Grim is the most grand city that I have ever visited, the only city that I have ever visited. When I imagined it as a girl, riding through the tall oaken gates of some well-guarded entrance into a city–riding a black stallion of course–I thought that I might see a landscape of architecture and culture spread out before me. The men would be pleasant-faced, all smiles and beckoning hands, good-naturedly trying to get my attention to visit their shops or stalls. The women would sit on streetside tables, fanning themselves despite the perfect weather, hair done up in over-complicated curls, bodies draped in cloth of the latest fashion, blue or green most likely, and their eyes would move to me as I rode by. They would whisper behind their fans at who might that beautiful young woman be; she is so adventurous looking, rustic certainly, but there is something about her that seems too refined to be what she is, like she is a princess pretending to be a commoner. I would smile at them, say something witty in the spur of the moment, and the gossip at my arrival would begin. That was decidedly not how I entered the city of Grim.
When I woke up, I found myself on a linen bed, white sheets tucked tightly around me, a pitcher of water on the table at my side. A mess of bandages were wound tight around my stomach, so much that it made breathing difficult. I ripped them away, depositing them bloody on the floor, finding no lasting wounds on my bare stomach from the several holes the knife had punched in me. There was a scar though, a long and straight line that started on my left side and cut from the bottom of my ribs almost to the naval, the single cut that monster had lain on me. I found the scar’s twin on my back, that line more jagged, almost reaching my spine, only a faint strip of undamaged flesh separating the two where they tried to meet on my side. I can’t remember any of my wounds scarring since I gained my essentia.
A lone window stood open in the room, and from it I could see a pristine vista of grassland before a forest, mountains climbing up in the east and setting their long shadows over the waving stalks. It took a moment for my brain to realize that the window was high up, very high up in fact, only ten or so feet away from the edge of a stone platform. Some impulse pushed me to slip out the window, walk to the edge of the platform, and peer down.
A great expanse of architecture dropped out below me, hundreds of buildings, some sharing huge stone platforms while others crowded together in conjoined neighborhoods. For each level down along the maze of structures, the platforms seemed to grow just a little larger, jutting a little further forward toward the open air and a fall into oblivion. White stone was the prevailing feature, strong and flat buildings the common thread, but cloth accents of all colors were neatly displayed on every roof, balcony, and doorway. The multitude of color was so great that if I unfocused my eyes, the world below seemed to blur into a chaotic tableau, the stone vanishing in the mix.
Ropes, bridges, drawn elevating platforms, and rope ladders were strung everywhere, between the buildings, between the platforms, and even between windows. People moved between, dressed in light fabrics of all colors swaddled about them, their arms kept free of encumbrance as they climbed or descended. A man swung out over the edge of a platform holding tightly to a rope, only to land with inordinate grace upon another one level below, walking off the swing into a confident stride as he stepped forward and grabbed another man in a tight embrace.
I stared to the side, seeing huge buildings of grandeur all throughout the levels about me, gold and silver gleaming from decorations, and I noticed for the first time that I stood just next to Arabella’s flying mansion. The wall that the city clung to stretched high overhead, casting half of the structures in shadow despite the sun being so clear in the sky. Vertigo crept over me as I stared up at the highest point of the wall, eyes falling without fail on the few buildings situated near the peak. The need to sit overcame me, and I crawled back in through the window to fall back into bed.
It doesn’t take ten minutes before the handle on the door starts to turn and one of Arabella’s simulacra allows itself into the room. It beckons for me, silently, and I toss away my blankets to follow. People scurry about the halls of the mansion, carrying vases, brooms, mops, cans of paint, or some kind of gilded furniture. Scenes of glory and horror line the walls, the paint so intricate that the barely clothed women in them seem real. Barely clothed women seems the theme in each depiction; someone has a thing for blondes. A man carrying a paint can backs into me as I pass a junction, anger flashing over his face as the white begins to settle on the front of his apron. Then he looks up at me, meeting my eye, and all of the anger vanishes in a moment as he bows his head, backing away in a rush. It’s hard to remember the last time a man needed to look up to me, but scanning the buzzing corridors, most of these would.
