Toren Daen

“Retainer Mawar,” I said, altering my voice with sound magic. Mana thrummed through my body, strengthening it to absurd levels. I felt my heartbeat pound against my ears, my pulse quickening as I recognized the threat in front of me. “We don’t need to fight.”

Mawar snarled. “You know who I am, mage,” she hissed, the air thrumming with weathering intent. The closest thing I’d felt was the first time I’d met Mardeth in the Fiachra Ascender’s Association. “Then you know why you’re going to die here.” I saw void wind popping around Mawar’s hands, but it was difficult to see in the near blackness.

Her mana was a cloying force. I couldn’t afford to lose focus on her in the slightest. I’d been told by several people that Mawar had a deep, deep grudge against Mardeth for refusing to fight during the Victoriad, essentially putting the validity of her Retainership up in the air. I should have expected something like this.

I felt the mages surrounding me shifting to offensive stances, readying their spells. Their faces were wrapped in dark cloth, obscuring their features from my sight. Mana thrummed in the air. I clenched my hand around Oath, the dark leather comforting in my palm. Mawar was powerful. One of the strongest mages I’d sensed yet.

But this was something I could manage.

“If this retainer wished you dead immediately,” Aurora conveyed quietly, “She would have already attacked. She wants something from you.”

Deciding to take a risk, I took a simple step forward, brushing away Mawar’s killing intent. “I don’t work for Mardeth,” I said, hissing slightly. “I want him dead even more than you do.”

“You expect me to believe that?” Mawar laughed, her eyes gleaming in shadow. “You enter here wearing a mask of the Doctrination, clothed in black. No doubt you were sent from that new base of his along the Redwater.” She shook her head, and the pressure emanating from her redoubled. I felt it in my teeth. “You’re going to tell us all you know about that little base, including how you supply yourselves out of Aensgar. And then I’m going to burn it to the ground.”

Okay, I thought, reassessing my choice to wear an old vicar’s mask, Maybe not the brightest idea.

But this confrontation provided me with an opportunity. Renea Shorn had put her foot down in regards to helping me flush out Mardeth. But Mawar hated him personally. I could work with that.

“I don’t have the information you need,” I said hesitantly, “But if we could work together–”

“Take him alive,” Mawar said to the nearby mages, cutting off my words. “I don’t care about residual damage. Just make sure he can think and talk when you’re done with him.”

It was like a spark had been dropped into the bottom of an oil well. Mana flared around me as the encircling mages launched their spells in my direction.

But I was already moving. I raised a barrier of fire to divert an oncoming stream of flame, the heat licking at my bones. Simultaneously, I jumped backward, sending a psychokinetic push against an oncoming boulder. I used the massive stone to push me further, sending me hurtling toward one of the rearmost mages.

They hastily raised a short dagger in defense, their eyes widening behind their clothed face. Oath, imbued with a shuddering layer of sound mana, sheared straight through their own weapon. It cut a thin line across the mage’s cheeks as they stumbled backward, just barely avoiding a fatal blow. But I had been expecting that. Using a psychokinetic pull, I yanked the off-balance mage right into my waiting fist.

Their head cracked to the side with a sickening sound. My body was far stronger than before my First Sculpting, and no normal magic user could resist me physically. The mage I’d struck crumpled to the floor as their heartfire sputtered. Absently, I hoped it wasn’t a fatal blow.

But I couldn’t even afford this bit of time. I slammed a telekinetic shove into the ground, lurching into the air to avoid bullets of water infused with electricity. A few sparked in the darkness as they skittered across my telekinetic shroud, but they weren’t strong enough to break through.

I grit my teeth, my eyes tracing the sources of heat in the room. I was relying mainly on my sense of hearing and the thumps of heartfire in my ears to track all the mages in the room. My sight was too restricted by the darkness.

Another boulder of earth shot toward me from the ground, but a slight reorientation in midair allowed it to skim past my back. Oath flashed, the blade severing half a dozen fireballs in a split second. The explosion of light gave me a chance to plan.

Thinking quickly, I threw a handful of sound grenades at the ground. In the darkness, they were indistinct and difficult to see. But as I expected, the mages lashed out at the murky spells on instinct.

The moment a bolt of electricity pierced one of the sound grenades, a sound like nails scratching a chalkboard–except ramped up to eleven–echoed throughout the chamber. The arching walls carried the sound exceptionally, several of the mages doubling over as the sound attacked their eardrums.

Those must be the casters, I thought as I hit the ground running, a few fireballs popping into existence around my head. They can’t strengthen their bodies against physical damage.

