RE: Monarch

Ephira’s expression barely changed. But the palpable bloodlust she emitted slackened, and an expression of puzzlement played across her brows.

Before anyone could do anything to throw us back into chaos, I pulled an alchemical potion from my bag and threw it towards her. A flash of nerve-scalding white brighter than any sun exploded outward from the shattered bottle filling the once-dim room. My throw was intentionally short and my companions shouted, confused and alarmed. Despite shielding my eyes with my sleeve, my vision was still fraught with a purpling after-image that faded to bruise green.

I rushed forward and tackled Ephira into the parlor, careful to cushion her head from the fall. My wrist jarred painfully against the floor, pinioned between the back of her neck and the cool wooden slats.

“What the—“ She sputtered.

I clamped a hand over her over her mouth and whispered in her ear. “Persephone is moving against you.”

She immediately stilled, confirming my suspicions. It was pure unadulterated conjecture. There had to be another motive. Seeing how wealthy Mifral’s estate was—almost irresponsibly so, with troves of wealth sitting out like the beginning of a dragon’s horde—it didn’t make sense to break into the place to acquire a single sapphire. I still didn’t have the whole picture yet, but Ephira’s presence here had not been a mistake. The hypothesis was beginning to form in the back of my mind.

“I’m working it from the inside.” I continued, sparing a panicky glance over my shoulder.

“And you think I’ll just let you go, after you’ve made a fool of me?” Ephira’s grip on my arms tightened to a painful squeeze.

“Think of all you stand to gain. I’ll make reparations. I swear it.” We had seconds. Maybe less.

Greed and pride warred in her expression, greed eventually winning out. “And what do you propose?” Ephira asked.

I told her.

Shear stumbled into the room, still concussed.

In the end, I didn’t have to tell her to make it look good. Ephira pulled back a fist imbued with electricity and punched me in the gut.

----

It was far from a glamorous escape. Ginger blew out the back wall of the parlor with an explosive charge. Unable to hide the pang of regret at the expending of resources, I threw down two bottles of molten smoke, leaving only one remaining.

My air magic wasn’t nearly fine-tuned enough to manipulate all of it, but I could capture enough that it formed a black moving cloud around us, maneuvered to block the view from ranged attackers and pursuers.

We sprinted across the artificial turf of Mifral’s estate, still weakened and sick from the effects of the gravity field while a half-dozen guards chased after us, equally weakened and sick.

I spared a glance back at the gaping hole in the wall we’d escaped from and wished I hadn’t. Ephira’s feet were planted firmly on the edge. Her arms outstretched. A massive disk of blue-white electricity formed above us. Lightning struck with a roaring boom, over and over, each strike a near miss that tossed sod into the air, showering us with detritus. A few bolts landed perilously close to my feet, as if Ephira was going out of her way to remind me that there would be a part two to our conversation.

We were too clumped together.

Jorra tripped, almost going down, and I used the opportunity to slow down and hoist him up. Then, I opened a window in the smoke, revealing Shear.

The bolt of lightning struck out immediately and pierced Shear through his back. The man’s shirt ripped open, pale Lichtenberg figures crossing his spine. His left boot flew off as if forcibly expelled from his foot and he collapsed, body rolling limply in the dirt.

Ginger’s swearing increased in volume and propensity, but he picked up speed rather than slowing down. Despite the franticness of the scene, I’d been waiting for it, and committed Ginger’s reaction to memory. There was no emotional jolt when Shear was hit. The dwarf didn’t even consider stopping to grab him. His reaction was one of pure fear and nothing more.

The fact that they were new colleagues was likely not an act then.

There was a feeling of an unbelievable amount of static that built through the left side of my body the second before another jagged bolt of lightning struck the ground before me. I lost my footing and fell into a roll, shoulder throbbing.

I fought the urge to turn around and glare at Ephira. She was going overboard in terms of selling this. Any more enthusiasm on her end and she wouldn’t be pretending.

We closed on one of the grates that lead down into the sewer. I gathered the smoke around us to make it dense as possible. Jorra opened the grate and Ginger prepared to enter.

“Get the gem where it needs to go,” I yelled at him. “We’ll draw them off.”

“We’ll do what?” Jorra gawked at me.

