Re-Awakening: I Ascend with a Legendary class

The Hub went out.

It did not fade or flicker. One moment the three lines hung in front of every eye, and the next they were gone, like a candle pinched between two fingers.

”Marcus,” Almond said. ”Do you still have yours?”

”No.” Marcus was turning in a slow circle. ”It’s gone. All of it. The board, the map, the link. I can’t feel any of it.”

Rudra had gone pale. He held out his right hand, the way he had held it out ten thousand times before.

”Deadwater Dominion,” he said.

Nothing came.

”Thunderwake Salvo.”

There was only wind in the grass.

Rudra lowered his hand slowly. He looked at it as if it belonged to a stranger.

”They’re gone,” he said. ”My decks are gone.”

It went through the kingdom like cold water.

People called for cards that did not answer. Kayla pressed her hands to the ground, and no roots came. Kael took three quick steps and stopped dead, because he had moved no faster than any other man.

”I can’t feel the wind,” he said. His voice was very quiet.

Ainen was staring at his own palms. ”I can’t feel anything. I feel like I did when I was a boy. Before any of it.”

Almond did not hear them.

He was reaching inward, toward the place where eight voices had lived for most of his life. He reached for Alfred. He reached for Sylvia.

There was nothing there. It was like putting his hand into a room he had lived in for years and finding the walls gone.

”No,” he said. ”No, no. Alfred. Sylvia. Answer me.”

”Almond.” Lily’s hand was on his arm.

”They’re gone, Lily. I can’t hear them. I carried them through. I know I did. I felt them on the road.”

”Almond. Look.”

He looked.

Eight figures stood in the grass a little way off. They were not standing on thrones. They were standing on the ground, like anyone else, and every one of them was staring at their own hands.

Sylvia turned hers over slowly. She touched her own face. Then she looked up and found Almond, and her eyes were wide.

”Master,” she said.

It was not a voice in his head. It came through the air, and the wind carried it. He had never heard her speak out loud before.

”I am cold,” Sylvia said. She sounded amazed. ”I have never been cold. Is this what cold is?”

Benedict was pressing a hand to his own chest. ”Something is beating in here,” he said. ”It will not stop. Should it stop?”

”No,” Almond said. His voice broke. ”No, it shouldn’t. Don’t let it.”

He crossed the grass in six steps and stood in front of them. He did not know what to do with his hands. Alfred solved it for him by bowing, and then stopping halfway, as if unsure whether a person still bowed.

”We are not in you anymore,” Alfred said. ”I do not understand it. But we are here.”

That was when the voice spoke.

It came from nowhere and from everywhere. It was not the Hub. The Hub had always sounded like something reading from a list. This voice sounded like someone who had been waiting a long time to say a thing and wanted to say it properly.

”You have come a long way,” it said.

Every person in that field went still.

”You climbed three layers with borrowed tools. Cards. Decks. Tiers. They were given to you so that you could climb. They were never yours, and they do not pass this door.”

Rudra’s jaw tightened. He said nothing.

”But you did not climb empty,” the voice went on. ”While you were using what was lent to you, you were building something of your own. You built it with every choice you made, and with how you lived. That part is yours. It was always yours. It is the only thing anyone has ever carried into this place.”

The wind dropped.

”This is the Layer of Rebirth. Here, a soul has weight. Yours has been weighed.”

Light gathered in front of Almond’s eyes. It was not a board. It was only a few plain lines, hanging in the air, written in a hand that looked almost like his own.

[Name: Almond]

[Life Rank: F]

[Soul Weight: 5,480]

[Life Imprints: Carry. Sever. Remake. Deny. Shared Ground.]

[Power Orbs: 0 of 10]

He read it twice.

He knew what each word meant the moment he looked at it. Nobody had to tell him. It was like reading his own name.

Carry was the crossing. It was every weight he had ever chosen to take from someone else. Sever was the blade that found the one weak place. Remake was the strike that had become a sword. Deny was the blow that never arrived.

Shared Ground was the eight thrones. Where he stood, his people could stand.

”Five,” he said softly.

”What does yours say?” Lily asked. She was reading her own.

[Name: Lily]

[Life Rank: F]

[Soul Weight: 5,120]

[Life Imprints: Silence. Threshold. Shelter. Unname.]

[Power Orbs: 0 of 10]

”Four,” she said. She touched the word Shelter with one finger, and the light bent around it. ”That’s the canopy. The one I built because people were dying while they waited.”

”And Silence,” Almond said.

”That one I’ve always had.”

All across the field, people were reading.

Rudra stood very still in front of his. Stillness. Debt. Deep Water. Helm. His soul weighed 4,890.

”Debt,” he said. A slow, grim smile crossed his face. ”It kept the ledger. Good.”

Ainen read his out loud to all three of his wives. Host. Taste. Ripen. Hearth. His soul weighed 4,930.

”Host is first,” Fraisea said.

”Of course it’s first,” Ainen said. ”I’d be insulted if it wasn’t.”

Kael had found his. Certainty. Swiftness. Break. Ward. He let out a long breath when he saw the second word, and some color came back into his face.

”It’s still in there,” he said. ”It’s small. But it’s there.”

Marcus was laughing quietly at something on his own lines. Natalia leaned over to look.

”Voice?” she said.

”I talked into a dead headset for three days,” Marcus said. ”Apparently that counts for something.”

