Every single person in the room turned toward Alex and Claire at Drake's words. Dozens of powerful Outworlders all turned their full attention toward them, bristling with malice.
"The one Stargazer spoke of," Absolution breathed, and sohow, his words cut through the noise to arrive at Alex's ears as if he had whispered them from an inch away. "Bold."
"Shit," Claire muttered, so quiet that only Alex could hear her.
Alex felt like that was a bit of an understatent. There were more than a few choice words he would have liked to use right about now, but there was no ti for any of them. The room burst into clamor as he and Claire both shot to their feet.
This is so bullshit. How do they have so asshole that can detect Mirrorlands energy?
He spun in search of an exit, but they were standing in the middle of an auditorium.
"Claire," Alex hissed, his eyes darting around as he flexed his fingers at his sides and prepared to summon his monsters the mont soone approached. "How do we leave?"
"I don't know," Claire hissed back, the features he could make out over the makeshift face wrapping she had on deceptively calm. "Look for a way out. I'll distract them."
But there was nowhere to run. There was no exit circle. No glowing portal. No way out. Outworlders ford a circle around them, gazes boring into them like blades. Outworlders shouted things out, and Alex could have sworn he caught a glimpse of Invictus with a cold smile on his features before the crowd closed around them.
A sickening thought struck Alex.
That bastard must have realized we weren't Outworlders at all. He brought us here to take attention off the fact that he's blocking people from getting the Town Token. How did he know we weren't Outworlders? Could he sense the damn Harvester as well?
"This is a bit hasty, don't you think?" Claire called, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Accusing soone of being a Native just because we have sothing we bought off an idiot is a bit of a stretch."
"Co now," Drake said through a burst of laughter. "You can't expect anyone to—"
"The Broken Blades are one of the 14, though they're consistently ranked toward the bottom because their strongest mbers keep fucking killing each other over petty disputes." Claire's features tightened imperceptibly. Her back stiffened and her hands clenched at her sides, nails digging into her palm hard enough to draw blood. She was in pain. A lot of it — and still, she continued. "I am of the Nightmarch Family, not so worthless Nativeworlder. Are you trying to start a war with us? We've never shied away from them before, rcenary."
"What are you doing with a core from the Mirrorlands, then?" Drake demanded. "Why would you bring such a thing here?"
"I was unaware that power was banned," Claire drawled, her voice dripping with ire. "Perhaps you should have left your sword at the door as well, coward. When riches are delivered to our hands, we take them."
Tension dripped in the air. Nobody spoke for a long mont.
"She knows a lot for a Nativeworlder," a woman finally said. "Are you sure about this, Drake?"
"Where's Sazaar? He's the Nightmarch representative," another woman called.
Oh, shit. Isn't Claire on the run from the Nightmarch?
"I'm here. Get out of my way, you lot of pigs," a smarmy voice replied from sowhere within the crowd. A short, balding man shoved his way through the people gathered around Alex and Claire. He drew to a stop before them and brushed off his wrinkled clothes as he squinted at her for several long seconds. Then he let out a bark of laughter. "Drake, you're a frothing idiot. She bears our Path. The girl is a Nightmarch."
Alex resisted the urge to blink in surprise. Sazaar hadn't recognized Claire. Now that he thought about it, that actually made a lot of sense. She'd co from an entirely different planet, who knows how far away. If the families were big enough to be showing up at different planets, then their branches probably weren't constantly communicating every single detail of what happened. It would take ti for anyone to figure out exactly what Claire looked like, so she actually had a window of ti where she was unlikely to have most people contest her on being part of the family.
"What?" Drake exclaid. "But—"
"What's new," Brandon said through a snort. "The Hound being over-eager again. Maybe you should go back to the kennel. Could you imagine a Native sohow infiltrating an Assembly? Ridiculous. I don't give a shit about people walking around with Riftwarped energy as long as it's contained. It's not like they're spilling it across the floor. Now can we get back to the actual problem? There's a portal that needs to be opened."
"Hold on, now," Invictus said, a flicker of worry passing over his features before he smothered it. He knew control of the eting was slipping away from him, but there wasn't much he could do to stop it. "We don't know for sure that they're both Nightmarch. The boy could—"
"He bears the Riftwarped energy because he is the only one I trust to withstand it," Claire said, her tone leaving absolutely no room for discussion. "You're wasting everyone's ti, Invictus — could that be because you thought you could pin everyone's attention on us while you put a bounty on the location of the Town Token and put your family and all the adventurers in your city to work finding it?"
"What?" Invictus stamred, his eyes widening. "I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Perhaps you should clarify," Leah said, sliding effortlessly through the crowd and arriving before Claire. "Do you know sothing?"
"Hold on. We can't trust—"
The rest of Invictus' sentence ground to a halt as Leah slipped forward, arriving before him in a split instant and pressing her finger to his lips.
