The man presiding over Amaryssa Seuvarin’s trial was not Arak Shade. Sophia wasn’t sure why she was surprised by that; as soon as she thought about it, it made sense. He didn’t want to be known as the person who killed his predecessor; that would open up too many ideas for anyone who wanted to replace him.
It made perfect sense that the man in charge was older and well respected. At least, Sophia assud he was well respected. He was definitely older, with a lined face and long white hair pulled back into a low ponytail.
There were about thirty people in the audience, with a dozen others off to one side in a clearly separate section. So of them were clearly guards, but others were just as obviously prisoners, with their hands tied in front of them. Amaryssa Seuvarin was there, along with several other people Sophia was certain she’d seen around the Arena.
Amaryssa couldn’t have been conscious for long. As far as Sophia was aware, there were no Professionals affected by the Broken Lord at the third upgrade, but the ones at the second upgrade had only been conscious for a little over a day.
The audience seed to be roughly evenly split between Arena staff and guests. Sophia recognized most of the Arena staff, but there were several she only recognized from the icon on their shoulders. It featured a broken blade, so Sophia suspected it would probably change soon.
Arak Shade was in the front row, along with a woman who looked a lot like Amaryssa Seuvarin, two teenagers that resembled their parents, and one young woman who didn’t look like either of them. Sophia was pretty sure she resembled the man at the front of the room.
League Master Rayne, Registry Master ko’Orthlinn, and Sweetfire were also in the crowd.
Sweetfire was the only one without others surrounding him. He was also the one that ca up to them as they entered and ushered all of the Flying Stars into seats. “I think you’re the last to arrive. We’ve been waiting for a while, so I suspect that was deliberate-”
“Welco to the Arena, Empress Sophia.” The man at the front of the room interrupted smoothly. He had to have been listening to have timing that good. “It only seems right that you should be here, as you were instruntal in uncovering and resolving the secrets that protected our forr leader. You were invited here along with the other three powers in Mazehold to witness the Arena clean house.”
A squeak ca from the section that held the defendants. Sophia glanced that way to see the Blade visibly but soundlessly shouting at the old man. The squeak sounded again and Sophia realized it wasn’t coming from the Blade at all; instead, it ca from her chair.
A chair she was literally tied to.
“The arena also welcos Master Rayne of the Professional League, Master ko’Orthlinn of the Vocational Registry, and Master Smith Sweetfire. And no, Sweetfire, you can’t tell
not to use your title.”
A laugh swept quietly across the room.
“I am Himas Sharpknife, one of the Arena’s healers. It is my sha that I did not see what was happening until I saw the notes in the Blade’s own hand that proved her guilt, but I cannot change the past, only the future.” Himas turned and made his way to the tall chair set behind a podium facing the crowd.
“This evidence has already been voted on by the departnt heads of the Arena who were not involved or implicated by the possession of a Hallow of the Broken Lord. Per the Agreent of Four, we have called you all here to witness our change of leadership. As much as it pains , this ti it is no re ceremony. The Broken Blade, Amaryssa Seuvarin, plotted to assu control of the entirety of Mazehold through her control of the Temple of the Broken Lord and the control that gave her over the Hallowed. She conducted private Hallowings for years and restricted the Hallowed from speaking of it, allowing her to control things that no one had any idea she touched. Things like the operation of a large number of the League Guards. If she told them to change the patrol routes so certain areas weren’t covered, those areas weren’t covered.”
Master Rayne swore loudly, then stopped suddenly.
Himas nodded at her. “Her Hallowed had a large presence in the Arena and Registry, of course, though more of those were open. The Smiths’ Cooperative proved surprisingly difficult to infiltrate, but as they are the smallest of the Four, she decided she did not need to control them to control Mazehold.”
“It might have worked,” Sweetfire whispered to Sophia. “I hate to think what she’d have done to us if she had managed to get full control.”
“If those were her only transgressions, we would hand Amaryssa Seuvarin over to you for judgent,” Himas continued with a nod towards the audience. “But there is more, and worse. Before she killed her predecessor and took his place as the Blade and the leader of the Arena, Amaryssa Seuvarin developed her Anchor in a direction unusual for a Called. She earned Wisps and then Thread from other people, not from monsters. She was able to gain Thread from actions that reinforced her authority in any way. Every Arena match gave her Thread, since they all called her out as the authority over the Arena. That much is similar to how a Professional gains Wisps or Thread and is certainly no problem.”
Himas paused and looked around the room. His gaze lingered on the several spots in the crowd; Sophia was certain that he smiled sadly when he t her eyes. “Her cri was what she did with the other way she could gain Thread. She earned it whenever she killed soone or ordered them killed. If they were close to her in so way, like her assistants, she preferred to kill them herself. If they were less closely connected to her, she believed that she gained more Wisps through others’ actions than her own. She believed this would take her to the fourth upgrade, but it did not.”
