CHAPTER 23

Echoes from the Past

One might be inclined to pay attention to the peak of the wave as it breaks, the frothing white head, but it is what lies below the wave, the dragging darkness, that should be of concern.

Passage Two, Eighty-Third Precept of the Combat Codes

Cego rolled up the sleeve of his second skin, running his hand along his arm and examining himself in the Quarter D mirror. Even three weeks later, the skin was still raw where the spectral had burned him.

None of the professors at the Lyceum had seen anything like it before. “Darkin’ strange workings” was all Murray-Ku had been able to say after the fight as he stared at Cego’s arm.

Although some flux tattoos were intricate, they always followed a fixed rhythm and color pattern. The evolved brand on Cego’s arm seemed to follow no such design. The dragon had a life of its own. He clenched his fist and the creature curled up his arm, pulsing a radiant blue as if some strange energy was building within it. He threw a jab and the serpentine flux coursed back across his arm, a green-scaled ripple that started in his shoulder, its open maw sparking yellow as it flowed down through his elbow before exploding in a crimson fireball at his knuckles.

“Now, that be something to get used to.”

Cego turned to see Knees. He’d thought the Venturian was down at the common ground with the rest of the team to watch the fight.

Though Knees was still bruised from his bout with Dozer, he looked different. The glimmer had returned to his eyes since that day on the challenge grounds. The day the light had dispelled the shadows. The last day Cego had heard Farmer’s voice.

“Yeah. I’m not really sure what to make of it yet,” Cego said as he practiced a roundhouse, watching his flux whip its sinuous tail across his arm.

“Make of it?” Knees asked incredulously. “You’ll make the best of it! Walk down there and throw a few feints in front of those inbreeds, why don’t you? They’ll be deepshittin’ it!”

Cego chuckled. Though it would be interesting to see how the purelights would react to him showing off a one-of-a-kind flux tattoo—if it could even be called a flux. Cego had been wary of attracting too much attention since the incident. He’d even been avoiding the common ground and had Abel bring his meals up to Quarter D.

“How… how’re you doing?” Cego asked. Knees had only recently left Xenalia’s care in the medward. The cleric had given the Venturian extra attention at Cego’s request.

“Good,” Knees said as he began to spin for a kick, only to fall forward with a grimace.

“Well, maybe not good, but I be all right,” Knees said sincerely this time, looking Cego in the eyes.

“It’s good to have you back,” Cego said.

“Erm… Cego. I been meaning to tell you something,” Knees mumbled, as he had the habit of doing whenever he needed to speak seriously. “Heard everything the crew did for me. All these months, tryin’ to get me back here. Meanwhile, I been off in my own world the whole time, not sayin’ nothing but spit to you all and acting like a shit.”

“Don’t apologize. I understand. I know what it’s like,” Cego said.

“Yeah, I know. But still, it needs sayin’. You watched my back. You be knowin’ I always got yours,” Knees said as he extended his hand.

Cego grasped the Venturian’s wrist firmly.

“Guys!” Dozer came huffing through the entryway to the dorm, his face nearly as red as it had been in his fight against Knees. “You gotta get down to the common ground, quick!”

“What, you be pickin’ fights again and need our help?” Knees punched Dozer in the shoulder playfully.

“No, no—it’s the Spine—the Knights—the fight,” Dozer could barely get the words out between breaths.

One of the biggest fights of the decade between Ezo and Kiroth was happening today. The Auralite Spine, on the border of the two nations, was up for grabs again. This time, the winner was to take nearly 30 percent of the land, which was more than had been distributed over the past century.

Ezo could put only one Grievar in the Circle for a fight of this profile, with so much at risk. Artemis Halberd.

“Well, what be happening?” Knees prodded Dozer as they sprinted out of the room toward the common ground.

“It’s—he—he lost,” Dozer said breathlessly as they ran down the stairs.

“Artemis lost?” Cego asked in disbelief. Ezo’s champion hadn’t lost one fight since the very start of his path, when he was a Grievar fresh out of the Lyceum. Artemis Halberd losing was akin to Murray Pearson suddenly adopting the latest in Daimyo fashion trends. It just didn’t happen.