Silvester had only three imprints, and he read the first one four times. Then he held his status out at arm’s length so that Hiroshi could see it.

”Get Up,” Silvester said. ”It says Get Up. That’s a power. I have a power called Get Up.”

”That is the most accurate thing I have ever read,” Hiroshi said.

At the back of the crowd, a girl who had woken up eight months ago stood in front of four small lines of light.

Her name was at the top. It was the name she had picked for herself. Nobody had given it to her, and the world had written it down anyway.

[Soul Weight: 310]

It was not much. She cried over it all the same. The young Asura beside her pretended not to notice, and stood a little closer.

Big D had not moved.

He stood with his arms crossed in front of his own lines. He had been reading them for a long time. Natalia came up beside him and waited.

The name at the top was the one the family had always called him. It was the only one he had ever answered to, and the world had written that one down.

[Name: Big D]

[Life Rank: F]

[Soul Weight: 5,300]

[Life Imprints: Endure. Remember. Hold.]

[Power Orbs: 0 of 10]

”Three,” Big D said at last.

”Only three?” Natalia asked.

”I only ever did three things.” He nodded at each word in turn. ”I lasted. I kept the names. I stood where I was put and didn’t move.” He grunted. ”Doesn’t look like much, written down.”

”It weighs five thousand three hundred,” Natalia said. ”That’s more than anyone but Almond.”

Big D looked at the number for a moment longer.

”Most of that is just years,” he said. ”Ten thousand of them in chains. I didn’t know anyone was counting.”

He closed his hand, and the light went out.

John had read his in about two seconds. Then he had waved it away before anyone could see it.

”Well?” Kael asked him.

”Well what?”

”What does yours say?”

John smiled pleasantly. ”It says I’m an F,” he said. ”Same as you. Isn’t that wonderful?”

The Empress of Skytheum was not listening to either of them. She was looking at her own lines with an expression nobody had seen on her face before.

”Four thousand seven hundred,” she said. ”I ruled the first empire on a layer for longer than most of you have lived. And a cook outweighs me.”

”He’s a very good cook,” Vess said.

”He fed a starving thing with his own hand while it was trying to kill him,” the Empress said. ”I know what he is.” She closed her status. ”I am not offended. I am taking notes.”

”Try them,” Almond said.

Everyone looked at him.

”The imprints. We don’t know what they can do. I’d rather find out now than when something is trying to eat us.”

Rudra went first. He picked up a stone and threw it straight up. As it came down, he held out his hand.

Stillness.

The stone stopped in the air.

It hung there for the length of one breath. Then it dropped into the grass, and Rudra dropped with it. He sat down hard and put his head between his knees.

”That was a pebble,” he said, breathing like he had run a mile. ”At the Shelf I stopped a heartbeat the size of a mountain. That was a pebble.”

Ainen knelt by the fire he had built at the foot of the door. He held his palm over it.

Hearth.

The flames rose a little. They burned cleaner. The people standing nearest felt some of the ache go out of their legs.

”It’s warm,” Saffa said, surprised. ”Not just hot. Warm.”

”That’s all I’ve got,” Ainen said. Sweat stood on his forehead. ”And I’d like to lie down now.”

Almond tried last.

He walked over to Silvester, who was leaning on Hiroshi and trying to look as if he was not. The giant’s fist on the third day had broken more of him than Kayla had been able to mend in time.

”How bad is it?” Almond asked.

”I’m fine,” Silvester said.

”He can’t breathe properly,” Hiroshi said.

Almond put a hand on Silvester’s shoulder.

Carry.

He took it.

The pain hit him like a hammer. It was a deep, grinding ache through the whole chest, and it folded him in half. Silvester gasped and stood up straight, and drew the first full breath he had taken in three days.

Almond held it for ten breaths. He counted them. Then his grip slipped, and the weight slid back to where it belonged.

Silvester sagged against Hiroshi again. He was staring at Almond.

”You felt that?” he said. ”All of that?”

”Right,” Almond said hoarsely. He was still bent over. ”So that works. Good to know.”

”That was stupid,” Lily told him.

”You say that a lot lately.”

The voice spoke one more time.

The sun was going down. It was a strange sun, pale and wide, and it sank behind land that had no end. Far above, the faint rings of the higher layers were beginning to show.

”One thing more,” the voice said. ”Then I will not speak to you again.”

The field went quiet.

”Nothing is given here. This layer belongs to the Enders. They hold every region of it. There are more of them than you have numbers for, and there are those among them that no one has seen and lived.”

A murmur ran through the crowd.

”When you kill one, take what is left of it. Hold it against what you are. What comes of that is called a Power Orb. It will be yours. No one lent it to you, and no one can take it back.”

The voice paused.

”You are heavy, for newcomers. Some of you are very heavy. That will help you. It will also be noticed.”

”Noticed by what?” Rudra called out.

There was no answer. The voice was gone, and the wind came back.

Almond stood with his hand on his ribs and looked out over the dark land. Then he looked back at the great door, and at the small bright fire burning at its foot.

It was the only light for a hundred miles.

”Ainen,” he said slowly. ”How far away do you think that fire can be seen?”

Ainen looked at the fire. He looked at the dark.

”Oh,” he said.

Out in the grass, the crickets had been singing since sunset. Nobody had really noticed them.

Everybody noticed when they stopped.