Himas turned towards the group of defendants. He seed to stare directly at one who sat on the side of the group, clearly not a guard as she was not in an Arena uniform but also one who was not bound the way the others were. “Much of this was revealed in the journal Amaryssa Seuvarin kept, but so ca to light through the testimony of one of her forr thralls. Shardblade was her Arena na and I will not use another here. When she woke from the Empress’s rcy, she cried and then attempted to kill herself with her own blade. She would have succeeded, but she was still in the Arena. The mont her blade was pulled from her chest, the Arena healed her. By then, we had people close enough to stop her and find out what happened.”
Sophia was suddenly very happy that the hacked-together healing setup was functional. She wondered how many others would have a similar reaction to being free for the first ti in years.
“Her story was long and sordid, but the gist of it is that she was one of the people the Blade used to gather and kill her victims. She describes the experience as a nightmare, but one that was all too real. She offered her life to repay her actions.” Himas sighed loudly. “I have chosen not to demand it. I believe that it was not her choice to hunt those the Blade considered useless in the Maze. She has already sundered her Sphere; not only did she break her Great Talent, she broke her second upgrade Sphere as well and thereby killed Shardblade.”
Sophia knew it was possible to break a Sphere and start at a lower level to build it up differently; that was one of the things people did when they were trying to reach the third upgrade if they couldn’t make what they had coalesce into a coherent Grand Talent. She didn’t think she’d ever heard of anyone breaking their second upgrade Sphere, but it definitely sounded like it would allow a large change. It also showed just how serious the forr Shardblade was; that was years of effort, especially since she’d started at the top of the third upgrade.
“Steeledge, Final Blow, and Duskblade will be offered the sa option. If they choose to accept it, they will be treated as any other second upgrade individual by the Arena. If they refuse it, they are banished from the Arena and I recomnd that we banish them from Mazehold entirely. The Arena does not condone their actions, but we lay the bla where it belongs.” Himas turned his gaze back towards the audience. “We will be offering similar leniency to those who participated and were a lower upgrade, so long as they were chained into it by a Sphere they did not choose. Those who looked the other way for other reasons will be dismissed from the Arena staff, while those who participated without force will be dealt with based on what acts they committed. The Blade kept good records; we invite all of you, especially Master Rayne, to review them to determine who among your people requires action.”
Sophia frowned. That had to an that a lot of Professionals were implicated. If most of the people in the records were Called, she was certain he’d have singled out Master ko’Orthlinn instead.
“Once we are done here, we will all examine those records,” League Master Rayne answered clearly without even glancing at her colleagues. “It sounds like there was more than we have found out over the past few days.”
Himas nodded once, then turned his attention back to the prisoners. “There will be no such rcy for Amaryssa Seuvarin or her co-conspirator Ervayne Steelshine. Ervayne’s Sphere was not from the Broken Lord, while Amaryssa had no one commanding her actions other than herself. They both chose to kill for the chance to elevate Amaryssa into the fourth upgrade. From her diaries, the idea was Ervayne’s, conceived before they ca to Mazehold. Their initial attempt cost Amaryssa’s original team their lives. This happened before Amaryssa attended the Hallowing that changed her Sphere, yet she still recorded it in her diary. The only paynt for their actions is death. The Arena will not abide team-killers.”
Himas let the silence after his declaration simr for a long mont before he continued. “With the Broken Blade formally sentenced before the Four, the position of Arena Master is vacant. We will hold the ascension ceremony later, but it is my pleasure to announce that a new Arena Master has been chosen. The next Arena Master is a colleague of mine, another healer from the Healer’s Hall. To the Arena, he is also known as the best expedition leader. I present Arak Shade, Master of the Arena.”
Arak stood and made his way up to the front, beside Himas Sharpknife. “Thank you, Himas, and everyone else who chose .”
His eyes made their way around the crowd, resting on a half-dozen different spots before they settled on Sophia. “Those of you who want to see the journals, please follow . Things have changed imnsely in the past tenday and we need to plan the future of Mazehold, but that should wait until we have resolved the past.”
That was the end of that presentation, but it was nowhere near the end of the etings. They spent the next two days going over what the Blade had recorded. It was anemically written, but that sohow made it even more disturbing. The Blade simply didn’t care that she was either killing or authorizing the death of hundreds in the ti she stood as Master of the Arena.
The Blade and her supporter were quietly executed on the third day after the judgent was handed down by Himas with the full approval of the other three leaders of Mazehold. The day after that, a group of forr Adherents of the Broken Lord left Mazehold in exile.
Over the sa ti, hundreds of people across the Broken Lands chose new Imperial Spheres. Most of them were forr Adherents of the Broken Lord, but Sophia could watch the total number of Adherents both decline and increase. The number of different Spheres available at each upgrade increased sharply, though the biggest increases were in basic and first upgrade Spheres.
Arryn left with all the information Sophia could give him on Imperial Spheres and what Xin’ri and Tiwaz were able to provide on the nexus terminals.
There was a lot to do, but to Sophia it was nothing more than a waiting ga. She couldn’t move forward until the Tower recovered enough to activate the Gateways.
END OF ARC 5: INTO THE MAZE
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