I thought of the last time I’d been surrounded on all sides. Kaelan Joan had managed to box me in, then slowly whittle me down from an unending barrage. From their core levels and mana output, each of these mages was about the strength of Kaelan Joan herself. My heart hammered in my head as I circumvented the careful encirclement these mages had created.

Now, they were nothing but prey.

I darted for one of the groaning casters, intent on capitalizing on their weakness. But the mage that had been lobbing boulders at me threw himself in my path, solid armor of earth materializing over his body as he prepared to meet my advance.

The fool.

I slid around the mage, far too fast for him to catch. He was slowed by his bulky armor, while I was fluid as blood. As I passed him by, I latched onto his arm with mine, then pivoted on my foot. The man–who must have weighed half a ton with his rock armor–lifted off the ground with a surprised grunt. I locked eyes with the recovering caster in front of me as I leveraged the body of her teammate, preparing to use him like a club.

I saw it there. In my shadow, she saw her end. The woman recognized she was going to die. Felt it in the intent around her. The fear. The terror.

I slammed the armored man into the ground beside the woman instead of on top of her, internally cursing myself for my empathy. The ground shuddered and cracked as the earth mage’s body rattled in a way that was not good for his health at all.

The kneeling caster’s eyes sharpened as her teammate bounced off the ground. She lunged for me, a knife I hadn’t spotted appearing in her hands. I felt anger well up in my gut at her foolish gamble.

You want to die? I thought angrily, my fingers digging into the groaning earth mage’s armor. Rock splintered under my grip. The man clawed weakly at my hands. Know that you’ve chosen this.

Before the caster could near me, two telekinetic pushes–each shoving in opposing directions–snapped her arm. The woman screamed as her limb twisted at a strange angle, but Oath buried itself in her side before she could make more sound.

She collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, her heartfire shivering. I snarled, turning as more spells bombarded me. Water and electricity combined to make a piercing and conducting spiral, intent on my heart.

I threw the earth mage–still armored–at the approaching beam. I heard one of the casters call out for the spell to stop as their teammate was nearly struck. Thankfully for him, they managed to cull their mana before he was hit.

Unluckily for him, I slammed a powerful telekinetic push into his back, splintering his armor and spraying blood as he was rocketed toward the mage who had been conjuring bullets of electrified water. They dove out of the way of their teammate, barely managing to hit the ground.

The armored man slammed through one of the walls, tumbling into the alchemical room beyond. Blood seeped through his armor as it slowly receded. He wasn’t moving.

I stalked toward the caster who had thrown himself out of the way of his teammate. Fire splashed over me from the side, one of the remaining mages screaming in fear as he bathed me in hellfire. It washed over my telekinetic shroud ineffectually as I slowly loped toward the caster who had thrown the combination of water and electricity.

The ambient mana stank of fear. It was a cloying scent that invaded my sinus cavities, the intent of each mage conveying their terror.

“Come out, Mawar,” I hissed. The retainer had vanished in a swirl of void wind the moment the battle had started. My anger thrummed through my veins in tandem with my mana as I hunted these mages. My voice, altered by sound magic, was pitched low and menacing. “You’re content to let these men die? Throw them into the meat grinder for a quick hint of my abilities?”

That was what she was doing, after all. I was certain the young retainer was still here, watching me. I could just barely sense her power around me, but it was indistinct like the wind. It was fleeting, like a breeze across the face.

The only people I’d killed before this moment had been the Joans. But every one of those I’d killed had been personal. Kaelan Joan had murdered my brother. Lawris Joan was the catalyst. And Lawrent was a monster who poisoned the masses.

But from the diminishing heartfires around me, I knew those I’d attacked would die without medical attention. Yet they weren’t part of some vendetta. I could not say they were dying justly; that they deserved an end.

They were simply fodder. And my hand had been forced to deal those heavy blows.

“Behind you, Toren,” Aurora whispered, sensing my fury.

I turned. Mawar stood imperiously, her form billowing with dark wind. I could see better now; lingering fires around us casting the room in an eerie light. From how the massive chunk of basilisk blood was framed, it almost looked like a heart. She stood between me and the exit.

“You’re more than a simple lackey,” Mawar said. The shadows cast her face in a deathly pallor. For a second, I thought she looked unsure of herself. Perhaps a flash of timidity. It was gone in an instant. “That just means I don’t need to hold back. I’ll draw the answers I need from your broken body.”

I flourished Oath, flicking it clean of a few drops of blood. Then I ran my fingers along its edge, the bright red glow of metal following in their wake. My weapon illuminated the dark room just enough.