The door to Arabella’s office swung wide on freshly oiled hinges, and there she was, sitting cross-legged on the sofa, a delicate cup of porcelain raised to her lips as she blew on the steam. Her eyes flick up to me as I walk inside, the billowing light show of hair swirling around her making it seem that her face is peering out from some colorful cloud. The door behind me clicks closed as the clone leaves the two of us together. Arabella motions to the sofa opposite her with her teacup. I find my seat and accept the offered cup of tea, drinking a mouthful of the sweet leaf water, steam and all.
“First, I believe I should ask how you are,” Arabella says, putting her cup down on a silver saucer. She takes a moment to adjust a few pieces of paper that lie on the table between us, written in some language I have no clue at.
“Do as you like,” I say. The tea really is good.
“How are you?”
I toss the rest of my tea down, letting it linger on my tongue for a delicious moment, before setting aside my cup as well. “I don’t really know,” I say, finding the words true as I speak them. “I feel…fine, I guess. Worried, a bit, wanting to know why I am back in your mansion and not lying on the side of a dirt road leading away from a tower. Did I mess up in some way and was removed from the contest?”
Truthfully, since waking up a few minutes ago, the thought of the guild knowing what I did, that I had killed Coriander, has been eating at me. They seemed to know everything that went on in the trial grounds, I had seen projections of such. It is hard to believe now just how badly I wanted to get to her, that I would overlook the idea of what happens afterward. But then, if I was pulled from the contest as a murderer and was to be held now, there seemed to be a distinct lack of security about.
“No, nothing wrong.” Arabella sighs, tapping her chin with a slender finger. “Though, you were pulled from the contest, everyone was after that travesty. The Passage of Rising Tide has been ended early, an abject failure by almost every way of looking at it. The contest has only ended early a single time before, making this the second shameful year such has needed to be done.”
“By travesty, you mean…”
“I hardly need to explain it to you, by all accounts. Kellis says that it was you who allowed him back into the tower to hold that creature down until help could arrive, that you risked life and limb to do it. From the state we found you in just outside of the tower, I doubt that anyone would disagree with him. They would already be sharing projections of your battle with the beast, a rank one magician against a high rank three monster, if it had already not torn through the command deck. My uncle, Dovik, corroborates the story.”
“I would hardly call what I did a battle,” I say, mind working furiously to pick at all the details in her words. It had already gone through the command deck, was that where they controlled the tower from? I already know that it killed at least one of the competition’s proctors, how many more had it cut down before it appeared before me? “I was slapped away from it like a fly.”
“A resilient fly,” Arabella allows. “That creature was…unusually powerful for its kind.”
“What is its kind?” I ask, leaning forward, a drip of tea spilling from my cup as I pour myself another glass. “Obviously, I have never encountered something like it before. What was that thing?”
She furrows her brow, looking at her fingers for a moment. “We do not know. The absurdity of it all, of the last few days, how can it even be considered? The intelligence that it displayed is not so out of place for a monster so strong, but cunning, its approach, as it understood who we were and knew how to penetrate our defenses, it has upset the guild. As well it should. A monster capable of sophisticated reasoning in the third rank is a dangerous thing to consider, if truly a monster it even was.”
“You are saying that it wasn’t actually a monster.”
Arabella looks up from her hand, worry disappearing from her face. “Just a pet theory, ungrounded, with only the slightest of evidence in…evidence. Forget I mentioned it, the uniqueness of these dangerous manifestations increases along with their power. That there exists such a superstructure of magical expression like the one that you encountered in the tower and that we have no record of is not uncommon. Our guild does not have a comprehensive record of every monster in existence, no guild does as far as I am aware. It isn’t as if we share this information between us.”
“That seems a dangerous way to do business,” I say.
“It is done for profit, as most things are. Guilds are more inclined to take commissions for executing creatures for which they have extensive knowledge of. Likewise, others are incentivized to leave the unknown monsters alone, or else face unknown perils as well. One of the greatest benefits a guild can offer are records of particular threats and how to deal with them.”
