CHAPTER 20

  The leather straps bit into my wrists and ankles as the Criers cinched me to the cot.

  We were laid out in two rows across the coliseum floor, face down on narrow beds with a hole cut for our mouths and noses. From here, all I could see was stone, flickering torchlight, and pairs of boots moving around us.

  A familiar set of boots stopped by my headrest.

  “You do not have to do this,” Hakashi whispered.

  “I do, actually,” I said. “If I want any chance of beating the Siblings and getting Noah back, this is the only way.”

  “Erik…” He leaned closer. I could hear the tension buzzing under his words. “You have aged since you started using that sword. The bones in your spine may already be set.”

  “It does not matter,” I muttered. “I have to do it. Noah is—”

  “Noah could be gone,” Hakashi said quietly. “I am just looking out for you. Would you rather lose your ability to walk?”

  I shook my head against the padded ring. “I want this. It will work. It must.”

  Hakashi sighed. “As you wish.” His boots moved on to the next cot, giving the same last-chance speech to others.

  Another voice spoke up, this one closer.

  “I… I do not think I can do this actually,” Silas said. “I have already lost one limb. I just started feeling useful again with this arm. I…I do not think I could handle losing my legs.”

  The Head Crier Weiss, with the half-mask, replied, “Of course, that is your choice. You can be of use in other ways.”

  Silas was unstrapped and I heard him get down and walk past my cot. He rested a hand on my shoulder. I could not see him, but I knew his mechanical grip.

  “You sure about this, Erik?” he asked. “That sword, it—”

  “I am sure,” I said. “For Noah. For the Expedition.”

  He squeezed my shoulder. “Alright. I will be waiting for you after.” He took a few steps, then paused. “Fern, help him through it.”

  I will, Fern said in my head.

  “He says don’t tell him what to do,” I said, grinning at the ground.

  Silas smacked my arm. “Liar.” He chuckled and headed toward the stairs.

  The Criers moved along the rows, cutting the back of our shirts open so our skin was exposed. A bowl with white powder was set down under my face. A sharp, stinging scent punched up into my nose.

  “Damn,” I said, twisting my head away. “What is that?”

  “Smelling salts,” Leace said somewhere above us. “To keep you awake. If you pass out, you might jerk and ruin everything.”

  I heard a struggling sound ahead of me.

  “How many times have you done this?” Lucius called, irritated.

  “None,” Leace replied cheerfully. “But Guru Seraphina is confident in this.”

  “And we are supposed to trust a faceless guru? How can she be so sure, how are YOU so sure?” he shot back.

  “Lucius! Can you stop being an ass for one minute?” Sora snapped from across the room.

  “I am just saying,” he said. “How do they know any of this works?”

  Leace groaned dramatically. “Why don’t you just back out if you are frightened and don’t trust the Guru’s invention?”

  Lucius snorted. “I’m not afraid.”

  “Good,” Leace said. “Then let us start with you.”

  “Lucius…” Rinka’s voice came soft from somewhere nearby.

  Boots shuffled, and metal clanked. Somewhere, someone was moving the surgical knives on their plate and brought it over to Lucius’ cot. The lanterns above were dimmed, and the only light left came from the four braziers on the coliseum floor.

  Leace called out. “Sammi, Alexia, Clover, bowls, now. You others, flutes, now.”

  A low hum rose as three singing bowls rang out.

  HUMMMMM.

  Goosebumps prickled along my arms. The sound vibrated through my teeth, and then, flutes joined in, a high, steady tone threading through the hum. The whole chamber seemed to wobble, like someone was shaking a giant sheet of metal over our heads.

  I closed my eyes and started breathing through my nose. In for four. Out for eight. The smelling salts burned deep on every inhale, but it did what it was intended to, it cleared my mind like fire through a field.

  “Do not move, child,” Leace warned Lucius.

  For a few heartbeats, all I heard was soft cutting sound of blade against flesh. Then a low groan escaped Lucius.

  “Quiet…” Leace said through clenched teeth.

  The hum grew louded.

  “Cystals now,” Leace said to one of the Head Criers with her. A new sound cut in—a thin, pinging tone like a crystal being tapped with a hammer. It grew louder, cutting against the bowls and flutes until the pitches scraped across each other.

  Then something broke.

  Glass shattered somewhere ahead, sending shards of the thin crystals scraping across the sandstone floor.

  All the instruments stopped at once.

  “AHHH!” Lucius screamed.

  “Damn it,” Leace hissed.

  “Leace,” Aer said sharply.

