The Rise of Ren Crown (3 page)

Kaine smiled coldly, then turned his icy, spelled gaze directly on me. “Name?”

I shook my head.

He looked at the top of my head—which meant
he could see Raphael's spell
—and his cold smile grew colder. “There are so many reasons for me to take you to where you'll never again see the light of day, girl.”

Raphael's insanity-laced words about the Department's basement slammed into my head.

It also made me very aware that whatever protection Raphael had placed upon me to avoid Department eyes was no longer in place. Whether it had gone with the chain I had unlinked between us over the past few weeks, or was due to something Raphael had done in retaliation during our fight, I didn't know.

And God, I was covered in evidence. Constantine's stamp and the tube of Awakening paint were in the vine wrapped around my ankle, my brother’s bracelet was clasped on my wrist, Olivia’s scarf—which was lightly, and very illegally leeching a small part of my ragged magic again, now that everyone was worried about frequencies once more—was in my back pocket directly connected to the one at my neck, and most damning, the residue from Kinsky's papers had seeped into my skin.

“Should I question your friends first?” Kaine sounded disinterested and detached, but his gaze intensified and I registered a sickening pleasure increasing in his magic.

“Ren,” I said immediately, my voice scratched and shaking. I cleared my throat, never looking away from him. “My name is Ren.”

Never Florence. Not in this world, not a name that could connect me to my First Layer parents. I had changed my name in Excelsine's administrative system and it had been sealed as my “true” name when Provost Johnson had restarted my record after I'd accidentally destroyed the entire Shangwei Art Complex first term.

“Ah. Ren Crown, isn't it? We've come across your name in reports from a
variety
of sources. Quite a run you've had, so far, at this academic institution. Such a
short
run.”

His gaze was hungry—and, so
very
, very merciless—as he looked at me.

He couldn't
take
me. I swallowed and mentally repeated the sentiment. He couldn't just take me. The crowd was too big. Too many people looked militant. I had just helped save campus. And even if people didn't know
how
it had happened, they knew who had done it. Everyone sitting in the battle field stands had seen us fight Godfrey and somehow secure the dome—had thought they were watching us die.

Kaine's magicked gaze tracked me, seeming to know exactly what I was thinking, as his smile grew.

“What happened to the Origin Dome that Vincent Godfrey raised? The one dismantled by Origin Magic—
new
Origin Magic. The one
you
dismantled.”

There was a surge of magic in the crowd—whispers flitting over frequencies, judging by the nonverbal communication I could see.

Kaine's empty gaze surveyed the crowd as if he could hear them when I could not. His gaze landed back on me, reflecting a terrible pleasure. “Why do you look so frightened, Miss Crown? This is but a simple question. And one that
everyone
wants to see addressed.”

The magic on the field stilled.

I could hear Olivia's clipped tones in my head, and what she would surely be saying
: He can't take you as a hero—he has to make people fear you first.

I tried to send a mental request to Neph through my scarf, but silence was the only response. Kaine was sporting a terrible smile, and I looked past him to see one of his men pinching Delia's scarf between two of his fingers. Cutting off contact. Since the scarf was still around Delia’s throat, it was an even more threatening gesture.

Mike was pulling at the hands holding him and yelling—lips ranting and throat working—but I couldn't hear a word of it. Kaine had managed to eliminate the crowd from my reach—allowing me no audible way to judge what was happening around me.

“Such interesting stories still forming and being bandied about. Tell us, Miss Crown, how did you do it?”

Kaine hadn't seen what had happened firsthand. The terrorists' transmission from campus to the outside world—which had included all of the Council members, heads of state, parents, and citizens—had been cut the moment Godfrey had realized the dome over the battle field stands had been wrested from his control.

But I remembered the intense gaze, tracking Kinsky's papers. Not this man's cold gaze, but his boss's—Enton Stavros. I remembered the moment his absolute focus had switched from Godfrey to tracking the papers. He hadn't had time to see me.

But now?

