IGS #4, Chapter 18

Scorio

“You already know what to do,” said Scorio.

“Funny,” replied Jova, hands on her hips. “If I did, I’d be a Pyre Lord.”

“What I mean is, you know what I know. You probably know it better than I do.”

“Given your penchant for skipping ahead in line, you might be right.” Jova pursed her lips as she stared at him. Scorio saw rank disapproval in her glare. She’d never been shy about direct eye contact, about hiding her disdain. He recalled the first time he’d spoken to her, in the hallway of the Academy, to ask if she could check her diary. How she’d looked him right in the eye and told him she’d rather cut off her arm than help him. Or something to that effect. There’d been absolutely no reluctance on her part to crush his hopes.

Now here they were, deep underground in the Silver Unfathom, five layers into Hell, him a Pyre Lord, she a Dread Blaze rising. And still she stared at him with that surety, that disdain, that smoldering anger.

“Fine. To make Pyre Lord you need to integrate all your powers into a greater whole. Your power over rocks, your fear aura, your resilience. You need to find a new identity within the whole. Well.” Scorio considered. “Not new, exactly, but true. The real you that’s been slowly been revealed with each new power.”

Jova tongued the inside of her cheek. “That it? That all you got?”

Scorio laughed in disbelief. “You’re the one who asked.”

“Go deeper.” She stepped closer. “You know how it felt when you ascended, right? What it took? Think on that process, think on me, and giving me some damn advice.”

“All right.” Scorio pushed down his irritation. Thought on those last few months. His time in the Fury Spires, on the Bone Plains. “I’d started to feel this strange, inexplicable attraction to fire. To lava. Like I wanted to jump in.”

Jova arched a brow. “That so? And why didn’t you?”

“Jumping into lava felt like a bad idea. I didn’t know what was going on. But it was when Xandera practically drowned me in the stuff while fighting Bravurn that my change triggered. It felt right. It felt good. And in that feeling…” Scorio struggled for the words. “In that moment, my sense of self, my… understanding of who, or what, I was… it just came together.”

“So I need to find my own lava bed.”

“Something like that. If my experience can be generalized for everyone.”

Jova turned so that he could only see her profile. She wasn’t pleased. But then again, was she ever? “Some greater whole. You’d always been able to shift into your dragonman form. It was a clue to what you’d become. Your wings. Your flames. Your command ability.”

“You think dragons can command others?”

She glanced at him sidelong. “Apparently.”

“So your Pyre Lady form should reflect the same kind of unity. Someone told me once that not everybody’s able to unite all their powers into a cohesive whole, but the most powerful Great Souls usually do. Something to do with rock. With stone. With endurance.”

“Like what?” Her frustration simmered under the surface. “I’m going to turn into a stone woman?”

“It’s not that simple. If someone had told me I’d turn into a dragon, I’d have laughed, maybe hoped it was true, but simply being told, simply guessing, wouldn’t have been enough. I had to feel it. Had to become it. Being a dragon only made sense when I was drowning in lava. That’s when the truth elevated me.”

“Great. So I need to bury myself in a landslide.”

“It might not be a direct parallel. Moira’s a Pyre Lady, and she didn’t turn into… whatever her weird powers indicate. Druanna’s a Pyre Lady, too, and she manifests extra arms and blades, but doesn’t turn into a stone golem like her eidolon.”

Jova nodded slowly.

“I mean, start with the basics. Have you felt any weird compulsions?”

Jova snorted. “You mean like my willingness to remain in LastRock and then follow you here?”

Scorio decided to play her statement straight. “That feel like it came from outside of you?”

She narrowed her eyes.

Scorio waited a moment, then pressed again. “Did it?”

“It came from my own frustrations. My impatience with my own failures.” The words were practically hissed. “I didn’t realize your helping me would turn into a cross-examination of my weakness.”

“That how you see it? Weakness?”

She turned back to face him full on. “What else would you call my irrelevance during the Blood Ox war?”

“I recall your helping Aezryna and Charoth come up with a grand strategy to catch the Blood Ox out in the open.”

“And how well did that pan out?”

“Not so great.”

“No.” She raised her chin. “Not so great. Whereas you?” She cut off what she’d been about to say.

Scorio stepped in closer. “No, go on. What about me?”

“You.” Jova’s tone was taut. “You have a preternatural ability to be in the right place at the right time. To get away with victories you’ve no business winning. Surviving the Blood Ox’s attack out in the Telurian Band. Fighting Plassus to a draw. Killing Bravurn. Need I go on?”

