Sepia Blue Nameless
Orlando A. Sanchez
Contents
About the Story
Quotation
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY -EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
Author Notes
Special Mentions
About the Author
Bitten Peaches Publishing
Acknowledgments
Contact Me
ART SHREDDERS
Thanks for Reading!
About the Story
There is power in a Name. There is greater power in the Nameless.
Velos roams the streets, killing Hunters with his dark blade, Retribution, and taking their named blades. Sepia, with power of the Jade Demon and Perdition must stop him.
Except there’s one complication—the Nameless—the one sword designed to destroy all the others has been found and the Unholy want it.
Now, Sepia will tap into a new power she can barely control, face off against an enemy with greater power, and prevent the Unholy from getting a world-ending sword or die in the process.
Can Sepia face the forces of the gathering storm threatening to destroy everything she holds dear…and defeat them without releasing the beast lying within?
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; the Named is the mother of all things.
— Lao Tzu
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
-Proverbs 21:17
ONE
Pain.
Unrelenting, indescribable pain flooded my body.
I found myself strapped to a large industrial-sized bed. The pain embraced my entire body, but its focal points were two searing areas of heat localized to my wrists. I looked down and saw two bronze restraints, one on each wrist, softly glowing green.
The sensation of pain and weight radiated outward from my wrists. Attached to the restraints, a thick black chain was making sure I didn’t leave the bed. I pulled against the chain until a thin sheen of sweat covered my face.
Nothing. Not even the slightest hint of failing.
“Those aren’t Hunter restraints,” a voice said. “You may as well conserve your strength.”
Calisto.
She stepped into my field of view and I glared at her. She was dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt. Her long black hair was tied in a braid and her pale skin glistened. White designs comprised of intricate lines covered every inch of visible skin except her face. Memories flooded me as I looked into her face.
Calisto. Gan’s wife…right. So many questions.
“What kind of restraints are these?” I asked, struggling to lift an arm to examine the chain further. “Where am I?”
“Those restraints were created by your mother to prevent your transformation into the Jade Demon,” Calisto answered. “Currently, we’re in the lower level of the Keep.”
“The Jade Demon? What are you talking about?”
I pulled against the chains one last time to make sure they were really capable of stopping me. They held fast at every point. The restraints laughed at my effort, and the enormous rings sticking out of the wall convinced me it was a lost cause. These chains weren’t coming off. Between being strapped to the bed and chained to the wall, I got the message, subtle though it was, that I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Stop it, or I will ask Mercy to incapacitate you.”
I stopped pulling, mostly. I still kept tension on the chains; I was stubborn that way. I decided to focus on information to make up for the gaps in my memory.
“What do you mean, Jade Demon?”
“Fuma removed most of the artifact, and then—”
“Most of? Where is the rest of it?”
Calisto pointed at me and nodded.
“In you.”
I looked around. The room we were in was unfamiliar to me. The brown stone walls were covered in wards and designs. All of them gave off a deep sensation of energy; none of them were remotely understandable to me. The room was empty except for the bed I lay in. Nothing about this space was welcoming. This room was created for a specific purpose—restraint and containment.
On the floor, I could see the bed sitting in the center of a ward circle. The symbols in the circle pulsed in time with the restraints on my wrists. The same green glow on the restraints suffused the circle beneath me.
“In me? How am I still alive and—”
“Not transformed into a Nightmare Lord?”
I nodded.
“Yes, that,” I said, looking away. “What happened to me?”
“Fuma managed to remove most of the artifact, but your body has absorbed a large quantity of it,” Calisto answered. “He then imbued Perdition with the Jade Demon, catalyzing the transformation before you were ready. He wanted you to lose control and destroy everything, starting with those close to you and ending with the Order. You were meant to be an out-of-control weapon.”
“Did I…?”
“You were stopped before you caused any deaths,” Calisto answered. “Your mother had the foresight to have those restraints created the first day she turned into the Jade Demon. They are called Demon Anchors.”
“Fuma?”
“Gone for now.”
I looked at my wrists again. There was a power, a force within me that needed to break free, that wanted to erupt from inside and lay waste to everything. The only things that were checking that power were the restraints on my wrists.
“She knew,” I said, mostly to myself. “She feared what this power was.”
“No, she didn’t fear it. Emiko respected the power of the Jade Demon,” Calisto said. “She also knew it could one day be out of control. The Anchors were her solution to the potential danger of the Jade Demon losing control.”
“She gave them to you?”
“Yes,” Calisto said with a nod. “It was decided a few days before her last battle at Bryant Park. She wanted to make sure you learned what the power of the Jade Demon was, and what it wasn’t.”
“And now that power is combined with Perdition somehow?”
“Yes,” Calisto said. “You will need to gain control of this power. The alternative is—”
“Not seeing how that’s going to happen while wearing these,” I said, raising my arms again. “These Anchors cut me off from the power.”
“No, they don’t. You just don’t know how to access the power safely…yet,” Calisto said. “Once you do, the Anchors will have served their purpose. Until then—”
“Pain?” I asked. “Because
