Ghostwater

Prologue

Mu Enkai had been nothing before the egg.

He was born a servant, following just enough of a fire Path to allow him to operate a furnace for a low-ranked refinery. He’d spent his days shoveling coals and choking in smoke, making barely enough scales to live on.

Then the sky had turned red. He and his fellow servants had taken shelter in the cold furnace, huddling together for days before the earth stopped shaking and the air was no longer flooded with blood aura. When they emerged from hiding, shaking but alive, it had been waiting for him.

The egg was a glossy, polished orb the size of a man’s head, waiting among the debris of the refiner’s shop. Unlike the building, it was unharmed. Spotless. Beautiful.

He could feel its promise in his soul; the blood aura that had drowned the world for days was concentrated here. Enkai had never considered himself an ambitious man, but in the egg’s sleek shell, he’d seen his future.

His reflection was not a servant. Not someone who followed a half-remembered, incomplete Path that wasn’t considered good enough for the sects and schools. He’d seen a king, crowned and baptized in blood, and that promise seized something dark in his soul and pulled it forward.

When he’d stepped forward, the others had too. He looked to his left and to his right and saw that he was surrounded by thieves.

It had been a brief, ugly fight, not a showdown between honorable sacred artists. The egg had gloried in the blood spilled, and when he stood victorious, he didn’t think about his wounds or his fallen friends.

The egg was all his.

He’d drawn it inside him without quite knowing how. It nestled inside his soul even now, warm and safe beside his core, and its power blazed in him like a bonfire.

Enkai had been nothing but a Lowgold, and not an especially powerful one at that. But now, what did advancement mean to him? Highgold was nothing compared to the power of the egg.

Now, he sat in the highest floor of the top-ranked restaurant in town. The strongest sacred artists in the region now knelt before him, trembling, daring not even to look him in the eye. Now, they were the servants.

Before the egg, Mu Enkai would never have dared speak up in the presence of the three Highgolds who now bowed before him, each with a different Goldsign and a different set of robes. They all represented different Paths, but none of theirs could stand against his.

The egg changed his body as much as his spirit. Before, he had been small and hunched; as a boy, he had often been compared to a rat. Now, he was lean and sharp, like a hungry wolf. His Goldsign—a shifting flame pattern on the back of his hand—had been stained red as blood. Veins of crimson stretched from his hand and up his arm as the egg’s power radiated out, infusing more of him.

He gestured to one of his Highgold servants, and the young woman flinched as she raised a slice of rare spirit-fruit to his lips. Even younger than him, she was already a Highgold. No wonder she’d had such a high opinion of herself. She had required a number of demonstrations of his new power before she understood his strength, but now she respected him. He could read that respect in her trembling fingers and the veil she kept around her spirit.

Enkai bit into the fruit and savored its icy flavor. It carried a soothing power into his madra channels, though little of it went into his core. Most of it went to nourish the egg.

That was even better. The egg had begun to show cracks, and once it hatched, he could barely imagine the power he’d control.

He opened his mouth for another bite, but his servant’s hand was frozen. She stared off into the distance, eyes growing wider.

She could still ignore him?

Weak sparks of fire kindled in the air around his head, formed by his irritation. The egg echoed him, releasing fist-sized balls of blood-red fire. The egg’s copies were stronger than his own, but that only excited him. The egg’s power was his.

Before he could pull the young woman’s attention back by force, he noticed that the other two Highgolds—an old man with a trio of horns on his head and a motherly woman with iron-gray skin—were staring off in the same direction.

He extended his balls of fire to the backs of their necks. All three of his servants fell to their knees with cries of pain as his power scorched their skin.

“Tell me what it is,” he demanded. He may have had power beyond any Highgold, but he was still only Lowgold. Their spiritual perception was beyond his.

They looked at each other, which only stoked his rage further. The balls of fire trembled, ready to drive through their bodies. Blood aura affected flesh, so the flames of the egg burned men more easily than wood.

“We feel someone,” the young woman said. She glanced at the ceiling and licked her lips.

That was all she said.

He wanted to slap her—the egg’s power could boost his basic Enforcer technique into a blow that would crush her skull. Instead, he stood and gripped her by the chin. Her face paled, and her eyes slid to the side so she didn’t have to stare into his eyes.

“When I ask a question, do you think I want half an answer? Tell me—”

“It’s the Skysworn,” the older woman blurted from the floor. She bowed more deeply. “They must be here to recover the town after the great battle.”

