Kalden rubbed the sleep from his eyes as they pulled into the fuel station. They’d driven for most of the night, only stopping to switch vehicles at the safe house.

  Arturo opened the driver-side door and began filling the car with a fresh supply of mana crystals. The station’s lights were almost blinding after spending so long in darkness, but Kalden squinted at the sign.

  “Novice-grade crystals: 4.53 cretens per pound.”

  Fuel-grade crystals on Arkala had been more than twice that price. Then again, a creten might be worth twice as much as a coppernote for all Kalden knew. He also spotted a higher price for Apprentice-grade crystals. What was the difference there? Did Apprentice crystals last longer? Were they only for certain cars?

  Still so much to learn about the outside world.

  Relia opened the passenger side door and headed inside the convenience store. She and Arturo had taken some rough hits during the fight, but they’d made a full recovery with her life mana. Meanwhile, Akari lay with her head on Kalden’s shoulder, squeezing his forearm with both hands. She’d been the way after she’d killed Frostblade—a curious blend of confidence and insecurity.

  Kalden thought he understood. Killing that Artisan had been necessary, and she’d done it to save Relia’s life. But it was one thing to understand that logically. It was much harder to escape the sense of wrongness that came with taking a life. Akari sought reassurance now—to remind herself she was more than just a killer.

  Then again, he could never truly understand Akari Zeller. Sometimes she would she’d act all shy and quiet, refusing to speak up or draw attention to herself. Other times, she would charge into battle with mana blazing, even against overwhelming odds.

  Her frame had felt so small when she’d first curled up beside him, but every inch of her was tense and shaking like a coiled spring. Kalden hadn’t said anything to reassure her. He’d just squeezed her shoulder and pulled her closer. It seemed to be the right choice, because she’d eventually relaxed and fallen asleep.

  Kalden might have dozed off once or twice, but he’d never been good at sleeping on the road. The recent fight hadn’t helped, and neither did the novelty of the sleeping girl on his shoulder.

  The car door opened as Relia returned to the front seat. “You two awake back there?”

  “Mm.” Akari muttered. “Is that coffee?”

  Relia removed a cup from the cardboard tray and passed it back. Akari perked up immediately, grabbing the cup and bringing it to her lips.

  A few minutes passed, then they all stretched their legs outside and gathered around the hood of the car. Relia also passed out some breakfast burritos, which turned out to be eggs and sausage wrapped in corn tortillas. Kalden had never eaten fuel station food before, but it was better than he’d expected. That seemed to be a theme with Cadrian food in general.

  They ate in silence while Arturo paced around the parking lot. He had a radio clipped to his belt, and pressed a headset to his ear.

  “Any news?” Relia asked when he came back.

  Arturo nodded as he tossed the radio through the car’s open window. “They took your dad to Tureko last night—straight to Zantano Tower . . .” He trailed off and gave Relia a chance to explain.

  She leaned against the car and took a good long breath. “You should know that Elend’s not really my dad. He’s my teacher.”

  “Okay. So why all the secrecy?”

  Relia shot a quick glance at Kalden and Akari, but neither of them objected. The dragons already knew about Elend, so the damage had been done. She glanced back at Arturo, “Because he’s a Grandmaster.”

  “Shit,” Artuto muttered under his breath. “I had my suspicions . . .”

  “What gave it away?” Kalden asked.

  “Aside from the kidnapping?” He gestured to his forehead. “These.”

  “The fake marks?”

  He nodded. “The Unmarked have a few dream artists, and they’ve been trying to make these for years. But they always look fake, or they run out of power . . . It’s always something. Then your teacher just snaps his fingers and makes these appear?”

  Well, that made sense. Not only had Elend made these marks with little effort, he didn’t even seem to realize how hard it should have been. Only the truly powerful were that out of touch.

  “Plus it converts my aspect into dream mana,” Arturo continued. “They last for weeks, and we can hide them at will? This must be like twenty Constructs in one. It’s like coding a whole computer program inside your brain, in less than ten seconds.” He seemed to mull something over, then his face brightened. “Does this mean Elend got captured on purpose?”