“I’ve paid for those victories.”

“I know you have.” Her eyes glittered coldly. “I’ve witnessed first hand how much you’ve paid. But there is no part of me that wouldn’t gladly pay the same price and again if it were to bless me with the victories you’ve earned.”

“Then you’re crazy.”

“Perhaps. I can’t entirely rule it out. But you can’t tell me you don’t recognize the same drive in yourself.” Now she stepped closer, so that they were only a few feet apart. “Your drive to discover the truth about the Herdsmen. To kill Dameon. To rise in power so that nobody and nothing can control you or lie to you or deceive you again.”

Scorio nodded reluctantly. “Sure. I’ve got me some of that.”

“As do I. But where your suffering has been repaid with a perfectly spherical Heart, an immense reservoir, a Gold-tempered body, and reaching Pyre Lord in record time, me?” Her laugh was pure bitterness. “I’m standing here despite my reputation and every effort Bronze-tempered, with a moderately impressive Heart, and no deeds to my name worth a damn. People respect me. They court me. You know why?”

“Because you’re Jova the fucking whatever of LastRock?”

“Exactly.” She stepped in again, gliding forward as if to strike him. “Ever since I began this life I’ve been praised and courted for what I did before. Even now the Seamstress invites me to her court because of my potential. Not what I’ve done. Not who I am in this life. Everybody looks at me and licks their lips like fucking hyenas at the prospect of my equaling who I once was, and me?” She arched a brow. “I’d do anything in my power to achieve those heights but I’ve failed. Again and again. I was led like a cow by Daemon, fooled and blinded by my own stupid ambition. I wasted my time running around the Bone Plains and then died to the Blood Ox. I never once looked to the blazeborn for aid. Never once doubted Bravurn for being more than an ambitious ass like every other high ranked Great Soul in Hell. And that’s been my undoing. I’ve not done enough, not seen enough, nor had the wit to make anything out of all the gifts I’ve been given.”

Scorio crossed his arms. They were standing so close now that he almost brushed her chest in doing so. “Boo hoo, Jova. Boo fucking hoo.”

“Precisely. Precisely.” She smiled, the expression mirthless. “There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already lashed myself with, and I only share this pitiful self-recrimination because somewhere in this wretched well of self-loathing has to dwell the secret to making Pyre Lady. If I can’t achieve anything great, I might as well ascend as quickly as I can to raise the chances of something happening down the line.”

“The fine. Let me see if I can help.” Scorio took a step forward, forcing her back a pace. “You have no empathy for the struggles of others. You see need as weakness, even if it’s a human need for friendship, understanding, or compassion. Remember when I got ‘distracted’ by helping the rebels in Bastion? Remember how you cut me down and called me weak?”

Jova sneered. “Look what good your help did them.”

“You’re limited. Your inability to understand strength as anything but brute power makes you brittle. It leaves you open to being manipulated by the likes of Daemon. You crave power so much that you’ll cast aside your own inner wisdom and give control to anyone who promises you a short cut.”

“Careful,” hissed Jova.

Scorio raised his brows in fake surprise. “And oh, look what’s going on here. Jova Spike’s ceding her authority to dumb old Scorio just like she did Daemon. Asking me to provide the answers you can’t provide for yourself. Except asking me galls you like nothing else, so you’re doing it in the most spiteful way possible.”

Her eyes narrowed as she clenched her jaw. Scorio sensed the chasm yawning open at this feet, but her words, her pride, her insults, made it so that he couldn’t care less. And if he fell in? Well, he had fucking wings, didn’t he?

“You know what’s holding you back, Jova?” Again he stepped forward, and again she reluctantly gave ground before him. “You still think you’re better than everyone else. Even as you think the rest of Hell is peopled by idiots, you can’t get enough of their praise. And that’s despite your having accomplished nothing in this life according to your own standards. So you want to know why you’re furious and miserable and have no friends? Because you’re desperately trying to prove to yourself that you’re as amazing as all the idiots you scorn say you are, and failing.”

Jova took a step back again for no reason, her lips parting as her eyes rounded.

