Elend stood on a dark rooftop in Koreldon City, overlooking Mystic Square and the road to the Palace Prime. Massive screens hung from the buildings below, flashing with ads that washed the crowds in orange and blue. Soon enough, those ads would go dark, revealing a far more important message. A message this whole city needed to hear.

  ‘’ Irina’s crisp voice echoed in his mind.

  Koreldon’s emergency broadcast system had been designed to override every screen in the state. Elend didn’t know much about the technical side of that system. And quite frankly, he didn’t care. Irina and Kazalla knew about hacking, while Elend knew people. Together, they were the perfect team.

  The crowds below churned like the Inner Sea in a storm. Blue sigils glowed against some foreheads, while others remained bare. Fists met flesh, and mana flared in bursts of color.

  The police tried to stop the fighting, but their efforts were far less brutal than before. Perhaps they’d realized the error of their ways. More likely, they feared the Soul Reapers lurking in the shadows, waiting to claim anyone who pushed too hard.

  ‘,’ Irina said.

  Elend stretched his fingers, feeling the dream mana flow from his channels. He’d sworn never to use his aspect this way again. But here he stood, ready to influence more minds than ever before.

  The massive screens flickered with a burst of static. s for elixirs and armor vanished mid-frame, and everything went dark for the space of a breath. Even the fighting paused as people looked around in confusion.

  Then the screens flickered back to life with a single image: Elend’s face, larger than life against a dark background.

  “How do I look?” he whispered to Glim as the recording began.

  She floated over his shoulder in the form of a bright blue Missile. “Like you’re about to burn down the world. In a good way, of course.”

  "People of Espiria,” his voice boomed from every speaker, echoing off the glass and steel towers. “My name is Elend Darklight. Some of you will know me as a professor from Koreldon University. Most of you know the infamous deserter who left his post in New Sakai when Storm’s Eye attacked.”

  He paused to let his words sink in, glancing around as if he could meet the crowd’s eyes. “Still others know me as the Grandmaster from the dark web. The one who dared to share the truth about mana arts in a world built on secrets and lies.”

  Elend felt a spark of recognition from the crowd below. Yes, many of them had seen his videos, especially the unmarked who weren’t afraid to break the rules. They didn’t know true oppression like Akari did. For them, it was a far subtler thing: weaker aspects forced down their throats at a young age. Misinformation designed to stop them from rising too high through the ranks.

  Those videos had given them a chance to climb just a little bit higher.

  “I spoke the truth in those videos,” the recording continued. “Now, I come to you tonight with a more urgent truth. A truth that affects every soul in this city, regardless of your beliefs.”

  Dream mana pulsed from Elend's hands on the rooftop, invisible to the naked eye but spreading like fog through the square below. This technique wasn’t meant to control, but to clarify. To strip away the haze of fear that clouded rational thought.

  “Storm’s Eye arrived on our doorstep three months ago. You were told this was a random attack—a force of nature that chose our city by mere chance. Or perhaps you heard it was Aeon cultists who summoned the spirit here for some dramatic battle. The story changes with each telling, doesn't it? Deep down, you knew something was wrong. You felt it in your bones, but you were afraid to put that feeling into words. Afraid to be the Missile that shone too brightly, lest it be silenced.

  “The truth is, Ashur Moonfire summoned the spirit to Koreldon City. He trapped our nation’s Masters in Puerto Crescento last spring, myself included. He trapped us there, and he left our city undefended. He left Prime Minister Salerian to face the spirit, then he took his place when he fell. Not as a hero, but as a vulture feeding on the corpse of our democracy.”

  Gasps and curses erupted from the crowd—more incredulous than outraged. As always, it was far easier to fool people than to convince them they’d already been fooled.

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  “Think about it,” Elend’s recorded voice interrupted their protests. “Storm’s Eye has never teleported before or after that fateful day. Not once. Who could move that spirit but the world’s only Mystic-level space artist? Who benefited most from its arrival?

  “Now, I suspect many of you are asking the obvious question. If Ashur Moonfire is guilty, then surely the other Mystics must know the truth. Why do they remain silent? The truth is, our Mystics are caught in a web of their own making. They have power beyond imagination, but their oaths chain that power. They know the truth about Moonfire’s crimes, but more oaths seal their lips.

  “As for me, I’m nothing but a mere Grandmaster. I have no such restraints.” Elend pointed a finger through the screen. “Neither do you. You all have a choice. And yet, here you stand—letting yourselves be played like pawns on a crowns board. Fighting each other, doing exactly what wants. And for what? Some vague sense of safety?

  “Animals crave safety. We are a nation of ! Our ancestors gained their freedom from the Shokenese Empire. We don’t flee hardship, we embrace it. We train for its own sake, and to propel each other toward a better future.