“You will try,” I hissed, my voice distorted.

Mawar lunged at me, a gusting black wave washing toward me as she waved her hand. I swung my saber, an arc of fire rushing to meet the signature decay-attribute wind. I saw as Mawar charged forward, her body writhing with dark mist.

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I leapt forward, following in the wake of my attack. Mawar jumped to meet me, her eyes alight. I felt the weight of her mana around me, a knot forming in my throat.

Before we could clash midair, I lashed myself downward, pulling toward the floor with a yank of telekinesis. I dipped beneath my foe, lashing out with Oath in the meantime.

I felt my saber rebound off something hard before I lurched downward, hurtling toward the massive chunk of crystallized basilisk blood. I twisted in midair, using a few psychokinetic punches to blow away incoming darts of void wind. I had to use more mana for each shove than Mawar did, meaning I was running at a deficit.

“You are disadvantaged in this small room,” Aurora said, echoing my thoughts. “You need to get to higher ground.”

I ducked behind the massive block of crimson crystal, a torrent of void wind following a heartbeat later. As I expected, the crystal rebuffed the decaying aspect of Mawar’s void wind. I need to get to the surface.

I whirled, building up a layer of fire over my fist. I slammed my knuckles into the massive chunk of crimson material. As expected, the basilisk blood rocketed off toward the source of the void wind, splitting it in two like a rock amidst a stream. It smashed into the opposing wall, making the entire room shake and dust seep from the ceiling.

I barely had time to spin as a shape darted in from the side, flowing with unnatural grace. I raised Oath in a defensive maneuver as Mawar came in close, having neatly dodged the rocketing crystal.

She didn’t have a conventional weapon. Instead, a mass of wriggling black vines seemed to move on their own accord, their wispy forms somehow solid. They sparked as they rebounded off Oath, but my stance was already broken. Sensing an opening, the retainer darted in, tendrils of void wind writhing around her like an octopus’s tentacles.

Instinctively, I tried to slam a telekinetic shove against the woman to gain distance. Her tendrils, seeming to react to my mana automatically, lurched to the side, smashing through my white flashes before they could even land.

Mawar rushed in close, her tendrils of void wind latching onto my arms. The compressive force around my wrist made me drop Oath, the saber clattering to the ground. My telekinetic shroud simmered and decayed as she pulled me close, her lips stretched into a grin.

“It seems I’ll need to take my time,” she began. “Ripping the answers from your–”

I reared my head back, building up a sound shroud over my forehead, before slamming it into Mawar’s nose. Her void wind tentacles tried to intercept me, but I was too close. Her nose crunched with a satisfying sound, the sound mana around my skull injected directly into her own. She grunted in pain, spraying dark blood as she reeled. But it wasn’t enough to free my hands from her swaying tendrils of void wind.

I grunted, feeling my flesh begin to wither as Mawar’s tendrils broke through my telekinetic shroud. I jumped up, planting my boots on Mawar’s stomach. The tendrils stretched like bungee cords as I dug my heels into the disorientated retainer’s gut. A few more tentacles of void wind tried to pry my feet away, but Oath soared up to sever them at the source. I growled, building up a large sphere of mana along my boots.

“Eat fire, black-wind bitch,” I hissed. Then the fireball on the soles of my boots detonated.

The explosion sent the two of us flying in opposite directions, smoke and decay attribute mana flaring in the room. I rolled, feeling the rawness in my wrists as I quickly darted through the underground chemist’s room. Mawar’s scream of fury trailed me from behind, more beastial rage than pain.

I think I’ve pissed her off, I thought with a mixture of amusement and irritation. I felt the tide of mana chasing me as it consumed practically everything in its way.

I spared a glance behind me, feeling Mawar’s rapidly pulsing lifeforce. Her dress was scorched, though her pale skin underneath was mostly unblemished. Her tendrils of void wind lashed and writhed like an angry hive, anything that came near subject to their decay.

I grit my teeth. Yeah, I pissed her off, I thought. Pushing outward with my telekinetic emblem, I latched onto a dozen tables, throwing them Mawar’s way in an attempt to stall. The woman yelled in anger as the tables blocked her view, but quick scythes of cutting wind made them disappear.

I ducked to avoid a few dark spells that carved deep cuts into the ground, then spun on my heel to batter a wind bullet away with Oath. I felt the impact travel up my arm.

“You’re doing nothing but running!” Mawar yelled in abject fury. “Why are you so afraid?”