“Because when you get down to it? The real difference between you and me?” Scorio glared at her. “It’s not my power, my rank, or the deeds I’ve accomplished with the aid of my friends. It’s that I don’t walk around thinking I’m better than everyone else. I don’t think I can do all this without the help of good people who are as worthy and deserving of respect as I am. Alain. Naomi. Leonis. Lianshi. Kelona. Xandera. Nyrix. Good people. People I’d die for, and to my never-ending sorrow, have died for me.”

He loomed over her, completely uncaring of the fury and panic that burned in her dark eyes. “There’s nobody you’d die for. Nobody you’d sacrifice your precious future for, and you know what? I doubt anyone alive today would sacrifice themselves for you. You’re alone, Jova, alone with your monstrous, wounded pride, fit for future manipulation, poisoned by scorn, and doomed to stay a Dread Blaze till you pull your head out of your ass.”

She was breathing rapidly now, short, sharp gasps as she glared up at him, eyes wide. But she didn’t respond. She looked trapped, frozen, paralyzed. Held in place by his stare, a hair’s breadth from attacking him or fleeing for the remote corners of the cave.

And her panic, how wounded and overwhelmed she looked, deflated Scorio’s anger. He shook his head and turned away. “Never mind. Like you said, you didn’t want a cross examination. Just the quickest path to power. Good luck finding that by yourself.”

And he walked away, remorse creeping up for how he’d spoken to her.

*

Jova shook as she watched Scorio walk away.

No thoughts. Just roiling emotion, a black ocean she couldn’t parse rising from her core, seeping up through the very cracks in her being and making her throat close up, her chest tighten, and so light headed she swayed.

The bastard.

Anger.

Safest, best refuge.

The bastard.

How dare he speak to her that way? What had she done—what had she said? To deserve—and to think, him standing there, so perfect, so self-righteous, when—!

She curled her hands into fists. Fists so tightly knotted her knuckles popped. She could lift a boulder in perfect silence and hurl it at him, could blast him apart, him and those judgmental eyes, those words—those words.

Jova turned away abruptly, hunched over, her whole body coiled, tensed, and pushed her knuckles into her eyes. Damn him. What had he even said? His words were a blur, a smear of emotion she couldn’t summon back. A horror show of an attack. He’d—she’d turned to him for help, and he’d attacked her, savaged her like a rabid hound, had gone for her throat when she—when she was at her most vulnerable—and—

Tears ran down her cheeks and she still couldn’t breathe. Deep breaths. Come on, damnit, can’t you even breathe? She fought to inhale fully, but her chest was locked up, as if iron bands were laced around her torso, and her throat, she couldn’t even swallow. How had he—what power did he wield—this wasn’t—

She couldn’t just stand there. But where could she go? Blast a whole into the Silverine cavern beyond? Immediate appeal. A thousand thousand foes she could blast apart with her rocks, endless targets for her fury. She could destroy them all, destroy herself, and if she fell, if she were torn apart in the process, then he’d see, then he’d realize how wrong he’d been—

No. No. What childish nonsense was this? Was she going mad? Craving death as a form of revenge against his words?

His words. What had he said? What had he even said? That she was selfish? Stupid? Weak? That nobody respected her, nobody would die for her?

Why would she even want someone to die for her? Everyone should fight to live, sacrifice, the very notion was flawed, it meant something had gone wrong, that others had to compensate, cover your losses, that your plan had imploded—

Jova dropped into a crouch, fists still buried into her eyes. She wanted to scream, but some terrible instinct warned her that screaming would result in destruction. Her Heart was on the verge of Igniting, flaring up by itself, and if she lost her grip, lost control, her powers would swarm forth to collect every rock, every stone, every shard, and hurl them about the cavern, scouring the walls, cleaning the world of this source of pain.

No.

No screaming.

Get yourself together.

Stop whining like a child.

Stand up. Stand up!

Jova rose jerkily to her feet and began walking. No goal other than to move away from Scorio. Deeper into the cavern, away from the sleeping caves, around the curve, to where they’d first entered this hellhole, this prison, this trap.

Her legs were stilts. Her arms swung woodenly by her side. She saw nothing, just moved until she reached the cavern wall. Ignited, summoned a flat rock onto which she stepped, and rose to the ceiling where she stepped onto the barest ridge of rock. There, a hole, four feet deep, only two high. An escape.

Jova crawled inside, wrapped her arms around her shins and pressed her brow to her knees.

