CHAPTER FORTY

  Shard of Darkness

  GRATULATIONS! You have pleted the quest: Save the Master, Save the World! Rewards will now be distributed.Bram didn’t need firmation from the quest reward to tell him he’d won the loyalty of the of Stargazers, though it was encing to see the system grow alongside his forces.

  GRATULATIONS! The system’s knowledge base has grown! The Loom’s resources have increased by [0.10%].Current resource rate:1.243%When he was a child, every victory was a ce to deny Bram the boons he shtly deserved. Now, it seemed the opposite was true. Every successful challenge, discovery, and person who bent the ko him portunity for the Loom to shower him with gifts.

  How the tables have turned.

  ALERT! The reward [Earn the loyalty of the [Fmetail Tribe] is suspended until a new requirement is met.ALERT! The reward [Gain trol of the [Red Ruin]] is suspended until certain ditions have bee.“Looks like this adventure ain’t over,” Chris observed.

  “Aye.” Bram’s gaze drifted to the top of the husk that was Loveless’ final form. “Did you find anything iing in there?”

  Chris nodded. “Bridget and I did find something that was giving off all kinds of bad juju. Y’all might want to check it out.”

  With his report fihe Texan turned a cool blue gaze at Merak and his friends.

  “Y’all offered to help,” he grinned, “and I ain’t oo look a gift horse in the mouth, so let’s get tling.”

  The young sorcerers eyed each other with fusion.

  “He means for you to follow him,” Ravi supplied.

  With Ravi as a transtor for Chris, the young sorcerers followed the Texan to the husk’s feet where the roots could be found.

  Bram, who remained where he was, had a troubled look. “Must we go in there…?”

  Despite having gohrough many grueling challehat have showered him in blood and guts, the priill wasn’t keen on the idea of wading inside a dead monster’s innards. Not even a bard would relish the thought.

  “Yhness…” someone called in a tentative voice.

  When Bram gnced over his shoulder, the young woman he’d rescued earlier stood a little behind him. She gazed at him with worry clear on her face.

  “The Vice Master told me that my grandfather was fighting outside, but—”

  “We’ll go out to help as soon as we’re done here,” Bram reassured her.

  Relief flooded the silver-haired Alkaid’s face.

  “We also wao thank you again for resg us.” She elbowed the girl fidgeting beside her. “Go on.”

  Despite her pale blonde hair half-c her heart-shaped face, Bram could still see Phecda’s reddened cheeks.

  “Yhness…” She couldn’t look him in the eye. “I…”

  It was obvious from the guilt and shame mixed in her expression that Phecda was building toward an apology of some sort. Only, Bram wasn’t keen on listening to some half-baked excuses for her shaming him when they were younger just because he’d proven to her now that he was no lohe ill-fated prihat she and the other young dies of the Sn’s court rejected so vehemently.

  Bram turned away because he couldn’t pletely hide the anger bubbling in the ers of his sciousness. It wasn’t Phecda’s fault. Not really. She was simply following rules that had bee long before she or Bram were born. In the Imperium, only those with power were truly worthy, while those without it were left at the edges of society to fend for themselves or die bereft and alone.

  “I’m a little busy.” Bram grabbed Rowan’s hand, and their fingers iwined. “We’ll talk ter.”

  As if he’d fotten how much he didn’t want to wade into a dead monster’s innards, Bram ighe rope that Chris left dangling in front of him and leaped up to the top of the husk’s stomach with Rowan in tow. Luckily, he had a few minutes of ‘Giant’s Strengthening’ left, and he managed an impressively high leap without difficulty.

  “Show off,” Rowan teased.

  “You’ve learned more Earth speak.” he gri her. “Pretty soon, you’ll be soundily like Bridget.”

  “Would you mind if I did?”

  They locked gazes, each looking favorably at the other.

  “No, I wouldn’t mind it at all.”

  With some effort, Bram turned away from Rowan’s crimson-eyed gaze so that he could ihe corpse Loveless had left behind. As he expected, the giant nymph’s burnt body had lost some of its figure, with parts of it returo the form of the great tree she’d possessed. In a way, it looked like the chrysalis left behind by a butterfly after its metamorphosis. The hole that cut across its stomad chest gave that sort of impression.

  “The nymph I killed in the end…was it her true form?”

  Rowan nodded.

