Chapter 11: Twenty-Two Refined Swords—and the Whole Region Takes Notice

Chapter 11: Devour Its Answer

Golden light was already creeping into the corridor through the cracks in the stone when Cassian pushed open the east door.

The second underground dawn tide had begun.

It had not waited for him to bring Orin Hale’s name back. It would not wait for him and Veyra to produce a perfect plan, either.

Cassian walked to the black-gold divine seat and placed the thin strip within reach of Veyra’s right hand.

"I only brought back one name."

Veyra pressed her fingertips against the strip.

She did not ask about the other names.

"Who did the Bell-Keeper call at the end?"

"Me."

"How many bells answered?"

"Two."

The golden light in the corridor brightened another shade.

Cassian watched Veyra’s fingers tighten over Orin’s name. He was already prepared to hear her say that the roll could not be taken beyond the Eclipse War Banner scar. He was equally prepared to tell her the second gap was still impassable.

Instead, Veyra said, "Break the voice calling you first."

Cassian looked at her.

"What about the roll?"

"If we can save only one thing this tide, let the dead go."

Coming from her, the words carried more weight than any command.

"Ashbone has begun taking answers from the living." Veyra raised her eyes. "Don’t let it take you into its keeping as well."

A faint pulse of satisfaction passed through Cassian’s chest.

He crushed it at once.

"With one less working bell, the roll won’t move as quickly either."

Then he turned and left.

The Bell-Keeper had finally delivered something devourable right beside his name.

By the time Cassian stepped onto the first broken span again, the underground dawn tide had already risen to just beneath the stone surface.

Across the second gap, the black-gold transport platform was moving toward the distant banner scar.

The Bell-Keeper stood aboard it, the long black-gold roll case lying beside its feet. Beneath its left arm, the cracked bell still held Cassian’s lost tension gauge. The other two bone bells sounded one after the other, maintaining the platform’s heavy rhythm.

Closer.

It had moved another stretch closer to the banner scar.

Cassian did not take out his last rock bolt.

It could not cross the second gap, and it had no business pretending it could solve anything for him again.

The Bell-Keeper suddenly stopped.

It raised its left arm and removed the frontmost of its two working bone bells.

A cluster of thin gray-white strands connected the bell to its arm. The Bell-Keeper closed its fingers. The strands snapped one by one, then drew together behind the bell’s mouth, sealing into a tight knot of bone.

Then it threw the bell.

The bone bell sailed across the second gap and struck the ground in front of Cassian.

It did not roll.

Four long, thin bone limbs sprang from beneath its shell and braced it against the stone.

The Bell-Keeper spoke from the far side.

"Cassian Vale."

The bone bell rang.

Cassian clenched his teeth and gave no answer.

The black-gold road beneath his feet answered in his voice.

"Cassian Vale."

It sounded exactly like him.

A gray-white stroke surfaced beside his boot, as if someone were writing his name into the road.

Cold seized Cassian’s gut.

The ranking could write his name. His enemies could remember it. Veyra could call it.

But this road did not get to answer for him.

The bone bell lifted itself higher. Its tongue emerged from within the shell, the pointed tip aimed at the unfinished name on the stone.

Cassian moved first.

His broken blade slashed across the bell’s shell.

Clang!

A gray-white impact burst along the blade. All feeling vanished from Cassian’s fingers. The weapon nearly flew from his grip as the force hurled him back two steps.

He had left only a shallow mark on the shell.

Wrong.

The fact that the shell rang did not make it the key.

The bone bell did not pursue him. It merely drove its four limbs deeper into the stone.

Across the gap, the transport platform was still moving.

The Bell-Keeper had traded one bell for time.

Cassian tightened his grip on the broken blade.

He could retreat and live. Orin’s name was already in Veyra’s hand. He did not owe the Third Formation an idiotic death.

But the gray-white strokes on the road had not vanished.

Only a few more remained before they completed the name Cassian Vale.

Cassian stared into the bell’s mouth.

Its tongue had emerged only when it answered.

Beyond that, he knew nothing.

He did not know how many times it could steal his voice. He did not know what would happen once the name was complete. He did not know why the Bell-Keeper was willing to throw away an intact bell.

But he knew what he could reach.

"Again," Cassian said.

The Bell-Keeper turned its face toward him.

The remaining working bell rang once in the distance.

The bell on the near side began to tremble in answer.

"Cassian Vale."

This time, the voice was torn straight out of Cassian’s chest.

His lips never moved, yet his lungs suddenly emptied.

The road beneath him spat out the answer.

At that same instant, the bell’s tongue extended.

Cassian charged into the sound of his own voice.

The first shockwave tore past his ear, blasting chips of stone across his face.

His broken blade did not strike the shell again.

Its tip caught one bone limb instead. Using that instant of resistance, Cassian closed on the bell’s mouth. The tongue began to retract. The gray-white vibration before his eyes contracted into a single point.

He had seen it.

And now he had reached it.

Divine Rend I.

A black-gold fracture gathered along the edge of his broken blade and cut straight into the root of the bell’s tongue.

Crack.

The ringing stopped.

All four bone limbs folded inward at once. The bell tried to drag the exposed knot back into its shell.

Cassian gave it no chance.

He pinned the bell’s rim with his left hand and drove the broken blade through the opening with his right.

A second crack came from within.

The gray-white knot was pinned against the stone by the blade’s point and split cleanly in two.

The bell stopped moving.

The black-gold mark in Cassian’s palm had already opened.

Devour.

The entire bone bell collapsed inward from the fracture. Its shell, its limbs, and the unfinished gray-white name were all dragged into the black-gold vortex.

The voice imitating Cassian trembled one last time, then vanished.

Heat flooded his body.

This was no dead note snatched from across a gap.

This was hostile divinity that had died whole beneath his blade.

`Divine Essence: +2`

`Available: 3`

`Cumulative: 19`

Cassian closed his eyes for a moment.

Two points of power settled quietly inside him, ready to be allocated—ready to be compounded into his next gain.

He liked that feeling.

For an instant, he wanted to spend some of it immediately and see what three points could do for himself, Veyra, or his territory.

But one working bell remained in the distance.

And the final underground dawn tide had yet to come.

Cassian kept all three points in reserve.

Across the second gap, the transport platform suddenly lurched to one side.

The paired rhythm had been reduced to one lonely bell. The black-gold patterns beneath the platform went dark one after another until it stopped short of the banner scar.

The main roll had not crossed.

The second underground dawn tide began to recede.

The Bell-Keeper looked down at the stalled platform.

It did not call Cassian’s name again.

Nor did it leave the roll behind.

It bent down, lifted the long black-gold case holding the Third Formation’s roll of the fallen, and shouldered it. Then it stepped off the platform.

One working bone bell hung at its side.

Inside the other, cracked bell, the tension gauge tapped softly with every step but could not produce a complete note.

The Bell-Keeper began walking toward the distant banner scar.

It had lost the rhythm that carried its transport.

So it would carry the roll itself.

Cassian stood on the near side of the second gap, feeling the three unspent points of Divine Essence within him.

One underground dawn tide remained.

Next time, he would devour more than an answer.