Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Six: What's In a Name?

  The first light of dawn painted the sky in hues of amber and rose as Jace and Dex crested the final hill overlooking Roandia. The city sprawled before them, its white snow-topped buildings gleaming in the early morning light, the legendary Tower rising from its center like a silver spear thrust into the heavens.

  Below them, the city was stirring to life. Streets that had been empty days before now teemed with visitors from every corner of the realm. Colorful banners hung from windows, street vendors called their wares, and all roads seemed to lead toward the Tower at the city’s heart.

  Jace felt the familiar warmth against his finger as the White Raven, exhausted from their journey, retreated into the enchanted ring. The spectral bird dissolved into motes of silvery light before vanishing completely. He flexed his hand, surprised to find the usual drain on his aether reserves had disappeared. It felt strange not to have that drain.

  “She’s finally healed,” he murmured, more to himself than to Dex.

  “The climb should be starting,” Dex said, his voice tight. “And with it, whatever the Regent has planned.”

  Jace nodded grimly. “Let’s find the others.”

  They made their way through the city, keeping to side streets and alleyways. The white-knuckle tension of their nighttime flight from the Regent’s sanctuary had faded to a dull, persistent dread. What they’d discovered in those hidden chambers beneath the sanctuary—the empty vault, the ritual markings, the centuries of exploitation—weighed on them like physical burdens.

  As they approached the Tower square, the crowd’s roar reached them—thousands gathered to witness the Regent’s opening ceremony.

  They spotted their friends near the eastern edge of the Tower plaza, huddled beside one of the ceremonial fountains. The group had positioned themselves strategically away from the thickest part of the crowd, creating a small pocket of relative calm in the chaos of the gathering.

  Alice stood with her back to the fountain, her hair pulled back in a severe braid, sharp eyes instantly cataloging Jace and Dex’s injuries as they approached. Marcus loomed beside her, drawing occasional nervous glances from passing students. Ell maintained a watchful stance at the perimeter of their small gathering, one hand resting casually on her blade, while Molly knelt on the edge of the fountain and was staring into the water interestedly.

  “You two crawl through a coal mine or just lose a fight with a fireplace?” Marcus asked, one brow raised, lips twitching.

  Alice’s eyes flicked over them like a scanner, sharp and quiet, assessing them for any permanent damage.

  “Something like that,” Jace muttered.

  Up close, the Sapphire Tower rose in breathtaking splendor, its crystalline walls gleaming like polished jewels kissed by sunlight. Each stone was a flawless shard of deep azure, reflecting fractured rainbows across the courtyard below. Veins of silver and gold threaded delicately through its surface. Intricate carvings spiraled gracefully upward, scenes of ancient heroes, mythical creatures, and forgotten stories etched so precisely they seemed ready to step forth from the sapphire itself.

  Standing near its base was humbling—like gazing upward at a fragment of the sky captured and bound in stone. Wisps of cloud drifted lazily around its uppermost reaches, while delicate runes shimmered gently along its edges.

  The air around the tower seemed charged, humming faintly against the skin, stirring the senses with the subtle scent of cool stone, crisp wind, and lingering magic. It felt more like standing before a living, breathing monument than mere architecture, a beacon of wonder and majesty at the heart of Roandia.

  Dex leaned heavily against the fountain’s edge, while Jace remained standing, shifting his weight from foot to foot. The fatigue of their journey pressed down on him like a physical weight, but he couldn’t afford to rest—not yet. Ell stepped closer, completing their circle, and Alice activated a small privacy charm with a subtle gesture—a simple spell that would muddle their words to any eavesdroppers in the crowd.

  “The vault was empty,” he began without preamble, low and urgent. “Every single gold piece gone. The Regent’s been bleeding Roandia dry for centuries.”

  Marcus frowned, his deep voice rumbling like distant thunder. “And glamor and glitz? The claim of all the wealth and gold?”

  “Fake,” Dex cut in, glancing nervously at the passing crowd. “All of them.”

  Jace and Dex took turns rapidly explaining all that they had found.

  Ell glanced up at the looming structure, her expression grim. “So what do we do? Go to the authorities? Try to warn people?”

  “The Regent is the authority,” Alice pointed out. “And who would believe us? We’d be dismissed as madmen or, worse, executed as traitors.”

  Around them, the crowd pulsed with excitement, oblivious to the conspiracy being discussed in their midst. Banners fluttered in the cold breeze, the Regent’s insignia displayed prominently on ceremonial flags. Guards in polished armor patrolled the perimeter, their expressions alert but relaxed, seeing only a festival where Jace now recognized a trap.

  “We continue as planned,” he said finally, decision crystallizing within him. “We enter the Tower. We compete in the climb. And we find out what’s really waiting at the top.”

  The Tower awaited. And with it, perhaps, the answers they sought.

