Before Trulissinangoth could recover, I swung again, and my weapon shattered hers into a hundred pieces. The explosion threw us both back, but I landed nimbly on my feet while she collapsed in a heap and skidded across the smooth stone. I shifted my grip on my fusion blade and hurled it at my enemy. It flew straight and true, a spear of pure energy that punched through the meat of her right thigh and pinned it to the ground.
“You’ll live,” I said. “But you will not win.”
With that, I turned away from her and stalked through the opening toward the Flame. It grew larger with every step I took. By the time I reached it, the fire was a pillar that rose beyond the limits of my sight. It consumed the horizon and reached out to encircle me.
“Welcome, champion of the Empyrean Gauntlet,” a thousand voices cried at once. “You are victorious. The Design remains in the hands of men. Now, tell me what you wish.”
I’d come all this way in the hopes of healing my core. And then, despite everything, I’d healed it myself.
I didn’t need the Flame’s help with my core anymore.
I wanted answers.
There was only one way I would ever get those.
“Tell me where I can find my mother,” I said.
The Favor
THE EMPYREAN FLAME remained silent for far too long. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but its utter lack of attention was definitely not it. I shifted uneasily from foot to foot, fighting off the waves of nauseating pain that radiated from my wounded shoulder. I’d heal, given time. It certainly wasn’t going to be any fun, though.
Finally, just when I was about to speak up, the Flame guttered and went out, and darkness consumed the cavern.
“Great,” I grumbled. “I broke it.”
A chuckle reached me. One voice, then two, a dozen, a hundred. What should have been a faint sound grew so loud I clamped my hands over my ears to block it out. And then, slowly, the voices faded away.
Tiny lights, like the flames of dozens of candles, sparked to life in the darkness and revealed a figure emerging from the shadows. The shape changed as it came closer. Sometimes short, sometimes tall, thin then fat, young and straight-backed, then stooped with age. I still couldn’t make out any of the details of the figure’s features, and I stepped back and raised my good arm to ward off an attack.
“I haven’t come to harm you,” a voice said. Or, rather, many voices said. Because the voice changed with every word. Masculine, feminine, old, young. It was strange to hear them, and even stranger that they all came from a single throat. That wasn’t nearly as strange as when I saw the speaker, though.
Whoever this was couldn’t hold their shape for more than a split second. An elderly woman watched me with quiet eyes, an older man with a stern visage stared down at me, a child of six gazed up at me with open admiration, and on and on the changes went.
“Who are you?” I asked. “And what happened to the Flame?”
“It’s the same question no matter how you ask it,” the shifting creature said. “I was the Flame. I am the Flame. But I will not be the Flame.”
The figure gestured dismissively with one hand, and a pair of chairs appeared from the void. One of them was a high-backed throne with plush cushions on its seat and back and armrests carved into eagles. The other was a much simpler affair, wooden and rickety, with legs that were bowed and splintered from overuse.
“Pick a chair,” the Flame said. “Any chair.”
This was obviously a test, and one that was too easy to pass. The Flame wanted its guardians to be loyal and honorable. I headed toward the splintered chair, knowing it would show my humility and willingness to lower myself before a greater power.
It turned out to be a surprisingly comfortable chair. I settled into it as if it had been made for me. In fact—
“That wasn’t the chair for you.” The Flame chuckled from the rickety chair. Somehow, it had seated me on the throne. “It was a nice try, though, Jace. You and I both know you aren’t good at bending the knee. Even, perhaps, when you should.”
“I’d never have made it this far if I did.” That was the most honest thing I’d said in what felt like weeks. I had never meekly accepted my place in the Grand Design. I’d gotten here only by bucking authority and forging my own path through a hostile world.
I could pretend to be humble and dutiful if needed. But that’s all it was. Pretend.
“That’s your strength,” the Flame said. “You question the way things are. You wonder what the future could be. That’s why you won this Gauntlet. And, it’s why you’ll do so well with the one favor I have to ask of you.”
It was hard to believe that I was sitting with the Empyrean Flame discussing the future. It was even harder to believe that it was going to ask me for a favor. It was far more powerful than I’d ever be. What could it need from me?
Besides, I’d won the Gauntlet. This was my chance to get my wish fulfilled, not the other way around.
“We’ll get to that,” the Flame said. “I promise you. And to the favor I must ask of you. But, first, tell me how you feel about the inquisitors.”
“They’re liars,” I said without hesitation. “They made a deal with the dragons to betray humanity.”
“It didn’t work out very well, though.” The Flame’s laugh was eerie and unnerving. It started from a young girl’s throat and ended in a middle-aged man’s mouth. “Betting against you hasn’t been a smart idea for anyone, has it?
