Arak Shade disappeared into the shadows the mont he realized that they were outside the Maze instead of inside it. The Flying Stars could try to figure out how that happened; Arak couldn’t afford to be seen with them right now. The two days they’d waited before they left the place he was now certain was inside the Tower were both deeply annoying and very helpful for concealing the fact that he was with them, at least for the next few hours. Soone was going to realize that Empress Sophia was the Flying Serpent eventually, but for now no one at the Arena knew she was back in Mazehold.
He had to find out how the Blade reacted before she realized that Arak helped Sophia. There was no hope that he’d manage it before she realized who Empress Sophia was, but that was probably lost the mont the announcent happened.
No matter how much he’d warned the Flying Stars, they were certain to cause a stir when they entered Mazehold. They were popular and people would be watching for Empress Sophia. The group was really quite good at attracting attention, which might be very useful for him.
He slipped quickly from shadow to shadow, burning mana at an incredible rate to reach the Arena in minutes. It was just as empty as usual for the hour; for all that the practice arenas were open starting at first light, they were usually not heavily used until hours later. If anything, the Arena seed even less busy than usual.
That made it even easier to slip unnoticed into the Healers’ ward. He solidified, then froze in shock. The infirmary was overflowing with beds and cots; quite a few people were even on pallets on the floor. They were all unconscious.
Arak recognized many of them; they were the people who most ardently followed the Blade, the sa people they’d confird held the false-Hallow Imperial Spheres that were corrupted by the Broken Lord.
The sa people whose Spheres were supposed to be changed when Sophia changed the Imperial Sigil to her own symbol.
Arak’s eyes wandered across the unconscious bodies until he found the one that worried him the most: Broken Blade Amaryssa Seuvarin. His hand clenched on the dagger at his waist until he forced it to relax. He wanted to kill her; that would be the final paynt for her murder of his children.
If he killed her here, he would have to run.
At least, he’d have to run if he was seen killing her. He couldn’t just stab her and watch her die. There was no way the other healers in the room wouldn’t see sothing that blatant and most of them didn’t have the sort of reason he did to want her dead.
Arak checked the still forms once again to confirm sothing he’d been relatively confident in: none of the unconscious people were mbers of the Healer’s ward. Each and every one of them used blades in so form, and even old Himas, the only surgeon in the Arena, was not among them. In fact, Arak was pretty sure he saw old Himas asleep next to one of the comatose patients.
Arak took a few steps closer and confird his fear: the young woman in the bed next to Himas was his granddaughter. Her presence was a surprise, but so were many of the other second upgrade patients. They hadn’t gone through the nas of the Adherents below the third upgrade and Arak hadn’t expected so many.
He certainly hadn’t expected the handful of people below the second upgrade. They were all people who either worked in the Arena or spent a great deal of their ti there and planned to soday compete. Arak didn’t know why they were there; while there were fewer of them than there were people at the second or third upgrade, it wasn’t by many. It made no sense, since most who wanted to fight left Mazehold to return later; only a few Called stayed and tried to earn their upgrades in the streets. It gave Arak a bad feeling about what the Blade was planning.
No, what the Blade had planned. Whatever the Blade’s plans were, they were no longer important. She was unconscious along with all of her strongest supporters.
He gave the Blade one last long look. He wanted to kill her, but there was a better way than doing it himself. This was exactly the opening he needed; indeed, it was far better than the openings he’d planned. All he had to do was push his plans to take over the Arena forward. With her incapacitated, it should be easy. She never appointed a proper successor, after all, so why not the healer who was also the most successful expedition leader?
Even better, he knew the Blade kept notes. If they searched her rooms and her office, he was certain they’d find enough material to have her executed, probably several tis over. He’d need to be careful not to taint his assumption of leadership, which ant he needed soone else to find the evidence. Who was the best person for that?
Arak’s gaze turned back towards Himas. He was well respected and his granddaughter was also among the afflicted. On top of that, while he wasn’t one of Arak’s closest supporters, he was soone Arak knew could be counted on in a pinch. Even better, Arak knew exactly how he’d react to so of what the Blade had done over the years, things Arak had never been able to prove. He was an excellent choice, especially if Arak managed to phrase it as looking for a reason so many of the Arena staff were knocked out.
Once the Blade was dead, the rest of Arak’s family might even be able to move above ground, into his new quarters in the Arena. He’d just have to make sure they weren’t the Blade’s old rooms; there was no way he was sleeping there.
