The Plaza of Unity exploded.
Skarlett Abetha didn't see the jester arrive. One moment the plaza was empty—marble gleaming, fountains arcing, citizens flowing through their orderly routines. The next, chaos incarnate stood at its center, arms spread wide, porcelain mask grinning at the sky.
Her threat assessment activated before her conscious mind caught up.
[UNKNOWN ENTITY DETECTED]
[Class: ???]
[Level: ???]
[Power Level: ???]
The error message made her lip curl. She was Skarlett Abetha, Level 9 Mage with a power level of 1899—one hundred points above the theoretical maximum for her rank. She didn't get error messages.
[SKARLETT ABETHA]
[Class: First-Class Mage]
[Level: 9]
[Power Level: 1899/1200]
[Affinity: Earth]
[Signature Ability: Parallelism]
She moved.
The crowd parted around her like water around a blade. Citizens who'd been frozen in terror now scrambled, their mechanical order shattering into something primal. Skarlett paid them no attention. Her focus was absolute, locked on the figure in motley who had dared to mock Adelpha in its own heart.
The jester saw her coming. His masked face tilted, those painted crescent moons somehow conveying amusement despite being frozen ceramic.
"The Crimson Lady herself!" His voice cut through the screaming crowd, that strange penetrating quality that seemed to speak directly to her nervous system. "I'd heard you were in the city, but I never dreamed you'd come to my little gathering!"
His right hand vanished. Skarlett's HEFNA blade came up—not reacting to the movement she saw, but to the one she predicted. The blade's edge caught empty air where a fist would have been.
He was already behind her.
Skarlett spun, ice crystallizing along her blade's edge. The HEFNA's parallel-cutting concept merged with frost manifestation, creating a weapon that existed in two places at once. The strike would have bisected any normal opponent.
The jester's torso remained where it was. His legs vanished, reappeared three feet to the left, and kicked a fountain pedestal at her head.
She shattered the marble with her free hand, not even slowing.
[Combat Assessment: Target employs partial teleportation—independent limb translocation. Mobility exceeds any recorded mage. Power consumption patterns unknown.]
"Fast!" the jester called, his limbs scattering and reforming in patterns that defied anatomy. "But speed isn't power, is it, Crimson Lady? You've spent twenty years learning that lesson. Power is control. Power is certainty. Power is knowing exactly where you stand in the order of things!"
He flickered. His left arm materialized three inches from her face, fingers extended toward her eyes.
Skarlett's earth affinity answered. A spike of granite erupted from the plaza floor, intercepting the strike, shattering against the jester's wrist. He laughed, the sound high and delighted, as his arm dissolved into shadow and reformed at his side.
"You're pushing," he observed. "Power level spiking. Want to see how high you can go before the system breaks? Before you break?"
She didn't answer. Couldn't. Her power level climbed—1900, 1950, 2000—as she channeled mana from the voluran cores buried beneath the capital. The HEFNA blade hummed, ice crystallizing so thick along its edge that the weapon had doubled in size.
[WARNING: Power Level exceeding safe thresholds]
[Current: 2034]
[Channeling instability detected]
The jester's movements slowed. Not much—a fraction of a second between disappearances, a hesitation where there had been flow. But Skarlett saw it.
She struck.
The blade found his shoulder, bit deep, and kept going. His left arm separated cleanly, dissolving into shadow before it could hit the ground. For the first time, the jester's laughter died.
"Ah," he breathed. "There it is."
Skarlett pressed forward, her boots crunching on the shattered marble, her power level still climbing. "You're Level 9," she said, reading the fight now. "Maybe 8, with an affinity for translocation. But you're pushing too hard. Burning too bright. How long until you collapse?"
The jester's masked face tilted. "How long until you do?"
A stone bench ripped itself from the plaza floor—twenty feet of solid granite, lifted by Skarlett's will, hurled at her opponent with the force of a mag-rail train. The jester's legs vanished, reappeared on the bench's surface, kicked off, and launched him over her head.
She caught him mid-air.
Her hand closed around his ankle, earth magic locking his bones in place, preventing translocation. The jester's remaining hand came down toward her skull. She caught that too, her fingers crushing his wrist, feeling the bones grind together beneath the skin.
For a moment, they hung there—Skarlett suspended by her own power, the jester suspended by her grip, the plaza silent around them.
"Why?" she demanded. "Why do this? Why throw yourself against a system you can't break?"
