14-85. Terrifying Control

Elijah sat on Vyrin, staring down at Esik’s glittering rings, his thoughts lost in a jumble that he didn’t even try to untangle. Instead, he simply existed in the moment, letting himself enjoy the sight of something no other human being had ever seen.

A subtle pressure told him that he was no longer alone. And there was only one person who felt like that. Kirlissa had come.

She sat beside him, the rustle of her golden hair filling the atmosphere with the sound of clinking metal. But she didn’t say anything, instead preferring to let the silence between them stretch for a few minutes before she finally broke it.

“I sometimes forget to enjoy the view. Such a shame.”

“Is it bad?”

“The view?”

Elijah finally turned to look at her, and he saw a subtly playful smile turning up the corners of her mouth.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.”

“And?” he asked.

“Does it make any difference? I told you that I would shield you from your seniors, and I have. None of them will move against you. Not directly.”

“And indirectly?”

“They will hire assassins. None will be higher than demi-gods, though. Not until you’ve reached deity, at which point the restrictions against retaliation will fade somewhat. I can justify protecting a junior member of my clan, but not an adult,” she answered.

“Transcendents?”

“We have better things to do.”

“You don’t.”

She laughed. “I am a little more hands-on than my peers. Most of them are so detached from all of this that they barely know what century it is, much less if some child unknowingly picked a fight he couldn’t win.”

“What happened to him? After they used the anchor, I mean.”

“Physically, psychologically, or in terms of his cultivation?”

Elijah shrugged. “All three?”

“His body is as healthy as ever, but his cultivation is in extreme disarray. The anchor helped put things back, but the echoes of its destruction remain. His advancement is now hollow, and it is unlikely that he will ever reclaim his lost strength,” she explained.

“And the other?”

“Broken. Completely and irrevocably. He flinches at the slightest movement. Screams when he’s touched. He cannot sleep without treatment, and he spends most days staring blankly at the wall of his chambers.”

Elijah frowned.

“Not what you expected?” she asked.

Elijah shrugged. “Maybe it was. I don’t know.”

In truth, he was disappointed. Not in the effects themselves. Skahan deserved that and worse. However, he had believed that a demi-god would have fared better against a little torture. Elijah had been thorough, but the result wasn’t that much worse than some of the things he’d endured in the name of cultivation.

And he was fine.

Mostly.

Or functional, at least.

“I once strangled an entire solar system.”

“What?” Elijah asked. “Like, literally?”

“Of course not. That would have been easier,” Kirlissa answered. “I did it economically. Blockades. Embargos. Bribes. It took nearly a thousand years before they devolved into anarchy, but the process was neither bloodless nor easy to behold. When I was finished, they were barely more advanced than your ancestors who lived in caves.”

“Why?”

“Therein lies the problem. I don’t even remember. I know it was justified, and I can make some guesses. It is easy to think of them as evil, and perhaps they were. Allies of the vespirans, maybe. It happened so long ago that I can’t be certain,” she admitted. “They were the first, and the manipulation was so blatant that no one stood so firmly against me ever again. After that, I only had to destroy planets.”

Elijah frowned at the matter-of-fact way she’d described her actions. At the implication that she couldn’t even remember what prompted such a genocide. And that was what it was, too. There was no ambiguity about it. She had destroyed a society that spanned an entire solar system, and she didn’t even remember the details.

“Your guess?”

“They were in my way,” she answered. “There is no more dangerous place to be than in the path of a transcendent. Or a rising talent.”

“Like me?” Elijah asked.

“Just so.”

Elijah went silent as he continued to stare at the planet. Like Earth, it looked like a green-and-blue marble, though one surrounded by glittering, golden rings. In addition, there were whole swaths of the massive planet that looked like they were on fire. Or frozen. There was even a huge area of shadows so dense that they looked like a hole in the world.

“What’s going to happen now?” he asked.

“You will train here for the time being,” she answered. “And when the next round comes, you will defeat your opponent. Do you know who it is?”

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“I can guess.”

Cyran es Caelwyn had been the number one seed since the beginning, and it didn’t take a leap of logic to arrive at the conclusion that he would be Elijah’s foe in the final battle of the Tournament of the First Fang.

“Is there anything I need to know about him?” Elijah asked.

“He is a promising young demi-god. None of his matches were a contest for him.”

Elijah had seen a couple of them, and he had to agree. Cyran was close to the peak of the demi-god realm, with decent cultivation. What’s more, he clearly had a high-rarity class, with powerful spells that took advantage of his wind attunement. He employed a highly mobile, acrobatic style that blended well with everything.

“Should I do to him what I did to Skahan?”

“Do you think he deserves it?”

Elijah shrugged. “Probably.”

Skahan was Cyran’s lackey. Everyone knew as much. But there was no real guarantee that he’d known what Skahan intended for Kaela. He had violated Sara, though. Not as publicly. And he’d disguised it with a simple sparring session. However, the end result was a traumatic event for Elijah’s adopted sister.

That should have been enough to send him on a similar rampage.

“It won’t work,” Kirlissa stated.

“Why not?” Elijah asked.

“They know what you can do, and they will have taken precautions.”

“What kind of precautions?”

“Do you believe you are the only person who can fracture a core? There are ways to guard against that sort of attack. Equipment, mostly. If that young dragon had been a little stronger, you could never have destroyed it so completely, even without protection. It is an attack meant for weaker opponents.”

Elijah nodded. He’d sensed as much. That was why he’d gone to such lengths to evolve his soul. Otherwise, he’d have waited until after the tournament so he could advance his core first. After all, he liked doing things in order, and his lindwyrm core glared at him every time he opened his status.

“And you think Cyran will be prepared for it.”

