A Harmony of Ages, page 3
He was gone. Crystallised and shattered to dust with Faith at the ritual site. There was nothing left to bury. To mourn.
Blair stopped, one hand against the wall, and forced herself to breathe. She couldn’t afford to break down now, not with everyone depending on her for direction. After everything, all the ruin and death, they still looked to her. It was baffling.
She made herself focus on their current situation instead. The situation being a dumpster fire.
The air felt wrong. Magic no longer flowed properly through the sanctum and the Forgotten Quarter. It pooled in some areas, while others were left empty. The rotting spells of past ages that’d ruled the abandoned streets had been wiped clean. There was nothing and no one left besides the ragged remains of Praxis.
Above, though she was underground, Blair could sense the fractured sky hovering over the ritual site where the Echo had merged with Vesper.
They were too close to the epicentre. The Arcana knew where Praxis operated. Staying here meant death. It was that simple.
Blair paused at the entrance to the main chamber, taking in the battered faces of her remaining team. The space, once their strategic headquarters, now resembled a field hospital.
Reed crouched beside Finley, pressing a cloth to a wound on the technician’s temple. Ellis sat propped against the wall, one arm in a makeshift sling, while Denny limped between the wounded, distributing water from a dented flask. Sienna hunched over a flickering orb of light, desperately trying to stabilise its glow as her magical power reserves dwindled. Barnes stood guard at the far door, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
Edmund moved between the injured, his hands glowing faintly as he worked to mend burns and broken bones. The magic came harder now, in this damaged place. He was a witch who relied on the elements to channel power, and even the Earth had rebelled against all that’d happened.
There were about twenty survivors. The irony wasn’t lost on Blair—it was the same amount that had survived the massacre at Saint Aldwin’s. Some lay on blankets, some sat in huddled groups, but all bore the marks of their encounter with the titan.
Their eyes turned to her as she entered. Fragile, desperate hope flickered across their faces.
“Blair,” Barnes called, “the eastern tunnels are flooded. We’ve lost access to the emergency cache.”
She nodded, absorbing this latest blow. Another contingency gone. Another backup plan shattered.
They watched her, waiting. For direction. For answers. For the impossible leadership she’d somehow provided before.
Blair drew a deep breath and stepped fully into the room. “We can’t stay here,” she said. “The Arcana know our location. We’re too close to the epicentre of that storm, and the magical instability is getting worse, not better.”
“Where would we go?” Sienna asked. “Nightreach is torn apart.”
“We can’t just leave Nightreach,” Reed said, rising from Finley’s side. Blood stained his sleeves to the elbows. “This city is our responsibility.”
“Responsibility?” Ellis barked a laugh that twisted into a grimace as he jostled his injured arm. “Our responsibility got half of us killed. The reality of the Arcana is beyond anything we prepared for. We knew the day might come when the Echo awoke and everything we’ve done…” She scoffed. “It was never going to be enough.”
“So we just give up?” Barnes abandoned his post at the door, striding into the centre of the room. “Praxis exists to protect people from magical threats. This is exactly what we trained for!”
“Trained for?” Sienna’s voice cracked. The orb she’d been maintaining flickered and died, plunging her corner into shadow. “We weren’t trained for gods walking among us. For the foundations of magic being rewritten. The sky is literally a hole in reality!”
The chamber erupted into a clash of desperate voices.
“There are other cities out there besides Nightreach. We can go there.”
“There’s nothing left to protect here!”
“My family is still out there!”
“What about Edinburgh? Or York? The witches there will help us, surely.”
Edmund set down his medical supplies with deliberate care. “We swore an oath,” he said, his quiet voice somehow cutting through the chaos. “To protect this city and its people.”
“What city?” Denny gestured wildly at the ceiling. “Have you seen what’s left up there? The ley lines are broken. Reality is tearing apart around that ritual site.”
Blair watched them argue, understanding the need to release the terror and exhaustion that had built inside them all. Fear made people irrational, but it also forced decisions. Sometimes bad ones.
A small shower of dust drifted down from a widening crack above. No one else noticed.
“We can’t defeat them,” Reed admitted, his shoulders slumping. “But we can’t just abandon everyone either.”
“There’s no one left to abandon!” Ellis shouted. “Anyone with sense fled days ago.”
Blair had heard enough. “It doesn’t matter! None of it matters!”
The room fell silent as all eyes turned to her.
“None of it matters,” she repeated, thinking about Theo and Faith. “We are nothing to the Arcana. Our world is nothing. We are cockroaches. Vermin struggling to survive in the nuclear fallout of their petty squabbles.” Her grief grew into anger. “It doesn’t matter. If they choose to end us, then they will. If the Echo chooses to wipe this whole bloody place clean, she will.”
“If there’s no point, then why do anything?” Reed asked.
Blair’s anger began turning into something that resembled rage. Dangerous rage. “Because I refuse to die cowering in a hole in the ground. If this is the end, I want to go out fighting.” The magic inside her flickered beneath her skin. “Look at us. We’re the last of Praxis. Maybe the last people with any kind of fight left in this city.”