  “No.” Relia slumped her shoulders. “Pretty sure that part was real.” She went on to explain how Elend was stuck with a small portion of his total power. She didn’t mention the cuffs specifically, but that was for the best. The cuffs might invite more questions, like who had overpowered Elend in the first place, or where they’d been before Creta.

  “So what now?” Kalden asked.

  “We should head for Tureko,” Arturo said.

  “Tureko,” he repeated. “As in, the Dragonlord’s capital city?”

  “I know, I know. It sounds crazy, but the Unmarked control a full quarter of the city.”

  Akari furrowed her brow. “But the Dragonlord’s a Grandmaster. Can’t he just . . . rain fire from the sky and kill them all?”

  “It’s complicated,” Arturo said. “The Unmarked aren’t really rebels. The laws say we can’t be employed, go to school, or engage in trade, so we carved out part of the city for ourselves.”

  “Same question,” she said. “Why doesn’t he stop you?”

  “International laws,” Relia said. “Masters can’t attack weaker mana artists without a good reason. Same rules apply to warfare.”

  “Right.” Arturo shot Akari a strange look as if he’d expected her to know this. “The Grevandi are a loophole. They attack smaller towns, but they’re not strong enough to take on the Unmarked in open war. That makes it the safest place in Creta for you guys.”

  Kalden glanced at Relia for confirmation, but she only shrugged. “Okay, so why didn’t you bring Elend to Tureko in the first place?”

  “I tried,” Arturo said. “He insisted on San Talek. Guess it makes sense in hindsight. Zantano could sense a Grandmaster from five miles away.”

  Kalden’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?” He couldn’t imagine real mana arts working on that scale. Then again, he’d only seen Elend at a fraction of his power.

  “It’s true,” Relia said. “Masters can sense a lot more than we can. Comes with the territory.”

  So, Elend had played the safest odds, and he’d still lost.

  They spent the next few minutes hammering out a plan. Rather, they picked up the old plan where Elend had left off. They would find the Unmarked in Tureko, get access to a computer, and contact his wife, Irina.

  With any luck, she could get them out of this mess.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  ~~~

  They drove for several more hours, passing long stretches of jungle behind walls of protection mana. Apparently, Creta had its own version of Arkala’s Contested Area, complete with Apprentice-level raptors.

  “The raptors are nothing,” Arturo said as he drove down the highway. “It’s the jaguars you gotta watch out for. They’re all dream artists like Elend. They make themselves invisible, then they slit your throat before you can fight back.”

  Well, that ruled out hunting for money. Especially if they couldn’t rely on Relia to brute-force her way through fights.

  “My cousin got cornered by one,” Arturo continued. “Damn thing just paced back and forth, filling his head with more dream mana. He forgot how to fight, and how to move. Even forgot his own name.”

  “So what’d he do?” Akari asked.

  “He banged his machete against the tree until my other cousins found him. It was close, though. Thirty more seconds, and he would have passed out.”

  “So you’re from Creta,” Relia said from the front seat. “But you went to school in Koreldon?”

  Arturo nodded. “My parents escaped here when I was a kid. We lived in Vaslana till I was sixteen, then I got into the Artegium.”

  “Then why didn’t you recognize Elend?” she asked. “He teaches the second and third-years.”

  He grinned at her. “You’re assuming I studied combat.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “What’d you study?”

  “Double-majored in sigilcraft and manatronics.”

  Her eyes widened at that. “So you made all that tech you carry around?”

  “Some if it,” he said. “Not all of it. I applied to the combat program first, but they turned me down. Thought about going back next fall and trying again.”

  “Really? Three majors?”

  Arturo chuckled. “What can I say? I like school.”

  “Then why’d you come back to Creta?”

  He shrugged and tapped the steering wheel with his fingers. “Guess I wanted to prove that I could survive down here. Most of my family escaped on their own, but I was too young. Never really got the chance.”

  “I think you should re-apply to the combat program,” Relia said. “You’d be great at it!

  The conversation continued in the front seat, and Kalden and Akari shared a friendly eye-roll in the back.

