7 Deadly Instincts (The Sinfire Chronicles Book 1)

He was back in the place of water and stars but instead of just ocean, island, and shack, there were palaces and buildings and temples rising up out of the water. He somehow knew that fifty feet under the water was the cobblestone street.

He stood on the water, like always, though everything else was different.

His adept mark, midway down his back, was itching him. He knew something was wrong with it—it shouldn’t be itching him that bad. Or was it burning? It was hard to tell but he really did have worse things to worry about.

There was the Wrath Tower dwarfing all the other buildings and it was about to explode. Then the streets would flood with demons. He didn’t know how he knew—it was just the dream logic. He was experiencing the Endless Night of Sorrow and Wrath himself.

He had to get to the Wrath Tower. He had to stop it from being destroyed. He couldn’t see the people in all the palaces, but he could hear them, talking and laughing. The voices of any number of women and children echoed through the strange streets of the submerged town.

He saw the shack, nestled between two luxurious palaces, he knew, behind the shack, was the Weeping Well, so cold and so dark. That would be where the demons would come from. Somehow, he knew there would be both kinds—the Animalix and the Regalia. The unseen voices had no idea that they were about to be attacked.

Oma’s voice cut through the chatter. “Hello, little dreamer. I’m sorry you’ve been having trouble with your healing. I can help you practice if you like.”

Gray laughed even with the dread in his belly. “Training even in my dreams? Settie would be so proud of me.”

Oma chuckled. “Settie loves you even though she couldn’t call it that. She would dress it up in ambition and cold logic. She’s on her way even now. It won’t be long now.”

“That’s good to know.” Gray winced. “But the Wrath Tower is about to be destroyed. I know if I run toward it, it won’t work. I can never get anywhere in these dreams.”

More laughter. “That’s not true. You’ve stood on the island. You’ve been on the doorstep of the little house—”

“The shack you mean?”

“One man’s shack is another man’s palace, sweet dreamer.”

It was a fair point. “Regardless, I know if I run toward the tower, I won’t make it. There’s also a good chance I won’t be able to stop it from being destroyed. This has all happened before.”

“And it’s likely to happen again. Over and over. Destruction and creation and destruction and creation. You know, you could try to heal the tower. Like you said, Settie would be very impressed if you trained in your sleep.”

“But it’s a building. It can’t work the same way, can it?”

“Give it a try.”

And then he was at the building—traveling in dreams could be so sudden and unexpected!

He touched the stones—like the Hellbinder Barrier, the seven towers of the Belly were all big square chunks of rock stacked on top of one another. He could feel the mana inside, and then, he looked, and yes, there was a core of energy there—it was big and red and blisteringly hot. The entire tower was built around that magical sphere, spinning and spinning and spinning.

He’d not thought to look for mana in the towers before. Then again, he’d never been as close to one as he was right then. He’d flown by the Lust Tower on the night he used the poached sloth squid mana for the trayah jalana brands. Even now, the marks above his heart and on the inside of his ankles ached, though that felt better than the his third mana mark.

Above him, the tower exploded. He winced at the noise and debris even as it fell around him, splashing into the water. He was soaked in seconds—had he gotten wet in any of these visions before? At some point, he’d been pulled underneath the water but even then, it didn’t feel wet exactly. It just felt warm and soothing.

Being splashed with the cold water was far less comfortable even with the massive chunks of rock falling all around him.

Oma was there to guide him. “No, put your hands on the stone and feel the structure.”

The air was filled with the growls and excited squeals of the demons bubbling out of the Weeping Well. The stink of the things followed—vile and animal. The voices and laughter in the palaces all turned into screaming.

It was so hard to concentrate but he had to focus. He felt the energy flowing through his meridians and into his fingertips. He could use it to cause pain—that was easy. He’d been trained to inflict pain on people by Master Kreef from an early age. You hurt the world before it could hurt you. Sure. But to heal it?

He laughed even as the sounds of slaughter erupted around him. “You’re not going easy on me, Oma.”

“No, my precious dreamer, I’m not. But can you feel the tower’s core reverberating through the stone?”

He closed his eyes, shut out the sounds of butchery, and focused. He could feel the mana in the stones, but they were escaping away from the top of the tower. The structure was losing its magic, which was why the Weeping Well was now open.

“Okay, I feel the problem, but I can’t use mana to heal stone. There’s no way.”

Oma sighed. “It’s a dream, Gray. In dreams, anything is possible. What if the tower wanted to be healed? What if there was a longing for life.”