The streets were a bit emptier than Sophia expected, but it was still pretty early. Sweetfire’s shop was deep in the city, well away from places where Called went, so the travel was underground anyway.
Xin’ri was the first one through the door. When Sophia finally entered, she saw sothing strange: Sweetfire’s forge was cold. She’d never seen that before; he normally left a fire going, even when he wasn’t there. It could burn for hours using the mana he lit it with and it wouldn’t spread to anything he didn’t want it to.
“He’s been gone for at least a day,” Xin’ri told the others with a frown. “I don’t know where he is; we can check the usual places, but if he were there, he’d have been back here.”
“We might as well try,” Dav answered. “If nothing else, there are always Professionals at the Garden; they might have an idea where he is.”
They didn’t have to go that far. When they reached the large open area at the bottom of Sweetfire’s stairs, they found a surprisingly cozy temporary encampnt. Sophia took a good look around, then decided that temporary dical ward might be a better term; while there was one person cooking, everyone else was either unconscious or watching over the still forms. “What happened? Did monsters attack?”
The cook looked up at the noise. He seed to relax a little once he saw them. “Oh, Sweetfire’s team. He said you were in the Maze. No, a bunch of people just … fell over a couple of days ago. The healers say they’ll be fine, but no one really knows what’s going on.”
Sophia suddenly felt a sinking sensation. She’d initiated the change to the Broken Lord’s Adherents approximately two days earlier, and this reminded her entirely too much of when Dav, Ci’an, and Sophia were all knocked out by the sheer number of Wisps they used out of the Hilt’s Broken Blade. She hadn’t really connected that to the unconsciousness Bai ntioned when the Tower fell, but maybe it was all the sa thing. If it was, this was her fault.
“Do they think they’ll co out of it soon?” Sophia wasn’t actually certain how many Wisps she’d spent on each person. How much each Sphere had to change varied a bit, and she didn’t actually know if it cost the sa number of Wisps to remove an Ability as it did to buy and level it in the first place. If it did, that could be quite a few Wisps. Most of the Adherents lost two Abilities and they were both the sa level as the Adherent, as high as they could go.
The cook shrugged. “Depends on who they’re looking at and who’s doing the looking. We only have a couple of healers who are willing to say anything, and they say the first to recover could be up and moving any ti. Even so, we’re lucky; the Called were hit really hard. No one from your team went down?”
Sophia shook her head.
“Lucky. I heard there’s soone on about every third team down with whatever this is, and a few entire teams went down. The Arena hasn’t held a match since then; they were hit really hard. Probably ans it started there, if you ask ; it only makes sense. One of their trappers probably brought sothing out of the Maze he shouldn’t have.” The cook turned his head to the side and spat on the ground. “Not that anyone listens to . The Maze is why we’re here, so obviously it’s safe. Bah, you’d think they’d learn better from how many Called go in there to die.”
“Do you know where Sweetfire is?” Xin’ri interrupted the beginning of the rant. “He’s not at ho and it looks like he’s been gone for a while.”
The cook snorted. “‘Course he’s not ho. He has a sense of duty, unlike so. You’re his team; I think he said sothing about sending you his way if you turned up. If you head up that set of stairs, then take the door to the left and follow the middle door, you’ll find stairs that lead three levels down. Stop at the second level; there will be soone there who can give you better directions than I can.”
It took several more requests for directions before they actually found Sweetfire, but when they finally caught up to him, they found him in a building on the surface that Sophia had never seen. Ci’an, Jax, and Xin’ri recognized it the mont they saw the furnishings, because they were all in white and a golden color that Xin’ri pointed out was exactly the color of aurichalc. Sophia saw the sigil a mont later when they turned a corner.
They were in the Professional League headquarters building. What was Sweetfire, a mber of the Smiths’ Cooperative, doing in the Professional League headquarters?
“Not a chance,” a voice Sophia didn’t recognize echoed down the hallway. “I’m not giving up our independence, no matter what you say she can do for us. We know what that brings; there’s a reason the League exists.”
“Then tell her that,” Sweetfire countered. “Sophia is shockingly reasonable; I’m confident we’ll be able to work out a deal that’s good for everyone.”
“Hah.” The unknown woman dismissed Sweetfire’s statent. “And when our parents ca to Mazehold, they thought they were heading to fortune. How did that work out?”
Sophia stopped in front of the door, montarily torn between listening to try and learn sothing and just going inside. She shook her head and pulled the door open; eavesdropping was not going to teach her anything she couldn’t learn by asking.
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