CHAPTER 21: CLIMBING FOR POWER 3

At some point, the wind turned vicious.

[Where the fuck did these handholds go?]

Aegis’s fingers scraped stone, searching. The seams between blocks had narrowed to nothing. Her fingertips burned.

[Can’t see... shit!]

Darkness pressed in. The academy lights had faded to the point where it felt like Aegis had stars above and stars below. She was pretty much hanging from the side of a skyscraper with nowhere to go but up.

She shifted left. Her right foot slipped.

"AH!"

For three heartbeats, she dangled by her fingertips alone.

[DON’T PANIC.] She breathed in deep, staring up at her objective. [You made it this far. You can make it a little...]

Her foot found purchase. Barely. A ridge maybe a quarter-inch wide.

[This is getting stupid.]

No. This had been stupid from the start. Now it was getting suicidal.

The wind slammed her sideways. Her body swung out from the wall. Physics demanded she fall.

Aegis gritted her teeth.

[Not today, bitch. Not today!]

She pulled herself back, muscles screaming. Her Power 6 body had nothing left. Running on pure spite now.

She planted her head against the cold stone.

[Just like the hospital.]

The memory hit her hard. Three years in that bed. Watching her muscles waste away. Begging nurses to help her stand just so she could pretend she wasn’t dying.

[At least then I had an excuse.]

Another handhold. Had to be. She reached up, fingers raw. Found a crack barely wide enough for her nails.

[Good enough.]

She pulled. Her shoulder made a sound that shoulders probably shouldn’t make. Didn’t matter. She had to keep going.

[Twenty more feet. Maybe thirty.]

The tower seemed infinite. Every foot gained revealed ten more.

She climbed. One bleeding hand over another. Her uniform was shredded. She would absolutely have to get a new one.

[Remember what it felt like? Watching everyone else live?]

Nurses chatting about their weekends. Doctors discussing vacation plans. Life happening everywhere except her room.

[Never again.]

Her left hand slipped. She caught herself with her right. Hung there, gasping.

[I’m not going back to that.]

Back to being helpless. Back to flirting because it was her only power. Back to—

[MOVE.]

She hauled herself up. Found another hold. Another. The pain faded to white noise.

[I chose this. And I’m going to fucking make it.]

The wind died suddenly. She looked up. A ledge. An actual ledge, not just another fingernail-width ridge.

[Ten more feet.]

She climbed faster. Sloppy. Desperate. Her hand slipped twice but she didn’t care. The ledge grew closer.

[Five feet.]

Her legs shook. Her arms were dead weight. She climbed with willpower alone.

[Three feet.]

She could see over the edge. A flat surface. The meditation platform.

[One more pull.]

She reached up. Grabbed the ledge. Hauled herself up with everything she had left.

There, with the moon hanging over her like a spotlight, her torso cleared the edge. She kicked, scrambled, and rolled onto solid ground.

[Holy shit.]

She lay there gasping. Staring at stars that seemed close enough to touch. Her whole body was one giant bruise.

[I did it. I actually fucking did it.]

She tried to laugh. It came out as a wheeze. Everything hurt. Everything was perfect.

[Take that, Power requirement.]

She pushed herself to her knees. The meditation platform stretched before her. Smooth stone inscribed with glowing runes. The air itself shimmered with concentrated mana. Or aether, rather.

But...

She wasn’t alone.

Standing just a short distance away, up ahead, was a woman. Not just any woman, but a woman whose face Aegis knew well. After all, she’d seen it a couple of nights ago.

[That’s...]

The woman, who was dressed in robes that looked like they were dripping moonlight and had a seemingly transparent body, turned and looked back at Aegis. Their eyes met.

The words left Aegis’s lips on their own.

"Queen Rosanna."

---

{Lune}

Lune stood by her window, watching. The night was beautiful out, with a cloudless, star-ridden sky and lantern lights painting the city in colorful shades. But, it wasn’t the city she was looking at.

No, for the past hour or so, her eyes had been fixed on the tiny white speck that had been making her way up the side of the Sky Piercer.

"Hm..." Lune finally took her eyes off her tiny, ant-like form once she finally disappeared into the top room. "She made it."

In front of her, Lune’s canvas showed that woman, that girl she was slowly getting to know, in a desperate struggle against her own limits. One foot after another, Aegis’s image on Lune’s canvas moved up the tower, with a determined face and a dire drop behind her. One wrong move, one incorrect mild shift, and her time at this academy (and, well, her whole life) would end.

This piece would probably be done before she got here. Another to add to the collection of interesting choices Aegis was making that were already beginning to form a sizeable pile.

With one last stroke that draped the moon over Aegis’s back, Lune was done.

The living image she’d crafted was, objectively, beautiful. And yet, the biggest question remained unanswered in Lune’s mind:

Did it make Lune feel?

[... I do not know.]

Lune got up and walked over to Aegis’s bed. The girl’s warmth was still there, still tangible in the sheets she wrapped herself in last night. Lune ran her hand up and down it, taking that warmth in, thinking to herself:

So far, what was the closest she’d gotten to feeling?

[Well... It was probably...]

Her face heated up just a bit as she thought back to when Aegis watched her put on her uniform.

"..." Lune looked away, taking her hand off Aegis’s bed. "Embarrassing."

She took a few steps and promptly flopped back onto her bed. With a gesture, her canvas began levitating and tucked itself beneath her bed.

Aegis’s determined face was all Lune could see as she closed her eyes.

[Please,] Lune thought, exhaling softly. [Continue showing me interesting things, Aegis.]