  “I know!” she snapped. “Little bastard flinched!”

  “I did not move!” Lucius wailed. “Help me, I didn’t—ah—!”

  My stomach lurched from Lucius, blood curddeling screams. I breathed in the salts deeply trying to focus on the smell not his cries.

  Weiss cursed. “You reacted, and the rods broke.”

  “N-no. No!” Lucius screamed, voice cracking. “I—I can’t feel them. It’s… I can’t feel my legs! Help!”

  His cot rattled, and his leather straps banged against metal. I couldn’t see him but I could hear his attempt to rip his arms free.

  “Lucius!” Rinka cried. “Let me out. Let me out!” She fought her own bindings.

  “Silence, girl,” Leace snapped. “Siblings be damned,” she muttered as Lucius kept screaming. “Get him out. You two, go.”

  Footsteps ran up to Lucius’s cart and rolled him out of the room and down a nearby hallway.

  “Please! Can’t you heal—ah—help!” He continued to scream as he was pulled away.

  The room went cold around me.

  “Get me out too!” Rinka yelled. She slipped free from her straps and dropped down from her cot. I heard a few Criers call out to her but she started to run after the rolling bed. “I’m going with him!”

  “Rinka, where are you going?” Sora shouted.

  Rinka called back. “I am not leaving him. I am not doing this. I do not trust it.”

  “He made his choice,” Sora said. “We are supposed to stick together Rinka. You are my twin and he was our bully. You can’t choose him over me! We do everything together.”

  “I am sorry,” Rinka said. Her footsteps clattered away, chasing the cot.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Shit, I’ll go check on them,” Heda muttered behind me in the stands. She hopped down and jogged after Rinka and Lucius.

  My stomach twisted up into a hard knot as the room grew silent again.

  Leace asked the group. “Do any of you want to leave now? If you have even a drop of doubt, you will lose this battle. So, I ask again. Do any of you want to leave?”

  The room held its breath giving her our answer.

  “Good,” Leace said. “We continue.”

  The bowls started singing again, the flutes joined in, and the four Head Criers moved on.

  They chose Mel next.

  The hum built. The high whistle followed, but this time the pitch of the crystals stayed clean. My heart pounded anyway.

  Come on, Mel, I thought. If anyone can do it, it is you.

  Toughest girl we know, Fern said.

  Toughest person we know, I corrected.

  The whistle swelled louder, building pressure in the air, like steam under a lid.

  I could feel a slight shift in the room. Almost like I could sense gravity’s pull, a feeling of energy tugged toward Mel’s cot.

  “Hold, almost done” the half-masked woman said.

  Then, a final POP sounded across the room, and the feeling of flowing energy steadied.

  “Good. Good!” Leace laughed, sharp with relief. “Do you feel it, girl?”

  “Yes,” Mel gasped. “Hah. I—I feel it. It’s not like infusions. It’s—hah—it’s something else.”

  “Nice job, Mel!” Silas shouted from above.

  “That’s right!” I yelled.

  “That’s my girl!” Sora roared.

  Metal banged against metal three times, loud and hard.

  “Enough,” Leace said. “We did it once. We still have seven more. Do not lose your focus.”

  They loosened Mel’s straps, and a few Criers guided her off the cot. Her footsteps dragged past me.

  “You better not give up,” she muttered as she walked by.

  “Not a chance,” I said.

  The channel-opening continued. Zenobia grunted through it but held firm just as well as Mel, and Nanda made no sound at all, like a stoic monk. One by one everyone endured the knife, the crystal rods, and the cultivation of energy. The Criers coached everyone to breath through the procedure, pulling light up to the Kutasha, and each time the final rod was instered into one’s spine, the flow of and presence of energy around us balanced itself out. Upon completion I would hear a small hum, and listen as all of my friends’s wounds were heald, presumabaly by the Criers Breath ability.

  Finally, footsteps stopped by my headrest. Leace’s boots.

  “Saving the best for last?” I said.

  “How about you focus on keeping your spine intact,” she replied.

  Fair. I thought.

  I drew a deep breath through my nose. In for four, out for eight. Heart slowing, hands relaxing, and smelling salts burning my nostrils like fire.

  Here it comes, Fern said. I could feel his presence coil tight in the back of my mind.

  The knife touched my back. And pain followed.

  The blade slid down my spine in one slow, deliberate line, from the base of my neck to my tailbone. Fire traced its path, and I bit down so hard, onto a leather strap near my face, I thought I might crack a tooth.

