Shadowborn Page 7

  “My apologies,” he said. “If I’d have known somehow Kael would survive—”

  “You’d have done it anyway,” Marius interrupted. “Wouldn’t you have?”

  That was it. The truth behind the lie. Liam debated continuing the charade, to deny it as forcefully as possible, but what was the point? The Speaker for the Angels carried their blessing. His ears were gifted with God’s wisdom, and no lie would ever escape their detection.

  Liam dropped to one knee, hands flat against the crimson carpet. He kept his eyes low, refusing to meet the Speaker’s gaze.

  “Yes,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I fear I would have.”

  He heard the Speaker walk around his lectern and descend the five steps to the walkway.

  “And why is that, Liam?”

  Liam lowered his head farther. Heat flushed up his neck, and he felt his insides tremble.

  “It was the shock of it,” he said. “I swear, that is all. I have not seen my children in years. To be face-to-face with Kael and see who he has grown up to become was enough to stir my compassion.”

  “And so you let him live.”

  Anger surged through him, whether at himself or the Speaker, Liam wasn’t sure.

  “I dropped him to die,” he said, rising back to his feet. That anger gave him the strength to meet Marius’s eye. “I could not bear to witness his death, so I let the ocean have him. It was still to be his death, Speaker. That moment of weakness was never meant to compromise the task given to me. I saw the panic in his eyes. His element was dry. How was it his wings suddenly gained new life?”

  The two shared another look, one that confused Liam greatly. If it were so simple as an extra light element secreted somewhere, this wouldn’t be a question of any significance. Yet clearly it was.

  “You know of your daughter’s blood,” Marius said. “And how she wields the flame in a most unnatural way?”

  Liam nodded. Of course he knew. The whispers and rumors were everywhere on Center.

  “Your son appears to share a similar power,” Jaina said. “His entrance tests for the Academy showed him to be of light affinity. Just as his sister uses her blood to control flame, Kael used his own to power his prism before he struck the ocean waters.”

  “Power,” Liam said, dumbfounded. “And how do they possess such a power?”

  Marius put a hand on Liam’s shoulder.

  “They rebel against everything sacred,” his Speaker said. “And with the dome’s collapse, the shadowborn rises. There is no elegant way to put this, Liam. Your children are powered by the blood of demons.”

  Even his experience and training weren’t enough to keep the shock and horror off Liam’s face.

  “I … do not know what to say.”

  “Then simply listen,” Marius said. “There is a reason I brought you before the angels. There is a reason I let their light shine upon you as you witnessed the destruction that befell our world before the Ascension. Your will must be strong. Your heart must be stronger. When I said your role was vital, I did not lie, nor did I exaggerate. Your children are to somehow play a key part in the shadowborn’s plans, and no matter the cost, they must be stopped.”

  Liam bowed his head low, and stubborn tears spilled free of his eyes. For the first time he truly understood how great the task granted to him, and the utmost faith the Speaker had in both his mind and heart.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I was ignorant of the true threat my children represent. I will fare better our next confrontation.”

  “I believe you will,” Marius said, and he smiled. “And do not think this is a total loss. Kael has now seen your face, has he not?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Then the doubt and confusion will begin. We are not without gains made, even if more should have been accomplished.”

  Jaina reached into the neck of her robe and pulled out a gold key on a thin silver chain.

  “And so we have the truth at last,” she said to Marius. “Shall we proceed to the armory?”

  Marius smiled at Liam and released his shoulder.

  “Yes,” he said. “It is time.”

  The three exited the royal cathedral through a side door, Jaina leading the way. Beyond it was a much smaller room stationed with two knights to protect the Speaker on his throne should the need ever arise. The two saluted, eyes to the floor as Liam passed. The three exited into a long hallway, the main passage throughout the ground floor of Heavenstone. Liam kept to himself as they walked, servants and soldiers quickly parting to make way. He yearned to ask where they traveled but did not dare, given their clear displeasure with Kael’s survival. What he did know was that there were two armories for knights in Heavenstone, one in the eastern wing, the other the west. The soldiers’ armories were near the front gateway on either side. Jaina, however, led them to the far back of Heavenstone, to a silver door he’d never noticed before. Heavenstone had many secrets, and Liam wondered which would soon be revealed to him.

