And there was freedom in that self-awareness.
Breathing deeply, feeling expansive, Scorio purchased a dawn apple and bit deep into its gold-flecked flesh. He sucked in the juice and allowed the flow of the crowd to bring him ever further south.
It was impossible to ignore the tension in the streets. Gone was the chatter of people going about their business, the antics of children racing between carts and chasing hoops of wood along the sidewalks. While he still heard the varied cries of the costermongers and admired the artful displays in the shop windows, he no longer saw old ladies chopping vegetables on their miniature balconies. Windows were shuttered, doors were closed.
Instead, the main streets felt almost empty. Those who were out hurried on their business, casting worried glances about them as if afraid of being accosted. There was more trash in the streets than he was used to seeing, and no music playing from hidden sources. Just an aching silence that rang ominously loud once he attuned himself to it.
Frowning, Scorio stopped at a large plaza in whose center a water-fountain burbled. A line was formed before it as always, but the people were wary, constantly gazing about themselves, pails in hand.
What had been happening in the city since the week he’d spent helping deal with the chaos Imogen had caused? He’d been so hermetically sealed within the Academy that he’d not kept abreast of events. Feiyan had warned him that the streets were turning ugly, but he’d not paid any attention.
He was noticed, and people began to elbow each other, nod in his direction. The stares were ugly, confrontational.
What had he done?
He glanced down at himself and saw the Academy’s white robes, the golden sash.
Ah.
Inclining his head politely, he hurried on, trailed by angry whispers.
Best to get back into the ruins. Sticking to narrower streets and alleys, he once again delved into his own thoughts. How would Praximar react to Scorio’s preempting? Would he find another way to turn the screws? Or would he just sit back, fully expecting Scorio to fail, his ruined Heart undercut, unable to compete with the elites?
Scorio tossed the apple core to a fire salamander that was sunning itself along the length of a gutter, and chuckled as it snapped the core out of the air, gulping it down.
The nature of the wards changed, grew meaner, grimier, and eventually gave way to the first of the ruins.
It felt like coming home.
Unsure as to his destination, Scorio allowed his feet to take him where they willed, walking the familiar streets and avenues, climbing over the buildings that had collapsed into the street and leaping over the chasms that fractured the way.
He walked, old instincts returning to him, his feet guiding him around the cylinder and then deeper in, till at last he saw the monolithic bridge lying across the chasm, felt the dense power of the Coal mana flowing below him, and reached the edge to look down at the huge, pale spider-crabs and the massive barnacles.
And just beyond them lay his garden of Black Star plants.
Scorio’s lips quirked into a wry smile. A sense of nostalgia and fondness washed over him, the sight seeming a glimpse into his past.
Something had had a go at them; half of them had been torn up, the black soil roiled by heavy talons. But the rest still grew in precise rows, full and healthy, their velvet petals drinking in the Coal mana that swept by.
Scorio dropped into a crouch.
He couldn’t win by playing along with the Academy’s rules, by limiting himself to the resources it would grudgingly give a weak Great Soul like himself. The spoils went to the powerful, who only became more powerful. The rest? They had to find other means to survive.
Scorio rubbed at his chin. He could come every Eighthday to collect the mana. Use the Academy’s laboratories to filter and refine the syrup. Build up enough of a supply so that even his fractured Heart would be strained to its limits.
Sure, he’d suffer for it. This solution was the exact cause of the fracturing in the first place. But what if he could brute force his way to Emberling?
Scorio frowned. Even if he did, how much of his Heart would be left? How bad would the fractures become?
Did it matter, if it gave him a chance at winning the Gauntlet run?
You mortgaged your future for brief successes today, he heard Praximar sneer. Hera’s concerned visage appeared in his mind’s eye: You’ve been driven like all Great Souls to acquire power, and it’s cost you.
Scorio scowled, took up a sharp shard of stone, and hurled it into the chasm below. If he won the Gauntlet, came first out of the entire cohort, then wouldn’t that convince another House to take him on? House Basilisk, perhaps, who didn’t seem so punctilious with issues of morality? And he’d be allowed to stay on for the second semester at the Academy, with all the resources and healing that would come of it.
He sighed and sat back on his heels. All of this was predicated on the belief that he could actually beat Jova Spike and Ravenna Accardi and all the others. That he could overcome his limitations, make Emberling, and defeat the other thirty or so House-sponsored Great Souls in his cohort who’d been getting the extreme benefits of endless treasures from the start of the semester.
Scorio scowled. Did he really think he had a chance of coming in first? That a toxic Black Star syrup would make the difference compared to all the Fat Crickets and Apotheosis pills that the others were taking?
A dour voice from deep within him spoke the truth: He had no chance.
With a grimace, he leaped to his feet. So—what? He’d allow Praximar to crush him? Accept defeat after so many sacrifices, and just slink out of the Academy?
There had to be a different solution. A way to relinquish House Chimera’s patronage and still excel at the Gauntlet run.
Problem was, a large dose of toxic Black Star wasn’t going to be nearly enough.
What if he began hunting for Heartstones again? Earned enough octs to begin buying healing pills and medicine? Instructor Hera had thought those too expensive for him to even bother trying to acquire, but she hadn’t counted on his generating income on the side outside of the student’s allowance.
Excitement seized him. He could weaponize his days spent in the ruins. Hunt large, valuable fiends. Perhaps even go underground—what if he found a sunphire? Surely he could exchange one of those for some healing. Then he could offset the damage the black syrup did to his Heart, and grow more powerful…
Restless, he began walking, but wasn’t ready yet to return to the Academy. He couldn’t face his friends and the luxury of their suite with his mind so fixated on the grim realities of the ruins and the chances they afforded him. Didn’t even want to walk the tension-filled streets of Bastion.
But he forced himself to return to Ward 1. Asked around till he was pointed in the direction of a specialty shop which sold him a workman-like blade of dull steel and a functional scabbard. Cost him six iron octs, which was a good chunk of his allowance that he’d saved up, but he didn’t fancy punching pony-sized crabs to death for a living.
So armed, he returned to his old running trail, and set to ghosting from shattered building to pile of shale and detritus. Watching, listening, trying to sense what lay ahead before it noticed him.
Hunting.
His first target was a small hunting crab; it scuttled after him, pincers raised. Instead of climbing to safety, he faced it, ignited his Heart, and then deftly impaled the tip of his blade through its head area, leaping aside just before its pincers could snag him.
That netted him a small, jet-black Heartstone that fit comfortably in his palm, though the tip of the sword already looked blunted.
The hours passed, and the sun-wire brightened and then began to dim. Scorio worked his way around the circumference of the ruins once, twice, three times. Avoided the dangerous spots, followed the flows of Coal mana, and hunted methodically.