Syrus stared at the thick alloy door of the training grounds, priming himself for the moment to come while waiting for the earth to stop shaking beneath him.
Not that the earth was the only thing shaking.
He never fully trusted defensive wards, especially where Ruin was involved. It didn’t matter to him that the remote building was the product of some of the finest architects, craftsmen, and arcanists in the empire; everything broke if you hit it hard enough.
And no one hit harder than Ruin.
Besides, the facility was decades old. It had been refurbished as Ruin’s power grew, but Syrus respected and trusted old things even less than they deserved. A bias that extended to the one man in the room with him.
“It should be just a moment,” announced the Ordinate.
“How gracious,” Syrus replied, keeping his gaze forward, even if it would have been more polite to look toward the almost skeletal functionary.
“Of course, Counsellor Feln,” the man replied without hesitation. Though he must have been nearing a hundred if he were a day, the ancient Ordinate was surprisingly talkative. He’d spent the last ten minutes pestering Syrus with polite, but pointless questions, and to his dismay, Syrus heard the deep intake of breath that prefaced another.
Rather than endure it, Syrus asked one of his own. “What is it that you do here?”
“I manage the chamber,” the Ordinate answered with a note of pride.
The answer caught Syrus off guard. “How? I see no controls other than the single console.”
“Yes, I manage everything from here.”
“But-“ Syrus frowned as understanding washed over him. “You manage the transition room?”
“For twenty years.”
Twenty years. Twenty years spent opening and closing a door—something Ruin could have easily done himself. If there were a greater waste of an Awakening, Syrus was unaware of it.
“It is an honor to-“ the Ordinate cut himself off mid-sentence as a whisper came through his Simu. He nodded once to a silent voice and began manipulating the door controls as he spoke. “Lord Ruin will see you now.”
Syrus took it back. Opening the door required at least six button presses and the flipping of a switch. It was beyond Ruin after all.
Though this was his first time visiting, Syrus had always thought he understood the scale of the training facility. After all, he’d been consulted for final approval of every blueprint, and he’d seen hundreds of photos during the various phases of its construction. Yet somehow the reality of the thing was so much larger than he’d thought.
And so much less impressive.
Built on a small island twenty-three miles off the coast of Vitria proper, the facility was less a building than a large curtain wall surrounding the island. There were buildings, such as the docks, the kennels, and research laboratories, but all of them felt vestigial; like growths emerging from the side of the half-mile-tall wall that marked the training area.
Formerly a vacation destination belonging to the House of Sorrow, it had once been a beautiful locale, full of lush greenery with a sparkling blue lake at its centre. Since then, Ruin had lived up to his name, his magic grinding down nature until only a desert remained.
At least this one wasn’t toxic like the mess he’d made of Ashad-Mundi.
Ruin was waiting for him atop a slight rise in the otherwise flat terrain, a quarter-mile from the door. It was a sad attempt at a power move, even for Ruin, but that did not make the walk any less annoying.
“Lord Ruin now, is it?” Syrus said once he was close enough to be heard. “I had not heard we brought back titles of nobility.”
Ruin scoffed, his voice distorted into something much more sinister by arcane devices inside his helmet. “I think he is old enough that he just remembers Celesia.”
The voice-altering magic always felt silly, at least as far as Syrus was concerned, because Ruin was plenty intimidating as he was. Standing two feet taller than Syrus, he had fists nearly as large as the counsellor’s head and all the System power in the world to back up his physique. Syrus himself had selected the white, gold, and red of the armor to position him as a regal, quasi-divine figure. In a better world, Ruin would never need to say a word. Others would speak for him, his sheer physicality demanding obedience.
But sadly, Ruin could barely keep his mouth shut. So compromises had to be made.
“Hmm, perhaps it is just so,” Syrus agreed with a smile. “Do you mind coming down? I am used to craning my neck to speak with you, but not quite so far.”
“Why are you here, Syrus?”
“You are my client, and we have not spoken in two years. It was time.”
“And what good years they were.”
“Fine,” Syrus corrected.
“Fine… what?”
“And what fine years they were,” Syrus said with the exasperation of a teacher dealing with an ever-troublesome student. “If you are going to play at being a lord, it would be best if you did not sound like you just rolled out of a hay bale.”
“You don’t roll out of-“ Ruin growled under his breath, then gave a deeper cry of frustration as the devices in his helmet amplified the signs of annoyance to the point of absurdity. He fought with some interface in the air for a few seconds, trying to disable them, then touched the back of his helmet and threw the whole thing into the sand to reveal a man thirty years Syrus’ junior. “What do you want, Syrus?”