  Jaina unlocked the door with her key and pulled it open. Inside was a thin, circular staircase descending into the bowels of Heavenstone. Liam felt a twinge in his throat. The last time he’d traveled deep into the fortress he’d been given audience with the three blessed angels keeping Center afloat.

  “Stay silent, and touch nothing,” Jaina said as Marius led the way. “We will explain your visit shortly.”

  “Yes, Er’el,” Liam answered with a dry tongue.

  The stairs looped down and down, periodically lit by small square light prisms set into the brick. Liam was glad he wasn’t wearing his wings. There’d have been no way to fit them. He wondered if that was coincidence or purposeful construction as he counted the steps down. They passed no doors, no exits, just a continual descent.

  It wasn’t until the hundred and fiftieth step that they reached another door. This one wasn’t silver but instead thick iron with heavy bolts and lacking any decoration. Jaina used the same gold key, which looked an odd contrast to such a door. The lock clicked and Jaina stepped aside so Marius could enter.

  “Which armory is this?” Liam asked, unable to help himself.

  “The Ancient Armory,” she said. “Do not ask questions, knight. Use your eyes instead.”

  Liam accepted the rebuke, ducked his head, and passed through the door to the room beyond.

  And what a room it was. The ceiling vaulted at least a hundred feet above their heads, if not more. Liam could see only a hint of what he believed to be the opposite wall. Thick stone pillars formed a series of even lines supporting the high ceiling. No decoration, no fanciful artwork. Just smooth, strong stone with light elements fitted into them at set intervals. The number was staggering, more than a thousand needed to light the room with a soft glow.

  All of it paled in comparison to the machines of war that filled the armory.

  “God in heaven,” Liam said, frozen in place. “What are these monstrosities?”

  The nearest was a vehicle on six wheels, the front four wood, the back two larger and of stone. It was stocky and square, and also seemingly made of stone. The corner had been smoothed, covered with painted wood and shaped to look like wings. Nearly all of it was trimmed with gold. Mounted atop that bulk was a thick cylinder, open and hollow at the end. It was a cannon, Liam realized, a cannon like in the old stories his mother read to him when he was a child. Red light shone from the cylinder, so bright he knew at least a dozen fire prisms had to be powering it.

  Lined up neatly in a row, a pillar between each one, were nineteen more. Theotechs scurried about them, cleaning, checking, and fitting with elemental prisms.

  “These monstrosities are the firepower once wielded against the demons as they destroyed our civilization,” Marius said as he led them deeper into the armory. “We had no need of their power after the Ascension. Our wars were settled elegantly with duels in the sky, without need of wanton slaughter and lengthy, brutal sieges.”

  More such vehicles filled the next row, smalle
r, more mobile versions of the cannons. Liam examined one closely, saw hooks and latches near the front. To be pulled by horses or oxen, then, not light elements. Next were a few vehicles that looked more like men, with arms made of silver pipe. Others looked like roaring beasts, or a spinning top made up of blades. Liam’s head spun trying to take it all in. Some he could guess their function; others, such as the enormous humanoid machines, left him baffled.

  “Speaker, may I ask a question?”

  “Go ahead, my friend.”

  Liam gestured to the ancient war machines.

  “Why did you bring me here to show me this?”

  The Speaker turned to him, and he smiled like a proud parent who knew something his child did not.

  “Not yet,” he said. “You will see your purpose shortly.”

  Theotechs bowed in respect to their Speaker before resuming their work. More than a hundred of the red-robed men and women scattered about, bees filling up a grandiose hive. Occasionally Liam would pass a chest atop a wheeled cart. Inside would be dozens of elemental prisms, each carefully wrapped in velvet cloth. He imagined the countless elements locked into each and every one of those machines, imagined the destruction they could unleash. It terrified him.