Dozer shook his head emphatically as they turned the corner and burst onto the common ground.

The room swelled with students and professors, just as it had for Halberd’s last fight. It seemed like the entire Lyceum was piled onto the rotunda’s ground level, watching the big board with SystemView blaring. No one was speaking. It was deathly silent.

The feed panned across the massive Kirothian stadium, showing a crowd that was equally stunned. Though some spectators had their arms raised in victory, others were quiet, looking toward the center of the stadium. The feed followed their eyes to the Circle, where spectrals were cooling along the edge of the steel frame like flames that had been recently doused.

There were two Grievar in the Circle. One standing and one lying inert on the ground.

“Not just lost,” Dozer said as the three stared at the screen along with the rest of the Lyceum. “Artemis Halberd is dead.”

Cego saw her right away, the red braid stark against her white second skin. Sol stood apart from the crowd in front of the big lightboard, off at the edge of one of the practice Circles.

Cego carefully put his hand on her shoulder, which tensed abruptly but relaxed as she turned to see him. He didn’t know what to say. Her father was dead, the feed still hovering over his lifeless body.

“I… I’m sorry,” Cego whispered. It’s all he could say. He could tell Sol he knew what it was like to have someone raise you, only to have them suddenly ripped away as if they’d never really been there. He could tell her he knew how it felt to be completely alone, without a home or family to return to. But that wouldn’t do her any good right now.

Sol looked up at Cego, her eyes fierce, with no sign of sadness in them. She looked like she had three weeks ago, stepping into the Circle against Tegan Masterton, ready to give herself to combat. Blocking out any external stimuli, concentrating only on the task at hand.

“It’s okay,” Cego said. “It’s okay… to be sad.”

Though Sol had tried to distance herself from her family name, Cego remembered when she’d spoken about her childhood, about how her father used to let her climb around his giant body. When students whispered to each other as the daughter of Artemis Halberd passed them in the hallways, Sol would look at the floor, but Cego knew she was proud.

“I… Why should I be sad? I haven’t seen him in over four years,” Sol said. The feed was still tight on his body, as if the broadcasters expected Artemis to suddenly stand again.

“He was your father,” Cego said. As if she didn’t know that already. Stupid.

“He was Ezo’s champion. Their tool. Governance and the Citadel used him to get what they wanted. I didn’t even know him anymore.” Sol turned her back to the screen.

Their tool. Her words caught Cego in the gut like a body shot. He hadn’t told any of the Whelps. Not even Dozer or Knees. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. Though the entire Lyceum was still buzzing about what had happened to him during the final challenge, they didn’t know the truth about him. Only Murray and Command knew the truth.

“No,” Cego said firmly. He had to believe it; otherwise, he would fall apart again. “He fought for Ezo. But he fought because it was his choice. He fought for what he believed in. Your father fought for you.”

Sol turned her back to him, her body shuddering. She knew it was true. Though Artemis Halberd was a familiar name chanted on the Capital’s streets like a rallying cry, a bright face on the boards that cast away the grey skies for many, he was more than that to her. He was her father.

Cego moved to place his hand on Sol’s shoulder, which was shivering now as she crouched on the ground. He stopped. Something caught his eye on the board above.

The feed was panning from the body toward the man that stood across the Circle. The Grievar who had killed Artemis Halberd.

Cego hadn’t even considered Artemis’s opponent. The shock of the champion’s death had turned his thoughts from the bout itself. How had he lost? How had a Grievar so seemingly invincible been defeated and killed? Who had such power?

The feed moved at a crawl toward the figure standing across the Circle. The man was blanketed in shadows, but Cego saw him as he turned toward the smoldering spectral light.

Cego fell onto the floor beside Sol with wide eyes on the screen.

It’s impossible. How—how can it be? Murray said none of them were real.

There was no mistaking him, though. The man had a wry smile on his face, as if he were in on a joke nobody else could hear. Cego stared at the screen in disbelief.

The man standing across from Artemis Halberd’s lifeless body was Cego’s brother. Silas.