Re-Awakening: I Ascend with a Legendary class

Chapter 820: The Last Day

Nobody on the Shelf slept late.

There was too much to do, and only one day to do it in. By the time the sun was fully up, the whole camp was moving.

Kayla had finally let Almond stand. She had not been happy about it.

"If you fight anyone else before tomorrow," she said, "I will put you back on the ground myself."

"I believe you," Almond said.

"Good."

Kael was sitting on a rock nearby with fresh bandages around his ribs. He raised a hand without getting up.

"I’d like it noted that I’m being a very good patient," he said.

"You can’t stand up," Kayla said. "That’s not the same thing."

Theo and Paloma found Almond a little before noon.

They had been awake all night, sending word back and forth across the layer. Theo had a list in his hand and dark rings under his eyes.

"The other eight are coming," he said. "All of the ten. Nobody wants to go first, and nobody wants to go last, so they’ve agreed to cross over the next few days. One after another."

"And us?"

"You said dawn. They’ve left dawn to you." Paloma smiled tiredly. "I think they’re relieved. Somebody else gets to find out what’s on the other side."

Almond nodded. Then he asked the question he had been dreading.

"Veruhn and Ondrast?"

Theo looked down at his list. He did not need to. He already knew.

"Neither of them made the ten," he said. "Solmire didn’t either. They held their ground for four days and they lost a great many people doing it, but they weren’t in the ten."

Almond was quiet.

They were allies. Veruhn had sent its friendship with no conditions at all, thirty-seven years ago. Ondrast had stood beside Regalon in more events than he could count.

"They’re on their way here," Paloma said gently. "They wanted to see you off."

They arrived in the afternoon.

Zauna and Christina walked them in. There were three small groups, one from each kingdom. They were tired and bandaged, and they looked up at the great door at the end of the canyon for a long moment before they looked at anyone else.

The envoy from Veruhn was an old woman with a soldier’s back. She took Almond’s hand in both of hers.

"Don’t you dare apologize," she said, before he could open his mouth. "I can see it on your face. We didn’t come here for that."

"We’re leaving you behind," Almond said.

"You’re going ahead," she said. "That isn’t the same. Somebody has to."

Almond did not answer. He turned and walked to the edge of the canyon, where Ainen’s bowl still sat on the warm stone.

Ainen was already there. He looked up as Almond came over.

"You want to ask it something," Ainen said.

"Can you?"

"It’s my guest. I can ask it anything." Ainen put his palm flat on the stone. "Go on."

Almond looked down into the dark of the canyon.

"The door," he said. "You told us it would stay open. For how long? Is it only for the ten?"

For a moment there was nothing. Then the stone under Ainen’s hand grew warmer, and the gatekeeper’s voice came up through the ground. It was quiet this time, and only the people at the canyon’s edge could hear it.

"The door was never meant to be shut," it said. "It stood closed only because no one had ever reached me. Now someone has. The door stays open."

"For anyone?" Almond asked.

"For anyone who reaches me. The ceiling is still the ceiling. I cannot lift them to it. But I will not close the door on anyone who climbs."

The old woman from Veruhn had come up behind them. She had heard every word.

She let out a slow breath, and her soldier’s back straightened a little more.

"Well," she said. "Then you’d better leave a light on for us."

Almond finally smiled.

"We will," he said. "I promise."

King Corvin of Frosthold arrived an hour later.

He came alone, wrapped in white furs, and walked through the Regalon camp as if he owned it. He stopped in front of John, who was lying on his back on Terravax’s shell with his hands behind his head.

"Little John," Corvin said.

"Corvin." John did not open his eyes. "How’s tenth place?"

Corvin’s eye twitched.

"We bled for four days at a primary convergence point," he said. "You sat on a shelf."

"I sat on a shelf and finished fourth. You want to talk about it?"

"I do not."

"I could have a plaque made."

"I will freeze this entire canyon," Corvin said.

John finally opened his eyes. He sat up and looked at the old king for a moment, and the grin faded into something more honest.

"You held your point," he said. "Nobody else could have held that one. I know what it cost."

Corvin was silent. Then he gave one short, stiff nod.

"I’ll see you on the other side," he said. "Try not to embarrass the layer before I get there."

"No promises," John said.

The pocket world took the longest.