  Jace looked at each of his companions in turn—these people who had become more than allies, more than friends—and found himself, against all reason, holding onto hope.

  The Regent’s schemes had been centuries in the making—threads woven through lies and vanished histories.

  But they would not go unchallenged.

  They all nodded with quiet resolve.

  “It just feels wrong. Not calling him out,” Dex said, his voice low, jaw tight.

  “It is,” Jace admitted. “But it is also pointless. The Regent’s already gone. Emptied the vaults. Cleared out every prize meant for this climb. The only rewards now are whatever the Tower offers.”

  Dex cursed under his breath. “That’s going to be one hell of a surprise for the climbers.”

  Jace felt it too—a twisting unease in his chest. The people deserved to know. Someone should speak. Warn them.

  But what could he do?

  He was a stranger in a strange land. No army. No alliance. No throne or crow. The moment he stepped into the open as who he really was, it would begin—questions, allegiances, power plays. And politics was a war with no rules and no end.

  He could challenge the Regent.

  But not yet.

  To do so now would mean forfeiting the Tower. And the Tower… the Tower was everything.

  So Jace swallowed the impulse. Locked it down.

  It hurt like betrayal.

  But for now, he would do nothing.

  “Jace, you should see this,” Alice said, nodding toward Tower.

  They stepped through the throng, weaving past the murmuring crowd, until the Tower rose fully before them.

  The foundation shimmered—alive. Not with fire or stone, but something stranger. Something he hadn’t noticed before. Thousands upon thousands of names were etched faintly into the glass-like surface, glowing softly, pulsing like dying stars. They moved—gently, constantly—rearranging themselves as though the Tower were dreaming, and its dreams were written in names.

  Jace watched, transfixed. These weren’t just markers. They were stories. Every climber. Every fall. Every triumph. Every soul who had dared the ascent.

  “The names rewrite themselves,” Alice murmured, her voice barely above the hush of wind. “Whenever someone falls. It marks the number. The last floor they made it to.”

  She raised her hand, hesitating just above the smooth surface. For a breath, the swirling letters stilled beneath her fingers—acknowledging her, almost. Then they resumed, flowing away like water over stone.

  She pulled her hand back sharply. “Did you see that?”

  They all had.

  Each name bore a number beside it—a stark testament to how high they’d climbed before falling. Some had made it to the sixth floor, their names glowing just a little brighter. Others hadn’t even survived the first.

  “Some didn’t get past the entrance,” Dex said.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Alice froze.

  Her head tilted slightly, eyes narrowing as her Sight stirred to life, her gaze sharpening. She took one step closer to the Tower.

  “Jace,” she said, low and urgent, never taking her eyes off the surface. “Here. Look.”

  Jace followed her gaze.

  There—among the swirl of shifting names—one flared brighter than the rest. Rita Nutkins.

  His breath caught.

  The name burned for a breath, then slipped back into the pattern.

  He hadn’t expected to see her name.

  His gut twisted. Truthsense flickering in the back of his skull, warning him.

  “There’s no number,” he said.

  Dex leaned in. “So? What does that mean?”

  Jace’s face was carved from stone. “It means she never came back.”

  The silence returned, heavier now.

  Rita’s name floated across the glass again, glowing briefly, then vanishing—only to reappear moments later somewhere else. It didn’t settle like the others. The Tower kept showing it. Holding onto it.

  “Is she...” Molly started.

  Alice laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “We don’t know.”

  Jace looked up at the Tower. Its surface gleamed with the names of the fallen and the brave. But that name—her name—kept circling like a thread left intentionally loose.

  “But we’ll find out,” Alice said.

  And they all knew she meant it.

  Jace’s mind raced, connecting fragments—Rita’s disappearance, the Regent’s strange behavior, the unnatural calm that seemed to pervade the city despite the darkness they’d glimpsed at its edges.

  As they stepped back from the Tower’s base, Jace cast one final glance at the swirling names.

  A high, piercing voice rang out across the square, unnaturally loud for its source. “Welcome! Welcome!”

  All heads turned.

  Atop a stone dais stood a small, withered man draped in ceremonial robes that shimmered like candlelight on water. His frame looked brittle, almost swallowed by his robes.

  The ceremony had begun.

  Chapter 32

  A hush rippled through the plaza as a frail man stepped forward, his presence oddly small against the grandeur of the Tower behind him. Jace recognized him—vaguely. One of the Regent’s inner circle, maybe an advisor, or assistant?

  His robes shimmered like storm light caught in glass, an iridescent sheen that shifted unnaturally with every movement. He raised his arms, his smile stretched too wide, lips thin with something that mimicked warmth but never quite reached his eyes.

  “The Regent sends his regrets,” the man announced, his voice silk over steel. “But I will speak in his stead. Today, we stand upon the threshold of legend. Of transformation. Of history itself.”