The old man had also not dared to stand after Enkai forced him to kneel. “They will be pleased to know that you have already restored order.”

Despite their reassurance, or perhaps because of it, alarm spiked in Enkai’s heart. The Skysworn were more than just a police force; they were wandering judges, empowered by the Empire to punish criminals. He had been raised on stories of independent sacred artists being inducted into the Skysworn and going on to become some of the Blackflame Empire’s greatest heroes. Even the current Emperor had served as a Skysworn for years.

They could take away everything he’d earned for himself. They might even sense the egg in his spirit, and they would surely kill him and take it from his Remnant.

The thought of losing the egg made him sweat more than the thought of his death.

Enkai released the Highgold’s chin and began stalking away, his fireballs blinking out of existence. He had created a room reinforced with scripts just for an occasion like this. He would hide until they went away. “Keep them away from me,” he commanded. “Tell them nothing.”

Someone rapped on the window.

As one, all four pairs of eyes snapped toward the sound. A man stood outside on a dark green cloud, arms crossed, in robes of deep blue. It looked almost like an Arelius uniform, but there was no way he was there to clean the windows. Broad-shouldered and powerfully built, he loomed over the room, glaring like an executioner about to pass judgment. His right arm was a Remnant prosthetic, a skeletally thin limb of white light. Despite his young age, he gave off an oppressive feeling, as though he were deciding which of them to destroy first.

Enkai shivered at the sight of him, afraid to extend his spiritual perception lest he be punished. Though the egg had made him a conqueror, now he felt like a servant once again, flinching whenever an expert passed.

Without waiting for instruction, the old man hurried over to the window and pushed it open. Only then did Enkai notice the pin on the stranger’s chest: a green cloud. That was the emblem of the Skysworn, though a full member would be wearing a suit of jade armor. Perhaps a disciple? Or a subordinate, deputized to help deal with the emergency?

Whoever the stranger was, Mu Enkai decided it was time to slip away before he was noticed. The Skysworn would assume the Highgolds were in charge anyway, and he gave off the air of a man looking for someone to punish. Let his anger fall on them while Enkai snuck away. The egg would serve him just as well in some other town.

“Pardon,” the young stranger said, “but could you tell me which of you is in charge here?” His voice was apologetic, and he bowed slightly as he spoke.

Enkai stopped at the top of the stairs.

All three of the Highgolds glanced back, but the old man coughed before he spoke. “I am happy to represent my master before the Skysworn,” he said, and Enkai breathed a little more easily.

“Your master?” the Skysworn apprentice asked, looking surprised. “Is there a Truegold in town?” Now that Enkai looked at him further, he saw that the man was even younger than he’d first appeared. And not quite so intimidating as his frame would suggest.

A shiver passed through Enkai’s soul—the stranger had scanned him. But it was soft as a brushing feather. The scan of a Truegold’s perception might have weighed on him, but this was lighter than a breeze. Either the stranger had withheld his power for the sake of respect, or...

Delicately, ready to withdraw at a moment’s notice, Enkai extended his own perception toward the stranger. With only a strand of his awareness, he touched the young Skysworn’s spirit.

It was no stronger than Enkai’s own.

With such a light touch, he couldn’t tell many details, but he didn’t get a sense of fathomless strength he would expect from a Skysworn. In fact, the quality of the stranger’s madra felt like a child’s: like a pure, untainted spring. He couldn’t sense the extent of the man’s core, not without a more thorough inspection, but his madra was no more dense or potent than an average Lowgold.

Shame crept into Enkai’s heart, quickly followed by anger. To think, he had allowed one of the Skysworn’s servants to frighten him. He hated himself for his momentary weakness.

Their exchange of scans took less than a breath. The stranger with the Skysworn pin turned to Enkai, eyebrows raising. Instead of drifting away on his cloud, the boy held up both hands to show he held no weapon—his Remnant hand looked less threatening with fingers spread.

Enkai conjured a ball of blood-red fire, contempt fueling his madra. “I rule here,” he said harshly. “If the Skysworn need to speak to me, they can come themselves.”

Still hovering outside the window, the stranger pressed his fists together and bowed over them in a sacred artist’s salute. “Forgiveness. We did not intend to disturb you. It is an honor to meet you; we were wondering who had done such an excellent job of protecting this town after the Dreadgod’s attack.”

The crimson flame still drifted around Enkai’s head, but he paused. He had defended the town, but he had never expected the Skysworn to recognize the truth.

