EdgarFig

7. Punishment

“You did this,” Erin exhaled as she aimed the crossbow. 

“Erin?”

Jumping, her finger slipped. The bolt shot free and was lost into the darkness of the waning day. A second later, an agonizing scream echoed into the brisk evening air.

“What was that?” The boy asked, rushing to the wall’s edge and looking out.&...

6. Tensions

“You’re telling me not a single person knows who did this?” Mark said, looking down at the bandaged boy in the bed. 

“We can ask him when he wakes up—if he wakes up,” Mira said as she sorted her medicines. 

“This isn’t just a beating,” Henric added at his back.

Mark didn’t need clarification on tha...

5. Trading

Henric led Mark through the night-shrouded fort, their path dimly lit by the lantern the arms master held.

Taunting chants filled the air, and at the rear of the cabins, they found the crowd of acolytes.

“Make way,” Henric shouted, and the group of mostly boys quickly parted when they spotted their imperator.

On his knees i...

4. Cripple

A knock shook the cabin door.

“Are you decent?”

Silence followed.

“Dober?”

“Yes,” came a weak reply.

The door swung open, pushed out by Erin’s behind as she turned into the cabin carrying a bucket.

“Mira asked me to clean it. She won’t be far behind.”

“Sure.”

Erin paused, ey...

3. Stockpile

Watching from a raised section of the clearing, Mark eyed the acolytes as Henric ordered them to work. Using ropes and pulleys, they hoisted the prepared logs up into a trench they had dug. Stakes were then added for extra strength.

At this pace, we should be done in a couple of weeks. 

He was impressed with their speed...

2. Walls

Come on, don’t make a fool of yourself. Mark aimed his palm at a fifteen-meter-tall oak.

His understanding of the imperator suit was that it read his neural pulses somehow. Still, this was the first time he would intentionally use its power.

Electricity crackled down his arm too fast for human eyes, and the beam snaked thr...

1. Awakening

A snarling growl awoke Mark from his dreams of burning settlements. In the dreams, armies of bestial warriors had been marching through burning wreckage—carrying severed heads by their matted hair. They marched by foreign yet strangely familiar corpses—as if their faces belonged to people he should recognize.

His heavy lids fluttered o...