The jester's mask was inches from her face. Through the eyeholes, she saw nothing but shadow. No eyes. No face. No identity at all.
"Because someone has to show them," he whispered. "Because comfort breeds cruelty. Because the forgotten deserve to be seen. Because—" His voice changed, softened, became almost gentle. "Because you already know I'm right."
Skarlett's grip tightened. "I know nothing of the kind."
"You know about FIGSTY. You've read the reports, seen the numbers, felt the weight of what your nation built on stolen bones. And you've done nothing. Because doing something would mean admitting that everything you've built, everything you've become, is built on graves."
His remaining hand twisted in her grip, bones grinding, but his voice didn't waver.
"You stand at the threshold of Level 10, Crimson Lady. No human has reached that rank since the elves walked the earth. You could be something new. Something greater. But instead, you serve them. You enforce order. You protect a system that grinds children to dust so you can sleep comfortably at night."
Skarlett slammed him into the ground.
The impact cracked marble for twenty feet in every direction. The jester's body went limp, his mask cracking down the center. For a moment, she thought she'd killed him.
Then he laughed.
"Too slow," he gasped. "Always too slow."
He vanished.
Not his limbs this time—all of him, simultaneously, simply ceasing to exist in her grip. Skarlett stood alone in the crater she'd created, her power level crashing back to baseline, her hands empty.
[COMBAT LOG]
[Target escaped]
[Threat level reassigned: UNKNOWN]
[Priority: MAXIMUM]
She stood motionless, breathing hard, feeling the eyes of the city on her back. The crowd had reformed at the plaza's edges—citizens emerging from doorways, guards rushing to secure the perimeter, drones descending in their endless, mindless patterns.
They'd seen her fail.
That was the thought that cut deepest. Not that the jester had escaped, not that he'd spoken truths she'd spent decades burying, but that three thousand citizens had watched the great Skarlett Abetha lose.
Her communication glyph pulsed. She knew what it would say before she read it.
Imperial Leader Metil requires your presence. Immediately.
Skarlett looked at the HEFNA blade, at the ice still crystallized along its edge, at the weapon that had failed to hold an enemy who had no power level, no class, no identity at all.
Level 10. The jester's words echoed. No human has reached that rank since the elves walked the earth.
She thought about power—about the 1899 she'd earned through twenty years of war, about the 2034 she'd pushed to in desperation, about the ceiling that supposedly existed between Level 9 and the mythical rank above.
What would it take to break through? What would it cost?
And what would she become on the other side?
She sheathed the HEFNA blade and walked toward the capital building, her boots clicking against the shattered marble, her shadow stretching long behind her.
Behind her, in the plaza, workers were already arriving to repair the damage. They'd have the fountain rebuilt by morning, the marble replaced by sunset, the cracks filled and polished until no one would remember anything had happened here.
That was Adelpha's way. Erase the damage. Control the narrative. Pretend the cracks didn't exist.
But Skarlett felt them now—the fractures running through everything she'd built her life on. The jester's words, lodged like shards of ice in her chest. The power level that had climbed beyond its limits and shown her something she couldn't unsee.
You could be something new.
The capital building rose before her, forty stories of polished black stone, its voluran circuits pulsing with stolen Kriarcan power. She'd walked these corridors a thousand times. Today, they felt like a cage.
The lift carried her up. Up past the military command floors, past the administrative wings, past the levels where the nation's business was conducted in conference rooms and offices and the endless grinding of paperwork. Up to the top floor, where Imperial Leader Metil sat in her glass-walled office and looked down at the city she'd conquered.
The doors opened.
Metil was waiting, silhouetted against the windows, her white hair catching the afternoon light. She didn't turn when Skarlett entered, didn't acknowledge her presence at all for a long, stretching minute.
"He escaped," Metil said finally. Not a question.
"Yes."
"Seventeen officers injured. Public property destroyed. Three thousand citizens witnessed the capital's security fail in broad daylight." Metil turned, her pale grey eyes fixed on Skarlett with an intensity that made the HEFNA blade feel heavy at her hip. "And you—one of the Dark Four, a Level 9 mage with a power level that exceeds any recorded—couldn't stop a man in a costume."