“You know what I want, Gregory.”
“Two-Thirty-Eight,” Ruin spat. “You came all this way to bitch and moan about the Orphan?”
“It has been two years. You have had your fun.”
“No,” Ruin answered, shaking his head. “I don’t read the news often, but even I hear that my Orphan is making quite a name for himself. It might have been a waste to take him in back then, but now I have a client almost as good as yours.”
“And one almost as dangerous to your standing,” Syrus pointed out.
The big man chuckled. “My standing. I am not allowed to set foot in Vitria without a collar, and you think I care about my political standing?”
“Gregory, you know why-“
“Yes, I know why the living weapon isn’t allowed to roam the streets,” Ruin took a few steps away from the dune, as if gravity did not apply to him, then plummeted to the ground as it reasserted. The impact sent sand flying but drew no visible reaction from Syrus beyond a few short coughs. “Do you think that makes it better? You train me all my life, and then flinch away from the strength you honed?”
Ruin punctuated the tirade with a shove. Not a hard one, for such a thing would leave Syrus smeared across half the island, but a performative push that nudged him back a pace.
It wasn’t the first time Ruin had laid hands on Syrus, and Syrus doubted it would be the last. Ruin was a creature of violence, and it was the language he was most familiar with. He struggled with things he couldn’t break and felt the need to reassert dominance the only way he knew how. Syrus allowed this, never punishing him for such minor infractions, in the hope of staving off something worse.
The only tricky part for Syrus was keeping the terror off his face.
Ruin was a trained dog, but dogs were put down every day across the empire for biting— sometimes even killing their masters. As strong as he was, Ruin could easily kill Syrus by accident without a suppression collar. That little push had taken an intense act of self-control, a trait Ruin was not well known for.
“You killed fifty-three people, including a seated member, because someone in his entourage mocked you.”
“I didn’t-“
“I know you did not mean to, Gregory, but you did. They flinch away because the Godslayer of the Sixth Rank can kill an entire bloodline with a swing of his fist without meaning to.” It was an old argument, one of the foundational battles that had irrevocably damaged their relationship. Syrus had worked miracles in the Curia to permit Ruin to return to Vitria at all, and the ungrateful boy blamed him for the conditions. “But I am not here to fight.”
“No, you are here to take from me.”
“To take what you have no interest in!” Syrus reminded him. “I know why you did it, and I confess, you wounded me. You angered me, even. But I would not go on trading blows with you forever. I would much rather attempt to mend the rift between us. Whether you believe me or not, I do miss our talks, Gregory.”
Syrus could swear he heard the click of Ruin’s jaw as he considered the olive branch.
“A trade, then?”
“If that is what you need,” Syrus agreed. “I am sure you have many-“
“Cut the binding.”
Syrus frowned, “Excuse me?”
“You are excused,” Ruin mocked. “Cut. The. Binding.”
“Gregory, be reasonable.”
“I am.” The polished white enamel of Ruin’s armor made a terrible scraping sound as he crossed his arm. “Do you remember what you taught me about trading?”
“Never trust a Continental?” It was the wrong answer, on purpose, but Syrus hoped injecting some humor into the conversation might turn it in his favor. Sadly, Ruin said nothing, leaving Syrus to give the proper answer instead. “Always know the value of what you are holding. Not to yourself, but to the other party.”
“He killed your daughter, and now he is a celebrated hero. I think you would give me almost anything.”
“Within my power,” Syrus reminded him. “The binding-“
“The second seat is the only one who can break it. You designed it that way,” Ruin countered. “I’m not asking for an end to your patronage, but twenty years is long enough.”
“The Curia will not stand for it, you know that.”
“The Curia does what you tell them.”
Syrus laughed bitterly, “If only that were so. There are many things I can offer you. In another few years, I expect to have you back in Vitria without the collar, but for now, you ask the impossible.”
“I’ve told you my price.” Ruin shrugged. “Even then, I am not sure I would give him up. He is growing fast. Another decade and I might have a worthwhile sparring partner. If he picks up speed, I might even have a challenge before I’m older than my Ordinate.”
“Gregory, please-”
“It is a cheap price,” Ruin said. “Assuming your daughter meant anything to you.”
Ruin took to the air in a blink, his massive form streaking toward the far side of the island in a parabolic arc. It wasn’t flying; despite years of practice, Ruin’s powers had never proven faster than his preferred method of travel.
Leaping.
