NOVEL NEXT Chapter 68: For Survival
Rae wrapped herself in Fulminancy like a cloak as she stood in an abandoned home, the wood creaking beneath her feet. It was a warm, comforting feeling—as natural as breathing. She didn't remember life without Fulminancy, and yet the Council insisted that she needed to earn the right to keep it.
"Surely you're capable of what we ask," Blink said. Rae called him that because the man blinked more than was natural, like he was trying to clear his vision of something he stared at in the distance. She didn't know his real name, and she didn't really care.
"Of course I'm capable," she snapped, impatient. At least she didn't have to deal with the Council today. She'd insisted on an intermediary for weeks now. How easy would it be for one of them to decide they'd had enough of dealing with Rae and simply send a battalion to lock her away? Instead, she met in safe spots throughout Hillcrest with Blink—the clouding man.
Blink…blinked at her, his watery eyes bulging in a face that seemed young and old all at once, though he had much of his mousy brown hair left from youth. "The Council finds it odd that it isn't done yet. Surely a woman with your…talents can take care of the target a little faster than this?"
"Did they say 'talents' in that tone?" Rae asked, folding her arms.
"Everyone knows what you've done, Rae. There's no sense in pretending you're something you're not."
"No one is pretending," she said, holding the man's gaze. "But you and I both know what every last Seat on that Council did to sit there—their hands are hardly clean. So, as my intermediary, you can tell them to leave their moral high ground in the mountains where it belongs."
Blink simply blinked at her again and sighed. The man wasn't very animated, nor did he appear thrilled to deal with her. Still, the Council had to be paying him handsomely.
"Regardless," he said. "It will be done tonight?"
"Of course," Rae said, moving towards the door. The Drystorm beckoned outside, the wind familiar and invigorating. "Make sure they hold up their end of the bargain."
Blink nodded from the corner of her eye and vanished, his footsteps nearly silent even on the creaking wood. Rae stood in the doorway, one hand on the door frame as she looked out over the city streets.
The skies called to her, and she felt Fulminancy gather in her boots. She wasn't sure how it worked, or what exactly she channeled when she used it, but all she knew is it felt right somehow. This power, the skies—they belonged to her, regardless of what the Council thought.
And while the woman she'd been chasing had delayed her for some time, tonight her luck was up. Rae was out of time, and she would keep these powers, no matter the cost.
Tonight, she would be free.
Tonight she would kill Mariel and live again.
The doorway of truths opened into a small hallway, and beyond that, a library of all things. Rowan rushed forward as Kess surveyed the space, feeling drained from her encounter with Fanas. The library yawned before her, a large hallway surrounded by shelves, with books piled in mountains around the room. It opened into a large circular area, the open portion of the room supported by pillars stuffed with more tomes, the flooring a beautiful mosaic of storms that also extended to the roof overhead. A series of mirrors directed the light from aboveground into the room itself, in a mechanism Kess figured Rowan would be fascinated with if they had more time. Besides that, the lighting came from Fulminantic torches around the room. Rowan had left his more traditional torch back in the stone hallway upon entering the chamber, and Kess didn't blame him. How many years of knowledge was stored here?
She turned in the room, marveling that it was all underground. Who would build all of this inside of the mountain itself? She wondered. As she reached the middle of the room, a strange pool of water sat inside a basin big enough to fit a person. It writhed and twisted like it was imbued with Fulminancy itself, the liquid viscous and illuminated as it churned in the basin.
Rowan paid it no mind, flitting between shelves with fevered energy that Kess marveled at. Well, he hadn't fought a god today. Or whatever Fanas was. Kess slumped by the basin, exhausted. She'd heard stories, of course—Fanas, Mariel, and Faleas, the original founders of Fulminancy. They'd been elevated to the status of gods in Hillcrest, but Kess had a hard time believing that anyone related to her was a god. She was sure there was a logical explanation for Fanas's presence when the woman herself was long gone, but whatever it was, Kess was too tired to care.
The basin bubbled against her back, whispering to her.
She got back to her feet unsteadily, and stared at that viscous liquid, rolling and undulating in the basin. It was a pounding rhythm in her head, beckoning and calling to her. It didn't seem sinister—just…curious.
Kess reached out tentatively, her hand hovering over the basin.
Across the library, Rowan searched frantically. He wasn't sure where Kess had gotten off to, but he didn't have time to worry, nor did he have time to think about the implications of her being the Seventh Seat.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Clouds, Kess was the Seventh Seat.
And she'd killed her parents with her Fulminancy.
Suddenly, much more made sense about the woman. Her fear of her powers. Her hatred of the Council. Her insistence on anonymity. The furtive way she avoided his eyes whenever the Uphill was mentioned, or family names or sashes were asked about. There was a large part of Rowan that now felt guilty for pushing Kess to use her powers. But an even larger part of him wondered how Mariel herself had managed to hide Downhill for years without being found—as a Bloodcrawler, no less.
Rowan pushed it out of his mind for now, searching the shelves.
Confronted with years of lost knowledge, it was tempting for Rowan to confirm every theory or problem he'd ever encountered with Fulminancy. There was a wealth of material nestled on the shelves, forgotten. Rowan had expected something impressive, of course, but what he found dwarfed even his previous expectations. He designed a quick but crude system to sort through the tomes as efficiently as possible.