  The crowd leaned in. Beneath fluttering banners from every corner of Terra Mythica, royalty and champions of pantheons stood shoulder to shoulder. Sunlight glinted off divine weapons. The Tower behind the speaker pulsed softly, crystalline and impossible, humming with something ancient.

  Jace stood among them, silent. Watching. His Truthsense flickered at the edges of his vision, background static. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t act. Not yet. The familiar weight of Hades’ presence lingered at the back of his mind, a comforting shadow, a guide. He reached for it, drawing strength from that connection.

  “Before you lies the climb—a trial of strength, of will, and of spirit,” the man continued, voice heavy with pomp. “Many have faced it. Few have proven worthy.”

  Then—just a flicker. A twitch at the corner of the speaker’s mouth. A heartbeat of disdain, buried beneath courtly smiles.

  “Once your name is scrawled upon the Tower, you will be utterly alone—cut off from your gods, and your gods from you.”

  A ripple of unease passed through the crowd—shoulders stiffened, glances darted, breaths held. But the speaker pressed on.

  “This is the cost of the climb. The test of your resolve. Only those who face the trials unaided—without divine whispers or holy crutches—can ascend to true greatness.”

  He turned, gesturing to the gleaming monolith behind him.

  “Step forward. Etch your names. Claim your fate.”

  The contestants hesitated, glancing at one another before a brave few stepped forward.

  They approached the slab in reverent silence, raising trembling fingers to its surface. As they pressed their fingertips against the Tower, blue lines of light sprang to life, forming their names in glowing, elegant script. The Tower seemed to hum with approval, and the contestants stepped back, their faces pale but resolute.

  One by one, the entrants stepped forward, some of their movements stiff with apprehension, others certain, and more still eager. The air hummed with an unnatural charge as each person pressed their hand against the crystalline tower, the surface gleaming like polished ice. With every touch, a name etched itself onto the glass, glowing faintly before dissolving into the intricate latticework that twisted and turned within the structure. It was a small but irrevocable surrender—each name becoming a part of the tower’s eternal design.

  As each name etched itself into the Tower, Jace saw it—the flicker of realization on every face. Some wore confusion. Others, pain. A few fell to their knees as if struck. For the devout, for the Chosen who had built their power on divine tether, it was worse. A severing not just of magic, but of identity.

  Some staggered and rose again. Others simply winced, the loss dull and distant. But in every case, something had been taken.

  This was what Hades had warned him about.

  Prepared him for.

  He’d forced Jace’s evolution early, shaping his abilities so they’d root in his soul, not in borrowed divinity. It was the only way they’d survive what came next.

  Because once Jace’s name was written, the connection would snap.

  Fortunately, the Tower never kept names forever. Not after the climb.

  Once he made it to the top or failed in trying his name would be crossed off on the mosaic like all the rest.

  And when that happened, the bond would return.

  Jace watched, feeling the moment closing around him like a fist. His heartbeat quickened, his breathing shallow. The Truthsense was screaming now, a cacophony of warnings that left his temples throbbing.

  This is wrong, it insisted. All of this is wrong. He sensed danger but connected to nothing.

  The line of students inched forward. Soon it would be their turn. Jace felt the weight of his friends’ gazes on him, their silent questions hovering in the air between them.

  He caught Dex’s eye. His friend’s usual swagger had dimmed, replaced by a tight-lipped vigilance as his fingers twitched over his daggers’ hilts. Next to him, Ell stood perfectly still, her posture rigid as she surveyed the crowd with predator’s eyes. Even Marcus, normally immovable as stone, shifted uneasily from foot to foot, the faint crackle of Zeus’s lightning dancing across his knuckles.

  The speaker’s gaze swept over the crowd, pausing for the briefest moment on Jace. A flicker of something—recognition? Concern?—crossed his face before his mask settled back into place. But that moment was enough. Jace felt a certainty solidify in his chest, hard and immovable as stone.

  The Truthsense jolted again. Pain spiked behind his eyes.

  It burned with renewed intensity, guiding his attention back to the Tower. Something was wrong—more wrong than the obvious horror unfolding above them. There was a connection, a thread linking the void in the sky to the crystalline monolith that still hummed with power.

  Jace turned back to the Tower, its surface reflecting the glow of the shifting names within. The names spiraled in intricate patterns, constantly rearranging, each etching itself into the glass before dissolving into the swirling mosaic.

  Whatever truth lay hidden, it remained veiled, just beyond the reach of his perception. The frustration was maddening—like knowing a word but being unable to recall it, feeling it dance at the edges of consciousness.

  Jace clenched his fists, frustration coiling with his unease. He drew in a shaky breath and pushed his aether into his Truthsense, sharpening it, feeding it with everything he had. The air around him seemed to thrum in response, faint ripples distorting the light as his power surged.