  Arturo went on to describe the friends and family he’d left behind, then their talk shifted to world politics. Apparently, Mystics ruled most of the world’s superpowers, including Vaslana, Espiria and Shoken. And while those lands were technically democracies, the vote always came down to a small handful of Mystics in the end.

  Meanwhile, nations like Creta were far less static, and they had the best chance to tip the scales at a global level. Masters and Grandmasters couldn’t attack this land without declaring war, but they could still send weaker members of their family to fight on their behalf. People like Arturo.

  ~~~

  The jungles gave way to an urban skyline when they finally reached Tureko. The city sat on Vaslana’s eastern border, and a five-story mana wall marked the division, stretching across the horizon like a second sky.

  Elend had described Creta as a poor nation, but Tureko was the biggest city Kalden had ever seen. The skyscrapers stretched on for miles, even as the highway carried them through the suburbs and closer to the city proper.

  The highway ended at a barricade that looked like a converted toll booth, and another mana wall loomed behind it, far shorter than the border wall. A row of Apprentice-level guards stood on either side of the wall, dressed in sand-colored combat fatigues. Traffic flowed quickly through the other lanes, but the guards had pulled over a few cars for inspection.

  “Everyone hide your marks,” Arturo said as they approached. “These guards will call bullshit if I say they’re fake.”

  Kalden stopped cycling his mana. After half a year of training, it felt as unnatural as holding his breath.

  They drove through a massive scanner, but Kalden didn’t recognize the technology. It probably checked the car for other mana sources, making sure they weren’t smuggling in more people through the trunk.

  They rolled down the windows as a pair of guards approached. Arturo exchanged some words with the first man while the second made a lap around the car, checking their hands and foreheads.

  The guards gestured them through, and their route took them straight down the nearest offramp. Arturo explained how the highway had once extended to Unida’s territory, but now they’d barricaded the bridge over the river.

  The cars sat bumper-to-bumper on the streets, and crowds of people bustled through the sidewalks and intersections. Many buildings sat behind locked gates or mana walls, and armed soldiers stood on every block, giving the city an air of martial law.

  They stepped into the base three hours later. Arturo hadn’t been joking about their fake marks drawing attention. The group hadn’t believed them at first, and they’d brought their own dream artists to look over Elend’s work. Once they’d confirmed the marks were actual dream mana, they’d tried to reverse-engineer them.

  They seemed to think Elend was a genius, and this “project” was the result of his life’s work. Clearly, they’d never met a Grandmaster before. They didn’t realize how easy this was for him. Kalden and the others had tried explaining this, but that only piqued their interest further.

  “What else can he do?” the dream artists had asked. “How did he reach the Master realm?”

  Evidently, the Master realm was a big secret here in Creta. But of course it was; the Dragonlord couldn’t maintain control if everyone had an equal chance to advance. It was just like Kalden’s fellow Golds back on Arkala, hoarding all the secrets for themselves.

  Human nature never changed. Even with dragons.

  ~~~

  The Unmarked leader held court in the loft of an old apartment building. It was an open space with dozens of people working on computers and telephones, and the tall windows offered a view of the city skyline.

  Kalden spotted a middle-aged Artisan sitting behind a large wooden table at the room’s far end. Half a dozen Apprentices gathered around him.

  “That must be Kyzar,” Arturo said when they crested the staircase. “Good luck.”

  “You’re not coming with us?” Kalden asked.

  He shrugged. “This one’s on you, shoko. I’ve never met the guy.”

  “Great.” Kalden wove his way through the other desks, and Akari and Relia followed a few paces behind. Damnit. This was like his high school group projects all over again.

  “Ah,” a gravelly voice said. “You must be the foreigners.”

  Kalden whirled to see a dragon standing beside him. He looked just like the Grevandi they’d fought in Costa Liberta—the same green skin, the same reptilian eyes. Kalden took a step back, cycling his mana faster.

  The dragon gave him a frank look. “Relax, shoko. I’m not gonna eat you.”

  “Sorry.” Kalden forced himself to slow his breathing. “You just surprised me.”