The cruel smile on Kaine's face said everything. Piecing together the firsthand accounts, and narrowing down the variables, it wasn't hard to guess that it had been me. All Kaine needed was to get me to confess—to trap me in evidence, admissions, and lies.

I shook my head. The savagery in his smile grew as he surveyed the crowd again, his gaze calculating—as if he were actively listening to all of the secret and private conversations that everyone was having en masse in the moment. Eavesdropping on and parsing all communications on campus.

“The papers used on the dome over the battle field stands—where are they?” He pressed a cold fingertip against my forehead.

Kinsky's papers. A single piece of damning evidence that would out me for what I was.

“Papers?”

His finger sparked and pain shot through me, spiking in my forehead and spilling down my limbs like he had electrocuted me. I fell to my knees.

“Tricks do not work on me, girl. Nor on any in the Department. Better to learn that early. Now, let's try the same question again.”

I opened my mouth to give the same answer, but the pain turned crippling. A hand pulled me back to my feet and harshly held me upright as my legs folded again. He was using a form of Justice Magic, but far more excruciating than the kind used on campus.

“Observe the lies she is trying to tell.” Kaine's voice was dismissive, as he addressed the crowd I still couldn't hear. “Pitiful.”

I hadn't signed any sort of contract with Kaine. He wasn't part of campus. How was he wielding Justice Magic over me?

“Now let's try again.”

I concentrated on the pain, blanking my mind to anything else. If there was one thing Raphael and my active delinquency on campus had taught me, it was how not to tell the truth yet still skirt the edges of fact.

Kinsky's sheets were somewhere in the Midlands—I had thrown them in that direction when I realized we were being forcibly marched back up the mountain. Because the tiles were constantly shifting within the Midlands, I had no
true
idea where they were inside those levels.

“I don't know.” I couldn't give him coordinates or even a reasonable guess without further thought. I set my mind to the active task of reciting First Layer song lyrics.

Crippling pain made me drop again, lyrics splintering in my head.

“You do,” he said with relish. “Where are the papers?”

“Somewhere in the Midlands,” I gasped, the answer pulled from me.

The Midlands could hide anything. I had to believe that.

“Very good.” He nearly cooed. “Now, what was on the sheets?”

“Vague human forms,” I said.
Truth
. That was the last thing I had seen on the sheets—all of the trapped men inside. “I don't know who created them.” I didn't know the parents of the men or any of their kin. “I can't be sure what they did.” I had no idea of the men's pasts.

I repeated these notions to myself over and over, without letting my thoughts deviate from those truths.

“No? You are manipulating the truth of the magic. It’s obvious by how you still struggle to stand. If you simply gave the truth, there'd be no pain. But you've given me plenty, Miss Crown.”

His finger dropped from my forehead, but I could tell, by the sharp, malevolent look in his spelled eyes that he wasn't finished questioning me. Rather, it was as if he were suddenly on a ticking timeline.

“Such
reports
from the battle. Such unusual residue left lingering in the air.” Kaine smelled the air, eyes closed. For a moment, it seemed like another face rippled across his features. “A scent not smelled in...much too long. The clear ozone smell of Origin Magic.”

Sound returned to me in another clap of magic, and I heard the wave of murmurs break over the crowd.

“Not the reused, repurposed smell of the captured magic of the past.” Kaine's lips turned down, as if he were dismayed, but everything else about him registered dark pleasure. “This is fresh. A new creator. And society can't have that type of danger running around unchecked. A danger like you.”

He knew what I was. Clear as the sun sinking in the sky, and my heart to my toes, he knew. He couldn't just take me, though. Not on a suspicion. Not when I had just saved campus.

“Test her.”

Hands grabbed my arm roughly and yanked me to my knees.

Chapter Two: Tests That Lead to Ruin

They pushed the crowd further to the sides, while keeping me in place. Sound had returned completely and I could hear people—Mike's forceful voice among them—protesting vehemently.

“Calm yourselves,” Kaine said in disdain. “If she passes the test, we will reward her for her bravery and quick thinking, I'm sure.” His smile was cold. He did not expect me to pass the test.

