He considered reaching out to Feiyan and Helena, then immediately discarded the idea. He could return to Dola and… what? Get his throat cut? What of Leonis and Lianshi?
That idea gave him pause.
He hadn’t sworn to not get help.
Could he reach Leonis and Lianshi? He hadn’t even considered it before, assumed they were locked up tight within the Academy. But even if he could, would they help him? Come out into the ruins to fight an Emberling for his sake?
Scorio rubbed at his chin, considering. Say that they did agree. Was it responsible of him to embroil them? Nightmare Lady wouldn’t hesitate to gut him, much less two other Chars who meddled in their contest.
Was defeating his opponent worth losing Lianshi or Leonis over? Scorio grimaced. Tried to imagine Lianshi impaled upon Nightmare Lady’s tail blade.
No.
He said it with extreme reluctance. Even if they agreed to help—and some part of him hoped they would, thought there was a chance—he couldn’t bring them into such a dangerous situation. One with so very little hope.
He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he won at the cost of a friend.
So it was back to tackling it alone.
He took a deep breath and considered. She’d visited him in the middle of the night. Could he assume she was most active when the sun-wire was dim? Made sense. Nightmares happened when you slept. Perhaps the central cycle of Amber was when she rested.
Unless of course she purposefully changed things these next three days, guessing that he’d make those assumptions.
But she’d only change her patterns if she thought there was a chance he could surprise her, and he knew she didn’t. She was a cat, playing with its food, enjoying the futile struggle.
So no. If assumptions had to be made, then he’d guess she’d not bother to change up her habits. Which meant activity in the dark, and rest when the day was brightest.
Even this minor act of reasoning managed to buoy his spirits. Gave him an illusory sense of progress.
But how would he find her? He gazed out over the wasteland of gray stone and fire, then shook his head.
He couldn’t. His very attempts would alert her to his presence as he fumbled around the ruins.
So then he wouldn’t try.
The realization made him sit back, no longer seeing the blasted city but instead staring out at nothing.
They’d made a date. At the end of the third night, she’d come to end his life.
That meant he just had to set up the perfect ambush and let her walk into it.
With a grin, Scorio rose to his feet and began the treacherous descent.
1
Scorio sat with his back to the wall, a lantern burning at its lowest wick by his side. Absolutely no light filtered into the ruined hallway from the sun-wire, but First Clay had to have begun, the sun-wire incandescing after its long cycle of darkness.
He stared at the distant square in the ceiling. She’d want to talk to him when she arrived. Express her disappointment. But would attack the moment he moved in a way she didn’t understand.
The chalk’s lines only lasted for about an hour. In the heat of combat that seemed a lifetime, but sitting here in the aching silence, it felt gallingly insufficient. What if she didn’t come after him right away? What if she waited till the next night cycle? How often should he refresh the lines?
The moments dragged by with insufferable silence. The walls were cold, the floor uncomfortable, but even if he’d sat in the most resplendent chair he’d have shifted and stirred with disquiet.
He rose to his feet, stretched. It had been a long night. A long test of his every assumption, and the fact that he still lived proved at least some of them had been correct.
But now all he wished was for her to show. For an end to this torturous waiting.
There wasn’t enough room to pace, and he didn’t dare walk to the hallway’s end beneath the trapdoor. He sat back down and resumed watching the hole in the ceiling at the end of the narrow hall.
Time seemed to have no meaning. The lantern’s light was just dim enough to see by but sufficient to last all day.
He didn’t want to think about what he’d do if she didn’t come soon enough. If his light died out. If he ran out of chalk.
Nor did he want to think about how he’d try to survive if he were forced out of this blind corridor.
He fidgeted, then forced himself to stop, then inevitably began to fidget once more. Was First Clay over? Could it be First Rust by now? She preferred the darkness. What if she decided to wait? What if—
He grimaced, rose, took deep breaths, and watched the square, moving his chalk from one sweaty hand to the other.
What if she couldn’t find him here? What if she were looking for him right now, but unable to detect him down in this hole? She’d found him the first time due to the vials. What if without it she was blind, and forced to scour the ruins?
Or worse yet, what if she decided not to bother, and simply kill him the next time she ran into him?
Scorio bit his lower lip, glared at the square, demanded silently that she appear.
She’d come. Something told him she’d take his failure to appear personally. That she’d be insulted by his not even trying to hunt her. She’d be annoyed, at herself more than anything, for believing he might prove interesting.
She’d want vengeance.
It had taken him two days to find this corridor. Ten yards in the bowels of a ruin, both ends blocked by collapsed masonry. Narrow enough that he could touch each wall by simply extending his arms. Ten yards by one. A simple, plain, brutal rectangle. With an entrance in the ceiling at the far end, a square a couple of feet wide. If he leaped, he could grab the edge, pull himself out.
Just like a tomb.
Or a womb, as Leonis might have put it.
He smiled in the soft glow of the lantern, tried to distract himself with thoughts of his friends. What would they be doing in the Academy? Did they think of him? Had they lit their Igneous Hearts yet? What powers might they have manifested?
A deep breath. His heart was beating rapidly, though nothing had happened for hours. It had to be Second Rust.
Where was she?
He’d explored all manner of elaborate set-ups. Some easier to find than others. He’d worried endlessly about whether he should leave a note for her in his old room, or a trail to ensure she’d find him.
In the end he’d opted to leave nothing.
If he wanted her to believe he was truly hiding, then he had to make it hard for her.
But what if he’d made it too hard?
Scorio pressed his knuckles to his temples and grimaced. His thoughts were driving him wild. But he couldn’t afford to sit and attempt to meditate, to focus on his Igneous Heart. He had to be ready to act the moment she appeared, the very second.
So he watched, unable to even pace the length of the hallway, trapped in place at its very end, breathing powerfully, waiting.
Trapped.
More time passed. The silence was maddening. Perhaps he should scout outside. Just take a look. Refresh his trail, as it were. He was considering this possibility when instinct bade him freeze.
Nothing had changed. The darkness was still velvety and thick beyond the soft radius of the lamp. The square in the ceiling was utterly still. The silence suffocating.
But still, he froze, thoughts going quiet, eyes locked on that impenetrably dark opening.
“Scorio…” The voice had an almost singsong cadence to it, lilting and amused. But it didn’t hide the sheer menace that caused goosebumps to race along the back of his arms and caused the hair on the nape of his neck to prickle.
“Scorio…” Closer now, and then, at long last, movement.
Her tail.
It dipped in through the hole, and he caught his first vivid sight of its maleficent awfulness. The blade at its tip was a long, off-kilter triangle, dull black in hue and grooved down the center. Easily the length of his forearm, its edges seemed to disappear into the air, as if so sharp it gradated into nothing instead of simply ending.