  Nothing.

  He gritted his teeth and pushed harder, the strain building behind his eyes. The hum in the air grew louder, resonating in his skull. Still, he saw nothing. An illusion—there had to be one. Something was obscuring the truth, hiding it just beyond his reach.

  More. He needed more.

  The taste of copper filled his mouth as blood trickled from his nose, warm and sticky as it ran down his lip. He ignored it, channeling deeper into his aether. Pain bloomed behind his eyes, sharp and blinding, but he didn’t stop. His Truthsense burned bright and furious, tearing through the veil like a blade—until the world itself seemed to split apart.

  And then he saw it.

  Not in front of him, but beneath.

  His vision slipped into aether.

  The slaves lined along the edges of the plaza—silent, still, unnoticed by the pomp and pageantry—burned with threads of light. All of the illusion magic, the wild amounts of power being poured into the city, it was all like perfume to mask something so simple. Their collars pulsed faintly with power, timed to the heartbeat of the Tower.

  Lines connected them. Aetheric strands woven through the square like spiderwebs—no, wiring. A ritual was already in progress.

  He looked up. No one else saw it. The crowd was too dazzled. Glamours clung to their senses like velvet.

  Aether surged. The ritual reached its edge.

  Jace’s stomach turned, acid burning in his throat. “How did I miss this? I’m so stupid.”

  His gaze snapped to Dex. To Alice. Molly. Ell. Marcus. They looked at him worried.

  “What’s wrong?” Alice’s voice was tight with concern, her fingers already tracing defensive patterns in the air.

  “I have to… I’m sorry.” Jace’s words were barely more than a breath.

  Alice caught the shift in his stance, her posture tightening in sudden awareness. “Jace, don’t—“

  But he was already moving.

  The ritual was seconds from completion.

  Jace activated Shift.

  Aether surged through his limbs—violent, urgent. The world warped around him as he launched into the air, a streak of force and will. Guards shouted, too slow. He landed on the stage with a thunderclap, wood cracking beneath his boots.

  The speaker halted mid-sentence, words caught behind a frozen smile.

  “STOP!” The word tore from his mouth before he could stop it, cutting through the crowd, raw, and cracked with urgency. “We have to leave! Break the circle—break the ritual!”

  His Truthsense was a scream now. A blade pressed to his mind.

  The crowd murmured, confused. Some turned. Some stared. Some laughed, unsure if it was a stunt.

  “What ritual?” the speaker sneered, but something flickered in his eyes—fear, maybe, or triumph. “Child, get off the—“

  Too late. He saw as names began to appear on the Tower, names that no hand had written.

  The Tower shook, as if trying to resist, but it faltered and failed.

  Jace’s breath caught as the pieces locked together.

  The slaves—collared, silent, forgotten—were conduits. The siphoned power, the illusions, the years of quiet preparation and the device in the Regents secret chamber. It hadn’t been aimed at cracking the lock on a vault. It had been aimed at breaking the protections of the Tower.

  For centuries, divine law had held. A name inscribed upon the Tower’s surface initiated the climb. That inscription severed the climber from their god. By covenant of the gods—an agreement forged between all pantheons to ensure the climb was untainted by divine interference. But no name could be written twice.

  All the siphoned power—the devices, the deaths, the silence—had been to bypass just this one lock.

  The name.

  To forcibly write names that should never have been written.

  To sever the people from their gods.

  To sever the gods from their worshippers.

  Then came the pulse.

  The Tower flared, its light searing against Jace’s retinas like liquid fire. The hum became a deep, bone-rattling vibration that set his teeth on edge and made his skull feel like it might split apart.

  And name after name wrote themselves.

  Thousands. Tens of thousands. Then hundreds of thousands—streaming across the crystal like wildfire on dry parchment, glowing blue, then violet, then black.

  Then screams from the crowd as the onlookers began falling to their knees, eyes wide in horror.

  A woman clutched her chest, crying out for a goddess that no longer answered. A champion staggered, his blade suddenly dull and lifeless in his grasp.

  Jace staggered back. It had already begun. He Shifted back to his friends and looked at them gravely. “It’s too late. This is what the Regent was doing.”

  The sky split.

  The aether above cracked like shattered glass. And through it, something pushed.

  A black tendril. Then another.

  The crowd didn’t understand at first.

  A few turned to flee. Others shouted in confusion, heads snapping between the Tower and the sky as the humming deepened. Not a tone, but a tremor. Something in the bones of the world.

  Alice reached stage. Her eyes were wild. She too fell to her knee in agony as her connection to her deity was forcibly severed.

  Jace could barely speak. He felt it too. The emptiness inside him where Hades had always been—not a wound, but an absence so complete it felt like part of him had never existed.

  “Everyone’s names. All of them. The Tower wrote us in. It wrote everyone in Terra Mythica in.”