Web of Chaos - Chapter 33: Mastery

Akari’s eyes snapped open, and her soul ached with a sudden pain. She tried to move, but cold metal bit into her wrists and ankles. Impedium. Not to mention Nightfang’s technique—whatever the hell that was. Her old teacher had never made her aspect public.

A dark hood shrouded Akari’s vision, scratching her face with each shallow breath. Something sharp dug into her stomach—Nightfang’s shoulder, maybe? The world swayed and bounced with each step, but her body hung like a sack of grain. 

‘Akari?’ Kalden’s voice echoed in her head. ‘Are you there?’

‘Yeah.’  She sent him as much sensory information as she could, hoping he could process it better. The air smelled like smoke and snow-covered asphalt, mixed with the floral scent of Nightfang’s perfume. But at least their soulbond still worked; that meant she hadn’t left the city yet.

’Dain was Nightfang’s ex-husband,’ Kalden said.

‘Great.’ Akari didn’t care why her old teacher had betrayed her. She also didn’t care who Nightfang was working with, or where they planned to take her. She just wanted to escape.

Nightfang's footsteps slowed, then stopped. The world tilted as she leaned forward, and Akari felt herself being lowered toward the ground. Her legs met damp snow, and her head came to rest against rough brick. Nightfang's touch was surprisingly gentle. 

For a moment, Akari dared to hope this was some elaborate test that she and Elend concocted.  It would make sense. How else would Nightfang sneak past Elend into the clinic? Then again, Nightfang had literally written the book on evading Master-level senses.

The hood came off in one swift motion, and harsh light stabbed Akari's eyes. They were in a narrow parking lot between two brick buildings. Steam rose from heating vents, mixing with falling snow against the night sky. A black van waited in the mouth of the alley with its back doors wide open. Chief Trask stood beside it with two more officers—both Artisans by the look of them.

Shit. This wasn’t a test.

“Zeller,” the older Trask spoke her name like a curse, but his face was even colder than his son’s. Akari tried to speak, but Nightfang’s technique held her jaw shut. She could only watch as Trask drew back his leg.

"This is for my son." 

The kick caught her in the stomach, driving the air from her lungs. The man hadn’t used his full strength—that would have killed her—but pain still exploded through her core like a grenade. Her body tried to double over, but the technique held her rigid

“We’re wasting time,” Nightfang snapped at him. “The Darklights will be right behind us.” She moved to help Akari sit up again, easing the technique that held her in place

‘Discord in the enemy ranks,’ Kalden’s voice noted. ‘We can use that.”

‘Good thinking.’

Akari used her new freedom to smile up at the chief. “Your son begged for mercy.” Her voice came out raspier than she’d planned, but she pushed through. “Did he tell you that?”

Trask's face darkened, and he took a threatening step forward.

“Figures,” she continued. “Always the weak ones who beat up old ladies. Gotta feel tough somehow, right?”

Nightfang intercepted the chief, pressing a hand to his chest. “For Angels’ sake, Malcolm. Don’t let a teenage girl get the better of you. Then she turned toward the Artisans as if they worked for her. “Put her in the van. Now.”

The Artisans moved forward, but Trask held up a hand that stopped them cold. "I'll do it myself." 

Ribbons of ice mana flowed out from the Master’s fingertips, wrapping around Akari’s waist, cold enough to burn through her clothes. Then he flicked his wrist, and her body flew into the open van. Her back slammed against the metal wall, and tendrils of ice mana bound her in place. She still couldn’t move most of her muscles, but her teeth chattered.

Talek. She’d never felt this cold before, not even in Vordica. It seeped into her bones and crawled toward her heart. Worst of all, Trask’s mana slowed her thoughts, just like his son’s technique.

