Elias let the horse settle back to a normal pace. He had proven he could affect the immediate environment. Now, for the real test: the Rune of Displacement.
The Test of Displacement
He kept one hand discreetly resting on his thigh, feeling the outline of the forbidden scroll beneath his tunic. He had only been able to copy the first four strokes of the Rune—the foundational scripts that govern the concept of location transfer across short distances.
His goal was not to displace himself, which would require massive Aether reserves and an absolute mastery he didn't possess, but to displace a small, inconsequential object to ensure his translation of the copied script was correct.
He focused on a smooth river stone lying in the dust about five feet ahead of Kaelin's horse.
He visualized the stone's entire governing script: the Runes of Matter, Gravity, and Location. He began to chant the four strokes of the Displacement Rune in his mind, channeling his Aether Ink into the focus point in his palm.
The process was agonizing. The chaotic, powerful scripts fought his intent. His vision swam, and the air around the stone briefly warped, like heat rising from the ground. He could feel the resistance of the established law: The stone is here. It must remain here.
Elias pressed his mind harder, pushing his last remaining reserves. He wasn't rewriting the law of the Realm; he was forcing a tiny, localized sub-Realm where the law of location was suspended.
Shift.
The river stone vanished. Not with a puff of smoke or a flash of light, but a complete, silent, and instantaneous removal from its spot.
Elias gasped, his face paling. He'd done it. The mental drain was immense, but the stone had moved.
"What was that?" Kaelin demanded, reining in her horse and drawing her short-sword halfway from its sheath. Her Reaction Time Rune was flaring in Elias's sight. "Did you see that? Something moved near the dust."
"The heat distortion, perhaps?" Elias choked out, trying to stabilize his breathing. "This Realm is heavily scripted with Heat Absorption Runes in the rock—it can create visual mirages."
Kaelin stared hard at the empty spot where the stone had been, then at Elias's unnaturally pale face. She narrowed her eyes. "Mirages don't leave perfectly round indentations in the dirt, Scribe. And you're sweating like you just ran five miles."
Elias knew he couldn't keep lying about the effort, so he fell back on the truth that was socially acceptable. "I… I have been suffering from a rare Aetheric fever since the Audit was called. The Runes of the wild are unsettling my core energy."
Kaelin studied him for another long moment. She didn't look convinced, but she seemed to accept the possibility of a minor Scribe illness. She slid the sword back into its sheath. "Keep your fevers quiet, Scribe. Or I'll leave you to the vultures."
She dug her heels in, and they continued the journey, but the tension had intensified tenfold. Elias had confirmed two things: he could rewrite the law, but doing so drained him completely, and his protector was now thoroughly suspicious.
The ambush came just as the path narrowed, forcing them into a shallow ravine shielded on both sides by low, mossy hills—a place where the Rune of Concealment was naturally stronger, hindering Kaelin's visual range.
Four figures detached themselves from the shadows of the ravine's crest. They were rough men, clearly mercenaries, but their clothes were accented with pieces of cheap, dull metal that pulsed with a familiar, low-grade Aether. Varrick hadn't just hired thugs; he had hired Enforcers.
"The Scribe," the leader yelled, his voice echoing in the ravine. "Stop and surrender the package, and the woman walks free."
Kaelin didn't hesitate. She threw herself off her horse before it had stopped, simultaneously drawing her short-sword and pushing Elias's horse away from the fight. "Ride, Scribe! They want the law, not your life!"
Kaelin charged directly into the fray. Her movements were a blur of coordinated scripts—the Rune of Momentum on her boots translated into explosive speed, and the Rune of Deflection on her leather armor shimmered as it turned aside the first wild slash from an Enforcer.
Elias, still astride his horse, was paralyzed not by fear, but by the sight of the Force Runes on the Enforcers. They were crude copies of higher-level combat scripts, allowing the mercenaries to swing heavy iron axes with inhuman strength. This wasn't a fair fight; Kaelin was fighting against physical law itself.
Kaelin managed to take down one Enforcer with a clean strike, but the leader, empowered by the Force Runes, landed a brutal backhand that sent her stumbling into the ravine wall, momentarily stunning her.
"The horse!" the leader barked. Two Enforcers broke off and ran toward Elias, their boots churning up dust, their Runes glowing bright red.
Elias knew he had seconds. Kaelin was down. He couldn't outrun them, and his Aether Ink was nearly depleted. He couldn't perform a Displacement, and he certainly couldn't rewrite a complex combat Rune.
But he could rewrite the Rune of Force itself.
He slid off his horse, dropping his reins. He ignored the two charging Enforcers and focused his entire being on the Rune of Force that Varrick's lackeys had crudely etched onto their armor and weapons.
He didn't target the men. He targeted the script.
He plunged his mental focus directly into the active, localized Rune of Force governing the ravine, isolating the scripts that Varrick's agents were drawing their strength from. He didn't have the power to erase the Rune of Force, but he could do something simpler, something chaotic and disruptive.
With a final, desperate surge of his Aether Ink, Elias achieved the one thing he had been trained his entire life not to do: he deliberately introduced a single, contradictory stroke—a stroke of Inverse Inertia—into the active Rune.
The effect was instantaneous and disastrous for the Enforcers.
The Rune of Force, unable to process the contradictory script, reversed its function.
The men charging Elias suddenly found their massive strength turned against them. Their iron weapons became impossibly heavy. The leader who was about to strike Kaelin let out a strangled cry as his ax fell from his suddenly leaden hand and clattered to the ground. The two Enforcers running toward Elias slammed to an immediate, dead stop, their own Runes of Momentum fighting the sudden, overwhelming counter-force.
The chaotic disruption lasted only three seconds before the Realm's natural stability Runes purged Elias's illegal insertion, but three seconds was all Kaelin needed.
She used the moment of confusion to snatch up her fallen short-sword. With the heavy weight of the Rune of Force removed from her opponent, her own Rune of Reaction Time allowed her to move like lightning. She swept her blade, leaving two of the mercenaries groaning on the ground. The leader, recovering from the shock, turned to flee.
"No!" Kaelin roared. She threw her sword, still charged with Momentum, and it pinned the leader's tunic to the ravine wall.
Kaelin turned back, her chest heaving, her eyes wild with the lingering intensity of combat. She looked at Elias, who was leaning against his horse, pale and shaking, and then at the three incapacitated Enforcers, their weapons scattered uselessly.
"They went stone-dead right before I struck," Kaelin observed, her voice low and dangerous. She walked slowly toward Elias, pulling the short-sword free from the wall, her gaze never leaving his face. "One second, they're empowered by the heaviest scripts Varrick can buy. The next, they're weaker than babes."
She stopped directly in front of him, her sharp gaze piercing through the facade of the weak Scribe.
"You're not sick, Thorne," she whispered, her voice laced with sudden, cold realization. "And you didn't just copy the law back in Veridia. You're not a Scribe. You're a Rewriter."
Elias swallowed, the copper taste of expended Aether Ink still heavy on his tongue. He looked at the chaos he had wrought, the dead Enforcers, and the deeply suspicious eyes of his only ally. He knew there was no going back.
"They were sent by Varrick to stop me from reaching the Audit," Elias admitted, pushing himself upright. "And if you turn me in now, Kaelin, you'll be the next one targeted by the Archivists."
Kaelin looked at the road ahead, then at the ravine behind them. She sheathed her sword with a metallic shing that sounded final.
"The price just went up, Scribe," she said, her expression hardening. "I'm taking you to the Central Repository. But from here on, you tell me every Rune you intend to break, or I break you myself."
End of Chapter 2