drew the eyes of everyone in the area. Members of the assault team around my mother drew their weapons, ready to shoot the threat they saw streaking toward them.
They didn’t know what I was up to. They had no idea I’d come to save them. From their perspective, a distraught teenager was trying to free his terrorist mother. They couldn’t allow that.
And I couldn’t blame him.
“Bomb!” I shouted. “She’s got a bomb!”
That got them moving, but I knew it was already too late. The assault team members ran away from my mother at full speed, suddenly realizing the nearby danger. They wouldn’t get far enough away, though. The amount of jinsei packed into the construct’s slender frame would unleash a powerful blast that would expand for blocks in every direction.
I had to stop it.
It had all been a setup. Sanrin and Hirani had believed the information they’d received from their informants was the Flame’s prize for me. Only, it had been another heretics’ trick. My mother’s rebels had lured us to this desolate location in the middle of the Midwest, hoping to wipe out as much of my clan’s military might as they could in one fell swoop.
The heretics hadn’t anticipated me being there, though.
Time slowed to a crawl. Every footstep was another tick of the timer counting down to the explosion. I forced more jinsei into my channels, willing myself to be faster, to react with a speed beyond anything I’d ever achieved.
The Vision of the Design burst to life.
I saw a blossoming fire unfold from the construct like origami razor blades. Fire rushed out in every direction and scoured the buildings off their foundations. Dozens of Shadow Phoenixes were burned to ash in the blink of an eye. The sky ship that Hirani and Sanrin had used to coordinate the attack crashed to the street in flames.
So many of my clanmates died.
And me along with them.
This was the path the Grand Design had laid out. This was the way my life was supposed to end.
Except, I was no longer bound to that fate. The Machina that made up half my core had freed me from that trap. I could see the pattern of the world from the outside. Instinctively, I reached out, found what I needed, and shredded a fateful thread from the Design.
It wasn’t much, hardly a ground-shaking change. It made me one second faster.
In the instant before the