Nightfang and Trask sat down opposite her, ready to intervene if she escaped. The van doors slammed shut with finality. The engine roared to life, and tires squealed against the asphalt as they fled.

~~~

“Did they find anything?” Kalden asked through gritted teeth. His wound screamed with every bump in the road, but he shoved the pain into his Second Brain and locked it away. Akari needed him now.

“Nothing,” Irina said as she turned the car onto Main Street  They're moving fast, and the search radius keeps expanding. We're looking at seven-hundred square miles.”

They’d evacuated the clinic several minutes before. If Nightfang had kidnapped Akari, then she could easily make trouble for the rest of them. The Honor Guard and local police were no match for the Darklights, but Moonfire had other tools at his disposal. Like the entire Espirian military. 

Besides, their soulbond only worked over a fifteen mile radius, and movement increased their odds of staying connected. Those odds weren’t great—maybe thirty percent at best—but it beat sitting still.

“The cuffs are impedium, correct? ”Irina wove through the late-night traffic, the city lights blurring past them in streams of gold and crimson.

“With a titan steel alloy,” Kalden confirmed. An Artisan couldn’t break this alloy with raw force, not that Akari would get a fair chance at that. Not with two hostile Masters looming over her, and ice mana slowing her thoughts.

“How much impedium in the alloy?”

Kalden closed his eyes and tried to process the cuffs through Akari’s senses. “At least half.”

"That's Master-grade,” she replied. “But still not as strong as the cuffs that held Elend in Creta. Her spacetime Cloak should let her warp free.”

“There’s a collar,” Kalden said. “She can’t cycle at all. Plus Nightfang and Trask are watching her.”

“That won’t matter if she advances.”

Kalden's fingers dug into the door handle as they took a sharp turn onto the highway, the engine screaming as Irina pushed it to its limits.

“Things don’t look good for us,” she said. “Trask and Nightfang have a ten mile head start, and we don’t know their destination.”

Kalden’s wound screamed again, responding to the mana that raced through his channels. 

“You want to help her?” Irina continued. “Then help her find her revelation. That might be our only chance.”

She was right; the math didn’t work out in their favor here. Nightfang’s stepstones could have taken her anywhere within a ten mile radius of the clinic, and Akari had spent the past few minutes in the back of a moving van. The search area expanded with each passing second.

Elend had taken to the sky with Glim, but even Grandmasters had their limits. There was too much space to search, and too little time.

“You can’t give someone a revelation,” Kalden said. “You taught me that.”

“You can’t,” Irina agreed. “But you can guide her to it. You know her better than anyone.”

“Better than her parents? Even they couldn’t help her.”

Irina glanced toward him, not quite meeting his eye. “Who says they didn’t help her? Who says they weren’t preparing her for this exact moment?”

“We tried everything,” Kalden said. “Every thought exercise and technique.” He wasn’t trying to be difficult here, but it was the truth. What were the odds Akari could advance now, with her thoughts half-frozen, and two hostile Masters looming over her? 

If anything, her chances were worse than ever. 

“You haven’t tried everything,” Irina said. “If that were true, you would already be Masters.”

~~~

Trask tilted his head to the side, speaking into the radio clipped to his collar. "What's our ETA?"

Akari strained her ears, fighting through the effects of her captors’ techniques. Most Artisans couldn’t hear sounds this quiet, but she’d spent long hours in Elend’s pain machine last year, bursting her eardrums countless times and reinforcing them with mana. As a result, she could pick up sounds that most people missed.

“Five minutes," the driver's voice crackled back. "Airfield is—”

“I told you to turn off your radio,” Nightfang interrupted.

His sharp eyes flicked toward her, confused and annoyed all at once.

“We have to assume Zeller has a telepathic bond with Trengsen,” Nightfang told him. “She’ll report back everything you say.”

Trask didn’t silence his radio, but he also kept his mouth shut.

Five minutes to an airfield. Akari passed that along to Kalden. That should help narrow things down, right? How many airfields could there be around here?

‘Thirteen fields within a twenty mile radius of Silverdale’  Kalden replied a second later.

Shit. Of course there was. Stupid rich people and their airships.

‘Ashcrest is the most probable city,’ Kalden's voice echoed in her mind. ‘We’re following, but we’re short on time. Irina says—'

'I know,' Akari cut in. She'd heard it all before. Find your revelation. Advance to Master. Save the day. But you couldn’t brute-force revelations. It wasn’t even like her revelation in Creta, where her dreams gave her the answers on a silver platter.