A small box was placed on the ground before me. Covered in iridescent swirls, it was a beautifully coated, but otherwise plain, square box.

Did he always carry this around with him?

Kaine smiled, as if he could read my thoughts. “We always carry it, little mage. Just in case.”

He knelt down and caressed the edge.

The crowd nearest to us, who were able to see what was happening, pressed back as far as they were allowed, a few screaming in terror.

“Praetorian Kaine, don't you dare open—”

Kaine flipped open the box and the familiar, strident, panicked voice froze, drifting off into the ether as the world around me abruptly switched. Brilliant colors burst everywhere. Hues I had only dreamed of mixing appeared. The colors were alive, teaming with crystal and metallic bases. A wisp of Aurora Borealis Green, vibrant and coiling in the air, swirled suggestively around my head.

Draeger's box, in a practice room, so long ago, had been a little like this. Though less immersive. Visually engaging, but without the other sense attachments.

Kinsky's painting at the Library of Alexandria had been a little like this, but had possessed a far more personal touch in its otherworldliness. Kinsky's touch and personal thoughts had been dominant throughout the world inside the painting. This box was untouched—beckoning. No,
demanding,
that I stamp myself all over it.

Build. Shape. Change. Destroy.

A dot. A line. A circle bulging into a sphere. Three dimensional shapes began rotating in the air. As they rotated, they stretched and compressed, coming out of themselves, and diving back in—shifting perception to create four dimensions. Unable to resist, I reached for the first shape. There was a question within, asking what I could do with it. It was like being in a reading room and a practice room and the Library of Alexandria all shoved into one tempting complication of a shape that pulled me forth. Impossible. Inescapable.

Never able to resist the type of challenge that the puzzle represented, I manipulated it, breathing life into the shape and spreading it with my fingers, like peacock brushes on a canvas.

The tiniest, smallest part of me recognized that doing whatever this was would out me as an Origin Mage, but the magic was irresistible and I focused on that instead.

Unlike the domes, which had been out of control forces of nature, this magic whispered and teased, caressed and hinted, luring me with soft promises of what I could
do
with it. Telling me how it would reach to the raw, dulled edges of my internal pathways and reserves, and smooth everything. Promising it would fill the spaces.

Promising me that together, we could safely retrieve Olivia; we could wipe away the memories of everyone around us; we could save our loved ones. I just had to form the magic and give it to the box.

My magic
hurt,
though. It was twisted and tangled from all the mangled events of the past few hours that had taken, contorted, and incorrectly released my magic.

In here
, the box whispered. Everything would be well and right.
Just give the magic to the box
.

I formed my mental pyramid, and the will of the box made it so that I didn't even have to use my own ragged bodily paths to engage the magic.

It would do everything for me
, it whispered.

Love and enlightenment, Christian and Olivia, family and friends...if I just gave the magic to the box.

No more pain. No more heartache.

I eagerly lifted my hands, palms up and unfurled my fingers, then splayed them outward to pour the essence forth.

My love for Christian, always a part of me, forevermore. My bond to Olivia, who I would protect to the end. My bonds to my parents, Dare, Constantine, Will, Neph... The magic flowed faster.

External magic abruptly yanked it back, and I scrambled to keep my position, fingers outstretched to give, my twisted magic contorting further.

The external magic yanked more forcefully, and my fingers curled inward, clenching, then fisting against my thighs. I felt the vine around my ankle suck the magic downward, swallowing it in long, greedy gulps, not allowing my body to process a drop. My heart beat a furious staccato.
No
. I wanted to give the magic to the
box
.

I pulled and pushed, but the vine continued to extract the magic from under my skin, taking everything that I was creating and devouring it like the carnivorous plant it was.

As it devoured, my view slowly grew distant, returning to the unexceptional shapes and absurdly dull colors of the normal world.

I tried to reach for the glory of the box again, but it was agonizing to do so. The raw paths of my magic were bleeding. Had
been
bleeding. The box had just temporarily taken away the pain and my knowledge of it.