Chapter 67: Alive, Mostly

  Valerius stares at the beam of light erupting from the floor. His expression shifts from boredom to the look of a man watching his garden burn down.

  He whispers something that I cannot make out, his voice barely audible over the groaning metal of the hangar. The tea set rattles off the table, the fine porcelain smashing against the vibrating deck. " You fed the prisoner the bars of his own cage."

  "I told you," I yell, my voice cracking against the roar of the waking Titan.

  Valerius turns back to me. Horror vanishes, replaced by a cold, white-hot fury that drops the air temperature twenty degrees. He raises his ivory wand. The air around it distorts, a high-pitched whine building to a lethal crescendo. The sound becomes a command for my atoms to divorce each other.

  "You have doomed this city," Valerius says, his voice cutting through the noise like a razor. "That village along with you, will be burned, the soil where you st—"

  A shadow falls over him. A shadow smelling of crushed granite, and absolute, unyielding density.

  Valerius senses the displacement of air. He starts to turn, the wand swinging around.

  CRACK.

  A wet, heavy sound echoes—stone impacting meat at high velocity.

  Valerius’s head snaps to the side violently. A spray of blood and teeth paints the white tablecloth.

  The Inquisitor stumbles, his eyes rolling back, the wand clattering to the deck. He collapses, hitting the floor with a thud.

  Standing behind him, bathed in the golden light of the Titan, is Vrex.

  The gargoyle stands whole. His severed leg reforms from the ambient stone of the platform, the new material smoking. The cracks in his chest seal with veins of gold. In his hand, he holds the shattered remains of a Greater Pearl of Vitality, the magical dust slipping through his fingers like sand.

  Vrex looks down at the unconscious Inquisitor, flexes his newly reformed stone hand, and cracks his knuckles. The sound rings like a gunshot in a library.

  "You missed a root," Vrex rumbles.

  I stare at him, then at Valerius's crumpled form. The Inquisitor lives—I see the faint shimmer of a passive shield flickering around him—but he is definitely offline.

  "Nice right hook," I breathe, clutching my own newly restored hand.

  "It was a jab," Vrex corrects, dusting off his knuckles. "Proper form dictates economy of motion."

  He looks at me. His golden eyes scan my body, checking for missing parts. When he sees my hand is whole, the tension in his massive shoulders releases.

  "We must go, Now."

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  He points to the sky.

  The clouds above the docking platform swirl. Dark shapes descend—Magisters on skiffs, Battle-Wizards flying under their own power, surrounded by halos of fire and lightning. The Spire responds to the catastrophe. The immune system wakes up.

  "The yacht is locked," I say, eyeing Valerius's sleek vessel. "Authorization. We can't fly it."

  "Then we fall," Vrex says.

  He grabs my shoulder and steers me toward the edge of the platform.

  The Oubliette beneath us dies. The beam of light from the ventilation shaft widens, melting the floor, consuming the metal grating. The sound of the Nascency screaming—a sound of pure joy and rage—shakes the fillings in my teeth.

  We run. My Egress (15) fires, my legs pumping, but I look around as I move.

  I scan the edges of the collapsing platform. I check for the other vents. I search for any sign of movement from the secondary shafts where I sent Jarek and the others.

  "Where are they?" I mutter, my eyes darting frantically. "The fans stopped. They should be out."

  We reach the edge. I look down.

  Below the hangar, a series of service grates line the side of the mountain. They are the exhaust ports for the Oubliette's air circulation.

  They are fused shut.

  Thick, black scorch marks surround the grates. Not from the Titan's light, but from directed, precision fire magic.

  I see a body—a figure in grey rags—slumped against the inside of one of the grates, hands pressed against the metal. He lies motionless. He made it to the exit, only to find the door welded shut from the outside.

  My steps falter. I skid to a halt near the edge, the wind whipping my hair into my face.

  "They sealed them in," I whisper, the realization hitting me colder than the mountain air. "The Wardens... when the alarm went off. They initiated containment protocols."

  I think about Jarek. I think about the Void-Fruit I gave him. I think about the hope in his eyes when I told him to lead the way.

  He died because the Spire decided that a few hundred prisoners were an acceptable loss to prevent a containment breach.

  A dark, heavy hatred rises in my throat. I didn't kill them. But I didn't save them, either. I gave them a front-row seat to their own execution.

  "Kaelen!" Vrex shouts, his voice cutting through the fog of my horror.

  The platform behind us groans. A fissure opens up in the steel, glowing with the golden light of the Titan below. The entire hangar tilts, sliding into the abyss.

  "Do not freeze!" Vrex roars, grabbing my arm. "We cannot help the dead!"

  I tear my eyes away from the fused grate. The bitter taste in my mouth lingers.

  "I'm moving,"

  We reach the lip of the platform. Below us, the clouds form a sea of white. Above us, the angry wasps of the Magisterium descend, bolts of fire and lightning already streaking toward the hangar.

  "Do you trust the catch?" Vrex asks, looking at the sheer drop pulling out rope from his locus.

  "Better than trusting the wizards," I say.

  We jump.

  We plummet into the cold air just as the Hangar Bay explodes. The Titan’s light finally chews through the foundation, and the entire side of the mountain shears off, tumbling into the clouds in a slow-motion avalanche of steel and stone.

  We fall for a long time.

  The wind screams in my ears, tearing at my clothes. I tumble through the mist in freefall.

  "Deploy!" Vrex shouts from somewhere below me.

  I reach for the rope. I look for Vrex.

  I lash out with Kinetic Grasp, guiding the rope. It snaps around Vrex’s waist.

  "Anchor!"

  Vrex activates [Fortress Stance].

  Mid-air.

  Vrex increases his density until he is heavy enough to punch through the wind resistance like a bullet. He becomes a lead weight.

  I hold onto the other end of the rope.

  The rope goes taut. Vrex’s weight pulls us down, stabilization through sheer mass, while I use my hands to stop momentum time to time in short bursts.

  We punch through the cloud layer.

  Below us, the forest of the Wilds rushes up to meet us.

  "Brace!"

  We crash through the canopy. Branches whip at my face. I bounce off a massive crystal-leaf, swing around a trunk, and slam into a pile of soft, decaying moss.

  Vrex hits the ground ten yards away. He lands, creating a crater three feet deep.

  I lie there for a moment, staring up at the hole we made in the trees. My chest heaves. My hand—my new hand—throbs in time with my heartbeat.

  "Status?"

  "Alive, Mostly."