Skarlett's jaw tightened. "His abilities are unlike anything in our records. Partial teleportation. Independent limb translocation. No identifiable magical signature, no power level reading, no—"
"Excuses." The word cut like a blade. "I don't need excuses, Director. I need results. I need the people of this city to believe that their government can protect them. I need every potential dissident, every malcontent, every person who might think that Adelphan power can be challenged to see what happens when they try."
She moved toward her desk, settling into her chair with the precise economy of movement that characterized everything she did.
"The governors are assembling. Kaizier Secondarious, Kayleb Kross, Prin Keli, Serafine of Rion. They'll want answers. They'll want blood." Her eyes fixed on Skarlett. "They'll want to know why one of our most powerful weapons failed."
Skarlett stood motionless, her hands clasped behind her back, her face a mask of military composure. "What do you want me to tell them?"
"The truth. You engaged an unknown threat with abilities we don't understand. You pushed your power level beyond safe thresholds. You nearly caught him." Metil leaned back. "And next time, you will."
"Sending me after him again assumes he'll show himself."
"He will." Metil's certainty was absolute. "Men like that don't disappear. They don't hide. They perform. And when he performs again, you'll be ready."
She waved her hand, and a glyph-screen appeared, displaying a list of names. Students. Academy records. Assessment data.
"In the meantime, we have other concerns. The academy's combat assessments are tomorrow. Full evaluations in the Grand Arena." Metil's eyes scanned the list. "The Erasmus boy. His power level spiked during allocation—three hundred percent above baseline. Altrow is interested."
Skarlett's stomach tightened. "Altrow's interest never ends well."
"Altrow's interest ends with results." Metil dismissed the screen. "The boy's Kriarcan heritage gives him a connection to the land that our pureblood mages lack. That connection could be valuable. Or it could be dangerous." Her eyes sharpened. "We need to know which."
"You want me to watch him."
"I want you to watch all of them. The Rozzlyn boy—Ivan. His scores are inconsistent. Brilliant theory, no practical ability. That kind of gap usually indicates something hidden." Metil's voice was casual, but Skarlett knew better. Nothing about this conversation was casual. "And the Secondarious girl. Kaizier's granddaughter. She's been... different lately. More withdrawn. More focused. Her grandfather noticed."
Skarlett processed the information. Three students. Three bloodlines that had shaped the conquest of Kriarca. Three potential threats or assets, depending on what they became.
"The assessments are tomorrow," she said. "I'll observe."
"Good." Metil turned back to her windows, dismissing her. "And Skarlett?"
She paused at the door.
"The next time you face an enemy, don't let them touch you. It leaves marks."
Skarlett walked out into the corridor, the doors sliding shut behind her. The capital hummed with its usual controlled energy—officers moving between meetings, clerks processing paperwork, the endless machinery of empire grinding forward.
She touched her cheek, where the jester's hand had brushed against her skin.
You could be something new.
She didn't know what he meant. Didn't want to know. The path to Level 10 was clear—more power, more control, more of the same discipline that had carried her through twenty years of war. There was nothing new about it. Nothing that required her to look at FIGSTY, at the bones beneath the city, at the truth she'd spent her life avoiding.
She walked toward the lift, toward the waiting governors, toward the performance she'd give them. Tomorrow, she'd watch the students perform their spells, demonstrate their power, prove their worth. She'd watch Fent Erasmus hide his fire, Ivan Rozzlyn hide his strength, Starla Secondarious hide whatever her grandfather had seen.
And she'd pretend she didn't see anything at all.
The lift doors opened. Prin Keli stood inside, his smug grin widening when he saw her.
"Director Abetha. Still recovering from your encounter with the circus performer?" He stepped out, brushing past her. "Terrible business. Terrible for all of us. But don't worry—I'm sure Metil will find someone to blame. Someone who isn't you, obviously."
He walked away, his laughter echoing down the corridor.
Skarlett entered the lift, pressed the button for the sub-basement, and descended into darkness.
Below her, the governors were gathering. Above her, the city was rebuilding. And somewhere in the shadows, a man with no power level, no class, no identity at all was already planning his next dance.
You could be something new.
She pushed the thought away.
But it followed her down, all the way to the situation room, where Kaizier Secondarious sat with his dead daughter's eyes, and Kayleb Kross sharpened his smile, and Serafine of Rion watched with lids sealed shut, seeing everything and nothing.
The door opened. The governors turned.
And Skarlett Abetha, Level 9 Mage, power level 1899, took her place at the table and prepared to lie to them all.