“So, it may be that some other adventurer’s guild has information about that thing that attacked the tower.”
“Perhaps,” she says. “Its corpse will be analyzed, what remains of it anyway. I believe also that there will be an information bounty placed upon it, the reward will need to be incredible to tempt some secrets out of another guild, but considering what it did, I believe that the guild will spare no expense.”
“It is dead then.” I stare down at the steaming cup in front of me, any temptation to drink another fill of the sweet tea evaporated. “It is hard for me to believe that it could die.”
“All things can die, Charlene.” The sincerity in Arabella’s voice drags me from my melancholy. “That is one of the first things that it is imperative to learn in this line of work. When your goal is to kill monsters, understanding that both they and you can perish at any moment is vital. I had thought that I taught you that on your first day with me, one of the few things I taught you.”
“You did.” I nod, thinking about that first day in the cafe, the feeling of the Desert Spearman crushing my skull in its terrible jaws. It seems like so long ago now. “I have not forgotten.”
“Good.” She sits back, her appetite for tea perfectly intact. “Yes, it was slain. Kellis managed to hold it down long enough for assistance to arrive. He sacrificed his good looks for the effort, something that only a few of us must sacrifice for the greater good, but we all understand it and respect it.”
She catches the confusion on my face.
“Those blades that it used to split poor Dab Salt down the middle with were seemingly capable of leaving soul wounds. The doctors explained that you had a run in with them as well.”
My hand reflexively falls to my stomach, feeling the new pink scar beneath my shirt. “Soul wound.”
“It sounds worse than it is,” she explains. “Soul wounds can heal, but they will leave lasting scars, something that our profession does not often need to bother with. There are some ways in which they can become a real concern, but you need not trouble yourself with that. Kellis already had a few scars, adding some more prominent ones will not bother him too much I imagine.”
“I didn’t imagine that I would need to worry about scars anymore,” I say. I realize that I am rubbing at the scar on my stomach and have to forcefully pull my hand away. “After being brutalized so much, thrown off a cliff even, and not finding any, I didn’t imagine that they would be a concern any longer.”
“They are not, for the most part. I would not concern yourself overmuch with that one,” she says, nodding at me. “If someone finds themselves staring at it, I dare say they will likely already have more impressive things to capture their attention.” Heat flushes to my face at that, but she waves her hand, moving the topic along gracefully. “Kellis also mentioned one more thing that you did at the top of the tower.”
My heart skips a beat.
“One thing that you took before slipping away. Show it to me.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
It is all I can do not to sigh in relief. If she really knows what happened to Coriander and is dragging this out to work at my nerves, she is twice the manipulative serpent that I already imagine her to be. I stretch out my hand, fingers touching upon the position in my inventory. Once second, my palm is empty, and the next I am holding a sphere of crystal bands, woven together in an intricate embrace that is impossible for me to fully understand. The crystal catches and refracts the light in the room, throwing rainbows about, faint shimmering patterns of myriad runes cutting outlines in the colors.
“I thought that I might take this on my way out,” I say. “It surprised even me, considering just how much I wanted to be out of that room.”
“Your greed does you credit. Best to seize all opportunities that appear in front of us and are easy to reach,” Arabella says. She plucks the soul cage from my hand, holding it up in the light, turning it this way and that for effect. “Such a wonderful prize. One of the four best soul cages allotted as prizes in the trial, though half were never gotten to before we needed to end things. Considering what you did at the end, how many lives you managed to save with your bravery and decisive action, I cannot think of a better competitor to walk away with it.”
Arabella sets the soul cage back in my hand, such a delicate and light thing. A part of me soaks up the praise, though the acknowledgement and valuable item seem small compared to the risk. Another part cringes from it, knowing that I saved one fewer life than anyone might imagine. Could you weigh them against each other, one life taken, a few rescued, and say that it was all worth it. I know that the sister in the church back home would tell me no, especially considering that it was a pure-blood life taken, but a part of me, a deep and callous part, feels that I am still on the right side of things when the weighing is done.