Control. Breathe. You’re acting weak. Even now you’re begging for attention, hiding up here, begging for people to notice, to come ask what’s wrong, but if they do I’ll crush them, fling them away, use my fear power, they’d better leave me the fuck alone—

Jova grit her teeth as hard as she could. What was happening to her? Why was she falling apart? She had to master herself. These emotions, these stupid emotions, what had he done, how had he wounded her so badly—

Her mind blanked out. Nothing. Just velvety darkness. She hugged herself tight, self-pity warring with self-loathing. The slightest movement and she’d fly apart.

Her breath had become shallow again. She was sweating. Skin too tight. The rock all around her was a coffin. She wanted the sky. She wanted the sky. To ride a plinth up into the heavens, to go fast, so fast that nothing could keep up, to escape—

Weak.

Weak.

Weak.

Jova stilled, stopped breathing altogether, her will rising, rising, inexorable like the tide. A comprehensive power that refused to let this continue.

Think. Something is happening. You have never, in all your waking hours, felt this intensely, been this upset. This is new. This is an opportunity. You wanted a deeper understanding. Scorio gave this to you. This is a gift. Use it. Find the truth. Use it to become a Pyre Lady.

Jova bit her lower lip, screwed her eyes tightly shut, and fought to hold onto that spar of hope. This was good. This was good. She’d been stuck. Now she was breaking, and in that break she could find power.

Power. If she could only make Pyre Lady, everything would become better. She’d be Scorio’s equal. She’d be what she should be. Power would elevate her, answer questions, was the ultimate answer.

But though her need grew, no answer emerged.

Just wounded, throbbing pain.

Why couldn’t she remember his words? All that came back was his face, tight with scorn and anger as he flayed the skin off her soul.

Weakness. Something about weakness? Being selfish. Being only interested in power.

But what was wrong with that? This wasn’t an idyllic existence. This was war. Hell was war. They needed power to win. To save Bastion. To save themselves. That’s why she wanted power, wasn’t it? To save everyone else?

A long, aching second stretched toward infinity as she desperately wished that statement to ring true.

But it didn’t.

She didn’t care about the common people of Bastion. She didn’t care about the other Great Souls. She wanted power. For what? To…

Jova dry swallowed.

She wanted power so that she could… win. No. So that she could defeat anybody.

No.

She wanted power so she could be admired? Closer. But what had Scorio said, that she’d desired admiration from the very people she scorned? That wasn’t quite right. All the rumors, accolades, and praise had merely shown her what was possible. The heights she could reach. They’d fueled her ambition, but she’d never craved Praximar’s approval, or her classmates, or anybody’s. She’d thrilled at being told how great she’d once been only because it showed her how strong she could become again.

She didn’t crave anybody’s approval.

But then why did she want power?

The answer came to her, tolling like a bell: a vision of LastRock with its mighty stone walls, its brutal finality, built to endure a millennium, a fortress.

She wanted power so she could be independent. Left alone. Keep others at bay. Could exist without need. Could exist without anybody having a claim on her. Because if she didn’t need anybody, she could prevent their demanding recompense.

Jova’s breathing slowed.

Was that right?

She turned the thought about in her mind as one might a crystal fragment, examining it from all sides.

She wanted to be independent. Free to make her own choices. To choose solitude. No, not solitude. To be free of obligation, of loyalties, of restrictions.

Perhaps that’s why she’d never chosen a House back at the Academy. Why she’d spurned the Seamstress’s offer.

But Manticore? She’d willingly let Daemon place a leash about her neck, had followed his lead docilely, believing for far too long the honeyed lies he’d whispered in her ear.

But what was it he’d said, exactly?

Only you truly understand the overwhelming necessity of having power.

And from there she’d filled in the rest: the reason one needed power was so that you could make your own choices, be beholden to nobody, be… free.

Jova grimaced and pressed her head back against the stone wall. Freedom. It still didn’t fit. She was close. Freedom was only part of the answer. Freedom to what? To choose anything? No. She didn’t want to make any choices. She just wanted power. Then why did she want freedom?

Scorio’s words returned at last: The real difference between you and me? It’s not my power, my rank, or the deeds I’ve accomplished with the aid of my friends. It’s that I don’t walk around thinking I’m better than everyone else. I don’t think I can do all this without the help of good people who are as worthy and deserving of respect as I am.

He willingly bound himself to others. Jova snorted. But that was his greatest mistake, his greatest weakness. His willingness to believe others, to work for others, it’s what she had found most pathetic in him. It’s what had led to his being trapped in the Crucible, the rebellion in Bastion failing, his losing time running around the Rascor Plains instead of training, training to become more powerful, so that he…

So that he what?

