Jin spun on his heel and walked away.
Patrick’s expression sank. “Was that really necessary, Sera?”
Honestly, I thought she was being too generous, if anything.
I wanted to trust Jin again. Working with him again had been fun. We did make a good team.
But it was going to take more than just not killing anyone during one test to regain my trust.
“You weren’t there,” Sera snapped, tightening her hands into fists. “You don’t get to complain.”
Patrick winced and took a step back.
Marissa stepped in between them. “Hey now, Sera. Don’t bite off your hand just because it itches.”
I hadn’t heard that expression, but it seemed pretty appropriate.
Sera tensed again, then sighed. “Fine, you’re right. I’m sorry, Patrick. I’m just… He nearly killed someone. He could have gotten us all killed. You and Corin might be the forgiving sort, but I’m not going to just pretend we’re all friends again like nothing happened.”
“I’m not sure I can forgive him, either.” I folded my arms. “But let’s not have this argument. If we need to discuss how we’re going to handle Jin at some point, that’s fine. This isn’t the place or the time. We’re in public, and we can’t let all this slip out.”
Sera shook her head. “I said what I needed to say for now. Just know that I’ll be keeping my eyes on him. I know the reasons he gave you in the spire, but I still don’t think we know a fraction of what he’s really up to.”
“All right. If that’s done, then, why don’t we get some eats?” Marissa snagged Sera by the arm. “Nothing like punching a dragon to get my stomach rumbling.”
Patrick laughed. “You’d probably eat the dragon if it was real.”
“What, wouldn’t you? Bet it’d give me magic powers or something. Wasn’t there a story like that?”
“They say that’s how the Blackstone Bandit got so strong. C’mon, I’ll tell you about it on the way to the dining hall.”
Mara frowned. “Don’t you mean the Blackstone Assassin?”
“Naw, totally different. This guy is real — just saw him in the papers recently. Robbed a casino blind just a few weeks ago!”
Patrick continued to regale us with dubious tales of the Blackstone Bandit’s exploits all the way to the dining hall…and through much of lunch, too.
Later in that evening, I overheard Sera having a conversation with Keras back at Derek’s manor.
“…Sounds too dangerous. Especially in your condition.” That was Keras’ voice.
“Might be just the thing I need to get my edge back, though. You sure you don’t want to try?”
“Definitely not yet. I’m sorry. The risks are too high. We can talk about it when you hit Sunstone or Citrine.”
“Bah.”
I found the two of them inside Derek’s training room, which we virtually never used, since the rooftop had turned into our de facto location for sparring.
Still, the training room had its uses — most notably two training dummies that had powerful magical shields. The walls were, of course, also shielded.
I waved when I walked in. “What was that all about?”
“We were, um, just talking about Ceris.” Sera’s voice sounded pretty rough again, and that worried me, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to come across as nagging.
In the back of my mind, though, I was making plans for heading to Vanreach Peak at some point in the future. Sheridan’s treatment had helped, but it clearly hadn’t solved the problem entirely.
Sera raised the crystalline sword. From her stumbling over her words and Keras’ dubious expression, I could tell that the sword was definitely not what they had been talking about.
I decided not to push, both because she was clearly uncomfortable, and because Ceris was an interesting topic in itself. She’d had it for several weeks now, but I hadn’t seen her experiment with it much yet — presumably because she didn’t have enough mana to make it work. Either that, or she’d just been training in private.
Ceris was a legendary weapon, the personal sword of Katashi himself. Unlike the Six Sacred Swords, it wasn’t forged for mortal use — rather, it was an instrument wielded by the visage himself, supposedly for his battles against the Children of the Tyrant. They were the only living beings, aside from the Tyrant himself and the god beasts, that were thought to rival the visages in power.
If what Keras had told me earlier was true, some of those children might even be more powerful than an individual visage — which explained why even a visage might need a powerful weapon.
There were other legendary beings that might have been similarly dangerous — the old gods that had supposedly died, and monsters and servants they’d left behind. But as far as I knew, none of those were on this continent — they’d be back in the old lands that our people had left behind during the great exodus to Kaldwyn hundreds of years ago.
Because Ceris was used by a visage, however, legends about it were…varied. Some of them were clearly nonsense, like that Ceris was forged from the heart of another world that had died long ago. Others were a little more plausible; some said that it had once been used by one of the ancient gods who had died in battle against the Tyrant.
In terms of the sword’s actual capabilities, I knew even less.
I waved a hand at Ceris. “I’ve heard the stories about it, of course, but how’s it actually work?”
“We’ve been trying to figure that out.” Sera snapped back to her normal demeanor, tilting the sword sideways. The weapon’s entire blade was made out of some sort of blue crystal.
There were no visible runes on the surface, but I could see some kind of mana swirling around inside the crystal, even without my attunement active.
“What’ve you learned so far?”
Sera turned toward one of the combat dummies. “Here, watch.” She slashed the dummy, and I saw a flicker of energy as it impacted against a shield. Nothing else happened.
I folded my arms. “So, it can be used to…hit things. That’s very impressive, Sera. Truly, it is a blade without equal.”
Sera turned back my way and rolled her eyes. Sighing, she said, “Pay a little more attention, will you? Here, I’ll make it easier. Keras, if you would?”
Keras held up a hand, conjuring a ball of fire and hurling it at Sera before I could react. I had a moment of fear and alarm before Sera raised Ceris to intercept the blast.
What happened next was peculiar. She didn’t cleave the fireball in half like I might have expected Keras to; instead, the sword flashed for an instant and then the ball of fire distorted, seeming to stretch out toward the blade. When the flames reached the crystalline surface, they vanished entirely.
A moment later, the inside of the crystal was swirling with crimson mana.
As I processed what had just happened, she turned and swung the sword at the dummy again. Flames burst across the dummy’s surface as the blade made contact, leaving wide cracks in the protective shield.
Sera was grinning as she turned back toward me. “Get it now?”
I nodded, impressed. “It absorbs and discharges mana. How do you make it work?”
“I just think about the spell that I want to absorb and it pulls it toward the blade, then absorbs it. The range seems to be about ten feet, and it isn’t automatic. I have to mentally command the sword to do it.”
I rubbed my chin. “The fact that it can read your intent is interesting — that’s a pretty sophisticated enchantment. How do you discharge the stored mana?”
“By hitting something. That doesn’t seem to require any special effort, just a certain amount of pressure on the impact. Means I have to be careful — dropping the sword from far enough will set it off.”