  “There,” Jaina said, pointing. The walls, while mostly smooth, weren’t always so. Stone boxes jutted out from the rest of the stone, little rooms attached to the great armory. Each had square windows cut into them, their interiors lit with lanterns powered by light elements. A single number marked their wooden doors, and it was to number six that Marius led them.

  “The team is already prepped,” Jaina told Marius as they neared. “Er’el Xann is quite excited.”

  “He shouldn’t be,” said Marius. “This isn’t a game. It’s a necessity forced upon us by the minor islands’ reckless ignorance.”

  “My Speaker,” Liam said, anxiety rising as Jaina knocked twice on the door. Liam spotted at least five waiting theotechs through the window, plus a scattered assortment of unknown machinery.

  “Stay calm, knight,” Marius ordered. “We come to give not punishment, but a gift.”

  The door opened, and with a gesture of the Speaker’s hand, Liam led the way.

  Inside was more cramped than Liam expected. Stacked along the walls were rows and rows of shelves lined with baffling instruments. He saw parts of wing harnesses, sharp blades, jagged blades, gears, and wires. One wall had a pegboard holding more than one hundred elemental prisms, each of them cut and filed into bizarre shapes. In the center of the room, surrounded by five waiting theotechs, was a thick, slanted table with leather straps. Liam recognized Er’el Iseph Xann, who had been the one to painstakingly apply Liam’s many tattoos over the years.

  “Remove your shirt and lie down on the table,” Iseph said.

  Liam berated himself for his distrust. God’s chosen leader had personally brought him to be granted a gift from the ancient technology of the pre-Ascension world. He would not whimper in fear of that gift, nor the process required to give it.

  Liam lay down upon the table. The theotechs shifted around him, and despite his attempts to remain calm, a spike of fear jolted him as the first of the five leather straps looped around his wrists and ankles. The last was about his throat, pinning his head. Liam forced his breathing through his noise while suppressing a gag reflex.

  “Are the straps necessary?” he asked. “What is it you fear from me?”

  “We fear nothing,” Iseph said, his voice astonishingly deep. Liam had listened for hours to that baritone calmly listing off a litany of Liam’s sins and failures as the tattoo needle pierced his skin. The few knights Liam had regular contact with insisted the long-haired man had performed experiments upon his own throat to achieve such a depth of sound.

  “Then what are they for?”

  Iseph leaned over his head and squinted a moment.

  “To keep you still while we work.”

  One of the theotechs wrapped a second strip of leather around Liam’s right arm below the elbow and then looped it through a buckle attached to the table and pulled. It tightened to the point of cutting off circulation, and Liam grimaced as pain fought against the spreading numbness. The theotech put a foot on the table, bracing his weight to pull even harder until it finally locked in place.

  “What is this?” Liam asked Marius, who stood with Jaina on the opposite side of the room. His right arm was starting to turn purple. Spiking sensations of pain traveled up his arm to his neck.

  “Like all gifts of God, this one comes with a price,” Marius said. “A blessing and a punishment, one and the same. I hold the highest hope for you, Liam, but I also see the weakness in your heart. You still cling to emotion over reason. We face extinction. Such weakness must be eliminated at all costs.”

  Jaina shook her head in disgust beside him.

  “We should have bestowed this upon a better man,” she said.

  “Perhaps,” Marius said. “But I give it not to the better man, but to the one most deserved.”

  Iseph stepped out of Liam’s view. He heard rattling of metal from a nearby shelf, followed by a chilling scraping sound. When Iseph stepped back into view, he held a metal saw.

  “My Speaker,” Liam said, straining against the leather straps.

  “Shush, child,” Marius said. “The pain will be over soon.”

  The saw pressed against his skin below the tightened belt, the slightest contact with its sharp teeth puncturing his skin. Liam felt it like the touch of a ghost, a certainty of pain in his mind that somehow did not match the numb sensation dominating his entire right arm. Iseph nodded to one of the theotechs, who grabbed Liam’s shoulder and held him down. And then began the cutting.

