10

“Much better,” Zekiel’s voice reassured, patting him on the back. “Not sure what you’ve got going on over here, but I hope you’re okay.”

“Thanks.” Vander tried to maintain his posture, but he was totally spent. No matter how hard he commanded his body, it refused to listen to him as he teetered backwards to lay sprawled out on the ground. “That sucked.”

Adrian and Zekiel both laughed. They shared a knowing look before Zekiel waved farewell and left the camp. Where he went, Vander could only guess. Were it not for his warning, Vander probably would’ve made a critical mistake and left his magic underdeveloped. The thought he might’ve set himself back in his training made him shake his head and turn towards Adrian.

“What next?”

“Ambitious, I see.” The duke rose from where he’d sat the whole time next to Vander and stretched his arms over his head. “Focus on recovering your mana through the breathing technique and meditation for now. Shouldn’t take too long before you completely fill your mana storage, but that’s only just the start. When you get your mana storage up, then we’ll talk about what comes next.”

Like a berated child, Vander flinched at Adrian’s tone. Boiling indignation bubbled in his guts as he thought of the scroll, so near and yet so far for so long. Just how powerful would Vander be at that moment if the man hadn’t tried to decide fate by himself? Just how long had Vander truly wasted?

Burning a hole in his chest, his beating heart wouldn’t still. No matter how much he thought about what had happened and how things played out, the situation wouldn’t change. He was a beginner magic user when he could’ve had an additional decade or so under his belt. No matter how much that pissed him off, the only thing he could do was to train and make up for lost time.

Aches and pains shot through his limbs and spine. A pressure grew behind his eyes and hammered like drums in his skull, a thousand horses thundered and stampeded. No amount of focus relieved it, nor would rest, breathing, food, water, or any of the other things he could try to relieve the familiar yet foreign pressure.

After a wasted hour, he sat back down at the boundary of the camp and took the same form as he’d maintained overnight. Knees crossed, back straight, neck stiff and straight. Vander breathed in, his position infallible, and the mana coursed through his circulation. Pin pricks stabbed like needles in the back of his eyes and across his skin, but not in the way he’d experienced the night before.

This feeling begat disgust. Waves and waves of stings erupted across his skin like a hive of ants crawling, biting, and ripping pieces of him away. An itchiness like he’d never experienced broke his concentration. He gasped, a cold sweat sticking across his entire being and labored breaths inhibiting any chance of recovering more mana.

“What is this feeling?” he asked nobody in particular.

“It’ll pass,” Dom’s gruff voice called from where he’d appeared beside him. “Should’ve seen Zekiel back in the day when he first joined as a single bar. Dying to prove himself and working hard enough to die, every day without rest.”

“So?”

Dom grinned and patted Vander’s back with his grubby bear paws. Whatever breath he’d recovered took its leave then. “Mana Depletion, boyo. You may have refilled that storage of yours, but it’s not something that’ll pass in a couple hours. Don’t deplete your storage from here on out if you want to keep your life. Got that?”

Vander nodded and turned an inquisitive gaze his way. “Why are you telling me this though? And how do you know? You don’t appear to use magic.”

“And you’d know that how, boy?” Dom flicked him in the forehead. “You, who only awakened magic less than a day ago, think you’d be able to See?”

“Hopefully?” Another presence appeared next to him and drew his attention from Dom.

Vanessa had donned form fitting shorts with customized straps to hold a belt with an eclectic variety of knives. Thin with a single edge. Triangular and thick. Looped holes in the back. The vials on her hips didn’t clink, the belt holding perfect sized slots to keep them in place without clinking and clacking, disturbing, or damaging either the bottles or goods.

Crushed powders and liquids and mixes he couldn’t identify. To hazard a guess, all different types of poisons she applied through the collection of knives. Made sense when he considered the portable, easy to apply containers and her massive arbalest.

Even her top looked both professional yet more comfortable then the day before. A loose fitting cotton shirt with a low hanging neckline that fitted in just the right ways, accentuating the curves while not clinging too closely.

“Lassy, leave him be to train for now,” Dom ordered from behind Vander, but the mischievous glint in her eyes said she’d be doing anything but. “Ness, your compulsion to bewitch each and every new man with any semblance of talent is beneath your skills, and he’s one of us now. So mind our rules, why don’t you.”

“Of course, boss!” The brute of a man gave Vander a pitying look and left the camp opposite to where Zekiel departed. Now nothing distracted her from him, Vanessa focused her full attention on Vander. “Sleep well last night?” She twirled her loose brow locks, yet to be tamed back into a ponytail. “I know I did.”

He ignored her and closed his eyes. There were too many things to do and not enough time. His dad would be leaving. Now that Vander had awakened his magic, he regretted the announced departure more than he thought he would. The experience the old man had and guidance he could provide had been invaluable in helping him, even if there hadn’t been much progress.

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“Don’t be like that.” Her lips brushed against his neck, and the warmth of her breath tickled down his nape. He hadn’t heard or felt her move at all, but her hands rested against either side of his chest. The left side over his heart captured her gaze as her amber eyes sparkled with magic. The feeling of disgust and stinging and itchiness dissipated ever so briefly. “Dismissing people before you’re aware of their capabilities or potential is a practice of the blind and ignorant. Is that the kind of person you are?”