"Hush." Her words dripped like venom. "Not a word, Invictus. The girl is speaking — and I am liable to issue you a Challenge should you speak again before she is finished. You have already rejected one during our last Assembly. You will not be able to reject a second."
Invictus paled and his mouth snapped shut. Claire had shifted the tide of the conversation. There were still a number of disgusted looks sent in their direction, but nobody was regarding them like they were intruders anymore — that is, nobody other than Absolution.
The gray-skinned man hadn't budged from his spot on the platform. His gaze bore into Alex, unblinking.
Fuck. He's not fooled at all, is he? We're far from out of the woods.
"Keep talking, Nightmarch," Brandon said. "What do you know about the Town Token?"
"We ca from Valley Ford. The Town Token is there. Invictus already has a path to it," Claire said with a shrug. "The portals work just fine. He shut them down to keep you all out."
Angry clamors burst from the crowd as Invictus' mouth dropped open in disbelief.
"What? No! That's a blatant lie!" Invictus exclaid.
"And why should we believe you?" soone in the crowd asked. "How do we know you aren't just trying to cover your own hide? I say you're suspicious."
Alex caught Leah shooting Drake a sharp look out of the corner of his eyes. A mont later, Drake cleared his throat.
"As much as I hate to say it, she's right," the man ground out. "It appears that I was overzealous. That information is correct. It's the sa thing I was able to work out of my source."
"What source?" Brandon asked. "How do you know anything?"
"Because, unlike the rest of you, the Broken Blade spreads our resources to ensure our information isn't limited to a tiny area of the Subsector. We're rcenaries, rember?" Sarcasm dripped from Drake's voice. "And one of our groups was successful in finding a lead. Multiple, actually. We'll be more than happy to sell that information to the highest bidder."
"What's the damn information?" Leah ground out. "You're getting on my nerves. If you want to push Credits up your ass, you better make it worth my ti. Who's your source?"
"A girl from the Everbloom family," Drake replied with a smirk. "My n captured her at so heavy losses. It took so considerable… convincing to get any information from her. She is being problematic about the Token's location, but I am certain we will pry it from her soon enough."
The room fell still for several long seconds. An uneasy air settled into the room. It seed like Drake had sohow made a faux pas, but sothing told Alex that being rude wasn't going to get the man killed.
His heart sank. He was pretty sure he knew who Drake was talking about. Orchid had gotten captured. It wasn't like he and Claire were exactly friends with her, but she was a fantastic source of information, and she'd been nice enough.
Losing her now was bad. They needed her to get them to the Town Token and for information about the other families.
Fuck. Everything is going wrong. We're barely hanging on by a thread here.
For the first ti since Drake had attempted to out Alex and Claire, Absolution's gaze broke away from them. Anger burned within his dark eyes as they affixed on Drake's face.
Why's Absolution pissed about this? Does he have sothing to do wit —
Brandon crossed his arms in front of his chest and interrupted Alex's thoughts. "You attacked another Outworlder? This early? Even if treaties don't hold true, there are so things that just aren't ant to be done. We'll have it tough enough with the Nativeworlders once they get a chance to scale. We could have settled things in the Assembly."
"Bah," Drake said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "The Everbloom barely number among the 14 at this point. They only had a single representative on this world. Do you really think they're worth anything?"
"Give the girl to ," Leah said. "The Gentle Shadow have ways of making people talk."
"Let's talk price," Drake replied with a practiced flash of a smile that was all teeth and no eyes.
Invictus opened his mouth to protest, but a dozen furious glares imdiately turned in his direction. He winced and shrank back, letting his mouth close again. He'd been completely outmaneuvered by his own distraction.
Voices rose up as the Outworlders started to yell over each other.
"What do we do?" Alex whispered to Claire, keeping his features as calm as possible. "We need Orchid—"
"I know." Blood dripped from Claire's palms onto the floor. "I'm thinking."
The clamor grew louder — and then it was snuffed out like a candle as Absolution drove the butt of his scythe down onto the ground. Every eye in the room snapped to look in his direction.
"You attempt to sell one of mine," Absolution said. "She is not for purchase."
Drake tilted his head to the side. "What are you saying, Crestless? Are you delusional? What claim do you have to the Everbloom?"
"She is in my employ," Absolution said quietly, but his words carried through the hall nonetheless. "She is mine."
Angry yells broke out again. The Outworlders seed to like doing a lot of that. The room rapidly descended into an enormous argunt as the shouts grew louder. Invictus tried to convince everyone that there was no Town Token near him while Drake worked to up the bid on Orchid's life and information. The other families picked sides and joined each other in the descent to madness — but Alex noted that none of them threw a punch or any other form of attack. The argunt was purely verbal.
Alex and Claire were rapidly forgotten. Claire gave Alex a sharp nod and they made to slink away in search of an escape. The attention would turn back to them soon enough, and their story wasn't going to hold up under too much scrutiny.