Enkai straightened his spine and faced the stranger head-on. “They had no Skysworn to protect them. They needed a strong leader.”

“They’re alive thanks to you,” the Skysworn deputy said, radiating sincerity. The more Enkai saw of the man, the softer he looked. “How did you do it?”

The honest admiration in the question cracked through Enkai’s suspicion. He swelled with pride; it was about time someone asked him that question.

“People love to follow the strong. You have to show them your power…but not just show them. They have to feel it. You have to grind it into them, so that your strength is as present and undeniable as the sun.”

Two of the three Highgolds flinched back at the reminder. Not the young woman. She frowned up at a high corner of the room as though staring through it. He didn’t spare her a thought.

The stranger nodded seriously, rubbing his chin with his hand of flesh, with the attentive air of a man taking notes. He still wore what Enkai would call a glare, but he didn’t seem angry. Well, a man couldn’t help the face he was born with. He was clearly reasonable, no matter what he looked like.

“Well, if your approach worked so well here, I can’t wait to see how it will help the next town.”

Enkai hesitated, the fire around his head sputtering. “The next one?”

“In the wake of the crisis, we have more citizens in danger than we have capable leaders. I’ll have to report this to my superiors, but I’m sure we’ll want to put another town or two under your jurisdiction. If you are willing to serve the Empire in this way, of course.”

The egg. This was all thanks to the egg.

The townsfolk had given him tributes: more scales, elixirs, and treasures than he’d seen in his lifetime before the egg. Another town would make him rich beyond his dreams.

But more than the riches, it was the people that captured his imagination. Even more people, bowing to him. Sacred artists taking his orders.

He cracked a smile for the first time, and two of the Highgolds joined him, though their expressions were a little too shaky for his taste. The young woman was late, still staring at the corner of the ceiling, but she eventually shook herself awake and smiled even more broadly than the other two.

A thread of suspicion crept back in, and he extended his perception. The egg had lent him some of its bloody power, which helped his madra burn through flesh, but it had done nothing to extend his spiritual awareness. He stretched his spirit as far as he could, feeling nothing but the spirits of the remaining townsfolk huddled in their homes…and one presence high in the sky. A Truegold, headed this way.

The real Skysworn were coming.

Their servant was just stalling for time.

Fear and rage and pain crashed over Mu Enkai in one dark wave, and he fed it all to the egg. Tendrils of its power extended more deeply into his soul, and he welcomed them. The ball of fire over his head swelled to life, turning a deeper red, and the stranger stumbled back. He held up his white arm to shield his face. He had realized his mistake…but too late.

Enkai swirled madra through his body, stepping forward and lashing out with a Striker technique. The fireball that he’d created streaked forward like a shooting star, followed by eight lesser lights. This technique had once been used to light firewood, but the egg had transformed it into a new level entirely. It had evolved, becoming a true weapon.

Fused with fire madra, the blood power would allow it to burn flesh like dry tinder. It could devour the body of a Lowgold in seconds.

Though he hadn’t thrown it at a Lowgold.

The young Highgold cycled her spirit quickly, raising icy mist as a shield, but his technique burned through hers without slowing down. For an instant, she had a shocked look on her face and a scorched hole in her belly.

Then she went up like a torch. She opened her mouth to scream, but the fire had swallowed her breath. Her chest was a blackened ruin before the eight smaller sparks landed, trailing after the initial fireball.

As a Highgold, she took a second or two longer to burn.

With everything he’d done for this town, they still dared to call the Skysworn. She had sensed them coming and failed to warn him; no matter how many demonstrations he gave, they all still plotted behind his back. The truth felt like a knife in his back, and black hatred rushed out of the egg.

Though it didn’t use an audible voice, the egg seemed to whisper to him.

You have no choice. They pushed you to this.

Before a breath of time had passed, while the first Highgold still had half her flesh left, he had already taken aim at the second.

The old man kicked off a movement technique, sparks flying from his feet, as he dove for the window. He still presumed to run; that stoked Enkai’s fury even hotter. If he had to burn through the Skysworn servant to reach the old man, so be it.

But the stranger wasn’t outside the window anymore. He was dashing across the wooden floor, focused on Enkai like a man staring at a blood enemy, pulling back his arm of flesh as though he was about to drive it into Enkai’s stomach.

Enkai drove his red fireball down instead of forward, slamming it onto the Skysworn servant’s head.

