Book 3, Chapter 52

Floor 20’s portal hub spat them out near the edge of an island, mere feet from where floating stone met the sky. Why exactly the hub was that close to the open air was one of those great unanswered questions, but Sorin personally chalked it up to the sadistic nature of the tower’s challenges. Or maybe it was meant as a warning, letting an unfamiliar climber know they needed a way to fly if they were going to survive.

Whatever the reason, Galdred wasn’t the least bit surprised to find himself two feet away from the edge. By mutual, unspoken agreement, both men stepped away from each other and circled around the portal to walk another thirty feet toward the trees growing near the center of the island.

With the whole thing being only a quarter mile wide, Observer had more than enough range to show him anything and everything on the island with him. He saw other islands floating around the one they were on. The gaps between them were anywhere from twenty feet wide to over a mile.

“A bizarre landscape,” Galdred remarked. “I wonder what the tower was thinking when it built this.”

“Probably something like, ‘Hahaha, this is going to kill a lot of climbers.’”

Galdred snorted out a laugh. “That would not surprise me in the least.”

Sorin noted that the Galdyrin scion hadn’t drawn his sword yet. If anything, he seemed completely relaxed. That didn’t necessarily mean anything—Sorin himself was in a similar state—when it came to readiness to commit violence, but it felt like a good sign.

“You still want to fight, or are we just taking in the view?”

“Oh, God, no. Of course I don’t want to fight. I’m not in the habit of challenging people who can beat my ass up and down the road,” Galdred told him. “Maybe a friendly spar, just to satisfy my curiosity, but no, I’m not interested in trying to kill one another.”

“I can’t imagine Papa Galdyrin would be thrilled to hear you say that.”

“That’s precisely why I waited until we were all the way out here to say it,” Galdred said, turning to face Sorin fully. “This whole thing is stupid. Yeah, you kind of barged in, and yeah, that’s pretty rude. But you know it, and if I recall, you apologized at the time you were doing it.”

“It was an emergency, but yes, if I’d had the time, I’d have gone about it a bit differently.”

Galdred nodded along. “Exactly! Normally, my old man’s pretty laid back, at least for a high family patriarch. I thought it was kind of weird that he was so bent out of shape about this, but I figured he’d calm down after a few days. Now, though...”

“It’s an excuse,” Sorin guessed.

“I don’t have any proof, but yes, that’s what I’m thinking. We all know about your squabble with Morlin Telpike. He’s been agitating the other families to band together against you for months now.”

Sorin wasn’t surprised. Morlin was a proud, brittle man who lacked the emotional maturity to accept defeat with any sort of grace, the kind of person who saw mercy as an insult and wasted his efforts on vain and futile revenge plots.

The sad part was that, according to his own son, Morlin didn’t used to be like that. His behavior and attitude changes were recent developments, which made Sorin wonder if Samael had been behind them. The former Black Hellion had showcased a talent for mind control, and Sorin wouldn’t have put it past him to bend the thoughts of those in charge of the high families just for his own convenience.

Most mind control effects would end once Samael died, but it’s possible he juiced up the ones he used on high family leaders to make them last longer, or to give them a reservoir of anima in case he couldn’t immediately get back to them to refresh the magic. It’s been months though. Surely anything would have worn off by now.

“So you know that my current goal is to challenge the Void Wall and, hopefully, to break it, opening up the top three quarters of the tower?” Sorin asked.

“That is the rumor circulating through upper society. General sentiment is that you’re an ambitious fool who’s likely to get yourself killed in the next few months.”

Sorin shrugged. “I’ve been called worse. I take it that most of you guys are ignoring Morlin on the basis that I’m a self-solving problem not worth the effort of addressing?”

“That and Samael’s reputation was well-earned. We’re pretty divided on whether you actually killed him,” Galdred said, “but there’s not much doubt left that he’s truly gone. If nothing else, his gang falling apart is evidence of that.”

“I can assure you, he’s quite dead,” Sorin told him.

“I believe you, and I believe you were the cause of it. That’s why I’m interested in a sparring match. It’d be fun, seeing how I stack up against the man who beat the very best. It’s also why I’m not interested in a fight to the death. I’m rather attached to my silly little habits like eating, breathing, and shitting.”

“No offense, but if we’re not going to fight for real, why am I here?” Sorin asked. “Don’t get me wrong. You seem like a fun guy, but I don’t really have a lot of spare time right now.”

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He left it unsaid that Galdred could just be trying to distract him so that other members of the Galdyrin family could move on his allies, but there was no proof, and a rude accusation couldn’t possibly help him. With any luck, Odric had absorbed Burning Light, purged the organ damage, and was on the move. He had Heldigar to help, though there was only so much the man could do to assist a rank 23.

The rest of the team was on Floor 22, making them about as safe as it was possible to be from interference from the high families. If they managed to not only figure out what floor their targets were on, but to actually find them in that jungle, honestly, they deserved the win.

“To be honest, I’m hoping for that spar I mentioned, just so I can come out of this looking a bit scuffed up and tell dad that I tried, but you’re just too strong. I figure ten or twenty minutes ought to be long enough. You head on out first. I’ll limp out after, and then maybe he’ll actually listen when I advise him to just drop the whole matter before you come down on the estate and blow us up, too.”