I darted into the ascending stairwell, flying up the steps with the assistance of telekinetic pulls. Mawar was hot on my heels, sending a veritable hurricane of power up in a straight line.

I exhaled a breath, then slammed a sound-laden punch into the roof above me.

The vibrations traveled throughout the structure, making the whole corridor shudder. Then I punched it once more. Another time.

I saw comprehension flash on Mawar’s face for the briefest of moments. I smiled, all teeth. I was almost out of the stairwell, my back bathed in moonlight as I faced the pursuing Vritra-blooded mage.

Then the roof collapsed. I managed to zip out of the stairwell at the last moment, tons upon tons of stone falling inward onto the surprised retainer.

“I do not think that was as effective as you wished it to be,” Aurora said, the little head of the songbird peeking out of my tunic and staring at the dust rising from the collapsed stairwell.

I sighed, filtering my lifeforce over my raw wrists. Fresh, pale skin regrew over my wounds.

I know, I thought. I can still sense her mana. And her lifeforce hasn’t been impacted at all.

As if on cue, a dozen snaking tendrils of void wind, each like whips of cord, thrust from the rubble. The rock they touched weathered in real-time, the stone crumbling away as if under the effects of millions of years of air instead of a few seconds.

Mawar pulled herself from the rubble with limbs of misty mana, now covered in dust instead of just scorched. “You’ve earned yourself an even slower death, miscreant,” she said angrily. “Are you done running?”

I cracked my neck. “I wasn’t running,” I said, the moon high behind me. The watching gazes of the many scarlet eyes in the stained glass judged both of us from all around. “I was changing the battlefield.”

I jumped upward, lashing myself to one of the nearby pillars. Compared to that stuffy underground cellar, my mobility up here was infinitely greater.

Mawar, expectedly, leapt to meet me. Her short white hair absorbed the moonlight as she tried to meet me midair, but several controlled telekinetic pulls on the walls and supports allowed me to easily maneuver around her.

As she flew past, I peppered her back with an array of fireshot. Her tendrils of void wind widened to absorb the attack automatically, the decay-aspect mana easily devouring everything I sent its way.

Those tendrils lashed out at me, but I was too nimble. I whipped myself around a pillar, using the centrifugal force to change directions. Mawar yelled in anger as I darted about like a fly.

I could understand why. Though she was powerful; certainly one of the strongest people I’d faced in pure mana quantities and abilities, she was an unhoned knife. The woman relied heavily on her automated defenses to shield her body from my attacks, and from what I could see of her nose, she didn’t have a healing factor as I did. Her tactic seemed to be to steamroll over anything that blocked her path.

I zipped around the room, the retainer and I falling into a delicate dance. I tried to break through her protective weave of tentacles, but everything I tried withered on contact. Fire, sound, telekinetic shoves–they all bent before the decay attribute mana. Yet she didn’t have the mobility to catch me.

But at the rate this is going, I thought, I’ll tire before landing a single solid hit. I’m moving around far more than she is; burning away my energy at a faster rate. I’ll have to kick this up a notch, then.

I cast a weaving sound spell, throwing my voice outward. “I see why you hate Mardeth so much,” I whispered as Oath batted away a tendril that had tried to get in close. “He surrendered to you at the Victoriad; declaring himself beyond your station.”

I pulled myself downward to avoid a few scythes of wind. They severed one of the support pillars clean in two. My enhanced ears heard the structure groaning; the already decrepit temple bemoaning its abuse. Too much decay attribute mana had been thrown around in this place, which was already weakening.

“I’ve fought Mardeth,” I said quietly, remembering the utter beatdown I’d experienced at his hands. “I know what his power represents. How strong he truly is.”

“Are you going to keep yapping, welp?” Mawar yelled, sounding a bit frantic.

She’s younger than Toren was when he took his life, I thought with a note of pity. While talented and skilled, Mawar failed to keep her cool during this fight. It made her reckless. It made the stench of her uncertainty waft through her intent. She doesn’t have practice controlling her emotions. And she hasn’t fought nearly as much as one in a Retainer position should have.

And I was about to capitalize on that weakness. “I know why you search for him,” I said, landing squarely near the altar. Mawar paused, her tendrils holding her aloft near one of the overseeing balconies. That same indecision flickered across her face. “Because we both know you would have died on that Victoriad field had Mardeth thought you worth his time.”

Mawar’s skin, as pale as the moonlight, shifted to a midnight black as she rushed me, quick as a bullet. Her mana output doubled, then tripled as she engaged some sort of rune. She blurred to my senses as she accelerated, a roar shaking the foundations of the church.