It had been the family’s home since they first reached the upper layer. The Virion Iridant Tree stood at the center of it, its canopy wide enough to shade every table they had ever set.

Marcus stood under it with a list of his own.

"The gatekeeper said what we carry through, we keep," he said. "I asked Ainen to check. That includes this place. The whole pocket world goes with the kingdom, as long as the kingdom is the one carrying it."

"All of it?" Natalia asked. "The tree too?"

"The tree too."

Natalia looked up at the canopy. Light fell through it in a hundred colors, the way it always had.

"Good," she said. "I wasn’t leaving without the tree."

Big D walked the whole pocket world that afternoon. He did it alone, and nobody asked him why. He walked past the long tables and the training fields. He walked past the stone at the edge of the fields where four hundred and twelve new names were being cut, one at a time, by anyone who wanted to hold the chisel.

He stopped there for a while.

Silvester was on his feet again, leaning on Hiroshi. He had cut three of the names himself.

"You’re not going to make a speech?" Silvester asked.

"No," Big D said.

"Good. You’re bad at them."

Big D grunted. It was almost a laugh. He rested one hand on the top of the stone for a moment, and then he moved on.

The Empress of Skytheum came at sunset.

Nobody announced her. She walked into the camp with Vess beside her and no guards at all. She was a tall woman in plain gray travel clothes, with a pack on her back like any soldier.

She stopped in front of Almond and Lily and looked at them for a long time.

"You answered in ten seconds," she said. "Vess told me. I spent thirty-seven years deciding whether to ask."

"It wasn’t a hard question," Lily said.

"No. It only felt like one." The Empress looked past them, at the door. "I have been first on this layer for a very long time. I was always sure of myself. Then I would look at the ceiling and wonder what was past it, and I was not sure at all."

"We’re not sure either," Almond said.

"I know. That is why I wanted to go with you." Her mouth turned up a little at one corner. "It is easier to be afraid of something beside people who admit that they are."

She turned to Kael, who had gotten to his feet when she arrived. He was standing very straight, and trying to look as if his ribs did not hurt.

"I hear you lost," she said.

"I did."

"How was it?"

Kael thought about it.

"Best fight of my life," he said.

The Empress nodded as if that was exactly the answer she had hoped for.

Ainen cooked one last meal on the Shelf.

When it was done, he carried a bowl to the edge of the canyon and set it down. This time he sat down beside it and waited.

"I don’t know if I’ll be able to feed you from the other side," he said. "I’d like to. If there’s a way, I’ll find it."

The stone grew warm under him.

"Host," the gatekeeper said softly. "You fed me when I was starving. I do not forget a table."

Ainen swallowed. He nodded.

"There is one thing I may tell you," the gatekeeper went on. "Only one. The door does not judge. But the crossing has weight."

"Weight?"

"I asked each of you what you would carry. In the crossing, you will carry it. All of it. Your crew. Your kitchen. Your people." The voice paused. "Most who reach me would carry very little. A crown. A name. Themselves."

Ainen felt his stomach go cold.

"Almond said everyone."

"Yes," the gatekeeper said. "He did. It will be very heavy. Tell him that I said so, and tell him this as well. I did not make the crossing to stop him. I made it so that he would know what his answer costs."

The bowl was empty when Ainen looked down.

He sat there a moment longer. Then he got up and went to find Almond.

Almond listened to all of it without a word.

He was sitting with Lily at the edge of the Shelf, in the same place they had sat the night before. When Ainen finished, Almond looked at the door for a while.

"Every one of them," he said. "On my back."

"That’s what it said."

"How many are we now?"

"Counting everyone who carries the name?" Ainen shook his head. "Marcus would know. More than I can count."

Lily had not said anything yet. She was watching Almond’s face.

"You could change the answer," Ainen said carefully. "Nobody would know. Nobody would blame you."

"I would know," Almond said.

He stood up. His ribs still ached. He looked back at the camp, at all the fires and all the people around them, awake and talking on their last night on the layer.

"Don’t tell them," he said. "Not tonight. Let them have tonight."

"And tomorrow?" Lily asked.

Almond let out a breath.

"Tomorrow I find out how strong I really am," he said.

Lily stood up beside him. She took his hand and held it tightly.

She did not tell him what she was thinking. She would save that for the crossing.