During their stay in Kinath-Aertes, they all received an apartment in Parliament Quarter of the city (which wasn’t actually a quarter—the city had about fifteen quarters that Jace had heard named, and there were probably more). The building was reserved for the staff of visiting politicians and Members of Parliament, but there were plenty of rooms available. Taking up five rooms on one of the hundreds of floors wasn’t much.

  Jace swiped his key card on the control panel, and the door hissed open, revealing a modest suite. The walls were matte white, it had a false hardwood floor (it was some sort of plastic, but had been moulded and coloured to look like hardwood), a few mass-produced rugs, and hanging incandescent bulbs.

  He dropped his backpack down on the counter in the kitchenette, then sat down on a stool near the counter.

  The kitchen and living room were one room, and a bedroom and bathroom attached with a side hallway. Overall, better than he had been expecting.

  On the far wall, floor-to-ceiling windows let in midday light. A barcode of shadows crossed the floor, cast by a line of starships flying past, but the view was better than most other buildings. He was up higher than the majority of the city, and only a few miles from the parliament hall and its plaza.

  Lessa walked into the room behind him, with Kinfild close behind. Jace turned to face them, then asked, “Are you guys here to see the Vault Core?”

  Lessa grinned. “Why else?”

  “Come on, then.” Jace tilted his head toward the backpack, then plucked it out. He set the white cube down on counter with a thud.

  “Woah…” Lessa breathed. “It looks…strong.” She rubbed her forehead. Its presence must’ve been exerting enough of a pressure to give her a headache.

  “You’re still good to look in on my visions?” Jace asked. “I’m gonna give it a go, but considering it’s rated for enemies significantly stronger than me…”

  “We will pull you out if anything goes awry,” Kinfild said.

  “Wonderful.” Jace inclined his head slightly, then hopped up and shut the apartment door behind them. He walked back and placed his finger on the top socket of the Vault Core, then fed it a couple units of Aes.

  Nothing happened.

  He stared at it for a few seconds, blinking. “Did I not…give it enough?”

  “It probably hasn’t been used in a while,” Lessa suggested.

  “That, and something ate it,” Kinfild said. “Machinery like this, crafted by a powerful Wielder, doesn’t just fall apart after a few years of inactivity.”

  “Something ate my Aes?” Jace narrowed his eyes. He stood up and pushed in his stool, then placed a hand on his Whistling Blade’s hilt.

  “And you woke it up,” Kinfild said.

  “Will it be friendly?”

  “Hungry.”

  He sighed, then drew Arbiter. The blade screeched slightly.

  A moment later, the socket of the Vault Core seemed to pulse, and tendrils of golden light surged out. They snaked around for a few seconds, then wove together, forming the wireframe of a golden wolf.

  Just…much larger than normal. What else could he expect? Perhaps the size of wolves he knew were smaller than normal. It was about the size of a horse, though a little shorter. Where its feet touched the ground, it melted the plastic and charred black patches into the ground. A rug sparked and caught fire.

  Before Jace could slash at it, it flashed forward, almost as if it had used a hyperdash, and clamped onto his blade with its maw.

  It was hard to tell, because the beast was mostly made of gold light, but a tag appeared above its head in the exact colour, which only he could see: [Level 43 Splitling].

  Jace wrenched his blade to the side and pushed forward at the same time, slicing the beast’s maw and freeing his weapon. It opened its mouth as if about to howl, and Jace winced. They’d just make everyone in the apartment block angry at him.

  But no sound came out. Whatever noise the beast made, it was entirely imperceptible to human ears.

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  It also wasn’t nearly as strong as him. To keep its attention off Lessa and Kinfild, he triggered a hyperdash and flashed to the opposite side of them, leading it away from the door.

  “Jace?” Lessa asked. “Are you…alright? You’ve got this?”

  “I think I have it under control!” he called back. He could’ve asked for its weaknesses, but he didn’t think this was going to last long enough for that to matter.

  With a heavy slash, he aimed for its neck, but it twisted with impressive speed, and he only left a thin cut atop its head, severing a couple golden strands. They cut easily under the pressure of his Whistling Blade and hyperspace Aes—a little too easily for a level forty-three beast, whatever a Splitling was.

  It dipped its head and lurched ahead, bowling into Wulf with its snout and knocking him flat on his back.

  Kinfild held up his staff, and Lessa aimed her rifle, but Jace yelled, “Wait! We don’t need to burn the apartment to the ground or put a hole in the wall!”

