“Stop,” Sanrin pleaded. “Jace, this isn’t the way.”
Tycho’s legs went limp. The only thing keeping him on his feet was my palm pinning him to the wall. He was close to the edge. Another handful of seconds, and I’d never have to worry about him interfering in my life again.
But Sanrin was right. This wasn’t the way. I’d give him the chance he never offered me. It was his choice how this ended.
“Tycho,” I said, “if I let you go, will you swear to stay out of my way from this day forward?”
The sage muttered something, his strength nearly gone.
“Louder,” I commanded.
“I can’t promise you that,” he admitted. “You’re too young, too undisciplined.”
“Jace,” Sanrin pleaded. “Don’t do this.”
I met my former elder’s gaze and held it. A thousand emotions and memories flashed between us. The pain in his eyes told me that Sanrin believed he’d done the right thing bringing the sages into this.
“I never wanted any of this,” I said. “All you had to do was leave me alone, but you couldn’t. It’s your hand on this blade as much as mine.”
Tycho died, the last dregs of his sacred energy ripped free of his body as I consumed his core. His body fell to the sandstone floor, light and brittle as a desiccated cocoon.
And I rose into the air, lifted by a power I’d never imagined possible. That single act had pushed me beyond any limits I’d known. Tycho was gone, and the shackles of memory that he’d bound me with for so long went with him.
Time ceased to exist in that dark moment. I’d advanced beyond the rank of disciple. My core swelled with new power, and a thunderclap filled my mind as I reached artist level.
When the world swam back into focus, every eye in that little building was fixed on me. Sanrin’s face was an anguished mask. Grayson’s horrified expression burned itself into my thoughts; he looked like a man who’d just seen the Reaper arrive.
Eric looked back over his shoulder, momentarily taking his eyes off the sage he’d pinned to the ground. “You did it,” he said, awe and envy in his voice.
“We have to go,” Clem insisted as she grabbed my hand. “The darkness is lifting. The heretics will find us.”
“Let me come with—” Sanrin begged.
I lashed out before he could finish his sentence. My fusion blade appeared and moved at the speed of thought. Its chisel tip punched through Sanrin’s right shoulder. Blood sizzled along the weapon’s edge as I recoiled for another strike. A quick slice opened a wound on the elder’s calf, and a third slash opened a long, deep cut down Grayson’s right thigh.
“What have you done?” Sanrin gasped.
“I’ve given the two of you something else to worry about,” I said. And then, to my friends, “Follow me.”
The heretics were already coming. My mother’s silver beam had landed on the arched entryway to our shelter. My mother and her followers would be on top of Sanrin and Grayson in seconds. The months-long war between my family and my clan would end here, one way or another.
“This isn’t over,” Sanrin called after me.
“Yes, it is,” I said, and left the two old warriors in the dust.
My team burst out of the building mere seconds before battle erupted behind us. Men and women screamed and shouted, techniques blazed in the darkness, and the earth shook beneath our feet as power hammered against the stones. I ran as fast as I could, using Vision of the Design to lead me through the ruin. It had improved dramatically since my advancement, and guided me through twists and turns toward the Forge.
Soon, the sounds of battle grew more distant, and an enormous gate lit with powerful scrivenings loomed ahead of us.
A thunderous explosion lit up the ruins we’d left behind. The silver light cast long shadows in every direction, and smaller ones flew away from it, burning bodies that crashed to the ground out of sight.
“Your elder,” Clem said.
“Not anymore,” I said quietly.
The Phoenixes had tried to kill me, then they’d brought me into their confidence and made me feel like I finally had a family. But all that was behind me. The road I’d set my feet upon wasn’t wide enough to bring so many along for the journey.
I led my friends, the only true family I had left, through the gate.
The Vision
THE FIRST THING I NOTICED when we passed through the gate was the utter stillness. The near-constant thunder of the collapsing ruins had been replaced by a silence broken only by the sound of my own breathing. Flickers of stark white radiance appeared and disappeared at random intervals down the length of the hallway that stretched out in front of us. The sharp bite of ozone accompanied each of those flashes. It reminded me of summer storms in Dallas, lightning spitting from the thunderheads that rolled in to block out the overcity’s blazing thrusters.
Memories of my playing in the rain as a child hit me like a storm of hammers. I could almost smell the stink of the algae vats and hear my mother calling me in so I wouldn’t catch a cold. It was hard to find my way through the tangled warp and weft of emotions that shrouded every thought of the woman who’d raised me. For so long I’d been her precious treasure, something to protect and nurture. I’d loved her with every fiber of my being.
But that was all a lie. My mother protected me because I was a weapon she’d hoped to wield against the Flame and its minions. The only love she’d ever felt was the affection a craftsman held for a well-made tool. When I’d turned in her hand, she’d showed me her true feelings and replaced me with