  “She must have realized Ravi’s spell would break her, and so the spirit chose to flee its body, leaving itself weakened enough to be sin by mortal hands…”

  “Then she should have fled instead to kill me.”

  “If you’d doo me what you did to her, I might have risked my existeo end yours as well.”

  Sweat slid down Bram’s cheek.

  “I…I was hoping you were trating too hard on your exorcism to notice…”

  “I thought you’d learhis by now”—Rowan’s tone was impish—“but I notice everything.”

  Without turning to look at him, she dived into the gaping hole by their feet. Bram sighed, and with the barest hesitation, he followed her into the dead nymph’s corpse.

  It wasn’t a long drop, though it did feel like Bram fell lohan he expected. Indeed, without the effects of ‘Giant Strengthening’ aiding him, the prince may have broken a bone or two when he nded hard on the ground that was like the inner bark of a tree.

  Strangely, the husk’s insides were nearly as rge as the hall he’d e from.

  “Could this be an ented space…?”

  “‘Tis an example of excellent charm work.”

  From what Bram knew of the entment arts, it was indeed possible to add certain properties to an individual, object, or pce that could, among other things, expand the space within them, making it many times rger than its exterigested. The Satchel for St, Pouany s, and the more popur Dimensional Diary which sold fh prices at the capital’s entment emporiums were proof of this are cept.

  Speaking of spaces that could hold items many times their weight and size, Bram recalled Chris’ heavily den bag full of spoils and thought it might be time to i in more ste space. Though expensive, suted items would be more cost-effective than dragging porters around in future adventures.

  “Surely, the sale we make from today’s spoils will buy us one diary.”

  Bram could opt for the cheaper satchel for st, but being tal and seen as a pauper was just one of those things a prince ought not to do.

  “Over here, Prince!” came Bridget’s voice.

  She and Hajime were waving at Bram from outside a circle of young pihat reminded him of the blessed grove they’d visited the day before.

  “Hajime seems to have survived his fall unscathed,” Rowan noted, adding, “I suppose he used Falling Plume properly this time.”

  The pair were already walking toward their panions when Bram stopped abruptly. He gnced sideways at Rowan with surprise. “What?”

  “Ravi taught him the spell whilst you were unscious,” she revealed, further expining, “Part of Hajime’s experiment with copying magi another sorcerer with the Loom’s assistance.”

  “…And it worked?”

  “After several tries and only because Falling Plume is a on entment.”

  Bram, who’d tried and failed to learn a basic spell like ‘Power Strike’ knew how challenging it was for sorcerers to acquire new sorcery. It had a process that demanded more time thawenty minutes he’d been passed out.

  A smidge of envy bloomed in him.

  “‘Tis true that his speed of learning new spells is absurdly quick,” Rowan said as if she could see the jealousy on Bram’s face, which she did. “Even sidering the Loom’s support, Hajime’s potential as a sorcerer is exceptional, but we already khat since we suspect him of being a dream walker…and isn’t this something to celebrate?”

  Her praise of Hajime caused that twinge of envy to rumble in Bram’s insides, but it was quickly tempered by the remihat his panion’s growth was exactly what the prince wanted. With this realization came the expelling of a heavy breath, and envy went with it.

  “Yes, you’re right.”

  “I usually am.”

  They walked onward a bit more before Rowan said something else to make Bram’s steps falter.

  “To be able to learn a spell that would take even trained sorcerers’ weeks of learning, uanding, and then trial to ma properly… Truly, the Loom is an ingenious tool.”

  Acquiring a spell’s formu isn’t simple memorization but requires an uanding of its sorcery’s purpose and history too. Only then one begihird step of basic spell craft; maion—and there should be much trial and error before a perfect maion could be achieved. However, with the processing power of what Hajime called the Loom’s ‘Neural work’, a user dive too deeply into the inner ws of a spell and simply rely on the system to maeps one and two so that a user like Bridget or Chris could ght to step three. In such a case, Bram deduced that a spell’s formu was already encoded into the system’s spell list, allowing the user to use it so long as they had enough magic for casting.

  “It would be as easy as notg an arrow to one’s bow and theing it loose,” Bram pondered. “Still, without an i uanding of the formu, wouldn’t a spell’s power be less?”

  “Yes, it might… A spell’s strength is determined by many factors such as one’s i magic power, but mastery of a spell is also a key factor in its potency,” Rowan ceded.