She needed a new insight—something she hadn’t thought of before. But she hadn’t been polishing her glasses these past few months. If she could force a breakthrough on command, she would have done it already. 

“The past only has one purpose,” her father had said. “To launch you into a better future. Cut ties with it and move on.”

In other words, she couldn’t let her past failures weigh her down. She hadn’t stopped trying to learn mana arts on Arkala, even when the entire world said it couldn’t be done. She wouldn’t stop trying to find her revelation today.

But how?

“Focus on the present,” Kalden suggested.

Sure, the present. Right now, she was tied up in avan, facing Nightfang and Trask. Nightfang’s technique held her muscles in place, and the cuffs stopped her from cycling. Trask held his own mana on top of that, freezing her like a human popsicle.

‘You said your worst fear was being helpless,’ Kalden replied. ‘Is this it?’

'No,' Akari realized with sudden clarity. This whole thing sucked, but she could deal with it. The worst part was how she’d let Nightfang get the better of her. The Darklights had given her a list of the people they trusted, but she’d forgotten that list in the moment. This was all her fault.

‘Follow that,’ Kalden said.

She tried, but it wasn’t easy with the ice mana slowing her thoughts. A part of her just wanted to fall back asleep . . .

‘You’re fine.’ Kalden’s voice was surprisingly calm, despite their fading bond. ‘We’ve been through worse than this.’ He sent more mana through her bond, fighting through the waves of despair.

Akari had also been helpless in the Archipelago, but that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was how people treated her, acting like she was crazy for trying to learning mana arts. Just like when Noella used to abuse her and erase the evidence.

Maybe she cared more about looking helpless? No. That implied external validation, which went against all the rules of revelations. 

Then again, Akari wasn’t just the protagonist of her life. She was the audience.

‘Incompetence,’ she finally said. Elend had mentioned that word back on the mountain, and it seemed to fit her better. She hadn’t just lost her power in the Archipelago. She’d lost all knowledge and her skills. All because of one bad choice.