The man dropped to one knee, ducking to the side, forced to drive his strike up to meet Enkai’s wrist. His palm struck, but not hard enough to stop Enkai’s move. He seemed even weaker than a normal Lowgold. Pure madra rushed into Enkai’s wrist without ruffling a single hair on his arm, but it did flow into his spirit and disrupt his technique.

…about as much as a gentle breeze disrupted a bonfire.

The bloody fireball fell undeterred, burning through the servant’s blue robe in an instant and entering his body. With the bloody power of the egg fueling it, he was dead already.

He screamed, but Enkai had already moved past him. He should have known what would happen when he tried his tricks. They wouldn’t work on Enkai.

The real Skysworn would arrive to find nothing of this town but ash.

He leaped out the window and landed on the stranger’s green Thousand-Mile Cloud. From his vantage point, he could see the old man almost to the edge of town, sprinting down the dirt road and past the half-destroyed buildings that had remained after the Bleeding Phoenix’s passage. Another few seconds, and he would be beyond Enkai’s range.

But he wasn’t there yet.

Enkai hurled another ball of fire flanked by eight lesser echoes, and it hurtled toward its target. The egg’s hungry power would draw it to the scent of blood.

He would have watched, but a twinge of danger turned him around. Six green daggers floated around the old woman, and her spirit had latched onto his. She paled when he turned around and launched her Forger technique early.

Familiar with her madra, Enkai knew that this technique contained a life-poison that was all but impossible to stop. It would devour his life just like his own fire devoured the body, but leave him with an unmarked corpse.

A wash of bloody flame consumed all the daggers. He could barely call what he’d done a technique; it was nothing but pure power flowing out of him. As such, the red flames that landed on her skin didn’t consume her instantly.

Or quietly.

She screamed loud enough to wake the dead as he hopped down from the Thousand-Mile Cloud, landing on the ground two stories below. He felt the first aching pain of exhaustion in his spirit, drawing more deeply on the egg to quench it.

The town was nothing more than a collection of homes flanking a single wide dirt road. Most people lived above their businesses, and more than a few faces peeked out of upper windows at the sound of the screams. When they saw it was him, they slammed the windows shut.

Cowards. They all disgusted him.

Filled by the egg, he poured one ball of fire after another into the air around him, keeping them in orbit around his body. He was relying so much on the egg now that they looked more like fist-sized droplets of blood that were shaped like flames rather than actual fire madra. Eight smaller lights hovered around each one, until he was surrounded by a swirling constellation of power.

The energy within him was thirsty. He could feel it. Each technique strained against his control like a dog against a leash, begging to go hunt its prey.

Someone slammed to the ground beside him, kicking up a ring of dust.

It was the Skysworn stranger.

His skin was undoubtedly scorched, his face tight with pain, but he had not been consumed. Enkai’s hatred raged hotter; the Skysworn must have wasted valuable defensive constructs on their servants. They spent so much money just to defy him, when they could have had him as an ally.

He would show them the truth of the choice they’d made.

The stranger spread his hands, watching the fireballs encircling Enkai. “You don’t have to hurt anyone else,” he said, voice smooth and calming. “This isn’t what you want. This is what the Blood Shadow wants. Let’s just slow down, and we can talk about how to get you what you want.”

A peal of laughter boiled up from inside Enkai, loud and venomous. “I’ll show you what I want.”

He released his techniques.

Sixteen balls of fire, each trailing eight sparks, streaked away from him in lines of red light so that he was surrounded by a crimson web. There were sixty-two spirits left living in town.

It went down to forty-six in an instant.

The egg’s power wasn’t exhausted yet. After those first people died, their bodies burst into hungry red fire. That flame craved flesh, and it jumped from victim to victim in a second. The second wave didn’t die so quickly.

The screams rose from a solo to a chorus.

Enkai whirled on the Skysworn servant, rage so great his body couldn’t contain it. He filled his palm with bleeding fire, but it felt just like blood.

“It’s mine!” he shrieked, and even he wasn’t sure whether he meant the egg or the town. “You don’t get—”

Enkai froze, throat locking up.

Something had changed.

The stranger stood with his eyes widened in horror, mouth half-open as he stared at the blackened holes burned in village walls. He looked like a man watching his own home burn.

But he felt like a monster.

His spirit suddenly loomed like the shadow of a dragon flying overhead. Rage replaced by icy dread, Enkai scanned the stranger’s spirit. His core still wasn’t dense or bright enough to be a Highgold. For a moment, Enkai wondered what had changed. Then he realized: the man’s madra wasn’t pure anymore. His channels were filled with black fire.