  The dragon looked older than the Grevandi they’d faced—probably in his forties, at least. He wore a white linen suit, and a pair of black glasses hung from his shirt collar.

  “Not all Libertas hate our kind.” dragon gestured a clawed finger toward the window, and the Dragonlord’s golden tower. “That’s what my cousin wants you to think.”

  Kalden relaxed his shoulders. He was actually relieved to find dragons and humans on both sides of this conflict. He’d never liked the idea of fighting in a race war.

  “Now,” the dragon continued, “You must be Kalden, Akari, and Relia.”

  Kalden nodded and resisted the urge to check his Silver Sight. “You must be Kyzar.”

  “Nice save, shoko.” He smiled, showing his fangs. “Now onto business.” He paced toward the floor-to-ceiling window, turning his back to the skyline. “I know you came here with a Grandmaster named Elend Darklight. I know my cousins captured him and sent some Fangs after you.” He shot Akari a knowing look. “Nice one, by the way. Never met a Silver with your cojones.”

  Akari grinned back, standing a little taller. Clearly, she was done feeling guilty about that.

  Kyzar tapped his claws together, eying each of them in turn. “It’s a nice story. Question is, what do you want from me?”

  Kalden swallowed. “We need to get a message to Irina Darklight. She can pay you back if you help us.”

  “Got plenty of money, shoko.”

  Kalden blinked. He’d prepared for skepticism, but . . . plenty of money? His family had rubbed shoulders with the richest people on Arkala, and he’d they’d never made such a claim. Neither had anyone else Kalden knew “Irina Darklight will bring the Espirian military,” he said. “That’s trouble for the Dragonlord, and good news for you.”

  Kyzar waved a dismissive hand. “The Espirians will do whatever suits them. Maybe they’ll drop Missiles on the Dragonlord, or maybe they’ll hit me instead. Flip a coin. They’ll get their guy, but they don’t give a shit about us.”

  Kalden wished he could promise otherwise, but he knew next to nothing about Espirian politics. Relia knew more, but even she couldn’t make promises on their behalf. Instead, he asked the obvious question. “What do you want?”

  Kyzar turned to face the window again. “You see that river?”

  Kalden followed the dragon’s gaze to see a blue line snaking through the urban labyrinth. “The Motago?”

  He nodded. “It divides the city in two—separates our side from the Dragonlord’s. We have all the essentials here, but you can’t slice up a whole city and expect the pieces to work on their own. They sell things over there—weapons, medicine, and alchemy. Things we can’t buy without marks.”

  That explained his earlier comment. What good was money when you couldn’t spend it?

  “Smugglers are in high demand.” Kyzar eyed their foreheads. “And those marks are masterpieces. Quite literally.”

  “You don’t have your own smugglers?” Akari asked.

  “Of course we do, shokita. But business is slow, and strangers make the best smugglers.”

  Not to mention the most disposable.

  Kyzar shrugged and spread out his hands. “Unless you can offer me something better?”

  Kalden considered that for a moment. Relia’s life mana seemed far stronger than restoration mana, and she might be able to heal something they couldn’t. Kalden was also a skilled alchemist. Maybe he could make the medicine and pills they needed?

  Then again, Kyzar’s territory had more people than Tidegate and Ironhaven combined. There could be hundreds of alchemists here, all more skilled and experienced than Kalden. As for Relia, even the locals in Costa Liberta hadn’t needed her help.

  He glanced back at his friends. Relia looked anxious about something, but she’d looked that way ever since Elend was captured. Akari just shrugged as if they were deciding where to go for lunch.

  “Alright.” He turned back to the dragon. “Let’s talk specifics.”

  “Later,” Kyzar said. “I’m busy, and you all look like shit. Even for humans. I’ll get you some food and lodging, then we’ll hammer out the details tomorrow.”

  “Fair enough.” Kalden chafed at the delay, but he’d much rather negotiate after a good night’s sleep. Kyzar was actually doing them a favor in that regard.

  “Excellent.” The dragon stepped forward and held out a clawed hand. “In the meantime, welcome to the Unmarked.”