Chapter 32 Stormborn Burns

Chapter 32 Stormborn Burns
Elias's POV

Three buildings on the east side fully lit.

The detachment Mira had described plus reinforcements that had arrived while Elias was inside trial four and the torchlight caught the kingdom insignia on the nearest soldier's jacket and Elias thought about Commander Vane and thought yes, there it is.

"Vane brought his unit," Lyra said.

"Drell called him in," Elias replied.

"While you were in the trial," she said. "He waited until you were inside and then moved."

Elias looked at the burning buildings and the soldiers in the road and the villagers standing in doorways not knowing whether to run and thought about sixty years of patience and thought Drell had been waiting for exactly this, a moment when the trial runner was contained and the village was exposed and the offer could be made with fire instead of words.

He walked into the road.

A soldier stepped forward. "Stay where you are."

Elias looked at him. "Move."

The soldier didn't move.

The curse mark flared and the stage three ability discharged and the soldier went sideways off his feet and Elias kept walking and two more came and went the same way and then he was through the line and standing in the open road with soldiers reforming behind him and Drell on horseback at the far end looking at him with the expression of someone watching a calculation reach its conclusion.

"You moved while I was in the trial," Elias said.

"I gave you the information you needed," Drell replied. "I expected a decision."

"I'm still deciding," Elias said.

"The village doesn't have that kind of time," Drell replied. He looked at the burning buildings. "Vane's men are efficient. They'll work through the east side in an hour and start on the west." He paused. "Unless you give me a reason to stop them."

"Stop them now," Elias said. "Or I give you a reason the other way."

Drell looked at him. "You're one person with three trials left."

"I put three of your soldiers on the ground in ten seconds," Elias replied. "With stage three operating at full capacity after four completed trials." He held Drell's gaze. "How many men does Vane have that you can afford to lose before the kingdom starts asking questions about what happened in Stormborn?"

Drell was quiet for a moment.

"Vane," he said without turning.

A figure separated from the soldiers. Older than Elias had pictured. The particular economy of movement that said military for so long it had replaced everything else. Commander Aldous Vane looked at the burning buildings and looked at Elias and looked at Drell and his expression said he had been in enough situations like this one to know exactly which variable was the unpredictable one.

"Hold," Vane said simply.

The soldiers stopped moving.

The fires kept burning but nothing new caught and the village went into a specific kind of stillness that said everyone was waiting for whatever came next to determine what kind of night this was going to be.

"Where is my father?" Elias asked.

"Inside your dungeon apparently," Drell replied. "He walked in twenty minutes ago. We didn't stop him because stopping him wasn't necessary." He paused. "He's not the leverage, Elias. The village is."

"You'll burn Stormborn," Elias said.

"I'll burn whatever is required," Drell replied, and the patience in his voice had something underneath it now that hadn't been there on the road two hours ago. Not anger. Something older than anger. The specific exhaustion of someone who had been making terrible decisions for sixty years because every alternative was worse and had run out of alternatives. "I don't want to. I want you to complete the trials. Use the third entrance. Get to the chamber. Get the weapon." He looked at the burning east side. "I want what's still coming to find something capable of stopping it when it arrives. That's all I have ever wanted."

"And the curse mechanism," Elias said.

"Is secondary," Drell replied sharply. "Has always been secondary. The weapon in that chamber is the only thing that matters. The only thing that has ever mattered." He held Elias's gaze. "Three thousand years ago the first architect built dungeons to produce someone capable of wielding it. Every trial system since has been building toward the same moment." He paused. "It arrives in your generation. I have known that for thirty years. That is why I am here personally. That is why I burned three buildings instead of having a pleasant conversation." He looked at Elias directly. "I need you to understand the actual stakes before you make a choice based on incomplete information."

"Tell me the rest of the incomplete information then," Elias said.

Drell looked at the sky.

"The weapon requires a wielder who has absorbed the full capacity of a completed trial system," he said. "Every ability. Every conversion. Every cost the trials produced." He paused. "Which means it requires someone who chose the absorption. Who took the key holder's cost themselves." He looked back at Elias. "The woman didn't tell you that part."

"She told me the absorption burns the wielder down to nothing," Elias said.

"After they use the weapon," Drell replied. "Not before. The absorption is the source. The weapon is the output. The wielder survives long enough to use it." He paused. "Then it burns them."

"How long is long enough?" Elias asked.

"Long enough," Drell said quietly. "For what's coming."

Vane stepped forward. "My lord. The eastern fire is spreading."

Drell kept his eyes on Elias. "Your village. Your decision. Your timeline."

Elias looked at the burning east side and thought about three siblings in graves and three siblings in trial four thresholds telling him to try harder and a father somewhere in the dungeon below and a woman who had built everything and walked away and was watching from wherever she watched from and thought about the weapon in the chamber and the something still coming and the absorption and the burning down.

"Stop the fires," Elias said.

Drell looked at him.

"Stop the fires," Elias said again. "I'll complete the trials. All seven. I'll take the absorption." He held Drell's gaze. "But you stop the fires now and you keep Vane's men out of this village for every trial remaining and when it's done you walk away from Stormborn permanently."

"And the chamber?" Drell asked.

"You get access," Elias replied. "After."

Drell looked at him for a long moment.

"Vane," he said.

"My lord," Vane replied.

"Put them out," Drell said.

Vane turned and started giving orders and soldiers moved toward the burning buildings with the efficient speed of people who had done this before in both directions.

"Elias," Lyra said quietly beside him.

"I know," he replied.

"You just agreed to—"

"I know what I agreed to," he said.

She was quiet for a moment. Then, "Your father is still in the dungeon."

Elias looked at the old building entrance.

"I know that too," he said, and walked toward it.

He was at the top of the forty three steps when the system spoke.

Aldric Stone has reached the platform.

Elias started running.