  “Mastery…”

  Bram wondered what might happen should Hajime decide to learn the inal methodology of spell crafting. Would his prow more pared to the Loom’s future users?

  ‘Ba-dump.’

  Bram frowned. “Did you hear that…?”

  “The sound is ing from over there,” Rowan answered.

  The closer the duo got to Hajime and Bridget, the more they heard the unmistakable sound of a heartbeat.

  ‘Ba-dump.’

  Bram’s hand instinctively flew to Dusk’s handle which was now clipped to his belt. “I thought she was dead…?”

  “She is,” Bridget reported, her face paler than usual. “What you’re hearing is ing from something else…in there.”

  She pointed a thumb over her shoulder.

  ‘Ba-dump.’

  As Bram moved past her, Bridget grabbed his arm, and in a warning tone, said, “Don’t listen, if you . Or it might drive you mad…”

  He saw a strange glint in her eyes that reminded him of the huhat had bee in the eyes of those creatures of the forest they’d defeated.

  ‘Ba-dump.’

  “Are you alright?”

  “I might not be if Hajime hadn’t pulled me out of there in time…”

  Bram’s gaze drifted to Hajime, and he saw that the Japanese man’s face had bee paler too.

  “Iing,” Rowan whispered. “Very iing.”

  Without another word, she crossed through a gap iree line. And, not wantio go alone, Bram followed.

  Upon crossing the tree line, he was struck by a strong gust of wind that carried a toxicity that was like Loveless’ fel voice, but stronger. Much stronger. For Bram, it was as if a dozen snakes were suddenly slithering inside his head, with eae whispering siing thoughts to his mind.

  Weak, whispered one. Always trying, yet always failing.

  Pitiful, said another. Envious of those with the talent you ck.

  Bram felt nausea overwhelm him, and he fell to his knees on the spongy ground.

  Angry, murmured a third. Dreaming of vengeance against those who mock you.

  Greedy, added a fourth. Coveting even—

  A hand grasped him, iwining its fingers around his, and then the hat scratched at his mind like nails on a chalkboard winked out.

  Bram blinked. “W-What…?”

  ‘Ba-dump.’

  “Not to worry,” Rowan said as she helped him to his feet, “I’ll protect you from the darkness within.”

  “Darkness within…?” His brow creased. “I don’t uand…”

  “You will soon enough.”

  They walked hand in hand, treading through spongy ground that was like the inside of a mango, toward the object floating at the ter of what Bram guessed was this tree’s yer of pith.

  ‘Ba-dump.’

  Unbidden, the memory of his first meeting with his family’s source of poeared in his mind.

  “Is that…?”

  Though it cked the Dawnlight Stone’s size, the fist-sized crystal floating before them seemed quite simir. However, instead of light, there was darkness within it that was as bck as the bckest pit.

  ‘Ba-dump.’

  “What manner of devilry is this…?”

  It pulsed like a beati, the sound of its thumps eg throughout this inner spad sending shivers across Bram’s entire body.

  ‘Ba-dump.’

  “‘Tis a shard of the Midnight Stone…”

  “The Midnight Stone…?”

  Being the seventh prince of Atn, Bram rivy to a secret few in the Imperium khe existence of a artifacts possessing great magical power…the kind that built empires and split tis. They hailed from the Age of Dreams, the earliest of Aarde’s recorded history, a time when unholy nightmares walked the earth, and the gods still lived among their creations.

  When the gods chose to rise to High Heaven, they left behind three gifts for man to wield so that ht might never dim…

  It was a lecture he’d heard many times before. Not just from the clerics of the gods’ temples, but also from the maors who grew disappointed by a young Bram’s g talent.

  Three stohere were, each possessing a shard of Phoebus’ light within them…

  “The Dawnlight Stohe Midlight Stone,” Bram recalled now, “and…”

  He gnced down at the gold handle clipped to his belt.

  “…the Dusklight Stone.”

  It wasn’t until the Sn had shown him the treasure room underh the throne room that Bram learhe Dawnlight Stone wasn’t a myth.

  Once, when he’d apanied his sister Camil—the only one of his siblings who didn’t mind his pany—on a visit to Delphyne for the sing ceremony that preceded her marriage to a noble of the Pins Kingdom of Navarra, Camil had told him i that she’d been sed by the Dusklight Stone hidden iabs underh the Delphyne Observatory. Of course, Bram thought she was just teasing him, but now, with Dusk in his possession, he realized his sister might have been telling the truth.

