What followed was a rush. It remains in my mind as a blur of memories that are hard to separate from one another, but equally impossible to forget.

  Every time my mind reaches back to that day, the elation bubbles up in a way that is almost impossible to quantify. The exuberance of the soldiers as they cheered. Every one of them was entitled to a portion of the prize. Soldiers of the city though they may be, they were paid in part with a share of our gains, as were the Griidlords themselves. Though the portion of the prize paid to the soldiers was the paltriest of sums compared to what the suits earned, it was a king’s ransom when compared with their existing livelihoods.

  The faces of the soldiers, melted by the excitement of victory, blur past my memory every time I let my mind drift back to that day. Mouths wide in roars and whoops of victory. There was the glee of knowing they themselves had won a prize. There was the existential relief of living to fight another day. There was the satisfaction of serving their city, knowing they had bettered the lot of their friends and families. More than that, even then I was able to see how hope rose in them. We had seen off the armies of Indianapolis. Morningstar himself had never even had the chance to draw his Sword. If we could do this in my first season as Sword, what were the limits to what we could achieve in the seasons to come?

  It was decided that Chowwick and Magnebalde would draw the Flows. They had taken some damage, nothing crippling, during the battle, and if some of us needed to return to Boston to deliver the Flows, it was best it be these two so they could benefit from the healing available in the Tower. I watched them draw the Flows and we settled in for long hours as the light pulsed around them. It was tempting to have all of our Griidlords draw the Flows, shorten the time attached to the Orb, but it would be two or three days at least before the team that left for Boston could return. Without them, we wouldn’t be in a position to challenge a full enemy force in contesting an Orb, but we’d deny ourselves the chance to claim prizes of opportunity if we let all our Griidlords vacate the field for those days.

  As I stood and watched Chowwick and Magneblade, cocooned in the energies that wrapped around them, I remembered the feeling I had had while attached to the Orb before Viktor Taurus and his suits had arrived to beat us back. I remembered the strange slowness, the elated detachment. I could see that lack of awareness in the two men as they siphoned the Order from the Orb. They were like suckling babes or semi-conscious drunks, fixed to the Orb with only the vaguest sense of what happened in the world around them.

  Alya and Tara stood by me as we watched.

  Alya said, “So, level 25? That’s adding the unheard of onto the unheard of, you know that? Even your friend Morningstar didn’t hit level 25 in his very first season of the Falling. I didn’t come close to that. It takes most Griidlords ten years to grow that fast.”

  I said, “But some do this, don’t they?”

  She said, “I can’t say that any do this exactly. Some grow much faster than others, to be sure. I grew pretty damn fast myself. That lady Arrow in Minneapolis has very much shocked the world in the last couple of seasons. She must be almost level 20 already.”

  I felt my heart quicken at her name. Unsure of whether Alya knew about our acquaintance, I said, “Racquel?”

  Alya nodded. “Yes, that’s right, Racquel Moonclaw. She’s turned into a noticeable force already, and she’s barely worn the suit for two years unless I’m mistaken. You need to get a sense of this, Tiberius. Racquel is spoken of for her development. But you’ve passed her already, in weeks, not years.”

  Alya took a step back from the frozen, glowing forms of our teammates. She stepped further from the ranks of soldiers to look out at the green randomness of the wilds around us. She said, “You need to understand, Ti, I am so thrilled with what you’ve done. We all are. You’ve exceeded every metric that could be put before you. None of us, none of the suits, could expect any more. But the people? The nobles? When they see what you’ve been doing, they will expect it to continue. You are special. Truly special. I’ve never heard of or read of a Griidlord excelling as you have.

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  “But I know that you’ll slow down. I know that you’ll hit a level cap. You need to know that as well. There is nothing you can do about it. You need to measure yourself by what you can control—measure yourself by your effort and by the quality of your decisions. We can all hope you’ll keep growing as you have, but when the day comes that your progression slows, you need to be prepared to understand that it’s not a failing.”

  I followed her gaze into the greenness beyond. What she spoke of was something that had consumed my thoughts these last days. Hesitantly, I said, “Why are there level caps?”

  She seemed disturbed by the question. “Well… I don’t think anyone truly knows. You can speak to ten different priest-scholars and get ten different answers. All we know is that every person who has ever worn a suit has either reached their level cap eventually or been killed or maimed before they did. It’s something inevitable that awaits us all.”

  I couldn’t find the words to express the thoughts that had been plaguing me. I had been easily able to accept the reality that there were Griidlords in the world who were leveled beyond me, who had gained enough power as to be far beyond my ability to contend with. But the idea of accepting an ultimate limit on how strong I could grow felt wrong, weak, and honestly impossible.

  After some hours, Magneblade and Chowwick stopped glowing. They had been through the process countless times in their long careers as Griidlords, and still, I could see the disorientation as they detached themselves from the Orb. It was especially out of character to watch Magneblade staggering and confused as he moved away from the drained Orb.

  Tara said, “Your turn.”

  I looked at her skeptically. “My turn? I’m not going back. The Orb is drained dry.”

  Alya said, “Not dry, Ti. There are still the fragments.”

  Chowwick croaked into our conversation. He was still dizzy and weak from absorbing the Flows, but he had lost none of his outlandish excitement over our victory. He said, “Aye! The fragments are still in there, lad. Only the Sword can collect ’em. And, by the Oracle, maybe this year we’ll get a chance to put ’em to use.”

  Alya spoke in a scolding tone, “Pembleton! Enough of that. There’s enough pressure on the boy as is.”

  Chowwick waved at her, clearly annoyed at the deployment of his first name. “Ah, fuck off with that! The boy’s level 25 a wet week into his first Falling. We don’t need to worry about putting pressure on him; we need to worry about letting him do what he can! Realizing his full potential.”

  Alya said, “It does no one any good to talk of the fragments like they might be useful to us!”

  Tara could clearly sense my confusion and leaned close to my ear. “We get fragments every year. I doubt there’s a city that doesn’t gather some small portion of fragments. But it’s been decades since Boston was able to put enough fragments together to make a key and compete for the locked Orbs late in the season. Don’t you worry about it either. If we get enough, we get enough. If we don’t, we don’t. Everyone just wants you to grow and stay safe. You have lifetimes to make a difference at home.”

  Chowwick stared at Alya with undisguised disgust. It was the first time that I had seen anything approaching discord between my teammates. Up until now, everything had been so familial and comfortable that I had never expected to see teeth bared or voices raised.

  Chowwick said, “Alya! Can’t you see that’s exactly what the lad is showing us? We’ve played vulture long enough in the Fallings. We’re always talking about tempering expectations and not taking risks. But look at what we just did! We took some risks and won a fat Orb for it! And there’ll be a lot of fragments in an Orb that big. We don’t need to win the Griid-crown to shock the world. Oracle knows a single locked Orb would be enough to rewrite the lives of everyone in the city. But talking like we shouldn’t be aiming for more is the same kind of thinking that trapped us where we are. The lad knows we can do bigger things, and I know it as well! Well, I know it now that I’ve seen what we can do.”

  A tension hung between them after he finished speaking. They had shown every sign of being as close as brother and sister through every interaction I had witnessed. But now there was something else there, a distance between them I hadn’t noticed.

  Alya broke the silence. “We’re here with a duty to the city, Pembleton. To the people. Don’t forget that. Our lives are to be lived in service, to better the lots of the people we serve. Not for crusades of glory.”

  I continued to be confused, but I could see Chowwick digesting her words.

  At the time, it just seemed like a spat. It would be some time before I could grow to understand the significance of the void between them.