and most of the Champions he’d met didn’t have numbers for names.
He should have asked Urzaia when he had the chance.
“Madam Twelve, look around you.” The tower shook beneath the blows of the superhuman fighters at the top. “We were attacked. I was driven out, and now General Teach and your Guild Head, Baldezar Kern, are fighting together against Estyr Six.”
He desperately hoped his earnest expression was making it through the blindfold. “They can’t win. Without their Vessels, they are no match for her. She will kill them, and she will come down those stairs, and she will take back her Vessels from you. She will not speak to you, she will take them by force. Please. Without your help, we have no chance.”
Twelve’s head slowly lowered, as though under an invisible weight. As it did, her sword drifted down until it rested at her side.
Calder’s heart lifted.
“Nah,“ Twelve said at last. She ground the sword into the floor and leaned on it. “If the Farstriders tell me to open one of these boxes, I’ll do it. Otherwise, I’m here to draw swords on anyone who tries me.”
Calder tried not to let his frustration show, but he shoved the crown back onto his head and turned to address the Imperial Guard. “Escort me out of here.”
Unless the Independent Guilds had moved, they were still gathered outside the main door of the Rose Tower. But there were Guards out there too. He needed the Imperial Guard to make him an exit, or he was trapped here.
He had to escape to get to the one person he could think of that might be able to help: Bliss.
As the Guards formed up before the door, the ceiling collapsed.
Kern fell to the floor with a crash, and Calder couldn’t tell if he had crashed through intentionally or if he had once again been cast down by Estyr Six. The Guild Head landed with his knees bent, and his dented armor creaked as he slowly raised himself to a standing position.
Unhurried, he looked around, taking in the situation of the room. One half of his head was sheathed in blood and his entire body was covered in the dust of stone and plaster, but he acted as though it was all just makeup, not worth mentioning.
He had landed among the boxes, and he took in Calder and the Imperial Guard gathered at the foot of the stairs, the Stonefang growling at him, the Magister cowering nearby, the Witnesses silently observing, and the Champion standing with her massive sword.
He focused on her. “Yzara. I need my weapons.”
The Stonefang could take no more. This threat had stayed among its charges for too long. It hurled itself at Kern, snarling, jaws gaping wide enough to crush a man’s skull.
Kern caught the tiger-sized dog by the throat with one hand and hurled it behind him in a single motion.
Twelve—or was it Yzara?—no longer looked so smug. She gripped her sword in both hands and held it up, leaning forward, ready for battle. “Sorry, Baldezar. It’s a job.”
Once again, there came an explosion of motion from a pair of combatants too fast to clearly see. Calder flinched back from the thunder of their crash, instinctively throwing up a hand to protect himself.
When he lowered it, the battle was over.
Twelve lay crumpled in a heap against the wall. Her chest and stomach looked like they had been caved in, and her blood had been sprayed all over the far wall. Her ravaged chest still moved in and out, and Calder could hear a pained wheezing from all the way across the room. Her sword hung limp in her hand.
Kern did not apologize or say anything to his fellow Guild member. Instead, he turned to the Magister, blood-spattered gauntlets held loosely at his sides.
“Open the box.”
The Magister didn’t have the same lethal commitment as the Champion. She hurriedly raised her crystal-speckled staff, her Intent activating the power of the Awakened object. The lid of Kern’s box slid aside.
Kern reached in and picked up his leather satchel. He let out a breath as he lifted it, regarding it like he would an injury.
Calder pointed to the long stone chest containing Teach’s sword. “The rest of ours too,” he commanded the Magister.
When she looked to the Guild Head for permission, Kern nodded.
“Can you win?” Calder asked. There was no time for pleasantries, and he doubted Kern would appreciate them anyway.
The Champion considered for a moment as the stone lid slid away. “Not if she