System Report:

  The Ritual

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  Yenna didn’t stop to think. Between the droning chant, worming into her ears, and the candle smoke that reeked of a perfumed grave, there was no room for such indulgences.

  So, she did the only sensible thing: she moved.

  Maybe it was the adrenaline, fizzing through her veins like a badly corked bottle of lightning. Maybe it was the anger, elbowing her more reasonable senses aside. Or maybe it was that dreadful incense—thick, cloying, and far too spiritual for its own good—tickling some dormant part of her mind.

  Whatever the reason, the faint nodes of energy she’d felt earlier—the ones lurking in Kain’s satchel like guilty secrets—were no longer whispering. They were shouting, in a multitude of incomprehensible languages, and all of them seemed to agree on one thing: up her arms, now.

  Soul Drain: Activated.

  The satchel swung around her shoulders as the energy surged into her body.

  It wasn’t a decision. It was instinct—the sort of reflex that lives somewhere between breathing and panicking. Something deep within her, something mechanical, an organ she’d never asked for, roared to life.

  It consumed everything: the whispers, her fear, her exhaustion, and perhaps just a smidge of her common sense.

  And for one magnificent, terrible instant, Yenna was aware.

  Utterly, terribly, gloriously aware.

  Wispy nodes of mana swirled through the church like living, breathing dust motes, filling her eyes with a cornucopia of colors. Bright reds and oranges darted about the candles, flinging themselves around with the enthusiasm of sparks waiting for a greater inferno to ignite. Behind her, sweeping blues rolled in through the open doors, trailing the scent of rain and the faintly apologetic chill of the outside world.

  By the altar, green and crimson streaks wove together where Mari lay—not floating, not quite—but soaking into the stones of the church floor, as though something beneath the flagstones was very thirsty and very bad at sharing.

  Alana was worse. Or better, depending on how you defined “worse.” She was a mass of twisting, tangled energy—the sort of shape that could only be described by a mathematician on their third nervous breakdown. The priest and the surrounding townsfolk, on the other hand, were… not quite pitch black. Pitch black would’ve implied something. They were just empty. As if the universe had forgotten to color them in.

  As if Yenna had just seen something no mortal was ever meant to see.

  The sensation lasted only an instant, but it hit her with the subtlety of a falling cathedral. She staggered, vision flickering like a faulty lantern, and when the veil snapped back into place the world seemed terribly gray and washed-out, as though reality had misplaced its color palette.

  Not that she had time to mourn the aesthetic loss—because there was plenty of color in the half-dozen Spark Bolts that had leapt into existence around her, howling with all the enthusiasm of magical hornets.

  “Alana!” Yenna cried, her voice slicing through the ongoing sermon. The entire church jerked to a halt, snapping toward her.

  “Dodge!”

  A heartbeat later, the shrieking Spark Bolts arced through the hall in a blaze of light and bad intentions.

  ***

  The moment the church bell tolled, something in the chamber changed.

  In fact, a great many somethings changed.

  First came the tremor—subtle at first, then growing into the kind of steady vibration that suggested the entire place had just remembered something it would rather have forgotten. Dust drifted from the ceiling in lazy spirals.

  Second were the baubles. They rattled in their holds like nervous teeth, clicking and clacking and glowing with increasing intensity.

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  Third was the air. A salty tang, sharp and briny, slithered in through the cracks between the stones, bringing with it the faint sound of waves and heavy rain. It mingled unpleasantly with the metallic scent of blood and dust, and somewhere far below, like a maelstrom of bad news warming up its vocal cords, something began to churn.

  And fourth were the people.

  Gami was on her knees, clutching her skull as if she might physically hold her sanity together by force of will. The whispers in her mind had abandoned all pretense of subtlety and were now shrieking, howling, and demanding everything from salvation to vengeful smiting.

  “Stop… them! STOP THEM! No more…! Can’t! Mustn’t! HELP US! FREE US! Crush them…! CURSE YOU!”

  It was like being stuck inside a thousand overcrowded arguments, all of them hostile, and none of them caring for personal mental space. The noise pressed down on her, making breathing hard, thinking impossible, and existence deeply inconvenient.

  Somewhere through the din, she noticed movement—the young man, the pale one with dark eyes, had hustled toward the door the moment the shaking began. He cracked it open for a peek outside, then slammed it shut with the speed of someone discovering a very good reason not to go outdoors. He shouted something to his companion, though the words were lost entirely in Gami’s ongoing psychic stampede.

  Not that his companion seemed to hear them either.

  Despite everything—the shaking, the dust, the whispering, the metaphysical flooding—the girl in the bunny-eared sweater stood planted in the middle of the floor, staring up at the ceiling with the faintest frown. The expression was not fear, nor awe, but rather the mild annoyance of someone wondering who had scheduled chaos on her calendar without consulting her.

  As if she were listening to something the rest of them couldn’t hear.

  As if something was happening just above their heads.

  A heartbeat later, something destructive and extremely explosive slammed into the floor above. The entire chamber trembled.

  ***

  The Spark Bolts that struck the church hall were not so much well-aimed projectiles as they were endorsements of indiscriminate destruction. They tore through pews like lumberjacks with a grudge. They incinerated candelabras in bright, offended bursts, sending molten wax flying in arcs. They shot clean through tapestry, leaving behind smouldering holes that were rapidly expanding. And they ripped through the gathered audience with all the delicacy of a shower of shooting stars.

  And yet—despite all this—Yenna heard none of the screams one might expect from people introduced to explosive magical firepower.

  Even as one of her Spark Bolts detonated violently over the shoulder of a man deep in prayer—sending his robes billowing, his hair aflame, and his faith, one assumed, into urgent reconsideration—no screams beside her own ever broke the sermon.

  The chanting continued undisturbed. Zealous, unwavering, and increasingly unhinged as fire crawled hungrily up the tapestries and sparks chewed through wooden seats. Some didn’t even flinch when splintered wood lodged in their sides or when embers found their robes and began exploring their skin. Their trance was too deep, and perhaps their minds had already gone somewhere more comfortable as the acrid scent of smoke and burning cloth wrapped itself around the congregation.

  Only when the priest—ashen-faced and trembling—lifted a finger toward Yenna and barked, “Seize her!” did the nearest worshippers so much as blink.

  What followed was not coordination.

  It was something far stranger.

  A raw, unhinged madness seemed to animate them with the collective fervour of zealots.

  The nearest woman—just a few pews away—whipped around. Half her face had been melted into a waxy, horrifying mask by the rising flames. But instead of rage or agony or even the slightest hint of awareness, she displayed no expression whatsoever. Not a twitch. Not a flicker.

  As if seized by some higher power, she scrambled over the ruined pew like some morbid spider, limbs jerking in ways limbs were never meant to jerk, skittering straight toward Yenna.

  Behind her, several more figures stirred, lurching from their seats in the uneven, dreamlike rhythm of puppets whose strings had been handed over to something with far too many hands.

  “Spark Bolt!” Yenna yelled, but even as her hand sliced through the air, there was not a single crackle of magical intent. Not even a sparkle.

  The roaring engine in her chest—the one that had earlier been quite enthusiastic about consuming everything—had fizzled out into a quiet hum.

  In the brief moment it took her to realize no Spark Bolt was coming, the scrambling woman closed the gap and launched herself through the air. There was no snarl, no scream, not even a flicker of anger—just two eyes, one of them half melted, locked on Yenna with unnerving precision.

  Yenna dodged. Narrowly.

  She could feel nails scrape her shoulder as she spun aside, leaving the woman to recklessly tumble past her in a manner that suggested she’d never planned on landing. She struck the wall with a crack of bones but was already clawing her way back to her feet before Yenna could as much as catch her breath.

  And down the church’s main aisle, several more figures were lurching her way—fast, uncoordinated, and entirely too numerous for comfort.

  She turned and ran, along the church’s back wall. Her hand caught on a tall metal candelabra in passing, and in one frantic, graceless motion, she yanked it down, sending it clattering across the narrow walkway behind her.

  “Alana!” she screamed, nearly choking as smoke clawed its way down her throat. The church was burning. Heat licked at her face, causing her eyes to sting and water.

  Still, she ran—vaulting over the backmost rows of pews as she set her sight on the hall’s center. “Kill these bastards, Alana!”

  Of all the Spark Bolts she’d unleashed into the church, only one had truly been aimed—the one meant to free her murderous rogue companion.