The transition from the stillness of the mountain ravine to the frantic velocity of the open plains was a shock to Kael's already fractured senses. The modified steam-carriage—christened The Iron Sparrow by Pip—was less a vehicle and more a screaming collection of brass, soot, and desperate engineering.
Inside the cramped, vibrating cabin, the air was thick with the scent of hot oil and the metallic tang of coal smoke. Pip sat at the helm, his hands dancing across a series of levers and pressure-valves with the confidence of a child who had spent his life dismantling the world his betters had built.
"Pressure at ninety percent!" Pip shouted over the roar of the furnace. "She's groaning, Saint, but she's holding! We'll hit the border of the Whispering Woods by dawn if the boiler doesn't decide to become a crater first!"
Kael sat in the back, his back against a crate of salvaged coal. Beside him, Martha was tending to the three "hollow" boys, wrapping them in thick wool blankets. The boys remained catatonic, their void-eyes staring at the vibrating ceiling, but Kael noticed that the eldest boy's hand was still gripped tightly around the Star-Core's light whenever Kael moved near.
THUD-CRACK.
Kael's shoulder reset, a sharp, cold spike of pain that made his iridescent eyes flare. He was exhausted. The destruction of Site-One had drained his mana-vessels to the point of collapse, and the "Stable Agony" was now a jagged, erratic rhythm in his chest.
THE IRON LEVIATHANS ARE NEAR, KAEL, the God's voice vibrated through the carriage's floorboards, sounding almost giddy. THE ARCHITECTS DO NOT LIKE IT WHEN THE FUEL RUNS AWAY. THEY HAVE SENT THE HOUNDS OF STEAM TO FETCH US.
"Pip, what's our rear-view?" Kael asked, his voice low and vibrating.
Pip glanced at a polished silver mirror. His cocky grin vanished. "Three Search-Walkers. Fast ones. Looks like the 'Celerity' models from the Capital. They aren't running on coal, Saint. They're running on 'Siphon-Crystals'—pure, distilled essence."
Kael hauled himself to the rear observation hatch. He pulled back the heavy iron plate and looked out into the moonlit waste.
A mile back, three silhouettes were tearing across the salt flats. They were tripodal mechanical tanks, their long, spindly legs moving with a terrifying, insectoid grace. Atop each tripod was a rotating turret armed with a "Mana-Cannon"—a weapon designed to fire bolts of compressed, kinetic energy that could shatter a castle wall.
"They're gaining," Kael said.
"Then we give them a reason to slow down!" Pip pulled a lever marked Overdrive.
The Iron Sparrow let out a shriek of tortured metal, a plume of black smoke erupting from its twin chimneys as it surged forward. The carriage jumped over a jagged basalt ridge, the suspension groaning. Martha grabbed a handrail, her face pale but her eyes fixed on Kael.
"You can't fight them like you fought the mages, Kael," Martha warned. "Those machines don't have souls. They don't have blood. They're just iron and math."
"Then I'll break the math," Kael replied.
He climbed out of the hatch and onto the roof of the moving carriage. The wind of their passage was a physical wall, whipping his tattered grey cloak around him like the wings of a predatory moth. The salt flats blurred beneath them, a white sea of dust and shadow.
The first Search-Walker reached the optimal firing range. Its turret rotated, the blue crystal at its tip glowing with a lethal, concentrated light.
CRACK-BOOM!
A bolt of blue mana tore through the air, striking the ground five feet to the left of the Iron Sparrow. The explosion sent a shower of salt and stone into the air, the shockwave nearly flipping the carriage.
"STABILIZE!" Pip screamed from below.
Kael knelt on the iron roof, his fingers digging into the metal plating. He reached into the "Vessel" of his soul. He was empty of "White Sun" energy, but the "Agony"—the dark, corrupted mana of the God—was always there, a stagnant pool of violet spite.
He raised his hand toward the lead Search-Walker.
"Ancient Art: The Friction of the Grave."
He didn't fire a projectile. He targeted the ground beneath the walker's central leg. He didn't use force; he used "Transmutation." He turned the hard, packed salt into a patch of frictionless, liquid sludge.
The walker's central leg hit the patch and slid. The mechanical logic of the tripod tried to compensate, but the velocity was too great. The sixty-foot machine tilted, its legs entangling, and it collapsed into the salt with a thunderous roar of rending metal and exploding steam.
"One down!" Pip cheered, his voice muffled by the furnace.