Is that the kind of person you are? he echoed. Is that… the kind of person you are? His mind, body, and soul stilled—absolutely. The kind of person you are is what? Who are you? I can’t tell anymore. What makes someone who they are but their memories? This body is not mine but Artemis’. His soul has been taken, that is certain. This mind… It is broken. The memories of Artemis and Vander are past lives, not necessarily identities. But this soul… Who are you?

Reeling from the question that shook the core of his existence, he only barely felt the flash of heat her fingers caused to ripple across his body and the relief of that heat and her sudden proximity. Vander tensed to stop himself from acting on instinct, from breaking to pieces like he’d wanted to for so long. The explosive violence he contained, his hard and trained body warring against his mind, tense for several long seconds as Vanessa did as she so pleased, trailing her fingers in a phantom promise of something so much more, much greater.

Enraptured, she didn’t see the looming threat, the violence he so wished to release. That brief flash of something so succulent yet even more poisonous. A four letter word that rhymed with rope, a noose to hang oneself with. A feeling he’d thought to be locked away and banished from his being entirely and without shame or resentment. But no.

Memories warred in his mind, the thought of Madison and what could have been. A deep regret and sadness that pervaded every part of his being and the knowledge that he’d lived this life quietly, unable to accept so many things. Like driftwood, he’d floated along. But the awakening from the day before had cleansed his mind—as if removing some hidden affliction. The clarity in which the world appeared before him and of his thoughts made his heart break even deeper, almost desiring that ignorant fugue over the blinding pain of knowing.

But there was no covering up the truth once revealed, and he’d seen and heard loud and clear just how much he’d drunk in the simplistic desires this world and its gods had offered, squandering his second chance to be who he’d always wanted to be. A free man. So much so that he’d willingly forgotten or ran from the inescapable truth of his being. The brief moments where Madison had put aside the duality of their contrasting, ever-conflicting beliefs and reached out a brilliant hope, a guiding light of happiness and love and freedom time and time again.

Yet he had refused each and every time without fail. Her life and innocence and the need to preserve that had always outweighed his willingness to risk all of it for either of them, to threaten that thing of purity and drink in the succulent poison willingly, ever so desired.

The truth, painful and destructive, broke his will and left him but a shell. Even so, he leaned into Vanessa as she touched him, closing his eyes and just stayed there. Her touch, softer than velvet, reminded him of the gentleness he’d only received from one other person—the love of his past life that no longer existed within this world.

Acknowledging something as truth was one thing, but the engraved aches of Vander’s soul hadn’t faded. Not even close. The aches of memories of a time and place that would never exist again snapped like chords of a harp, the melody melancholic and lost to time immemorial. A sad song known by the broken. This world, a chance for a new being and to live his life free, offered the same bittersweet symphony and succulent poison.

Vander would call himself many things, but a fool wasn’t one. From his youth, this life had made sure to remove the delusion of grandeur, to reinforce that the succulence of his desires were still poison, to never forget that most important lesson. To drink the succulence was to suffer, to accept the poison and pain it would cause.

Memory fragments of his predecessor, of so many lives lived in this world where Vander now resided, recaptured the atrocities, the results of even simply attempting to quench the insufferable thirst caused by an endless drought. Blood and pain, violence and mutilation. Endless suffering, all for just a drop.

All at the hands of one god. All that pain and suffering his predecessor suffered, one god’s doing. And that god wished to strike against Vander and take away his second chance—already had, in fact. Twice.

The cruelty and relentless nature of that god’s doctrine displayed in the memory fragments left behind would never fade nor forgive or forget. The recaptured tellings of Artemis’ loved ones suffering by the hands of the Zealots, death inevitable but merciful at the end of it all, proof enough. But Vander had spent his last life afraid of such a thing and regretted never opening his heart and accepting Madison, of letting her become his and him hers.

Hope, something so brilliant yet so destructive. A power that could move mountains, save worlds, overturn oceans, and cause so much pain. Aches and pain of hoping. Again and again, he’d hoped and fought and screamed in the aftermath. Again and again, until crushing defeat suppressed his soul. He’d lived as they’d died, each and every time. He’d fought when they’d been crushed, each and every time.

Almost as if the world were against him, Vander suffered when he dared drink from the poisoned cup that was hope. As they always had, they always would—

“Hey,” Vanessa called. Pretty amber eyes stared back at him. Soft and delicate yet firm fingers brushed against the side of his face and forced his focus towards her rather than the turmoil broiling his mind. All playfulness she’d displayed from before, the leaning forward to reveal her cleavage and the lilt in her forced pitch, disappeared. This close, the smell of her scent, like cinnamon and spice, intoxicated his mind. “Where’d you go?”

He stared back, empty eyed and distant. A conclusion had yet to form, and the clarity of mind wouldn’t allow him to ignore its beck and call, like it needed him to be firm of will and identity in order for the future to be able to progress. He could feel the promise of loneliness and another empty life if he couldn’t bring his mind, body, and soul together under his control. The threat of purgatory and insanity.

He’d argue with the obnoxious feeling that he’d already achieved the second of the two threats and soothed the uneasiness that had shaken his whole being. Clear blue eyes focused on those of amber, and he smiled something soft and genuine.

“You’re not at all what you appear to be. Stay or don’t, I have things I need to do.” He closed his eyes and heard her shift away, more than likely by design. When he heard her boots crunch in the distance, he parted a single eye to catch a glimpse of her before she stepped out of sight. What do you want from me?