  “Moonfire thinks he can make our nation stronger through chaos. He doesn’t care about these marks, and he doesn’t care which side wins. Yes, our race has thrived in chaos. Yes, this chaos has helped us rise higher. But chaos isn’t the only path to—”

  His words cut off in that moment, and darkness shrouded the square. The city had cut the power to the whole block.

  No matter; Elend had predicted this. His dream mana was already in place, and he activated a massive illusion that turned the screens back on.

  The speech continued, but it wasn’t enough. People were slow to take action these days, even clusters of angry mobs. So Elend released a second cloud of dream mana, reaching out to the hearts and minds of the crowd, directing them all toward a single purpose.

  He glanced eastward toward the Palace Prime, then back to Glim. “How do I know I’m not better than him?”

  “Maybe it’s too late to be better,” Glim said in a low voice.

  “Aye,” he agreed. Any player could escalate a game. When that happened, only a fool kept playing by the old rules. This was war, and they had to use Ashur’s own tools to defeat him. “But if we can’t be better, then who can?”

  “Relia can,” she replied. “Maybe Akari and Kalden, too.”

  “Pushing the problem on the next generation, huh?”

  “I know.” The cringe was audible in Glim’s voice, despite her lack of a face in this form. “When did we get so old?”

  Elend didn’t answer. A part of him agreed with her in this moment, but it didn’t sit well with his revelations. He’d made this sacrifice to save Relia, but where did it end? What if he just had more excuses tomorrow, and the day after that? What if this stood in the way of his mysterious Mystic advancement?

  “Relax,” Glim said. “No one fails the Mystic advancement.”

  “No one that we of,” Elend corrected her. Hardly reassuring in a world of secrets and lies.

  “Join me,” his own voice boomed from the screen, pulling him from his thoughts. The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once—from the screens, from the air itself, from the depths of his own soul. "Tonight, we stop being victims. Tonight, we remember what it means to be Espirian!"

  The recording faded from the screens, replaced with a live image of Elend on top of the Everest Building. Helicopters and enemy Masters swarmed around him, but they wouldn’t get here in time.

  “Join me tonight, and march on the Palace Prime!”

  ~~~

  Spacetime mana flowed from Akari’s hands as she formed a portal onto the Everest Building. Weaker space artists had to open both sides of a portal at once, but Masters followed their own rules. She visualized the location in her mind’s eye, then carved a hole through space itself, taking a shortcut between the two points.

  This realm was everything she could have hoped for. Even now—two days after her advancement—the rush of euphoria still hadn’t faded from her mind. She was a now. On a planet with billions of people, only a few hundred could actually pose a threat to her.

  The portal opened, revealing Elend on the dark rooftop that overlooked Mystic Square. He stepped through the portal, while a version of Glim stayed behind to operate the illusion. She couldn’t maintain that for long without Elend, but it should help sell the diversion for a few more minutes.

  Akari’s team had no reason to march on the Palace Prime, after all. They were already inside its boundaries.

  “Good timing, lass.” Elend glanced up at the night sky. “If I’m right, we’ll see that shield right about—”

  A pulse of energy rippled through the building. The windows flared with pale blue light, and Akari felt the weight of Mystic-level mana pressing against her soul. The shield bloomed outward from the palace walls, expanding like a soap bubble until it covered the entire grounds.

  “Now,” Elend finished with a grin.

  The Aegis of Koreldon was the strongest Construct on the continent, built to withstand a barrage of Mystic-level attacks. Once the shield was up, no one could enter or leave the palace without disabling it from both sides. That included portals, and even the prime minister himself.

  Fortunately, Akari had layered multiple time bubbles around the palace: one outside the shield, and one inside it. And thanks to Elend’s speech, they knew the exact moment the Aegis would surround the palace.

  When her team finally left the palace tonight, they would do it the shield went up.

  As for Moonfire, he and his wife were away in North Shoken right now—some diplomatic mission that couldn’t wait. Relia had stayed behind, so the team would never get a better chance to rescue her.

  Elend stepped through the manicured gardens toward the nearest entrance. He stopped ten paces away from the door, glancing over his shoulder to face the others. “Everyone ready?”

  Kalden and Irina nodded their assent, and Akari joined them. They’d faced overwhelming odds before, but tonight felt different. For the first time in two years, Akari actually felt ready for the challenge ahead. She and Kalden had learned their techniques and advanced to the Master realm. Their team was strong, and their plan was solid.

  After all this time, they could finally save Relia and put this city behind them.

  Web of Secrets Book 1 is now available for ebook, paperback, and Kindle Unlimited:

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