It physically pained him to pass up some sections, but Rowan knew they didn't have much time. Besides Kess's decidedly insane encounter with the supernatural, they had other problems to worry about; even if Forgebrand kept the area clear of Blueblades, they only had an hour or two until dawn, and with it, the return of hundreds of scholars to the building overhead.
Surprisingly, Rowan found the shelves littered with books about the classical elements. He'd expected those tomes upstairs—especially given that he'd researched that very subject at university. Judging by the amount of dust on the tomes, the elemental ones had been moved down fairly recently—though how, Rowan could only guess. The stairs above hadn't been disturbed, so perhaps there was another way into this chamber.
Rowan thumbed through another book and found it disappointingly mundane. Why wouldn't they just keep this upstairs? He wondered. He shelved it and pulled another—a tome on weather patterns. It described massive storms—both of the type he was familiar with and those he'd only encountered in books. Blizzards, tsunamis, dust storms. All described as world-ending cataclysmic events. But what did that have to do with Fulminancy?
He padded down the row of books, closer to the center of the room. Here the books were older, their spines cracked and split as they disintegrated from age. His eyes fell on a pile of books as high as his chest haphazardly thrown together. On the apex, a large tome sat open and ragged. He read the words across the page and frowned.
Scholars have long sought a way to control the storms. We have tried to reason with the Worldshapers, and unfortunately find that they do not have answers either. There is a fundamental problem with the balance of our world, and mankind will not survive unless we take action. In the mountains, scholars suggest that they've stumbled upon a way to package those powers away—to make them usable and controllable for man, and perhaps in doing so, save us from the whims of the Worldshapers. These powers require a sacrifice, but once in place, they should serve us for years to come. In Tamresh we suggest that the best and brightest make their way to the Eisu mountains to be candidates for these powers. A seat of government will be established there, and once the process is complete, the Worldshapers will be no more. Fortunately, I have been assured that their lives will be spared. I can only hope that the rest of our lives are spared as well, once these powers are locked away.
Rowan read hungrily, his heart pounding. This was it—the history of Fulminancy they'd been unable to access for so long. Hidden here, underneath this mountain, fraying and disintegrating. This is what the Council wanted no one to see. He flipped through the pages, hands shaking.
That was when Kess screamed.
Rae stalked past the dark, looming man, furious. He scowled back at her, his shoulder adorned with a Forgebrand patch, but he didn't follow her. Clouding man. He'd given her the info on Mariel's location, but he'd also given it to the Council. Money talked, and Rae couldn't compete with men who had access to every mining in the city treasury.
Tasgall—a slimy man with dark hair and a pale, almost sickly face—turned at the sound of Rae's footsteps across the plaza. Ahead, the Archives loomed. Tasgall would have been handsome, perhaps, without the sneer perpetually plastered across his face. As it was, Rae found the man utterly distasteful simply because he worked for her employer. A squadron of Blueblades formed around Tasgall, looking nervous, and beyond the courtyard, several more squadrons formed. Rae fought the urge to attack the man as she approached.
"I was promised a fair fight," she said. "Why are your men here?" Tasgall simply shrugged, looking at the assembled bunch with a humorless smile.
"The deal has changed, I'm afraid. The Council is displeased with how long this has taken you to wrap up. They want insurance. They're afraid your loyalties might lie…elsewhere."
"My only loyalty," Rae snapped, "is to my Fulminancy. Everything else is secondary."
"Then you can hardly blame them for wanting to make sure that the evening goes as planned," Tasgall said. "Capturing or killing Mariel herself should convince the rest of Forgebrand to step down, and the Downhill itself doesn't wish to fight as long as they're fed. Mariel's elimination will mean that there's nothing left to gossip about, and we'll reach equilibrium again in Hillcrest with minimal bloodshed. This isn't a job the Council can afford to leave to you alone."
Rae regarded the troops surrounding the building, her Fulminancy tugging at her cloak in a friendly, playful way. For now, even Forgebrand and the Blueblades here wouldn't be able to handle Rae. But after fighting with that woman, she wasn't sure.
"You'll wait until I'm weak from fighting and turn on me," Rae accused quietly. Tasgall simply shrugged again.
"If I get the order to do so, perhaps. But as it stands, we don't have enough troops to do that." He motioned for his Blueblades to form up and sent them towards the Archives. They jogged away, Fulminancy gathering in their boots for speed. "There's no way out once you're in there, so perhaps you can beat us to the punch? Bring her corpse out and we won't have to join the fight."
Rae pushed past the man, her blood thrumming in her ears. Just one more thing to worry about. At least when all of this is over, I'll never have to worry about these clouding bastards again, she thought. That gave her some comfort, at least. She'd wanted a fair fight with Mariel—it was part of the reason she'd waited for so long to attack in earnest. And yet if these men were determined to turn on her at the last second, she would do what she had to for survival. Rae was good at surviving. It was really her only talent—besides Fulminancy.
She stalked towards the dark door of the Archives as thunder rumbled overhead and lightning arced down from the sky in a brilliant bolt. Her Fulminancy shivered in delight, and Rae smiled.