  As for the Midlight Stone, Bram k had been real for it had been the cause of a great tragedy that occurred a year before his birth. In those days, the Atn Imperium had thirteen kingdoms. One was lost to civil war and the unleashing of terrible power strong enough to sink a piece of the western ti into the Shimmering Sea.

  “I’ve never heard of a Midnight Stone…”

  “Of course not.” Rowan scoffed. “The gods would never willingly reveal a memento of their greatest shame to their followers…”

  This time, Bram chose not to hold his tongue. Some backstory was necessary.

  “All things must e in band there be no light without darkness.” A dark smile grew on Rowan’s face. “Behold…you look upon a shard broken from the Heart of Darkness itself.”

  Grave as the ‘Heart of Darkness’ sounded, Bram’s brain couldn’t help but turn its cogs, and he wondered if such a power could be wielded to the great uaking’s be.

  “The Stargazers must have thought the same as you do now.”

  It wasn’t a reproach exactly, but Bram still felt the sting of Rowan’s words.

  “They coveted what they ot and should not touch, for humans, despite your many faults, are not made for the dark.”

  “Then what do we do with it?” Bram asked, adding, “We ot leave it here to be found by others…”

  “We won’t.”

  Hesitantly, Rowan stretched out her hand toward the floating shard, but Bram pulled her back before her fingers could touch it.

  “What are you doing — you said we couldn’t use it!”

  “I said humans couldn’t use it.”

  Bram stiffened.

  Rowan had bee such a stant presen his life, a ray of sunshio his dreary world, that he almost fot that she wasn’t the young noblewoman she preteo be.

  “The nymph—”

  “Was too weak and promised by her mado make this shard hers…”

  “And what of your…inations?”

  Brigid’s words scrolled through his mind unbidden. But then Rowan’s hand came up to touch his cheek, and the ay growing within him faded.

  “I will never lose trol so long as you’re by my side.”

  They gazed at one another, each looking favorably at the other, and then Bram’s other hand slipped from her wrist.

  “I believe in you.”

  “I know.”

  Rowan fshed him an impish grin, and before Bram could react again, plucked the shard of the Midnight Stone from the air so that it now y pressed in her hand.

  “You’ve kept your promise.”

  Ribbons of bck lightning rose out of the shard to g to the tips of her fingers.

  “romise?”

  This dark energy began flowing into her hand, causing bck veins to spread across her pale flesh.

  “You promised that we would find relics to fuel my power aurn to me what I—”

  Rowan’s eyes narrowed.

  “Ugh…”

  Bram had never heard such a pained sound escape her lips before. Not in all the time that he’d known her.

  “Rowan…?”

  The trickster gasped aloud and then stumbled. She might have fallen to her knees if Bram wasn’t still holdiher hand.

  “What’s wrong?!”

  “Too much power…all at once… I ’t…”

  As more ribbons of dark energy flowed into her, traveling the length of her arm like poison veins spreading over her flesh, Rowan began to vulse.

  WARNING! The dark energy emanating from the [Shard of the Midnight Stone] will affect you as well if you tio stay o [Rowan Wolfe].“Don’t tell me what I already know, dammit!” Bram snapped. “Tell me how to help her!”

  …“If she dies, I die — and it’ll be the end of you!”

  …This time, Rowan did fall to her knees, and she brought Bram down with her. To her credit, the trickster didn’t cry aloud. Even now, she was attempting to gain mastery over the shard…but Bram didn’t think she could do it alone, and the Loom agreed with him.

  You may attempt to siphon off some of its energy to ease her burden…It was the first time that the Loom had spoken to him as if it were addressing him directly. Bram had no time to pohis strange occurrence, however, for with Rowan’s strength diminishing, the maddening snakes were once again beginning to slither inside his head.

  “How…do…I—”

  For the blood is the life…It was all the hint he needed.

  He didn’t have fangs to bite her with, but with the Midnight Stone’s shard wreaking havo her insides, wounds were beginning to appear on Rowan’s body.

  “Hold on.”

  A tendril of dark energy shed at her neck, cutting deep into the flesh.

  “I’m here.”

  With ation, Bram dived in and pressed his lips to her throat… The pain that followed was overwhelming…

  GD_Cruz