“James,” Liam tried again as his comms system came back online, “…use your aetherbreak…!”
Blood trailed behind Liam as he hobbled toward James and the Chevalier.
Metal tendrils curled around him as his suit diverted all lucidium resources into one final attack.
Through a cracked visor, the Chevalier’s features curled in a snarl. She abandoned James to finish off the dying metal exalt.
Wave after wave of electricity burst and flashed around him as she approached. The growing web of metal tendrils took the brunt of her assault. The rest still broke through and ripped through Liam’s broken body. His LCR wore down faster than his aetherbreak gauge could fill.
Just as the Chevalier leapt for him, Liam’s aetherbreak gauge chimed with a scrambled ding inside his weathered helmet. The gold lucidium veins in his suit flashed to life. The web of metal cords split, doubled, and then tripled across the battlefield until a cage of metal began to close around the Chevalier.
He closed one fist and guided the structure to collapse into itself and crush the Chevalier. Finally, the Chevalier dropped to her knees, ensnared by heavy, multiplying cords. Liam tightened the cords around her and just as he expected, the Chevalier sent another high-voltage charge through the cords. The current traveled through the metal still tethered to his gauntlets and burned through his body.
Any wings of lucidium exhaust that had started to form at Liam’s back darkened and faded as the Chevalier interrupted his aetherbreak.
It didn’t matter to Liam anymore—when he saw James climb to his feet and toss his drained battery aside, he knew his job was done.
The silvery veins in James’s suit flared to life and his frigid aetherbreak activated. Lucidium exhaust flared from the converter on James’s back.
Liam’s metal went brittle and cracked as ice spread across the battleground. The panes across the conservatory’s dome ceiling froze over and shattered. Glass fragments whirled like thousands of crystallized raindrops in a kaleidoscopic storm.
White light and avalanches of ice and crystal engulfed the garden. Liam could just barely make out the silhouettes of the Chevalier and his brother in the midst of the aetherbreak. A crystalline lance formed in James’s hands. He raised it over the trapped Chevalier who struggled against a prison of electrified cords. In one final burst of light, the javelin ripped through the Chevalier’s armor and plunged through her chest.
Silence fell over the battleground as the sparks faded. Ice spread through the Chevalier’s body until only a frigid, lifeless body remained.
The night sky sparkled with fewer stars than they saw upon their arrival as the static in the air faded. As she died, the wisps and butterflies faded with her, burning out one by one like the last stars in her isolated universe.
The structure of James’s sentisuit morphed and shifted. Accent colors faded to white. His suit began to evolve into one befitting of a new Chevalier.
Black splotched and spread over the surface of Liam’s suit. The transformation of his brother’s armor mirrored his own.
Both of their suits began to evolve.
16 | “Like a ring around the sun…”
The lucidium core of James’s suit flashed and pulsed. White had become the dominant color of his sentisuit, accented only by thin, black patterns and the silver, circuitry-like patterns of lucidium veins. The changes to Liam’s suit mirrored his brother’s, save for the dominance of black spread across his armor.
The suit of every exalt changed in subtle ways when their rank increased. The change from Rank 8 to Rank 9—Chevalier—was the most dramatic of all. Standard-issue accent colors either faded to white or darkened to black.
Liam had once heard an urban legend about the color of a Chevalier’s suit. For a new Chevalier to emerge with white armor, it was said that Libelle would know at least a decade of peace and quiet from the threats of wasteland mobs. For a Chevalier to emerge with black armor, it was said that their reign was fated to be short and riddled with misfortune and violence for Libelle.
People loved to speak of it just as much as they loved to quickly brush the adage aside as if they weren’t superstitious.
As he looked down at his black, bloodstained gauntlets, Liam wondered what meaning could possibly come of having both? There had never been two Chevaliers in Libelle’s history.
What had transpired in that moment was unprecedented. Even the system had said it—the title and victory went to the exalt who dealt the killing blow.
It should have been James. He couldn’t be a Chevalier. There had to be something wrong, some error, some glitch.
Then again, what did it matter?
Liam’s vision blurred again as disorienting fatigue barreled over him. His parched mouth and throat burned. His body barely moved as he willed it to. Sleep tempted him in a way he’d never known before—anything to be released of the pain in what remained of his body.
Delirious, Liam hobbled toward his brother through a firestorm of pain.
Just let me say goodbye.
He glimpsed his brother’s face one last time before an opaque mirror of chrome filtered across the visor.
Deafening static blared through the comms.
James screamed and pawed at the clasps on the base of his helmet. Liam winced through the sound penetrating his skull. Had he not been on the verge of death as it was, he may have ripped at his helmet, too.
“James…!” Liam cried.
The Chevalier dropped to his knees and roared once more in agony.
Vespid drones hovering overhead darkened. No bold, red light indicated recording. Libelle would not see any of this, Liam was sure. Chrysid would hide this from the world, too. Only they would witness the truth. Only they would witness the fleeting in history where Libelle had two Chevaliers.
A cacophony of noise ground through their comms, rising until it peaked with silence. James stilled and slumped forward. Despite the comms going momentarily offline, Liam could hear his brother groan. A long mewl that escalated into a tearful wail.
“Don’t show me this—don’t show me this,
