Crown of withered thorns

Chapter 7: The art of deception

The City of Black-Iron didn't breathe; it rattled. The air was a thick soup of coal smoke, scorched grease, and the metallic tang of blood. It was the only place where the Sun-Lords’ gaze couldn't penetrate the soot-stained clouds, and the only place a man with golden blood could hide in plain sight.

I pulled the hood of my tattered cloak lower, obscuring the brand on my chest. Beside me, Elowen was a trembling shadow, her eyes darting between the jagged spires of the city.

"We need supplies, Elowen," I said, my voice barely a whisper over the roar of the steam-foundries. "Food, mounts, and a blade that won't shatter the first time it hits a Seraph’s hide. And for that, we need the Void-Steel."

"And you’re going to get it by fighting in a hole in the ground?" she hissed, clutching her own cloak. "Cyprian, you’re barely standing. Your chest is still bleeding light."

"I'm not fighting, Elowen," I said, stepping toward the heavy iron doors of the Crucible. "I'm harvesting."

We entered the underground arena. The smell hit first. It reeked of sweat, cheap ale, and ozone. In the center of the pit, two brutes were hacking at each other with rusted cleavers while a crowd of mercenaries screamed for viscera.

"Next!" a massive, scarred man at the registration desk barked. He looked at me with bored contempt. "Name, kid. And your burial preference."

"Cyprian," I said. "And I won't be needing a grave. I'm here for the Blade."

The registrar let out a booming laugh, spraying spit. "The Void-Steel? You? Look at you. You look like you’d snap in a stiff breeze. The entry f*e is blood or gold."

I didn't say a word. I reached out, grabbed the dagger from his belt, and pinned his hand to the wooden table in a single, fluid motion. He didn't even have time to scream before the blade was through his palm.

"Will that blood do?" I asked, my voice flat.

The room went silent. The registrar stared at his pinned hand, then up at me, his face turning a sickly shade of gray. "Bracket four," he wheezed. "Get in the pit."

I didn't struggle. I didn't sweat. The first opponent was a mountain of a man named Grog. He swung a spiked club that could crush a carriage. I used the Ghost-Step, appeared behind him, and tapped a pressure point at the base of his skull. He collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Three seconds," a voice called from the shadows of the VIP balcony.

The second match was a duo of twin assassins. They moved like shadows, their blades coated in manticore venom. I didn't even draw a weapon. I caught their wrists, pivoted, and let their own momentum send them crashing into the spiked walls of the arena.

"Five seconds," the voice called again, sounding intrigued now.

By the time the final bracket arrived, the crowd wasn't cheering; they were whispering. I stood in the center of the blood-soaked sand, not a single drop of red on my clothes. My golden marrow was humming, a rhythmic pulse that made the Void-Steel blade on the pedestal at the far end of the arena vibrate in sympathy.

"Enough!" A man stepped out from the VIP box. He was thin, dressed in silks that cost more than a village, and his eyes were as sharp as razors. Silas the Broker. The man who knew every sin in the Black-Iron City.

"You move like a ghost, boy," Silas said, leaning over the railing. "No, not a ghost. You move like a man who has already lived through the strike. Who are you?"

"The winner," I said. "Give me the blade."

"The blade belongs to the man who wins the final round," Silas purred, a predatory grin spreading across his face. "And I've brought in a special guest just to test your...efficiency. He’s a legend in the Reach. They say he’s killed more men than the plague."

The heavy portcullis at the opposite end of the pit groaned open. A man stepped out. He wasn't a giant. He wasn't covered in spikes. He wore simple, dark leather and carried a plain longsword. His hair was streaked with silver, and his eyes were the color of a winter storm.

My heart stopped. The golden fire in my veins stuttered.

Master Thorne.

The man who had found me in the mud of my previous life. The man who had broken my bones to make them stronger. The man who had taught me that a Warden’s first duty is to die so others can live.

"He looks familiar to you, doesn't he?" Silas laughed, enjoying my sudden stillness. "He says he’s looking for a glitch in the world. Someone who doesn't belong."

Thorne raised his sword, the tip pointed directly at my throat. His stance was perfect. I knew it because I had spent a decade trying to emulate it.

"You have the scent of a dead man, boy," Thorne said, his voice like the grinding of tectonic plates. "And I don't like ghosts who don't stay in the ground."

"Master," I whispered, the word catching in my throat.

Thorne’s eyes narrowed. "I have no disciples. Especially not ones who bleed gold."

He moved. He didn't blur—he was just there. His sword whistled toward my neck with a speed that exceeded the Wingless Seraphs. I barely brought my arms up in time, the golden marrow in my forearms flaring as his steel met my skin.

CLANG.

The sound was like a temple bell. I was thrown backward, my boots furrowing the sand.

"Too slow," Thorne rasped. "Again."

"I can't fight you," I said, gasping as the Sun-Spike on my chest flared in agony.

"Then you’ll die," Thorne replied, his eyes devoid of mercy. "Because I didn't come here for a tournament. I was sent by the Empyrean to delete you."

I looked at Elowen in the stands. Her face was a mask of horror. I looked at Silas, who was leaning forward, savoring every second. Then I looked at the man who had been my father in everything but blood, and I realized the "Great Harvest" wasn't the only thing that had moved up in the timeline.

"You aren't him," I hissed, the Ichor-Vapour beginning to roll off me in thick, golden clouds. "The Thorne I knew would never serve the Sun-Lords."

"The Thorne you knew is dead," the man said, his skin beginning to crack, revealing a core of violet, divine fire. "I'm just the memory they sent to finish the job."

The Master lunged again, but this time, the entire arena began to dissolve into violet ash. The realization that the Empyrean hadn't just sent a scout hit hard. They had sent my own past to kill me.