“Hunted?” Scorio sat up straighter. “Who would hunt a Blood Baron?”
“You didn’t tell me. But my impression was that you had betrayed someone or an organization. Or angered them past all measure. Seems to be a motif for you.”
“Yeah. I’m starting to realize.”
“Regardless, you’d known me in previous lives, apparently. My reputation, you said, was such that you hoped my journals would remain inviolate. Whereas any message you left to your future selves would be stolen and destroyed, and so hoped to use me to communicate with yourself, just as we’re doing now.”
Scorio shivered. A plan over two centuries in the making was coming to fruition. “And the message?”
Jova opened the journal to a slender bookmark and frowned down at the pages. “I’ve puzzled ceaselessly over it. At first, I thought them the words of a paranoiac. But now…” She trailed off, then raised the journal. “Your message was as follows:
Scorio, do not trust the Houses, the Imperators, and least of all the Herdsmen. Everything is a lie: our cause, our purpose, the reason we are bound to this hell, and our way out of it. The only way to break the cycle is to become the Infernarch. Unless you do, the cycle shall repeat itself forever, damning us and countless innocents to this heinous masquerade. I know we can do this. Not in this lifetime—my questioning has already drawn too much attention. No doubt we shall be placed on the Red List for it—but you can do it. I tried to go it alone. I failed. Don’t make my mistake. You can’t do this by yourself. Damn the odds. Do whatever must be done.”
Jova considered her journal, then lowered it to her lap once more.
“That’s it?” asked Scorio, breathless, almost dizzy. “I didn’t say more?”
“You refused to.” Jova frowned down at her pages. “You said committing certain truths to paper would draw the attention of the Imperators, and worse. You could only use indirect warnings. We spoke long into the night, however, and my previous incarnation came to trust you, or wished to, at any rate. You left the next dawn, and I never saw you again.”
“Huh,” said Scorio, then bit his lip and frowned. “Who are the Herdsmen?”
“I don’t know,” said Jova.
“And my becoming Infernarch?” He gave a hollow laugh. “Within the next—how long are we supposed to have?”
“Depends on who you ask,” said Jova softly. “Seven to ten years if the rate of the ruin’s advance remains steady.”
“Well, that’s just not possible.” Scorio sat back and propped himself up with outstretched arms. “Pyre Lord in that span of time would be impressive. Imperator in seven years would make me a legend. But to make Imperator and conquer the Pit, and to do so before the other seven Imperators do so? Not going to happen.”
Jova stared at him silently.
“What?” He shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Don’t tell me you think it can be done.”
“I made a bet with myself, after reading this,” said Jova. “That I would believe the warning, would believe your previous self’s words, if you bested me in the Gauntlet. It seemed so impossible that you could do so, but so necessary a first step in your quest to become Infernarch, that I decided it a fitting test.”
“Oh,” said Scorio, taken aback. “So… you believe in this warning?”
“I’ve always intuited it, I suppose, even before we spoke.” She stared down at her black nails. “It’s why I never signed up with any of the Houses. Their… need, their sweet words, all seemed but a prelude to the raising of a lash. The harder they pursued me, the more suspect they became.” She shook her head irritably. “An intuition, nothing more. But your warning and the… other things I wrote in my journal convinced me that it might be otherwise.”
“You were pretty adamant the last time we spoke about not trusting me because I was a Red Lister,” said Scorio.
“That was before I read these journal entries.” She continued to study her fingers, her frown marked. “After our encounter in the hallway, I looked up this passage, and ever since I’ve been wondering. Doubting. Questioning. And then, against all the odds, you somehow went the deepest into the Gauntlet.”
“I bested you by only one segment,” said Scorio suddenly. “I threw myself onto the fourth pentagon just before I was killed.”
Jova smirked at him. “Smart. But still a valid victory. And that doesn’t gainsay the fact that you somehow made Tomb Spark when you needed it most.”
“I suppose it doesn’t.” He subsided, pensive. “I can’t make Infernarch. Reaching Tomb Spark has nearly ruined my Heart. I’m venting half of everything I draw on. Just healing that damage will take years.”
“We don’t have years.”
He looked up sharply. “We?”
“We.” Her expression became defiant. “You don’t think I spurned the Academy and all four Houses to then wander Hell by myself without a cause?”
“Oh.” His face flushed. “So, you’re—ah—coming with me?”
“If we can reach an agreement, yes.” She couldn’t hold his gaze any longer and looked away. “I didn’t say what I said on that stage lightly. But if your warning is true, and we cannot trust the Houses, the Imperators, and that everything we’ve been told is a lie—then how could I do otherwise but help you begin to discover the truth?”
To which Scorio could only slowly nod.
“It’s a gamble.” Her voice turned soft, and she looked down once more. “But the stakes are too high to be ignored. You’ve proven yourself remarkable, Scorio, just as I once thought of you, two centuries ago. I trusted you then. It will take some work, but I’ll try to trust you again.”
“Oh.” Scorio blinked, almost shook himself. He had to do better than that for a response. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.” She inhaled sharply and sat up straight once more. “If this warning proves true, I’ll be the one eternally in your debt. I don’t like the idea of being anyone’s slave, especially not for countless reincarnations of my life.”
There was a knock on the door. Jova frowned, rose smoothly to her feet, and crossed the room to crack it open.
“Scorio in here?”
Jova opened the door wider to reveal Lianshi. Jova stepped aside, and she and the others filed in. Juniper was with them, Scorio saw, along with Zala.
Scorio rose to his feet. “Jova and I—”
But he was cut off by Lianshi’s high-pitched squeal as she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly about his frame and burying her face into his neck. “You did it! You did it! You’re a Tomb Spark?” She drew back sharply, suddenly angry. “How did you become a Tomb Spark?”
Leonis laughed loudly, the rich sound filling the room like sunlight, and pounded Scorio’s back before grabbing him in a headlock, only to release him a second later. “You’d not have made it without us, you mad bastard! Don’t forget us on your road to greater glories!”
“What? No! I’d never—”
But Leonis was grinning so widely that Scorio realized belatedly it was a jest, and clamped his mouth shut, cheeks flaming.
“Tomb Spark!” Leonis shook his head and put his hands on his hips. “Insanity.”
“Congratulations,” said Naomi, voice almost inaudible, standing off to one side, one arm wrapped over her midriff, hand clutching her other elbow. “That was… incredible.”
Scorio grinned at her. “We’ve come a long way since we first met, haven’t we?”
She couldn’t resist a quiet smile. “That we have.”
Juniper brushed her blonde hair behind her back and smiled tightly at him. “Congratulations, Scorio. We’ve not spoken much, but Lianshi has told me a lot about you.”
“Nothing private,” said Lianshi hurriedly.
“Nothing private,” agreed Juniper. “But… Jova?” And she stared at her friend in disbelief. “I knew you had an independent streak as wide as the ten hells, but what… I mean… What’s going on?”