Another shower of dust fell from the widening crack. This time, several people glanced up nervously.
“The wards are broken,” she went on. “The tunnels are collapsing. Our magical defences are gone. If we stay here, we die. If we leave, we have a chance. It’s that simple.”
Reed broke the silence that had fallen over the chamber. “Shouldn’t we wait for Rafe before making any decisions? He knows more about the Arcana than any of us. He was there when the titan rose from the Darkmese.”
Blair had been avoiding thinking about Rafe since everything had gone to hell. His absence left a gaping hole in their defences, in their planning, in their hope.
“No,” Blair said, her voice flat and final. “Rafe left to search for Vesper. He’s not coming back until he finds her.”
She understood why Rafe had gone—how could she not? If there had been even the slightest chance that Theo was alive somewhere in the chaos, she’d have torn Nightreach apart stone by stone to find him.
But Theo wasn’t missing. Theo was dead. There was no hope, no search, no desperate mission to undertake. Just this. A cockroach at the end of the world.
“We can’t wait,” she continued. “Rafe made his choice. We need to make ours.”
“Where would we even go?” Finley asked, pressing a blood soaked cloth harder against his temple. “They’ll hunt us wherever we run.”
“They’re too busy looking for the Echo,” Reed told him. “If we have any chance of disappearing, it’s now.”
Blair sighed. The truth was, she had no perfect answer. “We go somewhere the Arcana won’t immediately look for us,” she said finally. “The magical disturbance is concentrated around the ritual site, and it’s getting worse. We need distance from it.”
“You don’t have a specific place in mind?” Barnes asked, his voice tense with doubt.
“I don’t have a magical map showing ‘safe from ancient god-beings here,’” Blair snapped, then immediately regretted it. She drew a steadying breath. “No. I don’t have a specific location. But we’re adaptable. We’ve survived before when everything went to hell.”
The room fell into uncomfortable silence. They’d never faced anything like this before. None of them had. How could they adapt to this?
“North,” Reed said, looking up at her. “The south is too unstable. We have to cross the Darkmese.”
“There may be pockets of resistance out there,” Denny murmured. “The College, maybe. Or the Bizarre. There was a significant underground network there before. Someone might be trying to rebuild.”
“Or take advantage,” Ellis muttered.
“Then we go north,” Blair said. “Everyone should gather what they can carry. Food, weapons, medical supplies. We move within the day.” She looked around the chamber, meeting each person’s eyes. “If any of you want to leave the city entirely, I won’t stop you. Everyone has to do what they think is best and no one will hold it against anyone who chooses to go.” She paused. “But together, we stand a better chance.”
The agents dispersed to begin preparations, voices hushed as they argued amongst one another.
“You look like death.”
Blair turned to find Ellis watching her, the woman’s good arm cradling her injured one protectively.
“Thanks for the compliment,” she drawled.
“When was the last time you slept?”
Blair shrugged. “Sleep isn’t exactly a priority.”
“It should be.” Ellis stepped closer, lowering her voice. “You can’t lead anyone if you collapse.”
“I’m fine,” Blair said, the lie hollow even to her own ears.
“No, you’re not.” Ellis’s gaze was steady, unflinching. “None of us are. But you’re carrying more than most.”
Blair’s throat tightened unexpectedly. The simple acknowledgment of her burden threatened to crack her carefully maintained composure.
“Sleep can wait,” she said, blinking away the burning in her eyes. “Survival can’t.”
Ellis held her gaze a moment longer, then nodded and turned away, recognising the dismissal.
Blair slipped away from the main chamber, leaving the murmur of voices behind as she wound her way through the damaged tunnels. The sanctum felt smaller now, each passage a reminder of who was missing rather than who remained.
She slowed as she approached the infirmary. She stood before the door, listening for any sound from within, though she knew there would be none.
Blair rested her palm against the weathered wood, drawing a deep breath before pushing it open.
A single mage light hovered near the ceiling, casting everything in a cool blue glow. The air smelled faintly of herbs—lavender and something earthier that Edmund used in his treatments. The other agents had stripped this room bare, moving everyone into the main chamber, but one soul remained.
Cormac lay on a bed in the far corner, just as he had for weeks now. His eyes were open but unseeing, fixed on some middle distance beyond the ceiling. His chest rose and fell in slow, steady breaths. His silver-streaked beard had grown longer, despite Edmund’s attempts to keep it trimmed.
One of the Three. One of Praxis’s founders. Now reduced to a shell of consciousness, trapped within his own mind since the massacre at Saint Aldwin’s.
Blair shut the door behind her and moved to the chair beside the bed. She didn’t know why she kept visiting him. Maybe it was because she hoped, against all reason, that one day he might wake up and offer the wisdom they so desperately needed.
She pulled a chair closer to his bedside, its legs scraping against the stone floor. The sound echoed in the quiet room, but he didn’t flinch.
“Cormac, we can’t stay here anymore,” Blair said. “The sanctum’s falling apart. There was another collapse in the east wing this morning.”
He breathed steadily, in and out. His hands lay perfectly still on the blanket, palms up like he was waiting to receive something.