“It’ll be fine.” I reiterated. Ginger didn’t have to be told twice. Sparing me a glance of respect, he lowered himself into the grate and slid down the ladder into the sewer below.

The sound of guards shouting through the smoke grew closer. I replaced the grate.

We managed to get out of Highpoint before everything was locked down. I had no doubt that Ephira had run interference, or at least waited to call for additional backup.

Still, a small group of guards from Mifral’s faction pursued us doggedly. We had made fools of them, and there’s few things that motivates a man more assuredly than pride.

They followed relentlessly no matter what we did, leaping over fences and knocking shingles down as we navigated across the tops of building.

It would have been wiser to split up, but I had a few resources left to spend, while Jorra was close to tapped. As the fool who’d gotten him into this, it was my responsibility to get him out.

Someone waved at me in the distance: a whiskery, balding infernal I recognized as one of the homeless I’d been paying for information. He summoned us over towards the mouth of an alley. Wordlessly, he waved us through and cluttered up the path with his belongings.

Seconds later I heard a crash. The man cried out in pain. I winced.

Poor bastard.

I’d find a way to make it up to him later.

We darted through an alley and found ourselves in the Enclave’s temple district. It was bustling and crowded this time of the afternoon, with thousands of infernals taking a break from their day for mid-afternoon communion. In the center square, there were statues of various arch-fiends, as well as the occasional merchant selling miniaturized icons and idols. Grand temples to various elements lined the streets, adorned with banners and lit by lumen lamps shaded in the color of their associated element.

“Shit,” I hissed.

“What’s wrong?” Jorra asked. We began to press our way through the throng of people.

“It’s too populated. The moment the Guards arrive we’ll be pinned in. We need a place to disappear.”

Jorra turned around in a full circle, considering the area. “There.” He pointed to a temple at the corner. It was smaller than the rest, absent the fluorescent and borderline gaudy ornamentation of the other temples. Four pillars thicker around than a crimson oak adorned its front, supporting a massive overhang that covered the entrance in shadow. A simple black banner was plastered across the front, emblazoned with a circle that gave the vague impression of a porthole’s view to the stars.

It would have to do.

We pushed our way through the crowd. Jorra looked back, his face grim. Our pursuers stopped at the outskirts to scan the many faces. I pushed Jorra to the side. He separated from me, and we moved calmly towards several yards parallel to each other. The guards were looking for two cloaked thieves, not one.

As long as they didn’t spot our masks, we had a chance.

Unlike the other open-form temples, the black-banner temple had a gate formed from dark burnished wood. For a moment, I was terrified the temple was closed, and we’d be left exposed at the top of the stairs in clear view. But almost as if by magic, the doors swung open.

The inside was pitch-black and smelled of must. We stepped inside, and the doors swung shut behind us. I waited until my eyes adjusted. There was some light, its origin a huge assortment of floating white specks that were embedded everywhere. The temple mainly consisted of one massive room—the same starry pattern that was on the banner decorating the walls and floors. In the center of the room were a series of charcoal-colored stone gates with empty centers. They looked too similar to the dimensional gate for it to be a coincidence.

“What is this place?” I asked Jorra, still to relieved from escaping the guards to feel any real tension from the alien surroundings.

“The void temple. What the hells happened back there, Cairn?” Jorra collapsed against a nearby wall.

“Don’t call me that.” I looked around. It seemed to be empty, but there were plenty of dark corners someone could be hiding.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Sontar. Relax. No one ever comes here. Even void-users, on the off-chance the legends are true and worshipping at a temple increases the chances of awakening the element.” The words came out sharp. On closer inspection, I realized Jorra was close to angry as I’d ever seen him.

“Wait,” I blinked. “Why are you mad at me? I gave you all the time in the world to back out.”

“It's not that.” Jorra blew air through his teeth. “Just, if you knew it was going to go that wrong, I wish you would have told me.”

“Jorra, I didn’t know—“

“Maya told me about your thing. The visions.”

“Did she also tell you I don’t always get them?” I asked.

Jorra took off his mask. He looked troubled. “Yes. But it seemed like you knew something was going to go wrong. You had those alchemy potions. And you got the best of Ephira there, at the end. Gods. Ephira.” Jorra shivered.

His misunderstanding became clear.

I gave him a strong push in the small of his back. Jorra staggered forward, then he caught his balance.

