The Blade of Shattered Hope

“I felt a surge of Chi’karda slice into the Blade,” Jane said, her breath still quick. “It had to come from you. What did you do? If I have to repeat the question again, your youngest sister will be killed. Then the other one. Speak.”

Tick fought the panic thrusting up his throat, threatening to choke him. He had to have lost his mind. How could he have been so stupid to try something when he didn’t even know how to control it or what he was doing?

“What did—” Jane began.

“Wait!” Tick shouted. “I . . . I just . . . I tried to use my Chi’karda. I don’t know what I was thinking. . . . I’m sure it didn’t do anything!”

“What did you expect?” Master George said, coming to Tick’s defense. “You tell us you’re about to kill billions of people, and you expect the boy will sit there quietly? He has something you don’t, Jane. Morals!”

Jane’s head slowly swiveled around until her eyes paused on Master George. “Enough talk. Frazier!”

The man was at her side before the ring of her shout had faded away. “Yes, Mistress?”

Jane returned her gaze to Tick, the features of her mask melting into a void of expression. “Order the Ladies of Blood and Sorrow to kill the younger girl. Now.”

“No!” Tick screamed, vaulting to his feet as Frazier walked away. He felt like an arrow had just sliced through his chest, tearing a jagged rip across his heart.

Jane’s hand shot out from her robe, her palm flat and facing Tick. A thump of solid air slammed into his body, throwing him into the air. He flipped backward and landed on the ground behind the row of chairs. Jolts of pain made him shudder as he turned his head to look back toward Jane.

“Stop it!” Sofia yelled. She stood up as well, her hands clenched into fists at her side. She rocked back and forth on her feet as if contemplating whether or not to attack Jane. “How can you be such an evil—”

Jane’s hand flicked toward Sofia and sent her body shooting through the air to ram into one of the screens that currently showed a burning building. Sofia and the screen crashed to the ground with a clatter of clanging metal rods and ripping cloth.

Tick pushed himself off the ground, groaning from soreness. Anger lit his insides like liquid flame, and he knew his Chi’karda was welling up again, threatening to explode out of him. Kayla. All he could think about was Kayla. What could he do . . .

Movement by the chairs grabbed his attention. Paul had been sitting still, obviously waiting for the right moment. Just as Jane turned away from Sofia, Paul leaped from his chair and tackled Jane. He grabbed her around the waist and pushed her to the ground, falling on top of her. They’d barely landed when Paul suddenly shot straight up into the air, hovering ten feet above Jane. Then his body flew away until he slammed into another screen, with the same result as Sofia’s unwanted flight.

Jane got to her feet, brushed the dust and dirt from her robe, then looked at Master George. “You want to try something, George? Here, let me go ahead and save you the trouble.”

She pushed her hand toward the old man. He flew up and backward over the chairs, landing on his stomach just a few feet from Tick. He didn’t move, lying flat with his arms and legs twisted at awkward angles, his face on a rock. There was blood.

Tick couldn’t take it anymore. This woman was evil. She was too evil.

He got to his feet, staggering a little until he caught his balance. Then he held up a hand and pointed a finger at Jane.

“Listen to me,” he said, his voice straining from the internal effort of holding back the Chi’karda burning within him. “If you kill my sister—”

“What?” Jane snapped, taking a step forward. “What, Atticus? What will you do?”

“Then I won’t care what happens anymore,” Tick said. “If you kill Kayla, I won’t care about anything. I’ll build up this Chi’karda until it’s a million times stronger than it was back at Chu’s mountain. I’ll build and build, and then I’ll let it all out. I’ll throw it all at you.”

Jane shook her head. “So selfish, so . . . weak. You can still save your other sister and your parents. And you can help me achieve great things in the Realities, if you’d just grow up and see things with a bigger perspective.”

Tick hated her. Oh, how he hated her. “Don’t say another word to me! Tell him not to kill my sister. Now!”

“No.”

She said it so simply, so nonchalantly. But Tick couldn’t back down—he had to reverse the threat here. The power burned and boiled inside his chest. “I’ll count to three. Stop Frazier, or I’ll throw it all at you. Every ounce of it. Even if it kills me.”

“No,” she said again.

The Chi’karda was starting to overpower him. He felt his hands begin to shake. He quickly stepped forward and gripped the back of a chair to steady himself. “One,” he said as calmly as he could.

Jane did nothing, just kept staring at him with a blank expression on her mask.

“Two,” Tick said. Fear filled him. He didn’t know if he had the courage to go through with his threat.

“Three,” Jane said for him.

Tick’s fingers tightened on the chair. He looked down to see that they’d actually sunk into the metal, warping it. He had to do this. He had to—

“Mistress Jane!” a man’s voice yelled.

Tick’s head snapped up to see Frazier run frantically around the computer tables, heading straight for them.

“Mistress!” the man shouted again. “Something’s wrong!” He pulled up, panting with deep breaths.

“Speak!” Jane yelled back at him.

Frazier held his hands up to his ears as if his head were about to explode. His eyes were lit with panic. “They’re all gone—all of them. Everything’s gone crazy with the earthquakes and lightning . . . but there’s no doubt. I can’t find them anywhere. None of them!”

“What are you saying?” Jane insisted.

Frazier turned to look at Tick. “His sisters. His parents. They’ve all disappeared.”

Chapter 24

Colored Marble Tiles

The scream had barely escaped Sato’s mouth before the excruciating pain vanished, gone in an instant. It didn’t fade or slowly feel better. One second he felt like his entire body was on fire, horrible burns eating away at his skin, the next second he was perfectly fine. He collapsed to the rock-hard ground anyway, the mental shock of the pain bad enough. The air around him was gray and dull, twilight’s last moments before full night.