  Breathe, Fern said. Remember the counts.

  Every instinct told me to twist away, to buck off the bed, to get the blade out of my flesh, but then I remembered Lucius. I forced my breath to stay steady, and calm myself. In. Out. In. Out.

  The knife withdrew. Cold metal clamps pinched either side of the cut, and pulled my skin apart. Cold air washed down my exposed tissue and spine.

  “Leace…” Aer’s voice carried an edge now.

  Shit, I thought. That is not something you want to hear mid-surgery.

  “What is it—” Leace started, then stopped. “Well, that’s not good. Hey, Erik.” Her boots shifted into my view. “Mind telling me how old you really are?”

  “I… agh…” Every breath scorched.

  “Crier Leace,” Hakashi called. “His sword. It’s Ashsteel, Jorik told us that you all know what that is. Well, it’s curse…it has been aging him.”

  “You are kidding,” she snapped. I heard her stomp away to the side of the room where my things lay. Metal scraped as she picked the weapon up. “Uninfused ashsteel,” she muttered. “A cursed blade. Of course.”

  “That would mean—” Aer started.

  “Yes,” Leace cut in. “Erik.” She crouched below the cot to look up at me. “Your bones aged too you know?”

  “I… figured,” I managed.

  “Cancel the operation,” she said, standing. “We are not doing this on you.”

  “No,” I choked out. “No, I am doing it. I have to.”

  She bent again, searching my face like she was deciding which cheek she should slap to knock sense into me.

  “Your spine has already set,” she said. “It will most likely fail. We are stopping this.”

  “But is there a chance?” I shouted before she turned away. “Even a small one, is there a chance?”

  Leace stared at me a moment more, then straightened. “You want to risk it?”

  I nodded.

  “This will not be pleasant,” she warned. “Your choice.”

  I nodded and heard leace whisper to the other Head Criers.

  “Here it goes. Bowls, flutes.” The music played again.

  The first blow landed at the base of my neck.

  A sharp thunk. A shock like lightning went through my whole body. Leace had started to hammer the crystal bit into bone, chipping into the firm spinal disc.

  My mind blanked to white, and I felt that I could passout from the pain.

  I can’t do this, I thought. I can’t Fern I—

  My back muscles tensed to move. My legs tried to jerk.

  NO. Fern’s voice slammed into me like a wall. Louder than the bowls, louder than the drill.

  YOU WILL NOT RUN. He commanded.

  His will crashed into mine. When my throat tried to shape a scream, I felt the invisible hand of someone holding it shut. Fern had clamped down on my impulse to scream.

  In my mind’s eye I saw him, a blue-green spectre with both hands braced on my back, holding me in place.

  I WILL NOT LET YOU FAIL, he roared.

  Another hammer blow, and another wave of pain.

  It is too much, I thought. I cannot—

  I do not care, Fern said. You chose this. I agreed. I am not letting you back out now.

  My world shrank to the rhythm of the drill and the feel of Fern’s will pinning me down. Time seemed to drag on forever.

  One by one Leace punched my channels open through fused bone, nine little windows between vertabrae. My heart pounded so hard it felt like it might burst. The smell of the salts faded, their harshness was not strong enough to distract me. Bile climbed my throat, but Fern pushed it back down with pure stubbornness.

  They have five in, he said. You can handle four more. Keep breathing.

  Six, seven, eight, and nine.

  Finally, the hammering stopped. I felt the cold kiss of crystal rods resting in the open channels. Each one burned cold and hot at the same time, like ice on a nerve.

  “Now, boy,” Leace said, voice rough with something almost like respect. “Reach coherence. Pull the light into your Kutasha.”

  I blew every bit of stale air out of my lungs and drew in a new breath.

  In… two… three… four. Out… two… three… four… five… six… seven… eight.

  At first every inhale snagged on the pain in my spine. Then, the rhythm of breath found me. I clenched the base of my spine and pictured the light sparking there. With each inhale it crawled up my back, vertebra by vertebra. The crystal rods hummed as it passed. My pain dulled and waves of light climbed up my spine.

  The light reached the base of my skull. I pulled it forward between my eyes, and the painted silver star in the darkness flared.

  “Keep going,” Leace shouted from somewhere above my head. “Good!”

  I dragged more light up. Again. Again. Each cycle made the star bigger.

  The darkness behind my eyelids disappeared. The silver point in my Kutasha swelled until it filled everything. Then it burst, like a popped baloon.

  Light surrounded me. For a moment I felt like I was hanging in the air, every part of me lit from within.