Luckily for Syrus, Ruin had to negate his own weight to jump that far that fast. Otherwise, the simple act of travel would have left a crater in Ruin’s wake. One with an ugly puddle of pulverized flesh in it.
“Is that really the only lesson you took from me?” Syrus sighed.
Thanks to Ruin’s petulance, the return trip took much longer than the walk in. Though Syrus was safely out of the blast radius of whatever overpowered nonsense his client was throwing around, the environmental effects alone were enough to slow him down. The sand, uneven at the best of times, became a treacherous nightmare whenever the earth shook, and it was liable to blow him over entirely if he made the mistake of walking during the gusting winds caused by distant shockwaves.
Even miles from the Vitrian mainland, it was not safe to let power like Ruin’s run amok—but it was also difficult to contain. Endurance wards, such as those used on the training yards of rank III and IV awakened, were laughably ineffective on their own, requiring layer after layer of enhancement and shielding to have any hope of containing an errant blast. Such warding needed to be heavily reinforced at any points of vulnerability, such as entrances—a necessity that led to the creation of transition rooms.
Heavily reinforced on both sides, the transition room could only be opened to the ‘inside’ when the wards on the ‘outside’ were at full power, and vice versa. Since walking through such wards was impossible, and it took nearly a whole day to bring the wards up to strength, Syrus had plenty of time on his hands.
Thankfully, the designers had the good sense to include modest accommodations for both Ruin and his visitors. And fortunately for Syrus, he had the good sense to bring company.
“I take it that it went well?” Emmaline asked from a comfortable-looking sofa. She had a book on the history of Imuria in her lap, though Syrus noted the page marker had barely moved in the time he’d been gone. She’d been worried.
“As well as can be expected with the brute,” Syrus replied. “He did not refuse outright, but his price…”
“The leash?”
“I really do need to stop making wagers with you,” he grumbled. “Though it concerns me that you can so easily slip into the mind of a simpleton.”
“I have been practicing,” she smirked, before a dark cloud took hold of her expression. “If I had been better at it…”
“You need not hoard your guilt. There is more than enough to go around, and I am told it is quite heavy.”
“I know,” Emmaline nodded, though less convincingly than she might have hoped.
“Do you indeed?” Syrus asked, snatching the folded marker from her book and tossing it into her lap as he passed. “And what is that, if not a stone tied around your neck?”
Emmaline winced, a child once again caught with her hand in a very particular cookie jar.
“We have talked about this. At length.” Syrus sighed as he moved past her into the small kitchenette and began washing the accumulated dust and grime of his short journey off his face and hands. “There is virtue in righteous anger-“
“But not in obsession.” Emmaline finished with a hint of irritation. “I have also read Lypse.”
“Yet you have taken nothing to heart.”
“There is no lesson to take. I am not obsessed.”
“Of course. My mistake,” Syrus said, rather than let the argument spiral. He took the time to dry his hands, then plucked a nearby wine bottle from the countertop. “In any case, you are correct. Ruin acts as if he holds an Imperator hostage. He will not forsake his client for anything less than my submission. Not unless the boy personally slights him.”
“Then we should keep the two away from one another at all costs.”
“Without a doubt,” he agreed. “But for now, it is safe to say that he is as disinterested as expected.”
“So, we can proceed?”
“With my blessing,” Syrus agreed. The bottle in his hands opened with a tremendous pop, and he filled two glasses before returning to his daughter. “If you get your Martyr killed sooner rather than later, all the better. But delayed gratification is still gratification.”
The way Emmaline beamed at his praise made Syrus glad her plan had finally come together. Sooner was indeed better, but it wasn’t gratification he cared about anymore. It was Emmaline.
Mothers knew she’d tried to make her plan work. Emmaline had given the Orphan every opportunity to prove his mettle, to become a hero, and he’d wasted all of them like the pathetic worm he was. He’d disobeyed orders time and again for petty gains and ended up in prison so often that Syrus had stopped asking for updates.
It wasn’t until a stroke of idiot luck put him in the spotlight that she’d had anything to work with. But from there, she’d made him a star. In six months, he went from a footnote in the story of the Trinity Massacre—another story Emmaline had tried and failed to twist into an origin myth for the stupid boy—into a household name. A rallying point for the Ashadi nationalism that the House of Sorrow and its allies had been stirring for years.
The only problem with her plan was that it worked better the longer the Orphan lived—up to a point.