“What is this meant for?” I ask, hefting the soul cage.
“I dare say, that eye of yours should tell you that much,” Arabella says.
“No, I mean yes. What I mean to ask is why should this one be better than another? I only have a passing understanding of soul cages. The one that my brother used seemed to be made of silver. The one that Jor’Mari used was made of gold and some other metal, it is supposed to have properties of light and shadow, but I don’t truly understand what that means.” The ball of woven crystal in my hand sparkles, such a tasty trinket. “My eye tells me that this one carries a refractory property, that its form is made to lean toward the soul and body, that it is a clean soul cage.”
Arabella considers me for a moment, leaning her head to the side to peer at me. “I was about to do it again, wasn’t I? Send you off without properly preparing you. I truly am a waste as a mentor.” She sighs, eyes scanning the surface of the table. Then she nods, pulling a smile from somewhere and showing it off to me. “I will remedy that now then.
“To say that there are only two kinds of soul cages would be misleading. In actuality, the construction of the objects is as varied as the materials and inscriptions used, no two are exactly alike. However, there exist two major purposes of the device, the first being to capture the soul of an individual and hold it on this side of the divine veil, and the second to aid in the attainment of the third rank.
“The second rank is when one begins to solidify their foundations, when they start to unravel the base mysteries of magic and feel for the first time their connection to it. That is what affinities are, the natural concepts to which a soul is attracted. Understanding, mastering, and expanding those is the most vital aspect of the second rank. For the period of the rank, the affinities that a magician cultivates will become imprinted on them if they ever achieve the third rank, where the body is remade and joined fully with the soul.
“When I pushed through the second rank I focused on the concepts of cold, light, and deception. As such, when my body was remade during my ascension, those aspects became a part of me in a true sense.” She opens her hand, a snowflake made of dazzling yellow light expanding up from her palm. “As such, I require no ability granted by essentia to perform illusions, no spellwork or enchantment is employed, because I am the nexus for this concept to exist in the material world. Are you following me so far?”
“I think so.” I sit back and sip at my tea. “I have my fire affinity, so you are saying that by the time I reach the third rank I will be able to create fire freely. I can already do that.”
She thinks on that for a moment. “It slipped my mind that you have already been working at affinities. Normally, practitioners will hold off on doing so until the second rank, they do not have enough of an understanding about the makeup of their souls until then, until it is housed inside of them in the material world. You are a bit unique in that, a good thing, I am sure.”
Arabella leans forward, tapping the soul cage with a finger. “Returning to these, there are essentially two common methodologies in the construction of such devices. In one method, arcane affinities are infused into the material of the cage; the one made of light and shadow would be such a kind. The idea is that by the soul being in close proximity to the powerful magical affixes for an extended period of time, it will then begin to take on the properties of that magic. There are very few ways to permanently gain an affinity, and housing your soul inside of a specific kind of soul cage is the easiest method.”
“Are affinities so difficult to attain?” It occurs to me that revealing I have already attained one may be information that I wish to keep to myself.
“To gain an affinity is to make a permanent change to the soul. There are ways to do it, using soul cages, submerging in magical treasures of sufficient power, even being struck by a powerful attack, but all carry drawbacks whether it is scarring, permanent impairment, or in the soul cage’s case, time. As I told you before, when one ascends to the third rank, their soul and body merges, becoming more powerful and gaining some measure of control over the concepts they house. The more powerful one becomes, the further along their chosen path they walk, the more difficult it is to change this. Gaining affinities at the third rank is doable but incredibly difficult, it is almost never done at the fourth, and I am not even certain that it is possible at the fifth. You would have to ask someone at that stage of advancement, though I doubt they would let slip any secrets.”
