Iona Hopebringer, Change’s Chosen, leader of the Seekers, had an appointment with a god in twenty minutes.
She scratched the Seeker’s seven-pronged V onto the letter she had just finished, rolled it, and sealed it with the same sigil. She brushed it with a careless hand and banished it to the hand of the person who whom the letter was addressed. A thrill of electric power pulsed through her. Magic ran like water through the conduit that connected her to the Empyrean, home of the gods and all magic. Her body channeled the power into the scroll easy as breathing, infusing it to change — in this case, to disappear and reappear several hundred miles away.
A few seconds later, a quill message appeared in front of her in a flashing golden script only her eyes could read.
Iona scanned the brief response and sucked in a breath through her teeth, pleased to find her letter had made it through without delay. She hadn’t managed to teleport herself or anything larger than a letter nearly that far yet, but it was only a matter of time. And for now, she was the only person in the world who could access the Empyrean — but that would soon change, too.
She got to her feet, leaving the floor where she had been sitting crosslegged and the light wooden board she had been using as a desk. The hard, sandy floor scuffed her sandals as she did, and Iona frowned, making a mental note to secure more blankets and leathers until she could cover the entire floor of the small tent. Aside from the writing board, Iona’s tent held only a bedroll and the remnants of a meal, spread out in the corner on a strip of hide and forgotten.
And, of course, the large satchel tucked inside the bedroll. Iona took it and fitted it around her waist and to her back. The Treatise would not leave her sight again until it was broken and dead.
With ten minutes until sundown, Iona she strode to the tent door and threw open the flap.
Two young men with sun-worn skin immediately straightened up and looked at her, tilting their spears in an attempt to be threatening. It would have worked better had the thick turbans on their heads not been swaying precariously. They were Nikaboan, an ethnicity native to the scrubland that covered much of what the godformed called Aisen, but also included portions of Raynen. The clans that traveled this land respected boundaries far older than the Treatise.
They had also represented a permanent haven from the godformed ever since the Ildith Empire had fallen the same year the Treatise was made. From everything Iona had seen, they lived harshly, never staying anywhere longer than a few months as they eked out a living from this land that was nearly as barren as the drakes’ mines. But they were the Seeker’s strongest allies, and their sole recourse for escaping truly out of the reach of the godformed.
Still, Iona had not yet figured out why the Nikaboan concerned themselves with matters in the Homeland, and so she did not quite trust them. Even though she was one of them.
When Iona had first joined the Seekers over a year before, they had traced her heritage here, to this region and even to this particular clan. That wasn’t very common, she was told. She could see her resemblance to them in her high forehead and long nose, but everything from the melodic language they spoke (she wasn’t even sure what it was called) to the harsh sun and barren landscape felt different and alien. She did not know whether her ancestors had come north willingly or whether they had been some of the rare few stolen away by godformed in the early years, but she did not much care. It did not change what her life had been in the Homeland.
She strode out of the tent, not dignifying the guards at the tent flap with her attention. Everyone knew exactly what was in the bag on her back, and the guards were guarding it, not her. It was an empty show of strength if the drakes came calling, and everyone knew it.
She made it halfway across the camp, all eyes on her and her guards trailing her, before the Nikaboan leader approached her.
“Rysoma,” he began.
“I don’t have the time,” Iona said flatly in the pidgin language that was common between humans from vastly different regions. “We will discuss it when I return.”
“It can’t stay here,” he told her. “Your people are welcome, but it is not.”
Iona’s jaw worked for a moment. She could threaten him. Force him to protect the Treatise with his people’s lives.
But the problem was, he was right. She wasn’t concerned about that horrid drake, but that angel — she would most certainly try to follow, and she might even succeed in finding them. These people would not be able to stand against an army of angels, robbed of their magic as they were. She was already quietly planning to leave.
One day. She had had one beautiful, blissful day with Marwan. She was still marveling over how much little Mina had grown.
Six years, eight months, twenty-three days. That was one reckoning of what the godformed had stolen from her. Now the count would start again.
“We will discuss it when I return,” Iona repeated, and she pushed her way past him and out of the camp. She felt the stares of dozens of eyes upon her, could hear the whispers behind her back. To them, she was a savior, a mage of vast power, practically a demigod. But soon enough, they would all awaken to their potential.
The moment Iona was out of sight of the camp, she closed her eyes and teleported to the top of the ridge. It was as simple as kicking open a door and stepping through — except that the door she was kicking open was a door that passed into the Empyrean and back, and for just a moment as she stepped through, she felt… everything, like every part of her had melted into a roiling sea of energy and flux — and was only reconstituted when she reached the other side of the door.
It was equal parts thrilling and terrifying.
Iona did not open her eyes immediately after she teleported. The wind whipped through her legs, tugging at the pack on her back. She listened to the wild, the unbridled nature, and was still.
Then she knelt on the scrubby peak and undid the clasps that held the satchel closed. She pulled the flap back and gazed down at the Treatise, with its ever-murky, churning interior.
“I’m here,” she whispered, and she touched the Treatise with a single finger.
