Forged Destiny [Book 9: Ch. 18]

"You will not," Salem snarled, spinning and throwing a hand in my direction. "Be gone, pest!"

I felt the fear and the panic, but my Resilience saved me. Even as I saw the light flicker in her palm, I didn't freeze but instead threw myself toward the nearby staircase. My shoulder hit the lip and sent me tumbling down.

Cold heat. It made no sense and yet I was bathed in both – a burning so cold it froze my bones. Momentum alone kept me rolling and I bounced down the steps, hitting the floor and rolling away, glimpsing up briefly to see the sky visible at the top of the staircase. The entire second floor of the building had been eradicated. Blue fire licked at the ceiling, along with a small patch on my shoulder that I patted out. I stumbled to my feet, quickly checking myself over and deciding there were no broken bones.

A Beowolf exploded through the door and lunged at me. Gasping, I stepped back and drew Crocea Mors up, getting it between us in time for the monster to hit and impale itself. It slid down the blade, still trying to claw my eyes out. Pushing my free hand against its snout and its mouth and yes up, I pushed it down and used a foot to draw the weapon free.

My senses prickled. I dove and rolled to the side.

Black light scythed through the building, punching into the door and through, carving a path where I'd just killed the Beowolf and incinerating the body. The light dragged up, as if it were a huge intangible sword being wielded by a god. The metaphor was apt. Cursing, I kept moving, stumbling through the house before she could think to try another.

Games were over. Any of those would kill me if they hit dead on.

"Ruby, quick!" Blake's voice came from the other side of the street.

They were alive, then; both of them. That brief spark of hope was enough to push me to movement as well, but not in the same direction. I couldn't cross a street full of Grimm and with Salem there. I had to go the other way. I touched the stone in my pouch, the one given to us so long ago by Ironwood, and whispered Blake's name. Catching on, she touched her own.

"Get Ruby away," I barked. "I'm going the other way."

"Be safe. I love you."

My stomach churned. "Love you too."

It was all I had time for as the back wall of the building I was in disappeared. It wasn't so much blown down as torn asunder. Black light flashed as bricks peeled away from a central point, turning to dust and floating upwards as a shape stepped through.

"Jaune." Salem's voice dripped with so much rage. "You are a thorn I was bound to let live – no longer. You, I shall take the care of disposing of personally."

She chose me!? With Ruby fast enough to attack her and the only real threat she had here, she chose to hunt me down? I turned and fled, feet stamping against the tiled floor as I launched myself at the closest window.

Fingers wrapped around my ankle.

"Leaving? Let me help."

The world around me blurred as I was swung back by one leg, spun with such force that my body lifted fully off the ground. The grip on me let go suddenly and I was flung away. Pain exploded. Brickwork gave way. Briefly, my view turned from the inside of a house to the world outside, then inside again as I crashed through two walls and an alleyway. I landed in a pile of ruined brick, gasping for breath and with my armour dented and battered. Blood dripped from my lips and hair both. I felt sick in my stomach.

Move. I gripped a brick and used it to pull myself up, stumbling only slightly. My knee gave way, hitting the floor, but rather than try to get back up I kept crawling, dragging myself along with one hand. Got to keep moving.

Behind me, footsteps echoed. Too even and slow to be Blake or Ruby's.

"You really have been a constant frustration."

The ground beneath me exploded up. Rock and dirt skittered off my armour, the sound akin to nails rattling in a metal can. One nicked my cheek and brought more blood, which didn't really matter when I was already hurtling forward, launched from my spot to crash into and break a wooden table. Splinters exploded up as it gave way, not even breaking my fall.

Hurt. It hurt so much. I just wanted to curl up and die.

My eyes glowed. I crawled through the wreckage, stabbing a gauntleted fist through a window, smashing the glass, and gripping the ledge. With flagging strength, I pulled myself up and leaned my body over it, trying to unbalance myself so I fell out.

Salem helped. My graves were left so hot they burned red and started to stick to my hosen underneath. The agony was unbearable. Without thinking, I reached down to touch it, hissing as my skin bubbled. Stoke the Forge activated and the metal glowed hotter still, and yet now it was my heat, my forging, and the pain and burning disappeared.

"At first, you were an amusing distraction." Salem did not climb through the window. She parted the brickwork with a wave of her hand, peeling the wall back like the skin of an orange. "An oddity. You made a wish and time and time again I placed you in a position to die, and yet you did not. Far from a frustration, I found the prospect delightful. A survivor. How interesting!"

A Beowolf hurtled through the street toward me. I got Crocea Mors up in time, but rather than attack, it exploded into black mist. Immediately, it became a hundred tiny Nevermore, which peppered and whipped over me, ten or more dying as they hit my sword but more pecking and cawing around my face and ears. I waved a hand to push them away.

Something coiling and black wrapped around my foot. A tentacle?

The world turned again. My face hit the stone, sword clattering down but somehow gripped onto. I was dragged back, away from Salem and toward a turn in the street, from which a hideous mass of skin and tentacles emerged.

Merlot?

Was that Merlot!?

Its giant maw opened, ready to draw me in and devour me.

"No."

The one word from Salem cut the beast off. With an agonised roar, it launched me like a frisbee. My armour skated and screeched across the stone as I skidded over the street and slammed through two wooden market stalls. I hit a tree and came to a groaning stop.