I chew on that for a moment. From what I have come to understand about my own ability, Emperor’s Prerogative, it will allow me to gain affinities without needing to naturally lean toward them. If what Arabella is saying is true, then I will need to spend as much time as I can in the second rank finding new ones. As I continue to grow stronger, it will only become more difficult, apparently. Add to that, I also need to find specific affinities to integrate into my soul so that I can merge with their concepts upon reaching the third rank. I can’t help but smile at my own thoughts. Here I am, suddenly so sure that I will actually make it that far when I am well aware that the vast majority never even come close to the third rank. Funny thing is, I am sure that I will make it that far.
“How many affinities can someone take with them into the third rank? Or, I mean, how many can they use to create their new body? Can you make your body however you want?”
Arabella sputters a laugh, looking me up and down. “Do you have particular modifications in mind?”
I find myself blushing again. It’s an oddly nice feeling; I haven’t had much need to blush recently. “What girl doesn’t?”
“Ascension into the third rank does not work exactly in that way. The theology is argued in every part of the world, a favorite topic for priests for some reason. The common understanding is that it brings you as close to your idealized form as possible, and the gods acknowledge your climb by granting you Regalia.” She motions to the nebula of effervescent hair gently floating around her. “I, however, do not believe that the gods have any hand in the transformation. Placing the nature of the soul aside, easier said than done, the merging of the soul and body does try to change you into a singular being, doing away with the duality of the body/soul separation. The affinities that you have at the fore in the transformation have an influence. I would, for example, attribute my Regalia to my deception and light affinities, and this bloodless skin to the winter affinity I managed to create shortly before breaking through.” She holds up an alabaster hand, so flawless, and frowns at it. “Would you believe that I used to tan at the slightest bit of sun. Now it refuses to give me any kisses.”
She sighs, her hand falling into her lap, and looks me over. Then she squints. “Right, your question. The most affinities I have ever heard of someone carrying over during the merger is five. You might certainly cultivate more than that, particularly talented practitioners might have as many as a dozen at their disposal, but each affinity you attempt to integrate into the merger places a greater stress on the transformation. The negative results can be…extreme.”
“I see.”
“Which,” she rolls the soul cage, “brings me back to the original topic. The second methodology in the construction of soul cages places an emphasis on the purity of the material. These are magical devices after all, works of enchantment, and the cornerstone of enchantment is the creation of tools and items based upon the interaction of magical affinities. To make one that will not allow any kind of affinity to interact with the soul it houses either requires mundane materials or an extreme skill in the craft. This is why the more pure soul cages are favored by those with not much money on hand when they start to reach the second rank, or those with long lineages and paths well-laid out, not wanting to have any influence on the soul outside of their already well-established progression.”
“How well established?” I ask.
“My grandfather is the head of one such lineage, made by him and named for the path he managed to navigate on his way to the highest reaches of power, The Silent Blade. I believe Dovik walks that path as well. If Dovik manages to navigate the path of the silent blade all the way to its apex, he would conceivably make it to the fifth rank, though he would be the first acolyte of my grandfather to do so. The confluences of the two men may be different, but the knowledge and guidance provided by working beneath a powerful mentor is an incredible boon.”
“I can imagine.”
Arabella winces. “You let me know when I have apologized enough times for my negligence in that area.”
“You are getting close to the number.” I study the soul cage. I only grabbed it on a whim. The crystal almost sings at my touch, such a pretty thing. “So, this would be the second kind, one that won’t help me with affixes.”
“No,” she confirms. “It won’t help you there, it’s focus will simply be on empowering your soul, which is what the really promising ones are able to do. Soul cages such as the one you have there are reserved for those who plan on shooting for the third rank with a certainty, those who have deep pockets and a path they already tread upon, one they do not want influenced by the unnecessary distraction of additional affix influence.”
I look up to her, but all of her focus is directed to the soul cage. Now I roll it on the table with a finger, back and forth, back and forth. “But I do not have any such path.”
“I don’t know about that.” Arabella rests her finger atop mine, stilling my motion. “I am certain that you will find your way forward.” She releases her hand, her own sliding to the papers sitting out in front of her. “And I am not the only one.”
“Letters from my admirers?"