But that was why Emmaline had all but begged him to leave the boy’s fate in her hands. It was why she’d been right to do so. Syrus couldn’t be trusted. If it had been up to him, he would have made arrangements to have the child killed years ago. A clever enough plan might have worked, but as Emmaline put it, Sierra would not recognize a man who gambled his life on a roll of the dice.
Possibilities were for others. Syrus preferred to deal in certainties.
But just because they needed him alive did not mean Syrus needed to be gentle. There were other ways to hurt the Orphan without killing him. That live ambush by Ellaphane Hart was worth every mark he’d spent on it, as was the research that turned up the death of the Orphan’s mother.
If only they could find the sister.
Syrus had always been confused by the recent debates about torture. While he publicly opposed it, as was his image, the whole conversation seemed to miss the point in his eyes. Yes, a man would lie through his teeth if you tortured him, and there were much better ways to get information, so it really should be banned for the purposes of gathering intelligence.
But that wasn’t the point of torture. Pain and fear were the point. You tortured someone to make their allies think twice about opposing you. Or you tortured them for revenge.
Before Sierra’s death, Syrus had found the idea of torture rather repulsive. Fear was a mediocre motivator, and there was no ethical excuse to inflict pain for its own sake. If someone needed to die for the world to take on the shape Syrus desired, then he’d kill them—or at least have others kill them—quickly.
Suffice to say, his opinions had… shifted.
Sadly, Emmaline had also talked him out of killing the Orphan’s friends, at least for now. Two-Thirty-Eight needed some of them to perform his role. And as for the others? They were too fresh. Killing them now would sting, but it wouldn’t burrow into his heart the way the death of his mother had. Letting them live was an investment, one he intended to collect on when the time was right.
And then there was the other.
“There is one small matter left to address, father.“
“Oh?” Syrus asked. “This would be about your friend, yes? Do tell.”
“How did you…” Emmaline frowned, in annoyance, then let the subject drop. Her father knew things sometimes, and never let on how he did. It was just a fact of life, like the changing of the seasons. “Well, your scheme was successful, as expected. Turning her back on your offer has endeared her to the Orphan.”
“But.”
“But, there is a… complication. She has Awakened.” Emmaline had to stifle her grin at her father’s uncharacteristic look of surprise. “It seems the Grand Awakening is not just limited to the Ashadi.”
“Something cultural then? Or something the Bones put in the water?” Syrus had been trying for months to get to the bottom of that particular mystery so far without success. “I imagine she wants to revise her deal, then?”
Emmaline nodded and Syrus sighed. Cost was little issue to the House of Sorrow, especially for a task of such importance, but secrecy demanded that they keep their circl as limited as possible. The family Ordinates handled most of his finances, but something like meant new conversations about favors and currency that he had little interest in. There was nothing for it. They’d promised the girl the accolade of Friend of the Empire when the work was done, something she would have little use for now.
Almost exclusively given to foreigners, the accolade came with full citizenship rights—something normally useless to Vitrians. Unless they were broken liars like her.
“Figure out what she wants and set it in stone, provided it is reasonable,” he said at last.
“I have already made the request, father.”
“Of course,” he chuckled. “Has she found any leads on the Orphan’s unique skill?”
“That, it seems, was a false alarm,” said Emmaline. “It appears he was not hiding his Status at all. One of the Auxilia was intimate with the Ordinate and-”
“You are joking.”
“Apparently not,” she told him.
“And you still trust this girl? She seemed quite certain-”
“She is a liar, father, but she is our liar,” Emmaline reassured. “Besides, what could the boy offer that you could not?”
Syrus frowned, playing the question over in his mind. Lilith had come to Emmaline begging for an opportunity for citizenship. For redemption. She was their creature because she was a broken thing. No Awakening would fix that.
“I apologize. I mistrust her, not you. Now, a drink. To my daughter’s success.”
“And the Martyr,” Emmaline said, before finishing her entire glass in a single, long gulp.
“Sometimes I forget how poorly you were raised,” Syrus said, pouring her a second glass with a shake of his head.
“Mm?” She blushed, aware she’d done something wrong without quite understanding.
“Nothing,” his smile faltered as he saw a glint of glossy paper lying half unfolded beside her. “Could you please take care of that?”
This time, Emmaline understood immediately. Her hand darted to the forgotten photograph she kept as a bookmark. It was heavily weathered and already starting to tint slightly yellow with age, but the image remained legible. A young boy with white hair and dusky skin, no older than fifteen. He was staring blankly into the camera, an empty look in those violet eyes.
A photo of Alarion she’d been carrying everywhere she went for the last two years.
Emmaline wasn’t obsessed in the slightest.