Incompetence was her worst fear. But what was the opposite of that?

~~~

Kalden dropped his eyelids and slowed his breathing, closing himself out to the rest of the world. He didn’t feel the moving car or the leather seat beneath him. Instead, he existed in the space between himself and Akari. 

His aspect sprang into overdrive, sending dozens of memories racing through his mind like a deck of shuffled cards. Some were his, and some were Akari’s. Most were the shared memories between them. 

Akari was so close now—he felt it like the power before a mana storm. But Trask’s mana blocked her path. Kalden could guess the words themselves, but he might ruin everything if he pushed too hard. She had to find them on her own.

The memories kept racing through the ether of his mind, pushing the limits of his aspect. His instincts told him that one memory held the key to all of this. One moment that got to the heart of who Akari truly was. One feeling that expressed the words in their purest form.

But even as he searched, the bond began to fray at the edges like an old rope. They were moving apart; Irina was driving in the wrong direction.

Kalden wanted to open his eyes and tell her, but it wouldn’t make a difference. They didn't know where Akari was going. Any direction might be wrong, and it was too late to catch up. And if he broke his trance now, he would steal Akari’s only hope of advancing.

But once again, the math was merciless. His aspect showed him a thousand paths to victory, but it struggled to find the best option. He couldn’t do that in the next few seconds. The Cloak of a Thousand Blades was meant for physical battlefields. Not this.

But Cloaks could adapt as a person climbed through the ranks of power. That was why they learned these techniques as Artisans, planting seeds that would bloom in the Master realm.

Kalden could make his Cloak stronger, but only if he advanced first. He had to use his own advancement to help her. But how . . . 

Wait. 

That was it. Angels above, that was it! 

Kalden trained for battle every day, honing his body and techniques to perfection. But that wasn't the music that truly moved him. When he trained for himself, he couldn't help but overthink every action. Hardly a surprise; his father always said that a mind could never find peace when it thought only of itself. 

But when he focused on someone else, things snapped into sudden, perfect clarity.

He remembered the first time he’d ever talked to Akari, that fateful day in Last Haven. He’d been eight or nine years old, training with Sozen in their backyard. There was a punching bag marked with a jaku sigil that converted kinetic force into light. No matter how hard Kalden tried, he couldn’t light up the sigil. And the harder he pushed himself, the worse it got. 

Then Akari had leapt over the fence between their two yards—all determination and raw energy. Her form had been even worse than his, but that hadn’t slowed her down.

Without thinking, Kalden had stopped focusing on his own failure and started teaching her. He'd shown her how to throw a proper punch, how to channel force from the ground up through her legs and shoulders. And in that moment, his own breakthrough had appeared like a gust of wind on a hot day. The sigil blazed with light on his next strike.

Ten years had passed, but nothing had changed. Not for him, and not for Akari. His biggest breakthroughs didn’t happen on the battlefield, or even the training mat. It was moments like this. Helping Akari learn mana arts in a world that held her back and told her it couldn’t be done. Memorizing a pill recipe, and using it to save Relia’s life. Seeing the flaws in Koreldon University’s qualifying rounds and using that knowledge to forge a team from the chaos. Trusting Akari with his life, even when her plans defied all logic and reason.

These were the moments that defined him. These were the moments he lived for.

Kalden’s mouth moved on its own, and he spoke the words: “I train to propel my friends forward.”

He’d spoken these exact words before, but he hadn’t truly understood them. Before, Kalden had always imagined himself helping people in battle, succeeding as a result of his own training and skill. But this wasn’t about combat or tactics or strategy. This was about knowledge itself—about understanding people who’d lived lives he couldn’t imagine.

No sooner had the words left his mouth than power erupted through his soul like a breaking dam. It raced through his channels faster than thought, faster than light, transforming every cell in his body. This was nothing like the pain of his previous advancements. This was total clarity of mind and soul. 

His Cloak exploded outward, stretching a hundred yards in every direction. The world opened in ways he'd never imagined. He felt the flow of mana in the surrounding cars like rivers of light. He sensed the emotions of drivers they passed—frustration, boredom, anger, and peace. He felt the very energy in the air, and the potential in every molecule.

It was like he’d stumbled through life before this moment, making the same mistakes in an endless loop. He’d caught glimpses of mastery along the way, but he’d always fallen back toward the earth when he reached too high. 

Now, Kalden finally saw that loop as a tangible thing in his mind’s eye. More importantly, he had the clarity to step outside it and carve the path to victory.

He didn’t just feel the world with his battle mana, he understood it with mathematical precision. Irina’s car was traveling south by southeast at seventy-six miles per hour. Akari was traveling east at seventy-two miles. There were eighteen and a half miles between them, but the bond hadn’t broken. His own advancement had strengthened it, turning that fraying rope into a cable of steel.

Kalden felt her position in space as a tangible thing, and the path was as clear as words on a page.

Crimson Missiles flew from Kalden’s hands, flowing between himself and Irina. He forged a telepathic link between them, and that link extended to Elend and Glim. He shared his findings, and they moved as one force, all converging on a single point.

~~~

Power, Akari thought through her haze of ice. It always came back to that. Her soul craved power for its own sake, but power was just a ticking bomb that would destroy her and her friends.

‘No.’ Kalden’s voice was firm in her mind. ‘It’s not power . . . ’

An older memory flowed through their bond as he spoke. A memory of her and Kalden training together in his backyard. Akari saw her younger self through Kalden’s eyes, and the joy and determination on her face as she learned how to throw a proper punch.

She had no goals in that moment. She had no enemies or pain or grand causes. No reasons for power or personal advancement. Just the joy of training. To become the best version of herself, like her father said.

The right answer filled her like a sudden warmth, and it was impossible to say whether it came from her or Kalden. 

Not power . . . mastery.

Power and mastery seemed similar at first glance, but a vast canyon spanned the distance between those words. Mastery meant control over her emotions, whims, and desires. It wasn’t just power, it was the knowledge and wisdom to use that power in the ways that mattered most. It was the difference between a powerful technique and the mana artist who wielded it.

Akari smiled up at Nightfang and Trask, and her soul stirred in anticipation. 

“I train for mastery,” she said aloud. “Mastery for its own sake.”