With a growl of outrage, Jorra planted his hands on my chest and pushed. He was stronger than he looked, and I nearly fell. He stepped towards me again, but paused when I held out a hand to stop him.

“Wait.” I said, more commanding. “I’m trying to prove a point.”

“Oh? Is that what you call it?” Jorra snapped.

I reached out with the same amount of strength and pushed against his chest. Jorra didn’t budge. His eyebrows knitted together, confused.

“You didn’t move this time.” I pointed out. “Why?”

“Because I knew it was coming.” He straightened his robe with a scowl. “That’s the point you’re trying to make? That it’s better to leave me in the dark, so I react more genuinely and don’t give your plans away?”

“Not at all.” I countered. “ Leaving people in the dark has burned me too many times already. Think about it. I pushed you from the back, when you weren’t expecting it. The second time, I pushed you from the front. You didn’t need to have the exact same thing happen twice to react correctly. The point I’m making is that I’m used to seeing shit go sideways. It’s always in the back of my head, how many ways even the simplest things can go wrong. And nothing about that situation was simple. I didn’t know what would happen at Mifral’s estate. But I recognized the potential shit-show that it could have been and prepared accordingly.”

Jorra mulled that over. The stiffness in his posture marginally faded.

“So, you really didn’t know.”

“No. Gods. What a mess.”

I circled the small temple, taking in the various carvings, using my spark for light. The relief of a raven was prominently featured. Ravens flying across landscapes, ravens consuming other animals. They were always positioned so the head was horizontal in perspective, a single dark eye staring out at the observer.

“My whole body is shaking. Feels like it won’t ever stop.” Jorra said it as a joke, but I heard the fear in his words.

“It just takes time.” I told him. No one had been there to tell me how these things worked, and walking someone else through it felt like righting old wrongs. “Your body is crashing. You never realize how much energy you’re using while the adrenaline is pumping through your system, and as soon as its gone everything feels magnified. The gravity field probably didn’t help, either.”

Jorra groaned. “That thing was the worst. Wait, so what happened exactly?” He looked at me suspiciously. “Did you make it go off?”

“Gods no.” I shook my head. My stomach still felt like hell.

“Next time you want to steal something, leave me out of it.” Jorra shook his head. “All that work and nothing to show for it.”

“Not exactly—“ I was cut off by the sound of wood striking metal. A torch lit from behind us.

I spun.

An infernal stood outlined in the dim light. She was about a head shorter than me and held a wooden practice sword in her hand.

“You know, I heard the disturbance outside.” Her voice was a familiar. “All those guards, shouting about a couple of thieves.” She circled us. “Then I come back, and, lo’ and behold, a couple of folks I’ve never seen in this temple before talking about stealing. That can’t be a coincidence, right?”

“Sure it can,” Jorra said. “Lots of things can be a coincidence.”

“It’s not.” I admitted easily. Jorra made a choking sound. “How have you been, Bell?”

Bellarex stopped mid-stride. She pointed her practice sword at my neck. “How do you know me?”

I took off my mask. There was no point in hiding my face. She’d seen Jorra unmasked, and it would be easy enough to connect the two of us—and I needed her to trust me.

“The human!” Bell exclaimed.

“I awakened a second element. Ralakos pointed me your way for help with training. I’m sure your father told you about it.”

“Yes!” Bell’s smile faded as quickly as it appeared. “But, I’m not sure how that has anything to do with stealing.”

“Well,” I glanced at Jorra, “In my culture it’s common to provide a gift to a new teacher.”

“You stole something for me?” Bell looked horrified.

“Of course not. More like borrowed, to show you in person.” I said carefully. “Can’t let you keep it. That’d be wrong and all, but…”

I reached in my pocket and pulled the sapphire from the safe out. Jorra’s jaw dropped. Placing it carefully on the ground, I rolled it across the floor to her.

“Wait, what? Didn’t you give it to Ginger?” He whispered to me.

I shrugged. “We’ll talk about it later.”

Bell dropped her practice sword immediately, suspicions forgotten, and took them gem in both hands. She looked past it towards me, her smile returned at full-blast.

“I have so many questions.” Bell said.

I coughed to hide a laugh, remembering all too well how extensively she’d interrogated us after the test in the previous life.

“Somehow, I thought you might.”

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