But the difference was that I was calm. I felt Aurora’s touch as I fell into my Acquire Phase, the familiar rush of power and insight washing through my veins. Mawar’s tendrils wrapped over themselves like intertwining cords, the mass spinning in unison like a drill to gore me. If that hit me, it wouldn’t matter if I was in my First Phase. I would be dead.

But I wasn’t going to let that happen. A buzz of red plasma built around my fist as Mawar approached, no longer a smudge to the eye. Our eyes met for the briefest of instants as she hurtled toward me at full speed. Her scarlet pupils, under the effect of this form of hers, shifted to a brighter yellow. They were insensate with rage.

I concentrated on narrowing my telekinetic senses into a smaller bubble. Then I shoved as much mana as I could manage into a simple psychokinetic tug. It appeared in a white flash near Mawar’s foot. Her automatic defenses tried to destroy it, but the majority of her focus was on her forward-facing drill, completely sacrificing her own safety.

My spell turned Mawar’s calculated dive into a tumble. She tried to right herself midair as she careened toward me, but she’d focused too much on that one spell.

I threw my fist at her the moment she entered my range. I tilted my head to the side as the writhing mass of dark cords scored my cheek, the attack barely missing my skull. The plasma burning around my hand fought the void wind as it impacted, but this was not Mardeth’s sludge. It was far, far weaker.

My knuckles broke through, though the burning red plasma around my fist had deteriorated significantly.

It didn’t matter. My fist buried itself deeply in Mawar’s stomach. I could feel the air being driven from her lungs, the burning edge of my knuckles scorching her skin. Something in her body cracked as my attack made contact with her bare skin. The retainer’s tendrils lashed out wildly, trying to score me, too. They groped at my arm, eating away at my telekinetic shroud and exposing the skin underneath. One latched onto my mask, but I ignored it. In the barest instant of contact, I added another telekinetic punch to the ridges of my knuckles.

Then I followed through, stepping forward and engaging my entire body as I pushed upward with the force of a nascent asura. Mawar shot toward the ceiling with the speed of a cannonball, crashing through the decrepit roof with the sound of splintering wood. My mask was ripped away with her, leaving my face bare to the chill winter air.

I exhaled, the adrenaline catching up with me as my arm shook. My muscles burned from both exertion and having the skin stripped away. I almost didn’t notice upon shifting into my Acquire Phase, Aurora’s relic had changed back into a simple feather.

Though my body was burning from fatigue I hadn’t realized I’d been feeling, I slammed a telekinetic push into the ground, rocketing up through the same hole Mawar’s body had made. The roof of the temple was slightly angled, but the view gave it an edge over all of Nirmala. Overhead, the full moon cast its deathly light onto the earth below.

Mawar lay crumpled in a heap near one of the pillars. She’d barely avoided being impaled by one of the crenellations, but part of me wondered if she would have preferred that.

The woman spit up blood, her midnight-black skin shifting back to that pale tone. She looked up at me as I stalked forward, uncomprehending. Then the fear set in. She lashed out with a wild hand, void wind seeping toward me like a wave.

But this wasn’t the focused, deadly spell from before. Now it was flimsy; cobbled together as a last-ditch effort. I waved my hand, throwing a wave of plasma to meet it. The two mixed and mingled, before cancelling each other out.

The Retainer of Etril wasn’t a threat any longer. If she were more patient and less tied to her emotions, perhaps she could match me blow for blow. But her fighting style was unwieldy and brash.

Mawar scuttled backward until her back hit a wall, looking up at me as blood trickled down her lips. She was breathing quickly, but each inhale seemed to cause a stab of pain. I was certain that punch of mine had done internal damage, and without a healing factor, it was unlikely she could fight me. My mask was clenched tightly in her hands. She seemed to be waiting for something.

I inhaled, let the air suffuse my lungs, then exhaled lightly. Mawar’s scarlet eyes trailed my misting breath. “I told you the truth, Retainer Mawar,” I said, feeling my adrenaline seep away. “I’ve fought Mardeth.” I knelt, looking her in the eye. From this angle, she looked far more her age. A scared teenager in over her head. “I lost. Brutally. Which is why I’m here now. I’m going to find what he’s doing; what he’s planning, and I’m going to burn it to the ground myself.”

I tilted my head, watching how the young girl’s heartfire flared and pulsed in a heightened, terrified rhythm. With my Phoenix Will engaged, I could see the black motes that suffused the naturally red embers. Signs of Vritra blood.

“I came here to find information about him. So you’re going to tell me everything you know.”