He thought of what Mrs. Quillswrath had said about resurrecting Ames. There hadn’t been that drive to live. Still, the whole situation felt ridiculous. Towers had no will to live. He was surprised to find that the Wrath Tower had a kind of median network. He could feel the power circling the structure.

He remembered Princess Lilian tell him that they had villa out in the countryside, and while they didn’t live there all the time, they had people stay because houses without people fell apart faster. There was a connection between the core of a person and the energy of a house.

This felt similar.

The tower didn’t want to fall—it wanted to exist, and he felt that somehow. He pushed mana into the stone, where it mixed with the magic there, and he felt the rock regrowing, up at the top, where most of the top had been blasted apart.

Glancing up, he saw the dragons circling—not just circling, fighting. There wasn’t just fire and claws, but spellfire. Without meaning to, not really, he looked for Settie. Was that one black dragon her? Had she been at the tower that night? Impossible.

Gray was about to ask Oma when he felt the presence. Someone was staring at him. A chill went through him. The malice near him put a bad feeling in his belly.

He turned.

There was a cloaked figure at the end of the street. Not just cloaked, masked— a white porcelain mask—that of a woman with bright red lips screaming—covered the figures features.

In their hand, they had a bloodless blade, but it was glowing a bright red. However lethal it was, it wasn’t as terrible as the eyes on the figure. They were an icy blue.

The figure started walking towards him.

It was one of the Regalia, a demon lord from the abyss, and it was walking toward him.

So when the Wrath Tower fell, at least one demon lord had escaped.

Gray turned from the tower. It was a mistake. Somehow, his attempts at healing the building had been holding it up. But now, it was crumbling, dropping more giant stones.

That hadn’t been what happened, he didn’t think. It was the various manamancers from the families that dismantled the tower and used it to build the Hellbinder Barrier. But not before tens of thousands were slaughtered on that terrible night.

Dammit! Gray didn’t have his stick, so he couldn’t throw mana.

A second later, Gray was face-to-face with the demon.

He vented his core—the mana left him, blowing the mask off the demon and forcing it to drop it’s buzzing red sword. It staggered back.

But it wasn’t a demon. Suddenly, Gray was staring into the very blue eyes of Princess Lilian.

The surprise shattered his sleep but before he woke up, she screamed and threw herself at him. Her golden hair turned into yellow snakes that all bit his face, over and over. It was the sudden shock and pain that forced him out of the bed in his Pink palace prison cell.

For a second, he had no idea where he was.

He stood there, shaking and covered in sweat. The dream had felt so real, though he seriously doubted he would be using his healing magic to rebuild mountains anytime soon.

The next morning, Settie brough him his tray of food, hat and mesh mask on.

“Eat,” she said simply. “Your trial is later today. Princess Lilian is here. You will treat her with respect, or you and I will have words.”

“Just words?” Gray asked. “Or will we have a big fight? Then, of course, to make up, you’ll kiss me on the forehead?”

That elicited a sigh. “We will not be talking about that, any of that, ever again. The past is the past. I’m here to save the future.”

“What about current events, well, current compared to the Burning of Caelvarum and the Fall of Alastria. I had a vision of the Wrath Tower being destroyed. There were dragons, in the sky, fighting.”

She stiffened and went quiet for a long time.

The captain rushed into the room and slammed the door behind her. She dropped the hat and mask on the bed. She then scowled at him. “Could we please focus? You’ve been accused of poaching. Or worse. I’m fighting for your life.”

“Where were you? You should’ve been back a week ago.”

Settie frowned, searching his face, and obviously trying to find the right words for her lie. “It was…there was. Things got complicated. And then I had to meet Lilian at Pubis Port. The second I heard of your arrest, I left her and came here. We’ll be fine. Your trial is this afternoon. I doubt they have any proof of…of anything. We’ll be fine.”

She didn’t seem so certain. She couldn’t meet his eyes.

He shook his head. “We? You mean me. I was the only one arrested. Or I hope that’s the case.”

“It is. They know that you are the secret to Squad 23’s success. The fact that we made it to the championship match during Soulshred Week with only five recruits is testament to that. Though I wouldn’t want to take anything away from Rynnanatha and the rest of the team. Still…” She paced around the room in front of him. “It’s because we have Pamalee Pinch, and another recruit, a full team of seven will make us unstoppable. And there are forces that want to stop us. Who am I kidding? It’s all the Watchfire families, trying to undo me. They know. Somehow they know.”