But the remaining two walkers didn't slow. They adjusted their formation, moving to either side of the Iron Sparrow to create a pincer maneuver. Their turrets rotated toward each other, their beams crossing directly over the carriage to create a "Static Net"—a field of electrical mana designed to fry the engine and kill the occupants.
Kael felt the hair on his arms stand up as the air turned into a cage of lightning. The Iron Sparrow's engine began to sputter, the mechanical parts seizing as the mana-field interfered with the steam-valves.
"She's dying!" Pip yelled. "The boiler's going to blow!"
Kael stood up on the roof. The "Stable Agony" in his chest reached a crescendo. He felt his ribs splintering—crack-snap-crack—the pain acting as a bridge between his world and the God's.
"Take the wheel, God," Kael whispered.
GLADLY, LITTLE SUN.
Kael's eyes didn't just glow iridescent; they turned into twin voids of absolute violet shadow. He didn't use the Star-Core to filter the power; he let the "Agony" flow raw. He reached out with both hands, his fingers curling as if he were grabbing the invisible net.
"Primordial Art: The Consumption of the Static Sky!"
Kael didn't push the lightning away. He drank it.
The electrical mana of the Static Net was pulled into Kael's body. To a normal mage, this would have been instant suicide—the raw, unfiltered kinetic energy would have turned their nervous system to ash. But Kael was a "Reconstruction Vessel." Every time the lightning burned his nerves, the curse rebuilt them. Every time his heart stopped, the Agony restarted it.
He became a lightning rod of violet and blue fire, his body glowing with a terrifying brilliance. The Iron Sparrow was no longer being suppressed; it was being charged. The excess energy flowed from Kael's boots into the carriage's frame, the steam-valves glowing red-hot.
"W-What is happening?!" Pip stammered, looking at the glowing gauges. "The pressure... it's off the charts! We're doing eighty knots!"
The Iron Sparrow shot forward like a cannonball, leaving a trail of scorched salt in its wake.
Kael turned his gaze toward the two remaining Search-Walkers. He didn't need a spell. He just needed to release the "Charge."
He pointed his hands at the two machines.
"The Weeper's Discharge."
The stored mana of the Static Net erupted from his palms in two blinding arcs of violet-blue lightning. The bolts struck the walkers' turrets, bypassing their shielding and detonating their internal Siphon-Crystals.
The explosions were twin suns on the horizon. The Search-Walkers were reduced to heaps of molten slag in seconds.
Kael collapsed onto the roof of the carriage, the violet light fading from his eyes. He coughed, a thick, golden-violet ichor splattering the iron plating. His body felt like it had been put through a foundry's press.
He lay there for a long time, watching the stars. The Iron Sparrow was still screaming across the plains, Pip managing to vent enough steam to keep it from exploding.
Slowly, the salt flats began to give way to dark, looming shadows. The air grew damp and heavy with the scent of pine, wet moss, and something ancient—the smell of the "Whispering Woods."
They had reached the border.
Kael hauled himself back through the hatch and into the cabin. He fell into the hay, his eyes fluttering. Pip was still at the helm, his hands shaking, his aviator cap askew.
"We... we did it," Pip whispered, looking back at Kael. "We outran the Academy's best."
"We didn't outrun them, Pip," Kael said, his voice a dry rasp. "We just gave them a new nightmare to study."
Martha knelt beside Kael, wiping the blood from his face. She looked out the small porthole at the dark, twisted trees of the Whispering Woods.
"They won't follow us in there," Martha said. "The Academy has been trying to map these woods for centuries. The mana-currents here are too chaotic for their machines."
"Good," Kael said. "Because the Cradle is in the center."
He looked at the three "hollow" boys. For the first time, the youngest one blinked. His eyes didn't have light, but they moved. He was coming back, piece by piece, as they moved further from the "Order."
Kael closed his eyes, the sound of the steam-engine finally fading as Pip slowed the carriage to enter the treeline.
ONE CRADLE DOWN, the God whispered, its voice sounding tired but satisfied. THREE TO GO. THE WHISPERING WOODS ARE OLD, KAEL. THEY REMEMBER THE JUNGLE. THEY REMEMBER THE WITCH.
"I know," Kael thought.
As the Iron Sparrow rolled into the deep shadows of the ancient forest, the mechanical world of Blackwall felt a million miles away. Here, in the dark, the Blood Weeper was no longer a King.
He was home.