His mind and body had been strained beyond their limit again and again, stretched with alchemy and fear, so in the first second of safety they simply gave up. He tried to struggle to his feet, to help Urzaia.
But why? A Champion was here.
The battle was over.
Urzaia pulled the secured door off its hinges with one hand, tearing it apart like it was made of sticks and string. The huge man looked down on Foster, his blue eyes kind, smiling his gap-toothed smile. He was in full gladiator regalia, leather armor strapped all over his body, and the golden hide of a Sandborn Hydra—his Soulbound Vessel—wrapped around his left arm. In his hands he held his dark Awakened hatchets, which were already slick with blood.
A bullet slammed into his back, richocheted off, and bit into the ceiling.
Urzaia brushed dirty blond hair out of his eyes as he knelt in the middle of Foster’s house, ignoring the battle behind him. “Do not worry, Foster. We are here now. I will take you home.”
Foster passed out.
Chapter Eighteen
“Yes, of course Kelarac keeps his promises. I know I’m not supposed to say so, but I find that to be a stupid question.”
“Then if you worded your deal perfectly, so that there were no loopholes, nothing he could take advantage of…couldn’t you end up with a beneficial request? A wish, so to speak?”
“I apologize; I was mistaken before. That is a stupid question.”
—Transcript of a Witness interview with
Bliss of the Blackwatch
present day
Calder sat in a plush Capital sitting-room with the air of a slaughterhouse, but he didn’t focus on details. He already knew this was a dream.
Only the man sitting in front of him was real…and he wasn’t even a man.
Kelarac’s steel blindfold gleamed as he reached to the side, lifting a jeweled golden goblet to his lips. “You are dying, you know. You might have suspected.”
In the handful of times that Calder had met Kelarac in a dream world before, he had felt like he’d been transferred here physically. This time, it was more like his meeting with Ozriel: he couldn’t feel anything from his body. When he tried to look down, he saw only a chair.
If it weren’t a dream, he would have panicked. But you accept all sorts of impossible things in dreams.
“The Consultants finally got me, then?” he asked. His final memories were hazy, but he could piece things together. Shera had plunged a dagger into him.
“They have you now.”
Kelarac waved a hand and the curtains were drawn back from one of the sitting-room’s windows. Beyond the panes of glass, Calder looked down onto himself from above.
He was lying face-down with a gaping, bloody hole in his back. Men and women in the black uniforms of Consultants bustled around him, using Awakened tools to hack away at the white armor encasing him.
The view shifted below and the table became transparent. He could see himself.
Looking into his own face was a punch in the gut. It didn’t look like he was dying, it looked like he was dead. His skin was waxy and pale, his eyes stared sightlessly at nothing. As his enemies worked to loot his armor, the impacts jerked his body so that his head bounced on a loose neck.
“The Emperor’s armor is keeping you alive,” Kelarac said casually, sipping from his goblet again. “As you can see, the Independents are prying it off. As soon as they finish removing it, you’ll die.”
Calder couldn’t feel his stomach, but he was still somehow hollow and sick.
He’d failed. Everything was for nothing.
When he spoke, his voice sounded empty. “What about Ach’magut? He said I would rule.”
From behind his blindfold, Kelarac showed surprise. “For a time, did you not sit the throne?” He gave a regretful sigh. “We intended for there to be so much more…a human we could actually communicate with. I even sent the Champions to save you, but you wasted the gift I bought. At great expense, I might add.”
Calder was still staring into his own dead eyes. He had wasted his life.
“Then why did you bring me here?” There was no hope in the question, only resignation.
“I’ve invested in you, and I rarely deal personally with a human more than once. I thought we could watch your end together. Call it a…professional courtesy.”
On the table, Calder’s body jerked and sent blood dripping down the pale armor. A plate came away and the wound oozed more freely.
Shera leaned over, inspected the body, then said something to one of the Consultant