I Copy the Authorities of the Four Calamities

Chapter 494: Four

Varian’s grip on the Emperor’s wrist held for exactly as long as it took the Emperor to decide it was worth acknowledging.

"You," the Emperor said, mild interest crossing his face. "I did wonder when you’d surface again."

He didn’t try to break the hold. He simply turned his hand, slow, almost courteous, and Varian’s own arm bent backward at an angle that shouldn’t have been possible without something tearing. Varian didn’t cry out. He rode the motion, twisting his whole body with it rather than fighting it, and used the redirect to put himself bodily between the Emperor and Nyx instead of losing the grip entirely.

"Whatever you’re here for," Varian said, voice level despite the strain visibly running through his shoulder, "it doesn’t happen today."

"You’ve spent eleven years telling yourself you could still stop something like this." The Emperor’s tone stayed pleasant, almost fond. "I admire the persistence. I don’t think persistence is quite enough, old friend."

He drove a strike forward that Varian barely deflected, the impact throwing him sideways into the base of the podium hard enough to crack the stone Vane had already cracked once falling into it himself. Varian rolled with it, came up in a low guard, and Vane understood, watching from the floor with his own body still refusing to answer him, that even Varian, alone, wasn’t going to be enough.

The second arrival came through the same broken gate less than a minute later.

Ryuken didn’t announce himself. He simply appeared at the threshold, still in traveling clothes, and crossed the hall’s length in strides that covered ground far faster than they should have, stopping only when he’d planted himself beside Varian.

His eyes found Ashe first, still slumped against the far wall, breath finally coming in fuller pulls but nowhere near standing. Something in his face, normally unreadable even to Vane’s trained attention, went through a change too fast to name.

"What did you do to my daughter," Ryuken said, quiet, the quiet more dangerous than any shout could have been.

"Very little, by my standards." The Emperor’s gaze flicked toward Ashe with mild professional interest. "She’ll recover fully within the hour. I was restrained."

"Restrained." Ryuken’s jaw tightened. "Show me unrestrained, then. I’ve waited fourteen years for a reason to ask."

He moved before finishing the sentence, Iron Heaven’s convergence arriving all at once, intent and mechanics and weight landing in the same fraction of a second the way Vane had once watched it land against Lancelot in a training ring neither of them had known he’d witnessed. The strike that followed didn’t miss. It connected, clean, against the Emperor’s raised forearm, and for the first time since stepping through the gate, the Emperor’s easy stance shifted, just slightly, absorbing something rather than simply ignoring it.

"There it is," Ryuken said, and drove forward again.

Varian fell in beside him without needing to be asked, the two of them working in a rhythm that spoke of old, practiced familiarity, Iron Heaven’s convergence and The Unwritten’s unreadable evasions weaving together in a way that finally, visibly, started costing the Emperor something to answer.

He was still smiling.

That was the part that turned Vane’s stomach, watching from the floor. Two Rank 9 Transcendents, throwing everything they had, and the Emperor’s expression carried nothing but genuine, growing pleasure, the specific delight of a man finally being given something worth his attention after a long, boring afternoon.

Vane’s fingers found enough strength to curl, finally, against the stone. He couldn’t stand yet. He couldn’t do anything yet except watch and count, two now, still not enough, the exhaustion in his own limbs a dull, distant roar beneath the sharper, closer fear of watching two people he’d trust with anything getting pushed steadily backward across a hall they should have been able to hold without strain.

The third arrival came without any warning at all.

The air at the hall’s center simply darkened, briefly, and Evangeline stepped out of the shadow like she’d always been standing there, black dress immaculate despite whatever distance she’d apparently crossed to arrive.

"Alexander." Her voice carried the same soft, absolute authority Vane remembered from his very first day on this island. "You are standing inside my Academy."

"I am aware, Headmistress."

"Then you’re also aware," Evangeline said, closing the distance at a walk rather than a run, entirely unhurried, "that whatever business you believe you have here ends the moment I decide it does."

She didn’t wait for a response. Heaven’s Fall arrived in the same instant as her first strike, and for just a moment, watching three Transcendents converge on a single point at once, Vane let himself believe it might actually be enough.

Somewhere behind him, he heard Isole drag herself another few feet across the stone, still trying, uselessly, to reach a fight none of them could join. He heard Valerica’s breath catch on something that might have been a name or might have just been pain. Nobody in that corner of the hall could do anything but watch three of the strongest people alive fail to make an Emperor take a full step back.

The Emperor caught Evangeline’s strike on his open palm, the same casual gesture he’d used on Vane’s spear an hour ago, and this time it cost him a full step backward to fully absorb it.

"Three," he said, something bright and delighted creeping into his voice now. "This really is turning into quite a day."

The fourth arrival came from directly above.

The ceiling’s shattered skylight let in a column of falling frost before Isadora Glacium even landed, the temperature in the entire hall dropping hard enough that Vane’s own breath fogged where he lay. She hit the ground in a low crouch beside Ryuken, ice already spreading outward from the point of impact in a wide, creeping frontier.

"Isaac," she said, not to the Emperor, scanning the hall fast until she found her son frozen at the far doorway, still upright, still breathing. Something in her shoulders eased a fraction. Then her eyes found the Emperor, and the ease vanished entirely. "You’ve picked an interesting day to visit my son’s school."

"Absolute Zero." The Emperor inclined his head, something almost courteous in the gesture. "I confess I didn’t expect all four of you in the same afternoon. I’m rather flattered."

Four Rank 9 Transcendents stood arrayed around him now, Varian and Ryuken pressing from the front, Evangeline circling from the side, Isadora’s frost climbing the walls and floor in a widening ring that left the Emperor standing on the only patch of bare stone left in the entire hall.

He looked at all four of them in turn, slow, appraising, the way a man looks at a hand of cards he’s genuinely pleased to have been dealt.

Then he laughed.

It came out loud, unguarded, a real and joyful sound that echoed off the hall’s high rafters and seemed, for one disorienting moment, entirely at odds with everything that had happened in this room today.

"Oh, this is wonderful," the Emperor said, delight written plain across his face, and settled into a stance that hadn’t existed a moment before, something in the air around him tightening in answer. "This will finally be fun."