“Would a demon lord have some kind of divination power?” Gray asked.

That stopped the dragon woman in her tracks. “Why would you say that?”

“In my vision, I saw one the Regalia. He didn’t have a core. Well, it was a she, actually. In my vision, Lilian was a demon lord. Wait. Demon lady? That doesn’t have the same ring.”

He thought Settie would discount the idea. She didn’t move.

Gray kept talking. “And according to Emerilia, the ruby necklace protects its wearer from demons. It allowed a woman to survive the Endless Night of Sorrow and Wrath. She then escaped to the Nursery Islands.”

“And Cradleport,” Settie said softly.

Were those tears in her eyes?

“Where were you on that night?” he asked.

Then the explosion came. “Why? That doesn’t matter. I said before, if we win the Testing, then I’ll tell you all about me and my secret plans. That should motivate you, since then you could pepper me with insufferable questions as much as you liked. Could we not at least take your trial seriously?”

Gray laughed. “You’re right. And to do that, I should eat. Dreaming about Regalia ladies is hungry work. If Lilian was a demon, what a great joke that would be? Of course that’s a rhetorical question. I don’t expect an answer.”

“Good because it’s a stupid idea. The only demons on Midmere are the Animallix, and we either have those trapped behind the Hellbinder or we have manamancers crafting them here. It was just a dream. It didn’t mean anything.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Gray gazed down at the tray. A biscuit covered in sausage gravy, some fruit slices, and a chocolate ironbite. It was a feast. Too bad he wasn’t hungry. “I did try and heal the tower. Funny thing was, I could feel the stones wanting to come together. I won’t ask you about the nature of the towers, but in my vision, they had mana cores.”

All the oxygen left the room. Settie swallowed several times before she could speak. “Of course they do, precious Gray. Some say they are the souls of countless people slaughtered during the Third God War. Others say they are made up of a single soul, Divine Core Lords who might’ve become avatars themselves one day.”

They sat in silence.

Gray broke it with a joke. “I don’t suppose I can ask you about demon crafting. It would explain the imp races at Avarica’s casino.”

“I heard about that night. And the duke’s offer. That fucking fat orc should be dropping dead any time now, him and his gluttony resonance.”

She had to be upset. Talking about resonances was impolite. Even for her.

She shook off whatever spell she was under. “Eat. I’ll do the talking for once. The poaching charge is ridiculous. It’s only to put blood in the water. For the sharks. Growing up in Cradleport, you undwerstand about sharks. As for the relic allegations, your stick was approved. You and that stick, it’s an embarrassment.”

“I like my stick. I can use it to throw mana now.”

“Not surprising.” She hissed. “All boys like their sticks. The trespassing charge is your only real sin, and that wasn’t against the rules of that land, that was against me. Breaking my wards with the help of that wretched Widow woman. I should’ve known, right then, you wouldn’t make this easy.”

“It was never going to be easy,” Gray said, and he started eating. Happily, the gravy was still warm. Eating cold gravy wouldn’t have been pleasant. “You knew that. Or you should’ve, after the year you spent giving me a heart and re-igniting my core.”

“I gave you your core,” she spat.

He shook his head. “No, you didn’t. I had one, but it was dead because there’s no Mana in Cradleport. But let’s not quibble. Quibbling is no fun, especially with you.”

She stared at him. “Lilian isn’t a demon, despite what your vision said. Like you, I gave her a core, and that took time. I am pleased with the result, however. She’s taken to the magic well.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Gray was surprised at his own bitterness. The envy gave him mana.

Settie put on her mesh mask and hat. “I will leave you to your breakfast. You needn’t be afraid is what I wanted to say, though I don’t believe I ever said it. This is all troubling. But also it shows us that they are noticing us. It was always going to be this way. Keep hold of our courage.”

“I have my courage,” he said, and then decided to be nice. “I also have my faith in you, Captain.”

She stopped, and though he couldn’t see her face through the mask, he knew she appreciate the compliment.

She did have a final question for him. “Why didn’t you fight them when they arrested you? Why haven’t you tried to escape?”

“All is the Testing,” he said. “We’re here to win, right? It’s what you want. I don’t really like playing the Magistrate’s games, but I’ll go through the motions for now. Who knows? You might kiss my forehead again.”

“Ugh, wretched child,” she said, though as she left, she was laughing.

That more, than anything was surprise.

Gray ate, thinking of Lilian and her core, and the coming trial.

Say what you will about life at First field, but the days were rarely boring.