“Too?” Sorin asked. “I haven’t blown anybody up.”

“Was that not you the other day at the Telpikes?”

Sorin shook his head. “Bunch of thieves broke in and got caught. Yoru went to talk to Morlin about it.”

Galdred snorted and shook his head. “Why am I not fucking surprised?” he muttered. “I was told you were behind that. It’s what spurred Dad to send me out after we finally located you.”

“Not that I’m complaining, but are you really just taking me at my word? You don’t want any proof?” Sorin asked.

“Oh, no, I’ve got a lie detector soulprint. I know you’re on the level here.”

Sorin cocked an eyebrow. “But you didn’t know that Morlin was lying?”

Galdred raised a hand and rocked it back and forth. “Complicated. I believe that he believes he was telling the truth at the time he said it. His exact words were ‘people connected to you,’ that he claimed were there at your behest.”

Sorin was familiar with such abilities. The weak ones functioned as a way to sort of cold read a person by drawing the user’s attention to micro-expressions of body language. They were by no means infallible. Even the more powerful ones that formed direct connections to the target’s brain didn’t guarantee they were telling the objective truth. That didn’t make them useless—far from it—but as with any soulprint, it was important to keep in mind that there were counters to it.

Though it wasn’t strictly necessary to share, Sorin felt like he had an opportunity to build up some good will with Galdred, and through him, the whole Galdyrin family. He could afford to be gracious, and maybe that would cool their tempers. He had stepped on their metaphorical toes, after all.

“That connection would be that Morlin stole something valuable from me, and the thieves infiltrated his home trying to steal it from him,” Sorin explained.

“I’d find that hard to believe if I didn’t know you believed it. What could you possibly have possessed that the patriarch of a high family couldn’t get his own copy of without stealing it?”

Kid, you’re more naive than I thought if you think the rich and powerful won’t resort to committing crimes to get what they want. The only difference is that they use their money to insulate themselves from the actual act.

“Doesn’t matter. It got broken in the act, so now nobody gets to use it.”

“And if I asked how you knew that?”

Sorin looked him in the eye. “I would tell you that I have a vested interest in finding people who steal from me, even if that means tracking down the ones who then restole it a second time.”

Simultaneously, they both turned to look to the east, where a nigh-invisible air elemental in the shape of a giant bird altered its course to angle down toward the island. It was trailed by a few dozen smaller elementals, also bird-shaped at a tenth the size.

“We could walk through the portal now if you don’t want to fight those,” Sorin offered.

With a sigh, Galdred drew his sword. “No... I suppose we should go through the motions. I appreciate you playing along, by the way.”

“It’s fine, as long as it doesn’t take much longer. I really do need to get back to addressing that void problem. Killing Samael put a big clock on the whole thing. I would have preferred to deal with those problems in the opposite order, but he kind of forced the issue early.”

“Very inconsiderate of him,” Galdred said. “You want the momma or the babies?”

“How’s your area magic?” Sorin asked.

“Passable, but not as good as my targeted abilities.”

“You take the big one then. I’ll handle the leftovers.”

By unspoken agreement, they dashed in opposite directions. Galdred pointed his sword at the massive elemental in the lead and fired off a thin, blindingly bright needle of white fire. It stretched out—a taut wire of flesh-melting heat strung between the tip of his sword and the elemental’s beak—for a single heartbeat before vanishing into the elemental like a long noodle being slurped down.

The air pressure around the monster rocketed upward as it struggled to keep control of its body. A hundred tiny jets burst out of its form, scattering it across the sky and forcing it to condense down to half its original size just to stabilize itself. The effect was so striking that Sorin could actually see the hazy bars of heat distorting the air around the elemental for a second.

Then he lashed out with his own attack to catch the stragglers. Still Winter unfolded around him, rapidly growing into a cloud of frost a few hundred feet wide. Sorin ran straight up into the air to bring the attack to the small elementals as he poured far more anima than a D-rank soulprint was designed to hold into the magic, and it wasn’t long before the monsters had switched from diving at him to fleeing for their lives.

In the matter of a minute, the elementals were dead or scattered. Galdred finished first, mostly by virtue of only having a single target to chase down when it turned to flee, but once the bigger monster was down, Sorin left off chasing after the rest and let them fly off. Given some time, they’d forget how badly they’d been outclassed and return, as was the nature of air elementals.

He mentally recited one of the lessons an old mentor from the blue tower had given him decades ago. Quick to attack, quick to retreat, and quick to forget.

Dropping out of the sky, he landed near Galdred. “Not to be rude here, but I do need to go collect my healer and get moving,” he said. “You need anything else to sell whatever story it is you’re trying to feed your family? I could knock you into the dirt a few times if you think it’ll help.”

“Nah. Go on ahead. I’ll relax for a few minutes and follow. I was pursuing you. The elemental interfered. By the time I defeated it, you’d given me the slip. I tracked you back to the portal a few minutes later.”

“You think they’ll buy that?” Sorin asked. He’d assumed that if Galdred had something to sniff out lies, his father would, too.

“I guess we’ll find out.”

“Then this is goodbye,” Sorin said. He took a single step toward the portal, then paused. “Actually, there is one other thing...”