So that he could be free of others?

None of it made any sense. Jova pressed her hands to her face again and slowly fell onto her side, leaning against the back of the alcove wall. She was like an idiot moth, circling the flame of truth, but unable to get any closer.

For a long while she lay thus, breathing shallowly, not moving, not trying to puzzle anything more out.

She loathed Scorio for his stupidity, his willingness to sacrifice himself for others, for those weaker than him. Yet somehow he’d risen even as she’d gotten nowhere. How to reconcile that truth? He was a Pyre Lord and she a Dread Blaze. Not just native talent, though he was formidable. His every mistake inexplicably led to success. His falling for Daemon’s ruse had led to his Gold-tempered body and perfect Heart. His loss of Leonis and Lianshi had led to Praximar’s death and the overthrow of House Hydra. His willingness to fight as a rank and file soldier for Plassus had led to his surviving the Blood Ox and bringing about the True Fiend’s downfall.

So was his weakness truly such?

Or was she wrong?

Was his willingness to sacrifice for others his secret source of strength?

Jova shook her head in horrified dismay. That made no sense. But there he stood, mighty and revered. How then could she explain it otherwise?

Stupidity. Idiocy. Wasting time. Helping those who couldn’t help themselves. Weakening them in turn because they were never forced to find their own true strength. Suffering. Look how hollowed out he’d become at his losses. What had tying himself to Naomi brought him but pain?

But was that pain actually strength?

How did that make any sense?

Jova battered her thoughts against that paradox.

Did she have to—what? Sacrifice for others? Help the weak?

No, that still wasn’t quite it.

Her will asserted itself. Pull back. Find another approach. Scorio had said her powers formed a unified whole around a deep need.

His had been for fire.

What was hers?

Obviously it was freedom, right? No. Not freedom. Self-defense? Her resilience prevented her from being taken down by others, but by definition it anticipated being attacked. Her power with stones allowed her to destroy those around her, attack countless targets at once, massacre crowds, pulverize foes. She’d used it to build LastRock, her private bastion, its walls massive enough that even the Blood Ox hadn’t been able to destroy them completely.

And her fear aura?

Jova stilled.

Her fear aura drove others away. It made them see the most disgusting possible version of herself, a nightmare so vivid it haunted their dreams and lingered behind their eyelids whenever they blinked.

Her fear aura.

Freedom. Solitude. Self-defense.

The truth was so close. Just within reach.

Jova held her breath, ceased thinking, not wanting to drive the elusive epiphany away.

Her powers were all, in some manner of speaking, defensive. Anticipating attack. Anticipating… judgment? Anticipating… pain?

She didn’t want to be hurt.

She was afraid of being hurt.

She wanted independence so that someone like Scorio could never hurt her again.

Again?

That word felt ancient, a part of her hidden, prior life, from the Jova that came before Acherzua.

She stilled.

She didn’t want to be hurt again.

People were pain.

Caring was suffering.

Love was destruction.

Only power could stave off this inevitable annihilation.

Somehow she’d made the mistake of letting Scorio too close, and look what he’d done to her. She’d needed him, his advice, his strength, and as a result? He’d nearly collapsed the very walls of her soul.

Her mistake had been to allow him in. To depend on him in any way. To crave his high opinion. And she’d only done so because she’d not become powerful enough. Had not been sufficiently sure footed to remain in splendid isolation.

Jova’s upper lip curled into a sneer.

Her will asserted itself.

No.

That wasn’t right.

That was her turning away from the truth.

With grim, uncaring, savage determination, she wrenched her thoughts back from that alluring escape and back to her prior awareness: her powers, her drive, her need for power, it all stemmed from a desire to not be hurt by others.

By the gods and all the fiends in Hell, that revelation was pathetic.

But Jova had never consciously shied from pain, and aware now of the traps littering her mind, she refused to be distracted and kept that thought directly in mind.

She was afraid of being hurt.

Waves of virulent scorn filled her mind.

But she held firm.

Simpler.

She was afraid.

She was scared.

Scared of what? Not pain, not battle, not death.

Scared of needing others.

Scared of rejection. Loss.

Heart break.

Fear.

The word pulsed within her, pulsed with talismanic power.

Fear.

She was driven by fear.

Everything stilled.

Jova finally understood.

She opened her eyes and engaged the Pyre Lord technique.