Even though it had been over a year since the first time she had visited the prison of the gods, deep in the sea of the Empyrean, Iona couldn’t say the she felt comfortable during the transition. Every time, was thrust into the Empyrean’s rolling seas of magic, floating free for a brief, glorious second, before strong bands of foreign magic interlaced and shrunk around her, tugging her downward and deeper until she could just catch a glimpse of a colorful dome below.
And then she was standing on solid ground again, collapsed to one knee and gasping for breath. A hand gripped her elbow, helping her to her feet. “Iona. Did you travel well?”
Iona looked up into the face of Change. Tonight he wore the face of a young man, almost young enough to be her son, with her same skin tone and shoulder-length shiny black hair. He was clean-shaven with smooth, rounded features except for his nose, which was sharply crooked, as if someone had broken it when he was a child and it hadn’t healed straight.
His eyes were storms. Clouds played across his irises, and the veins in the whites were crackles of lightning. Looking at the raw power behind those eyes invigorated her. All of that power was hers to tap into… and soon, it would be all of humanity’s.
“Well enough,” she answered him, straightening her wrap and looking around at the unfamiliar scenery; in over a year since she had first visited Change’s prison, it had not looked the same twice. Today, they were outdoors in a lush, whispering forest at such odds with the barren landscape she had left behind that Iona knew it was done on purpose. It was not real, of course; only a manifestation of magic. There was little that was real in the Empyrean, besides magic.
“If only my children could see this,” she noted, turning on the spot and taking in the lush green and the birdsong. “They are already complaining about the heat.”
Change threw back his head and laughed, raw and full of energy. “Soon they shall choose to live wherever their heart desires, Rysoma.”
“Don’t call me that,” Iona said, folding her arms. She had heard the light mockery in his voice plainly. “You gave me this charge, I did not ask for it.”
Change raised an eyebrow. “If and when we succeed, it will not solely be because of the powers I have granted.”
“No, but the Seekers did not get very far in nearly a hundred years without your help.” Iona interlaced her hands. “Enough of this. What word do you have for me?”
“Consequence has been investigating the results of your experiments as seen on our side. In short, they have had no effect. Duality has decreed that you should abandon the attempt and proceed to the second stage of experiments as soon as possible.”
“Good,” Iona said. “It is my belief that holding the Treatise is too dangerous for me to remain near children and families. I… cannot abide another loss like Haven’s.”
She still saw it when she closed her eyes, herself and each other family putting the torch to their own work, their labor of so many years. In a rare case of thanking Luck, there had been no deaths, and few injuries during their flight.
“I will select a team and leave in the morning,” she told him, neglecting to mention that she already had a team in mind, that indeed she would have suggested the maneuver if Duality had not already made the obvious decision.
“Do you know where to go?” Change asked. He spun up an illusion with his finger, showing tracts of desert surrounding a sheer, sandy cliff that was riddled with tunnels above and below ground.
“The Hive,” said Iona, reaching out to the image to touch it. Strangely, it was solid, and even in miniature the rough texture of sandstone scraped her skin. “Where the Treatise was created.”
“Yes,” Change said. “The Nikaboan know where it is. Take one of them as a guide. It will be nearly a week’s journey.”
A week. The date of the Renewal would have nearly arrived just in the time it took to get there. Perhaps the practical consideration really was to wait for it to fade on its own, but Iona would not do that. She needed to do it herself, to watch the sphere crack and the life drain out and know the godformed’s false gods were watching in fear of the retribution that would surely come. “And once we arrive?”
“I am told there are artifacts left there that carried the power used to create the Treatise. Given those, you should be able to trick the Treatise into thinking the Renewal has been started.” Deep in the center of the illusory image of the Hive, Change made seven amorphous shapes glow. “Of course, once the Renewal has started, breaking the Treatise is all too easy.”
Iona surveyed the map of the Hive, committing it to memory.“Understood. Will that be all?”
“All the news from Duality.” Change’s gaze lingered on hers, then he sighed and waved a door out of thin air.
Iona did not leave immediately. Change noticed her hesitation. “You wish he did not dictate our meetings? So do I, but as the youngest of the gods I have no power to demand otherwise. Besides, Iona,” — and at this point he leaned in and whispered into her ear from behind — “I have Seen it. Down this path lies the greatest change you and humanity has ever wished for. We will make it so.”
Iona trembled at those words. She was bathed in Change’s power. He was so close to her that even this avatar was electrifying. Her will and his power together, and she knew nothing could stop them. What a difference it made, to be able to do something that mattered.
What a right the godformed had stolen from humanity.
“When I draw on your power, what is still shall be set in motion, and what is in motion made still.” Iona whispered the ritual prayer that Change had taught her in their very first lesson after she had fatefully touched the Treatise.
“There is one other thing you will need,” Change said as Iona reluctantly went to step back into her own world.
Iona turned to look at him. Her breath caught again, looking at the lightning in his eyes.
“The artifacts will trick the Treatise into starting the Renewal early, and you may even be able to manipulate the magic so it thinks one of the godformed is breaking the agreement. But you'll still need a godformed to channel the magic. And once the Treatise is broken… they won’t survive the process.”
Iona bared her teeth in a smile and thought of the drake and angel hunting her. “I understand. I understand perfectly.”
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