  Lady Fairynor would probably already be mad at him for the damage he’d caused so far, just with the rug and the gouges in the floor. At least he didn’t have to worry about a security deposit, but the Starrealm was going to have a few bills to pay.

  But if he didn’t want to damage this place, then he had to end this fast.

  He spun around, then thrust himself up to his feet and held his blade up. And just in time. The Splitling was charging again. He knelt down and held his blade up, then inched it forward to coax his Aes along the blade, heating it up and sharpening it.

  It split the beast from chin to tail. Its own momentum carried it forward, cleaving itself in two halves in an instant. One half fell to the right, the other the left. They disintegrated into strands, then collapsed into puffs of sparks, like they’d never been there at all.

  Jace stood up and flicked the blade off, then rubbed his forehead. “So…how about I pretend that this never happened, we don’t tell Lady Fairynor that I made a bit of a mess?” He shifted the remains of the carpet over the scratches in the floor with the tip of his boot, then put his hands behind his back and tried to look as innocent as possible.

  “What was that?” Lessa asked.

  “Uh…yeah, that was going to be my next question,” Jace said. He cleared his throat. It was just…there were so many weird things in this world, he had stopped questioning any of it. Something happened, sure. “But I am curious.”

  “A Splitling,” Kinfild explained. “A Split-born parasite that can only live in our realm of existence for a few hours before it must return. They often take up residence in arcane objects, or objects of great power, which create enormous impressions in the Split, and feed off the Aes and sheer existential power within.”

  “That…kinda makes me more excited to see what’s in the core, then,” Lessa said.

  “Judging by its strength,” Jace provided, “I don’t think I’ll be able to even beat what it sends me to deal with. At least not first try.”

  “It is an excellent training device,” Kinfild said. “And sometimes, in training, you’ll get beaten very badly.”

  “If I’m about to get hurt, though,” he said, walking back over to the core, “I’d appreciated it if someone could pull me out.”

  Lessa nodded. “I’ll be watching, don’t worry. And I don’t plan on letting anything hurt you.”

  He pressed his finger back into the socket, fed it another sliver of Aes, but nothing happened. He scrunched his eyebrows, then pushed an entire wave of Aes into it.

  The cube clicked and whirred. A square pushed out of each face, lingered for a few seconds, then snapped back in with a hollow clack.

  That was the last thing Jace registered before his mind went blank. Darkness snapped over his vision, and he fell through an empty void.

  He hadn’t even needed to be laying down or relaxed. It just…worked, in a snap.

  He almost wished he had more time to prepare, though. He’d barely woken his mind up and slowed his heart by the time the ground came rushing up to meet him. A mountainous landscape with blue-needled pine trees spread out below him. Mostly wilderness, but in the distance, an enormous factory perched in the mountains, chuffing columns of smoke into the sky. Its lights blinked in the evening light. They illuminated halos in a light dusting of snow.

  Or it might have been pale ash. After all, in the upper atmosphere, plasma blasts blinked in and out of existence. There was a battle taking place in the sky high above, and flaming streaked down to the surface.

  But there was no more time to orient himself. The ground caught him, and the Vault Core slowed his landing enough that he didn’t break his legs instantly. He landed in an empty clearing, and his impact sent pine needles rushing away from him.

  Immediately, he stood up, then held out his Whistling Blade. His heart raced, but he reminded himself that he wasn’t actually here. This was just an impression of him, sent across the galaxy by the Split to do its bidding where it saw fit.

  That meant there were darklings nearby that needed destroying. Probably why it was nighttime.

  Before he could set off and try searching, though, a screech rang out through the woods behind him. He whirled around—just in time to see the top of a pine tree at the edge of the clearing bend over. A snow-leopard clung to the top of the tree.

  It, however, had enormous feathered wings on its back, coloured almost the exact same as the needles of the trees. Instead of a cat’s mouth, it had a beak, and instead of ears, it had horns.

  Of course, like most darklings, it was…dead. Its eyes were black, empty pits, and the flesh of its body was decaying, exposing its ribs in some places and dripping out black tar in others. Its right wing was skeletal, nearly stripped of feathers in places, and scratched and torn up.

  A…zombie snow leopard griffon?

  The tag above its head read: [Level 67 Darkling]

  He gulped, then pointed his sword at it.

  Then five more jumped into the treetops, letting out hawk-like screeches.

  He sighed. He wasn’t going to last long at all.