But, before they could, the space before Alex suddenly seed to realize that it was ant to have Absolution within it.
The man took form from nothing, abruptly appearing in their path. Alex nearly leapt out of his own skin. His features were beyond unsettling up close.
He could have passed as human, but there was a very distinct portion of his appearance that was anything but. The man's mouth was unnaturally long, and his eyes were devoid of an iris. His ears had slight points and there were grooves running along his neck that almost resembled gills.
Absolution's hand drove down on Alex and Claire's shoulders, grinding them both to a halt as he leaned forward, placing his head between theirs.
"I know what you are," Absolution whispered. "One word from will turn this entire room against you. You will not survive. The only thing the Families care about more than claiming power is ensuring others do not get it for themselves. They will unite against a Nativeworlder at the drop of a pin."
Fuck. I knew he wasn't fooled. He was staring at way too intently.
"Doing that won't help Orchid," Alex said.
Claire sent him a sharp look. He'd basically just confird Absolution's words by opting not to deny them, but the unsettling man had already seen through their ruse. There was no point doubling down. It almost seed as if he had information that everyone else didn't.
Claire had already done her part in convincing everyone else in the room that they were Outworlders. Now it was Alex's turn.
"No," Absolution agreed. His expression was as dark as a stormy night. "It will not."
"We want her alive too. We're working with her."
Absolution's eyebrow arched. "Working with her? Odd indeed. I am going to kill you."
It was a matter of fact statent, spoken with no more emotion than as if he was placing an order at a restaurant.
"You—" Claire started, but Absolution spoke again before she could finish.
"But I want Orchid alive more than I want you dead," Absolution said. "We are united against an enemy. I will open a path to Orchid. You will save her."
"Won't that turn every single one of the people here against all of us?" Alex asked. "A stealthy option might be the better—"
"They are already enemies. Nothing has changed," Absolution said. "Your deceit will be seen through soon enough. If you are still here, they will Challenge you. Then you will die."
"He's right," Claire said, dropping her pretenses. "Are you sure you can get us out of here and to Orchid?"
"Yes. But there will be many that follow."
If we get to Orchid, I could pull us into the Mirrorlands. They can't follow there… I think.
"If I can get to Orchid and find a way out of here, we'll be able to save her as long as Drake's people aren't too strong," Alex said.
"They will be heavily restricted. They have left the Disruptor's zone. Do not fail. Orchid is mine. I will not allow her to experience the true-death while she still owes a life-debt. I will open the way. Be prepared," Absolution said. He straightened and strode toward Drake and Mirian.
Disruptor's Zone? The thing we saw in the Mirrorlands? What does that have to do with—
"Drake!" Absolution bood, driving the butt of his staff down as he arrived on the silver platform. "I Challenge you."
The room fell silent as everyone turned to Absolution.
"I was wondering how long that would take," Drake said with a dark laugh. "I call upon my First. Mirian, deal with the scum."
Outworlders backed away from the platform, the argunt temporarily suspended as they all watched with rapt interest. More than a few of them looked excited. None even looked worried about the delay on getting the Town Token. They were so confident that one of them would be the ones that got it that, so long as they were all here and Orchid was restrained, none of them were concerned about losing it.
Alex's jaw clenched.
They're so damn arrogant. It's like they don't see us normal people as a threat at all.
The armored woman strode to stand before Absolution. She bared her teeth in a cocky snarl. "I accept your challenge in place of Drake. You're too prideful. Did you forget how badly you were restrained for arriving on 274-50 as early as you did? It's about ti soone puts you in your place."
"Perhaps," Absolution said, taking three steps back in synchrony with Mirian. He released his scythe, leaving it floating in the air at his side, and clenched both of his hands into fists. "But it will not be you."
"A Soul Manifestation pose isn't going to do anything when you're still an Initiate. Allow ." Mirian smirked, then threw her arms back into the air. "Soul Manifestation. Armor of the Colossus."
Energy roared all around Mirian. Her body expanded three tis over, armor layering over itself and burning with golden light. The hamr and shield in her hand grew as well, igniting with brilliant gold fla.
"A poor Manifestation," Absolution said. "You only change the area directly around yourself. It seems you failed to properly solidify your Mind Palace.
Fury crossed over Mirian's features. She slamd her helt down over her face. "I'm going to crush you like a bug, Absolution."
"No. You are going to die."
"Kill him!" Drake snapped. "Enough talk!"
"Oh, not quite," Absolution replied. His lips pulled back in a thin smile and he pressed his knuckles together before the hole in his chest. "Partial Soul Manifestation. Devouring Abyss."
And then three things happened in unison.
Drake's eyes went wide in horror.
A thrumming pulse of invisible power rolled out from Absolution and across the stage.
And, within the hole in Absolution's chest, a malevolent red eye twisted into existence.
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