Darkness flooded into the stranger’s eyes like ink, his irises kindling into circles of burning red. That horrifying gaze locked onto Enkai.

“Why?” the Skysworn servant asked, and the word was a plea.

Enkai drew even deeper on the egg. Its power was the ultimate counter to fear.

He hurled the ball of red light in his hand, packing twice as much madra into it as usual. The lights following it looked like stars, and each could consume a tiger like a torch.

When the technique left his hand, the Skysworn servant’s body erupted in a black-and-red haze. It was like an illusory flame, burning all around him, but it put a heavy pressure on Enkai’s spirit.

The stranger waited, motionless, until the bloody fireball had almost reached his chest.

With explosive force, he leaped straight up.

Enkai’s fireball blasted through the cloud of dust he’d left behind, which trailed up into the air. The Striker technique looped in the air, swirling up, nine orbiting lights chasing after the stranger.

He’d already started falling, gathering red-streaked black fire into his human hand. It gathered slowly, taking far longer than Enkai’s technique had, but it carried a great sense of danger.

Enkai reached behind him, pulling a twisted green-tipped knife from his waistband. This was a Highgold treasure, one of the most valuable weapons in the town. The blood-fire was rising to meet the falling servant, and even if he landed safely, this dagger would be waiting for him.

A green cloud swept in from the left, catching the stranger mid-fall. He flew away on his Thousand-Mile Cloud, and once again Enkai’s technique swept through empty space where his target had once been.

Enkai’s fireballs were Striker techniques. They were not Forged, so they ran out of power quickly. This one had already diminished to almost nothing, and Enkai could feel it unraveling. He snarled, forcing his spirit past its exhaustion again, digging deeper into the egg for another technique. He locked his eyes on the Skysworn’s emerald cloud.

There was no one on it.

A great, hot, overwhelming power loomed up from behind. Enkai turned, dagger raised, and a white fist caught him in the jaw.

In his conquest, Enkai had taken blows from Highgolds before. The power of the egg had strengthened his body until he felt like he had leather for skin and stone for bones. He could catch a hammer-blow with one hand, standing as firm as though his boots were nailed to the ground.

This time, he felt nothing but a flash of pain and a tremendous rush of noise. Then he realized he was lying on the inn’s floor in the middle of a pile of splinters. Groggy, he tilted his head up; there was a hole in the front wall big enough to ride a horse through.

The stranger stood there, a silhouette against the sky holding a ball of black fire. More flame blazed around him in a hazy corona. His shadow fell over Enkai like the specter of death.

No. Enkai would not allow himself to die here. Not to a Lowgold.

The power of the egg was much greater than this.

In an instant, Enkai drew his core dry. He pulled so hard that it might cause permanent damage to his madra channels, but he was beyond caring. He pulled up all the power of his spirit, drinking thirstily from the madra of the egg.

Between his hands, a red light bloomed. This didn’t look anything like flame; it was a pure crimson light that hung in the middle of his palms like a red sun. This was a technique worthy of the egg. It sang with power, an echo of the Phoenix’s song that had turned the sky red.

In triumph, he pushed forward, releasing the technique on the Skysworn’s servant. A river of light, straight as an arrow and thick as a man’s leg, blasted forth with all his rage and fury.

The stranger lifted his left palm in response, his ball of dark madra hovering in front of him. It erupted into a bar of liquid fire, black streaked with red.

The two streams of fire clashed head-on, only a foot from the Skysworn apprentice’s outstretched hand.

Enkai was prepared for a direct clash of their spirits, pushing the egg’s madra into the technique so he could blast through the stranger’s technique.

It wasn’t enough.

The dark flame devoured his, melting through an inch at a time. By the time Enkai started to panic, the stranger’s power was almost at his chest.

“You can’t—” Enkai started to say. Then the bar of black fire burned through his stomach.

And the egg was gone.

Dark flames spread through him, and he collapsed to the floor like a straw doll. It didn’t hurt like he would have expected. It only tingled, as though he faded away like a Remnant.

He had time for one last, jealous thought. This stranger had so much power, but he acted like a servant. If Enkai had sacred arts like that and combined them with the egg, he could have ruled the world.

Seconds later, Mu Enkai was nothing more than a pile of ashes.

Unsatisfied, dark fire spread from his body, consuming the ruined inn. The screams coming from around town slowly died while the survivors huddled in silence and darkness, hoping to be overlooked.

In the midst of the black flames, the apprentice Skysworn stood alone.