“I’ve told everyone to pack what they can carry. We’re heading north, across the Darkmese.” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “I don’t know if it’s the right call. I don’t know if there’s a right call anymore.” He said nothing, but she hadn’t expected him to magically wake up. “Theo and Faith…” Her voice caught unexpectedly, the words sticking in her throat. She swallowed hard. “They’re gone. Crystallised by the Nightweaver. Tenebrae. That’s his real name.” She scowled, hatred burning in her gut. “He played us, Cormac. He’s an Arcana. He was playing a very long game… They all want the Echo. He killed Theo and Faith to get the Echo. He tried to put it in me. That ritual that made me a Channeller turned me into an Artificial Resonant. Vesper tried, but… The Echo merged with her, then Tenebrae…”
The tears she’d been holding back for days suddenly threatened to spill. Blair pressed her palms against her eyes.
“There was nothing left, Cormac. Not even ashes. Nothing to bury.” A ragged breath escaped her. “Nothing to say goodbye to.”
The silence that followed her words seemed heavier than before. Blair let her hands drop to her lap and stared at Cormac’s blank face, searching for any flicker of awareness, any sign that somewhere behind those vacant eyes, he was still there.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to lead these people against gods.”
The tears felt like weakness, and Blair couldn’t afford weakness. Not now. She wiped them away roughly.
“We’re bringing you with us when we go tomorrow,” she continued. “Edmund will make sure you’re safe.”
She fell silent, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest. Then something changed.
Cormac’s eyes shifted. Not dramatically, not toward her, but away from the fixed point on the ceiling where they’d been locked for weeks. His gaze drifted slightly to the left, focusing on something else entirely, something only he could see.
Blair went absolutely still. Her breath caught in her throat as she watched his eyes move for the first time since Saint Aldwin’s.
“Cormac?”
She reached out slowly, placing her hand over his where it lay on the blanket. His skin felt cool beneath her palm. He didn’t pull away. Didn’t grasp her hand in return. But his fingers twitched beneath hers.
“We need you, Cormac. Praxis needs you.” She squeezed his hand gently. “I don’t know how to do this alone.”
For a long moment, Blair remained beside him, watching for any further sign of consciousness, but Cormac had retreated again.
With a sigh, Blair released his hand and stood. She’d stayed longer than she should have. There was a lot to do…but something had changed. Blair felt it.
He was still there, somewhere deep inside. And perhaps, someday, he might find his way back to them.
Blair left the infirmary, shutting the door behind her. The tunnels stretched before her, damaged and crumbling, lit by the occasional crystal sconce that hadn’t yet flickered out.
She paused beneath a section where the ceiling had partially collapsed. Moonlight spilled through the jagged opening, casting strange shadows on the tunnel floor.
Above the layers of broken stone and earth, she could sense the storm above. Her Resonant abilities, manufactured as they were, could feel the patterns that bore down on the city. The Echo merge had forced reality to rupture and explode into a violent magical storm that was now bleeding downward, distorting everything it touched.
Praxis couldn’t fight this.
They were human. Mages and witches with powers that she’d always resented not having, but even with her new abilities, they were insects in the face of a hurricane. Fermata and Fortis—the names she’d learned only days ago for the Arcana who had taken Ember and Owen—were still out there, too. Two more gods walking the earth, their motives still unknown.
And the fourth who wore Ash’s face. He’d been helping refugees cross the Darkmese, but even that had been a ruse to get to the Echo.
They couldn’t trust any of them.
Blair leaned against the tunnel wall, suddenly exhausted. She slid down until she sat on the cold stone floor, the moonlight catching the tears on her face and turning them silver.
No strategy would save them. No weapons, no warding, no clever plan could stand against beings who could reshape reality. She helped refugees leave the city. She helped children and mother’s and the elderly. She had spent days pretending there was still hope, still a way forward, still something they could do to fight back.
But there wasn’t.
Blair wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. She looked up at the fractured ceiling, at the broken stones and the glimpses of storm-torn sky beyond.
This was it, then. The end of everything they’d built. The end of Praxis as they’d known it.
But not the end of the fight.
Blair pushed herself to her feet. She knew what they had to do if they wanted to survive. They would relocate across the Darkmese, regroup with whoever remained, and begin searching for any trace of where Tenebrae had taken the Echo.
It was a reckless plan, born from despair as much as logic, but it was all she had left. Theo’s death had hollowed out the part of her that believed in safety or strategy. They were all beyond that now.
Her magic pulsed beneath her skin, responding to her anger. If Vesper’s soul still existed somewhere within the Echo, then perhaps there was a chance to reach her. And if not, maybe the Echo herself would listen to another Resonant, even an artificial one. She would plead humanity’s case and hope to hell that she would listen…whoever ‘she’ was.
Blair followed the path of moonlight streaming through the broken ceiling. She climbed over fallen stones, using handholds in the fractured wall to pull herself upward toward the surface. The air grew colder as she ascended, the storm’s pulse growing louder in her ears.
When she reached the top and hauled herself out into the open air, the full devastation of Nightreach spread before her. Buildings twisted into impossible shapes. Streets shimmering with unnatural light.
