“Quick water break,” said Evelyn, turning to shuck her pack and drop into a crouch before it. “Little Sun will rise again in a couple of hours but we can continue through the dark. We’ll probably hike for four cycles before we get some sleep.”
Scorio wanted to ask why the day was so short, but his general ignorance was starting to make him feel embarrassed. How many classes had he missed? Almost as many as he’d ignored, sunk too deep into his own problems to do more than show up. If it hadn’t dealt with mana manipulation or combat he’d simply not been interested.
Lianshi was watching him pityingly.
“What?” he protested.
She smirked. “Nothing.”
Scorio took a swig from his large waterskin and grinned ruefully. “I, ah, might have missed some stuff in school, I guess. And the entire first couple of months.”
Jova was working through a series of stretches but paused to glance over at him. “What’s got you confused?”
Now everybody was staring at him. Scorio flushed and sat up straighter. “Uh, today felt… short?”
“Because it was,” said Jova, resuming her stretch. “A day on the Rascor Plain is only as long as a single light cycle in Bastion. Think of it as day for First Clay, night for First Rust, day for First Bronze, and so on. Forever.”
Scorio hated having Jova explain anything to him, so he simply nodded and refused to ask the dozen follow-up questions that immediately sprang to mind.
“You get used to it,” said Evelyn. “I remember it being very strange at first, but you just learn to sleep with an eye mask. Water break’s over. Everybody ready?”
The sky only truly turned black for a brief spell; otherwise, it was a dusk-like illumination that was either darkening or brightening. Evelyn called true darkness “midnight” and warned that was when the Plains were at their most dangerous, but refused to elaborate.
They strode on. The hills were continuous, the path broad and smooth, and eventually they simply walked in silence. The sun rose, sailed overhead, a tiny fleck of light, then dipped below the horizon again and plunged them into gloom. This happened four times before Evelyn called it a day.
Or night. Scorio wasn’t sure what to call things yet.
“The ash will get into everything if you’re not careful,” Evelyn warned as she stretched out a thin sheet upon which she lay out her sleeping bag. “There being eight of us, we’ll take turns keeping watch with teams of two. Each team will watch for either an entire day or night cycle. We’ll sleep for six cycles all told, breakfast, and then keep going. Clear?”
Everyone nodded. The mood was subdued. The endless waste of gray ash had a morose effect on them, even if the sunsets and sunrises caused the iridescent flecks on the ground to gleam beautifully for a short while.
Still, as Scorio lay atop his sleeping bag, hands interlaced behind his head, he couldn’t help but smile at a uniform gray sky that was devoid of a sun-wire. To inhale the strange metallic scent and listen to the whispering echo of the wind that seemed to reach them from a million miles away.
They were out of Bastion. They’d begun their journey into Hell, and he couldn’t wait to see what new wonders the next day would bring.
Chapter 11
But the following day simply featured more of the Ash Belt. Bastion and its towering walls disappeared completely from sight and soon it felt as if they wandered through an endless desert, the rolling hills finally giving way to a plain covered in sinuous dunes whose peaks were coppery green and whose troughs were compact black. They extended toward the horizon, mesmerizing in their repetitive nature, and their path disappeared beneath shifting sands so that Evelyn marched on with what seemed like dubious confidence.
Although the landscape was alien and possessed a subtle beauty, it soon became monotonous, so Scorio fell back to where Jova was bringing up the rear.
“Hey there.” It still felt strange to address her casually.
She arched a dark brow but made no answer.
“So, we’re both Tomb Sparks, right? Do you know what we have to do to reach Flame Vault?”
She wasn’t able to resist a wry smile. “Haven’t you been a Tomb Spark for all of two days?”
“Yeah, old news.” He grinned. “Time to set my sights on the next ordeal. Problem is, I don’t know what to work on.”
“It’s simple in theory, hard in practice. Just like everything else.” She stared ahead. “Thus far we’ve focused on our Heart’s ability to hold mana. To increase the depth of its reservoir, and then condense it back to its original size, making the mana as dense as possible.”
“Sure. Along with figuring out some truths about ourselves along the way.” He eyed her. “You did that while fighting Ravenna, right? Accept something about yourself? When you made Tomb Spark?”
She nodded but didn’t elaborate. “To make Flame Vault it’s no longer a question of volume or density, but one of reactivity. All Hearts are born with a natural reactive set point. Some find it easier to Ignite than others. But to make Flame Vault you have to heighten that reactive point till Ignition becomes reflexive.”
“Reflexive?” Scorio tried not to let his mood sour. “Great. I’m still venting almost half of what I draw.”
“I noticed. You didn’t hold your fighting form for very long against Evelyn.”
He wanted to protest, to argue that there hadn’t been much mana to go around, but it was true. “Yeah.” He looked down as they walked on. “I had to take some shortcuts in order to make it here. They hurt my heart. Chimera was going to help me with that, but…”
“So they did make an offer. People saw you leave your first tournament round with Principal Recruiter Selena, but nothing came of it. Mind my asking what happened?”
Her asking felt special, as if the mere act of showing curiosity about him was a vote of confidence. Scorio resisted the urge to sigh. “When I was out in the ruins, before I met Naomi, I did some work for a criminal organization that served the Houses. I was… angry. Bitter. It felt like a way to get back at the Academy. Either way. We stole some sapphire vials from House Chimera. Praximar found out, and threatened to tell Selena if I didn’t swear a Heart Oath to throw the next round of the tournament and fail to pass the sixth room of the Gauntlet.”
Speaking those words summoned that weight, the oppression he’d felt under the injustice of Praximar’s blackmail, and brought his anger snarling back. But with some effort he let it go. “Rather than remain under his boot, I told Chimera myself. We agreed to part ways.”
Jova slowed her pace, and when he looked back at her she hurried to catch up. “Praximar blackmailed you?”
Juniper and Zala glanced back, eyes wide, and Scorio fought the urge to duck his head. “He tried to, at any rate.”
Jova bit her lower lip and shook her head. “The bastard.”
“Yeah. Made telling him to get lost after winning the Gauntlet extra sweet, however.”
The corners of her lips quirked up. “I’ll say. I didn’t mind it too much myself.”
“Heh.” They walked on in companionable silence for a while, the others chatting up front. Seized by impulse, he glanced at her again. “I’m glad this worked out. All of it. Not just for the greater truths, but…” She watched him, expression inscrutable, and he suddenly regretted opening his big mouth. But it was too late now. “But I also admired your success, your, I don’t know. Dominance.” He flushed and looked straight ahead. “I wanted to invite you to train with us a dozen times, but you seemed so self-contained, so…”
“Disdainful of you?” Was that amusement in her voice? “I was. And…” Now it was her turn to trail off, to search for words. “I don’t find talking to people… easy. I’m… not good at making friends.”
“You’re friends with those two.”
“They didn’t give me much of a choice. And I was lucky to be placed in the same suite as them. Most other people, they want to…” She paused, looking for the right words. “Talk about nothing. They don’t say what they mean. It’s exhausting trying to parse endless amounts of small talk to understand what people truly want from you.”