  Liam watched, detached, confusion and shock overwhelming his emotions. Was this a betrayal? A deserved punishment? Why sever his arm and declare it a gift? The muscle separated, and the easy motions of the saw suddenly turned erratic upon hitting bone. Pain finally pierced the numbness, and Liam screamed at the agony blasting up his entire right side. He gasped and clenched his eyes, fighting to regain control. He was a soldier, damn it, a knight of Center and warrior for the heavens.

  What is holy must never break, he silently echoed, desperately clinging to the mantra to calm his pain-fevered mind. The saw cut deeper and deeper.

  “Hold him still,” Iseph said. “This cannot be delayed.”

  More hands pressing against him, his chest, his legs, everywhere. Liam looked to Marius to see if the Speaker showed remorse for his decision, perhaps doubt or a sliver of compassion. Instead he saw an ice-cold stare and a face as numb as Liam’s arm had been.

  “The separation is complete,” Iseph said, pulling back the saw. One of the theotechs fumbled with the buckle to release the severed arm’s wrist. Iseph grabbed the arm and tossed it aside. Liam heard it thud against something metallic.

  “Is that it?” Liam asked between gasps of pain. “You wanted my arm?”

  “Please do not make guesses,” Iseph said, his back to Liam. “It is distracting and pointless. We do not want your old arm, Seraph Skyborn. We wish to give you a new one.”

  He turned about cradling a thick golden cylinder. One side tapered and ended in four smaller cylinders that looked like stubby fingers—or a miniature version of the cannons that Liam had seen earlier. Wires trailed out the bottom of the other end, each one ending with a fine needle carved from either a light or lightning elemental prism. Iseph gently placed it below Liam’s stump of an elbow.

  “Try to relax,” Iseph said. “I expect the amputation was the easier part.”

  Liam didn’t know how that could possibly be true until Iseph slid the first of the needles into his flesh. Blood quickly stained the immaculate gold and pain blasted through him, so hard he nearly blacked out. There was no numbness to aid him, nor any visible source for the pain. It felt like the bones of his now nonexistent arm were being repeatedly shattered. More needles, one after the other, some inserted into the marrow of the bone, o
thers into his weeping flesh. Liam cried out with tears streaming down his face. He didn’t care to act the strong, controlled Seraph. This was torture. The fifth needle entered, and he screamed. It felt like his fingers were being pulled all the way back, the tendons tearing as his joints snapped. He knew it made no sense. He didn’t have fingers. There was nothing to break.

  His mind seemed not to care.

  “Someone gag him,” Liam heard Iseph’s deep voice grumble. “I cannot concentrate.”

  A thick cloth jammed into Liam’s mouth, and he bit down on it with all his strength. Another needle, this one different. Electricity sparked through him, his legs kicking against the restraints on their own accord. It felt like his body was no longer his own. His other arm tensed and flailed. His neck pulled so hard against the restraint he nearly vomited. Iseph continued patiently through it all. Needle after needle. Liam felt his mind close to breaking. The seventh needle pushed deep into bone, flooding his vision with a rainbow of swirling colors.

  Twenty needles, Liam’s voice sounded distantly inside his own skull. I saw twenty needles.

  If only he could black out. If only he could wake when the pain was gone.

  Tenth needle. This time Liam did vomit, and he choked until someone pulled the gag from his mouth and turned his head to the side. Fifteenth needle. Liam begged for death, for salvation, for rapture. Anything other than this suffering. What crime had he committed? He didn’t even remember. Through blurred eyes he saw Marius watching him. Tears streamed down Marius’s face as well. Why did the Speaker cry? Liam tried to think, failed. More pain. Another needle. God help him, if only he had a blade to sever his own throat. If only …

  The twentieth needle awoke him, and he screamed a long, single tone of agony. He tasted blood on his tongue, felt vomit on his face and neck. The theotechs spoke among themselves, working as if Liam were a machine instead of a human being.

  “Easy now,” Iseph said as he and another lifted the bloodstained golden cylinder and pressed the nub below his elbow through the hollow end. Liam heard whirring, tightening, felt each and every one of those twenty needles digging deeper into his flesh and bone. Liam thought the pain would have lessened by now just from the sheer weakening of his mind. He was wrong.