"I would not put it past you to survive being eaten by him. If I take my eyes off you for but a moment, you'll find some ridiculous and contrived way of making it out. I mean, really, I give you a pendant with a Rune upon it and you use that to forge your Path!" Salem hissed. "What are the chances?"

My Path…? But that was based on how I fought. What I did. I got more combat skills because I was a Blacksmith who put himself in danger. My head flopped back. Silver glinted above me. The tree I'd struck wasn't a tree at all. Or not a normal one. I slapped a hand on its trunk and Stoked the Forge.

"Is this fate?" Salem swept the Ironwood branches that reached out to entangle her aside. More sprung up from the ground, piercing through cobbled stone to grasp for her. Merlot, or maybe a Grimm based on him, was entangled and dragged down by it, not slain but locked in place. She drifted her hand above it, as though she were sprinkling some water on the plants. They shrivelled and died before her, curling and twitching like snakes dying from venom. "Is this providence? I refuse to believe it. No, I've lived so long that it must simply be chance."

I caused more rampant growth, both toward her and around me, trying to shield my body.

"Grant enough wishes and surely one must surprise me." Salem let the metal vines touch her wrist and then wrenched it to the side. The root snapped and was dragged up out the ground. Easily half a tonne of metal was thrown aside, and my connection with it was cut. "That's just probability. Chance. Flip a coin enough times and you'll eventually land a thousand heads in a row."

The vines grew under me, pushing me back onto my feet. I made them give me a little push, allowing me to less run away and half-stagger, half-fall, wheeling my legs to keep my upright. Her hand gripped my shoulder, crushing metal beneath her fingers and digging straight through into my skin. My bone cracked.

Salem only sighed.

"I'm talking to you, Jaune. The least you can do is listen. So rude."

She lifted me up. My feet dangled in the air.

Through my pain, I glared at her.

"You really are a marvel, you know?" Her voice conveyed amusement, but her eyes did not. They glinted dangerously. "I mean, look at you. You're almost perfectly designed to annoy me. And I'll admit I'm the one at fault. I've made you what you are today. It would be ironic if it wasn't so darn annoying."

"You… didn't… make me…"

"Did I not?" She chuckled. "Then tell me, Jaune, where do you think your Runecraft came from? It's a dead art. A time of a bygone era. Do you imagine you simply stumbled upon it? You know that's not how it works. Your Paths grant you Skills based on what you do, how you do it and what you interact with. Fight enough Grimm and you gain a Skill to help you slay Grimm. Farm enough vegetables and you will do the same – so tell me, how many Runes did you forge before you earned that Skill?"

None. How could I have if I didn't have the Skill?

But then, how could I unlock such a Skill in the first place? Engraving built off my normal forging. Runesight came from using Runes. All my Skills came from something else first, be that fighting or smithing, but Runes? Those came out of nowhere.

"I see you understand." Salem squeezed my right shoulder harder, making bones snap and me scream out through my Resilience. "The language you call Runes is my own. It was a… gift impaired on your people long ago."

The way she said gift made it clear it was anything but. Another cursed wish.

"The ones I gave it to destroyed themselves, as you humans so often tend to. Since then, it went forgotten. And yet it returns with you – not because you were born of that line or because you are important in some way, but because I granted it to you on a silver platter."

Her smile widened.

"Or was that a silver pendant?"

The Pendant…? No. How? It had a Rune on it, but I'd never interacted with it. Except I had, hadn't I. Every time I wore it and let the magic within change my Class, I was technically using a Rune. I was allowing a Rune to shape me, relying on it. I'd been adapting without ever realising it, and that small interaction over so long and so many levels had warped my Path.

"You should have died so long ago that it wouldn't have been an issue," she said. "You did, in fact. You fulfilled the terms of the wish by dying a Hero at the battle of Vale, in doing so escaping my contract."

He… what? But he hadn't died. The only thing he'd done in that was fight Cinder…

"It still isn't a problem," she went on. "As galling as it is to see my own powers used against me, you're no closer to besting me than you've ever been. You're just an aggravating little pest that won't keel over and die."

"How?" I gasped. "The Seal… doesn't change class…"

"Oh, you mean this Rune?" She tapped my sword with a fingernail. The symbol flared. "Well, I needed some way of making for you an item that would change your Class, did I not? A simple illusionary spell would do." Salem chuckled and waved her free hand toward my face. The words above my head shifted, first to `Knight` and then to `Fool`. "But how to lock that to you? I certainly didn't want to have to follow you around for weeks and months reapplying it, did I? I needed something to do that for me."

"But the Rune doesn't do that…" I'd applied it to our weapons and there'd been no such change.

"No." she agreed. "It does not." Salem placed her hand on my breastplate, over my heart. "You are the only human whose name and face I might care to remember. If nothing else, take solace in that."

The breastplate gave way with a crack. Metal caved in, shattering as her hand pushed forward. Her eyes remained on mine, always bright, always smiling, as she reached deep inside my body. Something inside me gave way. I heard a deep, metallic, clang, and then saw nothing but darkness. Dimly, I was aware of my body being thrown back to the ground. Of hitting something hard and cold and laying there, of feeling heat seep out of me, and hearing her walk away.

"Goodbye, Jaune Arc."

—Forged Destiny [Book 9: Ch. 18]