  My blood rushed through my veins. My hearing sharpened until I could pick out every footstep around, every shift of cloth, and every sniffle from those watching. Each inhale tasted of dust, iron, sweat, and blood. My skin prickled with awareness, and I could almost feel the presence of everyone in the room.

  “Yes,” Leace shouted. “Ha! He did it.”

  “That was a close one,” Aer said softly.

  A cool breeze washed over my back as the Criers did whatever healing they did. It reminded me of what Jorik did. I felt skin pull together, knit, seal. The rods inside my spine settled deep into the bone and became one with the discs.

  My pain was gone.

  I opened my eyes, and saw everyone cheers from the stands.

  “Hell yeah, moss-head!” Mel shouted.

  “I was worried there for a minute,” Silas sitting next to Mel.

  “I am very glad I did not do that,” Jessa said faintly. “No chance I would have made it.”

  The Criers unbuckled my straps and eased me up. Aer and Belen hauled me upright. When I tried to take a step off the cot, my legs wobbled and nearly dumped me.

  “You will not be able to walk right away,” Aer said. “Your body went through slightly more intense trauma than the others. The rods disrupted your nerves. Give it an hour. The crystals will finish attaching and restore your control.”

  “What about Lucius?” I asked. The memory of his screams crawled up my spine.

  Aer’s mouth thinned. “His fate is sealed. His nerves below the break are… damaged. Permenantly. He will live. What he does with that life is his choice.”

  The chatter started to die down, but one pair of hands kept clapping.

  I turned my head.

  Two figures stood by the doorway at the far end of the chamber. Guru Kael walked into the light first, grinning wide and applauding like we had just finished a stage performance.

  “Well done, children! Well done indeed!” he said. His eyes found me. “And you, our green-haired hero. A risky stunt you pulled, but it only confirms your greatness.”

  I was too drained to argue with his “hero” nonsense, so I let it slide.

  Kael clapped a few more times, then gestured over his shoulder. “Come now, Rasa, does this not ease your worries? These children—well, almost all of them—did it. Seraphina was right. We were able to open their channels without the year of training. You must feel better now, yes?”

  The second figure stepped into view.

  Guru Rasa was taller than Kael and thinner, with a long white beard that almost brushed past his knees. His face was calm, his eyes were unamused, like none of this surprised him much. He took slow steps down the stone stairs and approached me.

  He reached out, took my chin in one knotted hand, and tilted my head left, right, studying me.

  “Ah,” he said at last. “So. I was wrong after all.”

  Kael turned to the rest of the group. “Everyone, this is Guru Rasa, eldest of the three.”

  Rasa released my chin and looked around the room, gaze sweeping over everyone, then settling again on me. On us.

  “I am… interested,” he said slowly, “to see how your Breath develops.”

  Kael bounced on his toes. “You see, we have less than eight days until we must move to the Third Tier. That means…?”

  Silas raised a hand. “Training us to actually use Breath?”

  “Yes!” Kael said. “But not just that. Right, Rasa?”

  “Yes,” Rasa said. “We have… three interesting tasks that are necessary.” His voice was slow, and monotone. It was nearly painful to listen to him talk.

  “Which are?” I asked, sitting up on the cot.

  “One,” Kael said, holding up a finger. “Learn to use Mask Breath. Two, steal from the lady herself.”

  “Nerida?”

  The guru nodded. “Three,” Kael continued, “destroy a few soul conduits, hopefully slow down the climbing souls of your friends, and buy us a little more time.” His smile turned sly.

  Rasa stroked his beard. “If we survive,” he said, “it will be… interesting. If we do not, that will also be interesting.”

  What is with this weird guy? Fern asked.

  I have no idea, I thought. But hey, listen.

  Yeah?

  Thank you.

  Fern laughed. If you died, I would die. And if you lost the ability to walk, then I would have to come back to a broken body. I wasn’t letting you do either of those.

  I snorted. Fair enough. Still. I could not have done that without you.

  You better not forget that, he said. Then, quieter he added, I am worried about Lucius.

  Same, I thought. His pride might be bigger than Mel’s. And losing his legs…I wonder what that will do to him.

  Rasa’s eyes slid back to me. “He will be fine,” he said, as if we had spoken aloud.

  “Huh? H-how did you know what I was saying? Did I—?”

  “Lucius has an… interesting path ahead of him. As do you.”

  He held my gaze, and for a second it felt like he was looking past my face, straight into the space where Fern sat.

  “…both of you,” he added, and smiled.