The Mirrored City Read Online Free Page A

me,” Maddox said. “Then run.”
    “Please, let’s get inside,” Lawrence said.
    Maddox flung his hand and tossed the young hustler farther back in the alley. It was not time to be gentle. Maddox drew the bastard sword, a gleaming blade of ancient alloy and theurgy, and leveled it at the shambling horror in front of him, sobered by the thrill of battle.
    He twirled the Sword in an elaborate flourish inspired by the dueling stances of the Mirrored City. “Yeah. That’s the business. Come at me, freak.”
    The hooded monstrosity dropped to its hands and proceeded to gallop on all fours at full speed toward Maddox. He threw out his hand and hurled a blast of telekinetic force that staggered the creature. Maddox was a mage of unprecedented power by the current era’s standards, and the Sword gave him over two thousand years of collective battle experience.
    One of the hooded faces roared, and the thing vanished. “The fuck?” Maddox scratched his head.
    Before he could formulate a hypothesis, he felt something slam into his back, breaking ribs and sinking deep into his chest cavity. His heart seized before being ripped from his body. The pain was unimaginable, but he lost consciousness before he hit the ground. His last fleeting impression as he fell into darkness was the screams of Lawrence.
    It was not a good way to die.

    Maddox opened his eyes.
    He felt dull and empty. The Sword was gone, and life felt like a pointless brutal torture. He was on his back, head turned toward a wall, atop a slab in some kind of workshop. His mind recognized the trappings of necromancy—the bones, the anatomical diagrams, the skeletal cat pantomiming the motions of cleaning its butt atop a pile of books. He was naked, but that was not unusual.
    “Sword,” Maddox said.
    “Fucking shit!” a Volkovian man’s voice exclaimed as a chair toppled over, clattering to the floor.
    “Sword.”
    “By the Ancestors,” whoever was standing behind Maddox said.
    “Sword.”
    He felt a meaty hand grab his chin and turn his face the other direction. He didn’t resist.
    A middle-aged man stood above the slab, gawping. “You’re… alive.” He pressed his hands against Maddox’s naked chest where the monster had eviscerated him. He had two tattoos on his chest, the Seal of Movement, which was black ink, and the Seal of Vitae, which was golden and metallic.
    “Sword.”
    “I am Isik. What is your name?”
    Maddox hesitated. “Sword.”
    “Yes, yes. You had a sword,” the man stammered.
    The words were a struggle to string together. “Give… me… my… Sword.”
    “I will in a moment. It’s over there. First, I need to examine you.” He stared at Maddox’s face. “There was so much death in your eyes…”
    With a monumental effort of will, Maddox turned his head. He had no energy to do anything. He spotted the Sword on a workbench and willed it to his hand, causing Isik to jump out of the way. He sighed with relief as Sword bonded to his broken mind.
    Maddox blinked. “Was another body found with me?”
    Isik’s eyes went wide in surprise.
    “I’m immortal,” Maddox explained. “My Seal of Vitae is a temporal anchor to the exact moment I inscribed it. Any time I die, I come back at the same time every day as if no time had passed for me physically. This is far beyond anything this world is ready for, so I would appreciate if you could keep this discreet. Isik, I’m guessing by your robes and that medallion you wear that you’re the coroner?”
    “I am,” Isik said. “But holy shit. You are alive. Your insides were a mess.”
    “Forget about me. Was another man with me or near me? Any traces of unidentified blood? What about witness reports?”
    Isik shook his head. “It was just you in the alley. What in the Ancestor’s name happened to you?”
    “Your investigation is closed,” Heath’s voice called from the doorway. “Clearly the reports exaggerated the extent of my friend’s injuries. However, this is a