“His parents will never allow you to embarrass him in the same way,” she answered. “My guess is that they will employ some sort of equipment. There are rings meant for such a task, though even the weakest among them cost a fortune,” she explained. Then, she smiled. “The weakest will not suffice. And in anticipation of your little statement, I cornered the market on such items. Rest assured that the burden of protecting their promising young dragon will be quite heavy for the Caelwyn clan.”

The act itself wasn’t necessarily that intimidating. Sure, it had required Kirlissa to connect some dots, but it wasn’t like she’d made a wild guess. Rather, the obvious pleasure she took in gouging people was truly frightening. It was that attitude that had allowed her to economically strangle an entire solar system into their equivalent of the stone age.

“You are a really scary person,” he said.

“Only to my enemies,” Kirlissa responded. “To my family, I am a font of prosperity.”

Elijah couldn’t disagree with that.

“How is Sara? Are Tura and Birk okay?”

“Your sister begged me to allow her to visit. She has grown quite attached to you,” the transcendent dragon answered. “I should have anticipated as much. You left quite an impression on her, and at a very influential time in her life. But she is fine. She understands why you did what you did.”

That much was a relief. Elijah couldn’t bear to alienate Sara. He could lose everyone else in the Empire of Scale – even Kirlissa – but not Sara. He’d only really known her for a couple of years, but in that time, she had become an indispensable part of his life.

“Tura and Birk are both well,” she went on. “They will arrive soon to continue your training.”

He nodded. “What happens after the Tournament?” Elijah asked after a few more moments.

“Life goes on.”

“But what does that entail?” he asked.

“That depends on the outcome,” she answered. “Should you win, there will be a grand banquet where you will be crowned champion. Even the emperors are expected to attend, though I must caution you. Most within the Empire would prefer it if the Caelwyn boy emerged victorious. That may affect enthusiasm. Rest assured that your family will step in should the Empire fail to properly honor such a victory.”

“Because I’m not a real dragon?”

“Who said you weren’t?”

Elijah shrugged. “I hear things. Like half-scale.”

“Nonsense. Bigotry. Nothing more.”

“But there is some merit to the accusations. I can’t have dragon children,” Elijah stated. “I am different. Maybe not worse, but different.”

“Do you know that I’m legally disallowed from referring to Tura as my firstborn?” she asked.

Elijah shook his head.

“It is true. In the empire of scale, the term refers to the first dragon child to make it through the Culling. For the longest time, I thought it was a curse. I believed there was something wrong with me, and that was why my children continued to fail,” she explained. “But as Tura grew, I realized something important. Do you know what it was?”

Elijah shrugged and admitted that he didn’t.

“Cores don’t matter.”

“That’s not my experience,” Elijah disagreed. “My core is one of the reasons I am where I am. Maybe the only reason.”

“Oh, they grant some power. I will not deny that. But your core does not change who you are. Tura is no less of a dragon than the one legally recognized as my firstborn. Perhaps even more of one. Mano’leth continues to disappoint me. Tura never has.

“Nor have you,” she finished.

“You didn’t really tell me why they prefer Cyran to win.”

“I did not.”

“Will you?”

“You are intelligent enough to figure that out on your own,” she answered. “After the banquet, we will travel to the inner ring and to the oldest planet in the Empire of Scale.”

“Is it the one from the core vision?”

“No. That place was lost to time and strife,” she answered. “The Seekers still search for it, just as they search for our planet of origin. One day, they may find it.”

“Seekers?”

She explained that they were an order of draconic monks who’d dedicated their lives to exploring the long-dormant history of dragons. “Some seek in the abyss. Others explore forgotten galaxies, following threads of clues only they can see. Many in the Empire of Scale consider them mad. Perhaps they are.”

“Do you think so?” Elijah asked.

She stared off into space. “No. They are not mad. They are driven by the mystery. Compelled by the need to know. I can understand that.”

“So can I.”

“In any case, we will visit She’evoth, where you will be given the opportunity to cultivate near the First Fang. It is a great honor and an enormous opportunity. If you do it properly, you may get more out of that than you did from that echo of a worldseed you absorbed.”

She looked at him and winked. “And if you do what you normally do, you will lay the foundation for something truly special. I only hope you survive it.”

Elijah’s heart raced at that opportunity. He’d just about finalized his plans for his core, and he was more than eager to get started on his quest to take the next step in his development. The only reason he hadn’t already done so was because of the promise of the First Fang.

And he really didn’t want to resort to using a cultivation chamber or potions, like most people in the Empire of Scale. Those, he regarded as crutches, and he wouldn’t use them unless absolutely necessary. Even Rijh’s help – which was limited to flooding the vale with power – left a slightly sour taste in his mouth.

“This is why I know you will go far.”

“What?”

“That look. You do not want help. You wish to do it all yourself.”

“Can you read minds, now?”

Kirlissa laughed. “I don’t need to. I have watched you very closely. I know you better than you know yourself.”

Elijah wanted to object, but he realized that was probably misguided. After all, Kirlissa was older than Earth itself. Surely, she’d learned to read people in all that time.

“And after that?”

“I cannot say.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

“Both,” she conceded. “It is a surprise, but one I believe you will like. It will not take place for a few more years, so in that time, your days will be your own.”

“No more training?”

“If that is what you wish. But I have found that too much training often turns against a student. You need to experience things to know where you fall short. Only then can your growth continue.”

“I see.”

She pushed herself to her feet. “Tura has arrived,” she said, glancing back toward the palace. It was more than a hundred miles away, but its glow was still visible. “Come. We will greet her.”

Elijah nodded, rising as well. But before they took off, he said, “Thank you.”

“For what, my child?”

“For everything. For coming out here to talk to me. I think I needed that.”

“It is what a mother does.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”