She taps the papers on the table, straightening them. “In a way. These are the evaluations of the competitors who participated in the trials. There is a bit of conflict in the placements since the trial itself did not conclude in the usual manner. Fortunes among the sponsors have been lost over the results.”
“You bet on the outcome of the trial?”
“Charlene, you may not know this given your background, but whenever you gather the incredibly wealthy together to spectate an event while getting piss drunk, wagers begin to buzz about like flies on shit. I try to recuse myself from such sport. I was always on backup to be an agent for the guild in the trial if the need arose, but by the nature of my competitors’ placements, I did not come out so far behind. Coriander’s loss is regrettable, but I told you before that I had already chosen to cut the girl loose. Her death at the hands of that beast concludes things in as best an order as I can ask for.” She looks at me, hard for a moment, and I feel the temperature in the room plummet for an instant. “She died by its hand.”
“She…did.” The words come puffing from my lips. “I s-saw it…myself.”
“Good.” All at once the cold leaves us, the air returning to a pleasant heat. Arabella taps the papers on the table once more. “You managed to make the top half of the top cut, the top five as it were. Given that over half of the trial was not conducted, these placements are in dispute, as I said before. That does not mean that the guild will shirk its rewards.”
I sit back, leaving the sparkling bauble on the table between us. My mind works furiously, trying to understand what just happened, the implications of it. How could it be that only yesterday I was dirty, bleeding my guts out, and all I could think about was getting back at the girl who tried to kill me? It seems so far away, so far as merely a few hours can. I feel something cold on my face. My thumb pulls a tear from my cheek. How strange, I thought I couldn’t cry anymore.
All at once it feels like I can’t get enough air in, like I need to breathe in three times. A pain in the center of my chest thuds dully and I put my hand to my throat, trying to hold it down. Arabella just sits there, looking at me, a distant pity on her face as I struggle for air. The pain, the feeling of suddenly drowning, passes ever so slowly, and I am left feeling hollow, sitting there on such a wonderful example of fine upholstery. How can it possibly be over?
“As one of the top five,” Arabella continues, looking down at her papers while I expend all my focus on keeping my hands still. My fingers itch to scratch; at what, I don’t know. I try to focus on her, on the distant buzz of her words, and ever so gradually they become sharper. “...but the usual triumph and procession up the side of Grim will not be called for in this circumstance. The invitation to dinner with the fawning royalty will be politely declined. The guild will extend to you what it usually does for those evaluated in the top ten most poachable participants, a pick of any item of your choosing from the Guildmaster’s vault. As the fourth placement, you will choose fourth. Make up your mind about what you might want to find, my grandfather’s vault is extensive, so squandering such an opportunity as this would be about the most wasteful thing one can do.”
“I already know what I want.” It is all I have been able to think about since I woke up in the mansion again. No, all I have been able to think about since I woke up at the bottom of that cliff. “You said that the competition was a failure, and I will agree. I was supposed to reach the second rank during it. I have not.” Leaning forward, swallowing the pain that still thuds in my throat, I pocket the soul cage once more into my inventory. “That is what I want. I want to reach it as fast as possible.”
“An interesting request.” Arabella taps her chin with a finger, the corner of her mouth curling. “It is in my best interest to see that done as well. We have a contract with one another after all; I still need you to reach rank three on time. Do not waste your opportunity to plunder the Guildmaster’s vault on it. I will see that it is done.”
“How?”
“Why, the same way that you came so far already. By dropping you into a nest of monsters.” The curl to Arabella’s lip turns wicked. “Perhaps we might skip the impaling this time around.”
Exeter help me, I can’t help but smile as well. “That sounds like an excellent idea.”
If you happen to be enjoying the story so far, you can support it by leaving a review, rating, following, or favoriting. Ratings help this story immensely. I have recently launched a for those that want to read ahead or support this work directly. Also, I have a fully released fantasy novel out for anyone that wants to read some more of my work.
Have a magical day!
Read ahead and get unique side-stories on
Amazon: Kindle Edition:
Apple Books:
Barnes & Noble:
