Maybe it was all the adrenaline from the recent fight finally wearing off, but Finn thought it was something else. Shafts of light filtered in to illuminate the sifting dust particles, and the outside world had become entirely muted.
Was it some trick of this place? Finn didn’t remember it being like that before.
There was an aura there, a power that was still heavy despite all of the terror, the flames, and the blood that had been so recently spilt.
The stairs wound up and around the outer wall to the next floor, where carved lines drew straight toward the celestial insignia in the center of the room. Finn studied it for a moment, noting the interlocking circles and remembering the map that Sister Alharrow had found in Lord See’s library. The design was a simplified version of that map, and Finn wondered why he hadn’t seen it earlier. There had always been a map of the Celestial Engines displayed before them, from the lowest circle being the New Zone all the way up through the Elder Realms to the heights of the Asai themselves.
Finn’s lip curled in derision. What arrogance of the god-like Asai to rub their machine in the faces of all those who toiled within it.
“Well, I don’t care about your ascension or your games. I just want my sister safe and sound. I want Blackwood and Malvas safe,” Finn declared to absolutely no one. He knew that he was only there because the Asai of Shadow had made him come, and he didn’t like being manipulated.
But this was for Esther, wasn’t it?
Remembering how to activate the register, Finn stepped forward and raised his hand.
10 Mana spent.
His hand glimmered as the brilliant celestial energy crackled across it before he threw the lightning ball toward the celestial insignia.
As soon as it touched the stones, there was a response. Purple light streamed through the logo on the floor, running along the curved circles and interweaving lines until the entire thing was alight. The stones started to fold into the ground, propelled by some internal mechanism that Finn couldn’t understand. A dais rose, and then a stone pillar encrusted with giant, radiant, milky-white crystals. The light flashed and then solidified into a ball of pure white light, shot through with shimmering gold lines.
The Celestial Register. The account of all the souls in the Celestial Engines—their exploits, positions, and ascension levels.
This was the jewel in the crown of the Celestial Order. This was why it was protected by the four elemental lodges of the Defenders. It was a shard of the Asai of Time himself, and it was the record of everything. Everyone.
“Finn!”
There was a hiss from behind him, and Finn realized his mistake. He had expected Rosa to follow his direction.
“What are you doing down here, messing about with that?! You know what will happen if you touch it. You’ll summon the Asai of Time himself!” Rosa was clearly concerned. She scrambled down the pile of rubble to land on the floor behind him, and her face was illuminated by the ethereal glow of the register.
“Rosa, I have to do something. I made a promise to someone very powerful…” Finn began.
“Uh-huh, I’ve heard that before. Who was it? Another immortal wannabe god, was it? What did you bargain for, a cure for Esther?!”
Finn clearly heard the exasperation in Rosa’s voice, but he was busy kicking himself that he hadn’t made that deal instead.
“Not really. You’re going to think I’m stupid, but the Asai of Shadow saved me back there, in the citadel. And he wanted me to do this…”
“The Asai of Shadow. Shadow. Did you just hear that? The same guy who used an entire city in order to gain his own ascension?” Rosa was clearly not impressed.
“Well, it was that or die, Rosa,” Finn pointed out.
“Oh,” Rosa muttered with a shake of her head. They both knew disobeying a fully ascended Asai was likely to be fatal. “I get it, I’d probably make the same deal, but I am getting a bit sick of us being the pawns of some megalomaniac godling.
She sighed in resignation. “What are you supposed to do with the register?”
“This…” Finn raised his hand as he stepped toward the register. Rosa hissed again just before his fingers touched the white-and-gold orb.
YOU HAVE ACCESSED THE CELESTIAL REGISTER
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[CELESTIAL ENGINE ERROR!]
There was a flash of brilliant light that blinded Finn for a moment, and then he was surrounded by white. The golden threads were all around him, looping and whirling, crossing paths with each other, intersecting here and there, everywhere and nowhere. He couldn’t see the Tower of Time or Rosa anymore.
“What is this? Is this the register?!” Finn felt himself reach out, but he couldn’t even see his hands. He touched one of the nearest golden threads.
Preceptor Ard Mk’Or (Defender)
Ascension Level: 32
Ascension Path: Ice, Earth
Realm of the Ice Giants, Guardian of the Winter Shard
Potential to Survive: 70%
Finn not only saw the information, but he got a vivid image of the being—a giant of a woman with jet-black hair and dressed in white furs. She was standing on a snowy hillside, holding what appeared to be a long spear of pure ice with a faint blue glow. Across from her was an ogre, like the ones the troll rode into battle, but this one appeared to be even larger and meaner. It had twin curling horns on either side of its head.
The half-giant woman flinched and looked over her shoulder, as if she could sense Finn watching her.
He gasped, yanking his hand away from the gold thread. He had just accessed another soul in the Celestial Engines!
“Each one of these gold threads are souls,” he said, in awe. “Some of them match and conjoin, others cross paths, and some never meet at all.”
Finn looked around him. A small thought prayed that Preceptor Ard Mk’Or would survive, as she had seemed brave and noble, but he really had no idea.
“Each soul has a survivability rating,” Finn realized. Was that how the Asai of Time played his games? He assessed who was most likely to survive and where they had to be in order to be the most use for the Celestial Engines?
[CELESTIAL ENGINE ERROR!]
There was another blinding flash, and everything disappeared. Yet Finn still felt…surrounded.
Finn Callahan.
Defender-Warrior.
Ascension Level: 30.
I see that you have come a long way since we last spoke.
Finn felt the words reverberating through his mind. Even though he couldn’t see the speaker, he knew precisely who it was. What it was.
“The Asai of Time!” Finn breathed.
You are not meant to be here. Why have you come?
The Asai pressed their consciousness against Finn’s, and it felt like a suffocating weight. Finn felt as though every part of him was being poked and prodded, teased and examined.
No! Finn thought. As soon as the Asai finds out what I am holding, he will destroy it. He will destroy me!
“Why have you forsaken this place, Asai! The Celestial Order needs you!” Finn cried out.
The weight against him lifted just a little.
How was he supposed to ‘install’ this prism, anyway?!
You know nothing. You are a pawn. There are greater dangers afoot. Your sister Esther Callahan should never have been allowed to survive.
Time’s words were said with such calm, murderous rationality that Finn wanted to scream.
“What?! It’s not her fault she was kidnapped! She is important! I saved her from the Qlippothi!” Finn called out.
Time rushed hard against his mind once more.
DO NOT SPEAK THAT NAME HERE! YOU FOOL!
It was then that Finn got the sense that the Asai was…scared. His mind raced. The Asai of Shadow said that Time was weakened, injured, and Time just said there were greater dangers afoot…
Could it be that Time truly didn’t have control of the order anymore?
“Time! Your order is in ruins! Your lodges are neatly destroyed! You cannot simply abandon them!”
YOU KNOW NOTHING! YOU WILL TELL ME WHERE YOUR SISTER IS, NOW, OR I WILL ERASE YOU FROM THE REGISTER!
Finn felt like his body was made of ice and being held close to a blowtorch. His entire being started to hurt. Thinking hurt.
One thought, however, slipped through the cracks.
The Asai of Time—the being who was supposed to maintain the Celestial Register itself—still could not see Esther. Just like when she had been ‘taken out of the engines’ when she was captured by the Qlippothi.
There was something about Esther’s power that rendered her invisible to the Celestial Engines, and that was why she wasn’t ascending the same way Finn had.
And it seemed that Time wanted her dead.
Well, Finn only had one thing to say to that.
“I don’t think so,” he hissed. Somehow, he reached inside himself for the shadow prism.
What is that? What are you doing?!
The constantly shifting black orb appeared in front of him against the white.
STOP! I ORDER YOU TO STOP! Do you know what that will do to me? To the engines?! You are a fool, and you must stop!
“Deal with it.” Finn released the orb, and the darkness expanded. It filled his vision, spreading out further and further until it consumed everything… including himself.
***
“Finn!”
He was on the floor, shaking and convulsing. Rosa crouched over him, her hands on his shoulders.
“What?” He gasped for air, feeling like his head was suddenly too small for the energies he had living in it.
“The register! It filled with black and then winked out. What did you do?!” Rosa pointed to the now-empty pillar. The stone was starting to shake, and as they scrambled to their feet, the pillar crashed to the floor.
There was something else. Something had changed about this place, and not just this place… The entire citadel.
“Can you feel that?” Finn whispered.
Rosa nodded, wide-eyed.
“It’s gone. The register is gone. And this place is…” Finn looked around.
“Different,” Rosa supplied, and Finn nodded. There was no denying it. The previous energy that had been holding this place safe or sacred was gone. The Asai of Time had been banished, and with that, everything felt colder.
“But what does that mean?” Rosa whispered.
Finn shook his head, feeling a pang of guilt running through him. “I don’t know, Rosa. I don’t know. But I’m not sure that this even is the Celestial Order anymore!” He squinted and tried to use his abilities to really look around and gauge the impact of what had happened.
The Celestial Order is no longer a restricted realm. Any previous magical barriers, including restricted entrances, are now null and void.
This was what he had done—or what the Asai of Shadow had done through him, anyway. The Celestial Order was without protection. Who knew if it could even train Defenders now.
Finn checked his inventory to find that passing on the Prism of Shadow had removed all of the temporary powers and advantages of the Shadow Path. He was once again just himself.
He had been used by some self-important, megalomaniac wannabe-god, and then discarded. Again.