“I don’t want to go back,” Clem said. “Politics, the law, it all feels so stupid. Petty. Compared to this—”
Eric put his arm around Clem’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Don’t think like that. This is the big picture, the biggest. And it’s impressive, no doubt about that. But what really matters, when you get right down to it, are the people. Friends, family, even your enemies. They’re what makes life worth living.”
It was impossible to ignore the thoughts that lay beneath Eric’s words. He wasn’t just telling Clem that she had to come back with us. He was telling me the real reason he’d left his vision behind. Eric wanted to be the champion, but the title wasn’t worth having if he couldn’t share it with us.
We walked for what seemed like an eternity in no time at all and found ourselves at the opposite end of the cathedral. A vault-like door barred our path, and words as bright as the sun encircled it.
“All may enter,” I read, “but only those willing to sacrifice their heart’s desire may leave.”
Clem and Eric each took one of my hands and held on tight as if to anchor me. I didn’t want to let go of them, but I knew they couldn’t go into that place. Some paths you have to walk alone.
“We’ll be right here,” Eric assured me. “Don’t do anything without telling us.”
He released my hand and lifted Abi from the serpents. Clem threw her arms around my neck and kissed my cheek, her tears burning hot against my face. She held on to me like that for a long moment, squeezing so tight it began to hurt. I didn’t care. Nothing ever felt so good.
“We’re with you,” she whispered in my ear, “all the way.”
“And I’m with you,” I whispered back. I lifted her off her feet and hugged her to my chest, my fingers tangled in her hair, trying to memorize the way she felt against me. Because no matter what else I said, I wasn’t sure I was coming back.
“Hey,” Abi croaked. “Get a room.”
Clem slid from my arms, and I turned my attention to Abi. He looked terrible, but his core was strong. He’d live, though I wasn’t sure he’d ever forgive me for saving him.
“Any last words of wisdom?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Look for the pattern, it’s the key.”
“Get some rest,” I said. “I won’t be gone long.”
I left before I could change my mind. The vault door swung open ahead of me, then closed behind me with a clang that echoed like a graveyard bell. My hand went to the key that hung around my throat. I hoped giving it up would be enough of a sacrifice to get me out of this place.
The chamber I’d entered was much simpler than the rest of the cathedral. A large, but definitely human scale, forge sat at its heart. Crystalline tubes and pipes ran into it, but its heart was dark and cold. There was no fuel that I could see, no striker to light it. “Hey,” I called, “what am I supposed to do here?”
The tightly sealed room mocked me with its silence. I wasn’t going to get any answers that way.
I walked around the room’s perimeter, searching for any clue. There were so many pipes and tubes it was impossible to see the wall beneath them. I knew that everything I’d seen in the cathedral fed into this one machine. But I didn’t know how to turn it on. And if I couldn’t, all this was for nothing.
I shifted my vision away from the physical world, searching for any scrivenings. But there were none of those, either. Whatever magic was at work here was much older, much more powerful than the spells mortals had used.
Spells...
“Find the pattern,” I repeated Abi’s final words to me.
I searched for any aspects in the room and found some floating near the ceiling. Order and chaos, primal and ancient as time itself. I found the talisman that I’d stitched to my thread of fate and crushed it with a thought. This was not the time for half measures. I needed all the power I could muster.
My serpents answered my demand, then went to work. They plucked order from the ceiling of the forge and wove those aspects together, bit by bit, faster and faster, stringing one aspect after another into a single spell. The power of their weaving shook me to my core. It was beyond anything I’d ever touched before, more than I’d ever imagined. The lava flow I’d summoned in Saito’s tomb was nothing compared to this ancient power. I’d never seen aspects like these and doubted I ever would again. When the last of them joined the spell, I crossed my fingers and offered up a silent prayer to anything that might be listening.
“Here goes nothing,” I whispered and unleashed my sorcery.
The spell slammed into the Forge and rang it like a church bell. An intricate pattern rose from the structure’s metal surface like a golden hologram. A small fire kindled in the belly of the Forge, its heat far out of proportion to the handful of flames. My robes were instantly soaked through with sweat, and my hair clung to my scalp.
But even as I watched, the flame tried to go out. It had no fuel, and it wasn’t yet large enough to sustain itself.
Desperate to keep the fire lit, I poured jinsei
