Toren Daen

The surprise the mages felt at Renea’s churning mana lasted for barely a second. The vicars at the edges of the courtyard leapt into action, barrelling toward the austere owner of Bloodstone Elixirs and me. I slashed Oath at one of the approaching dark-hooded vicars, a plume of fire erupting from the edge.

One of our enemies took the lead in the charge, holding his bulky hand out. A blade of grave-black ice began to form there: a massive greatsword that seemed to coalesce from nothing and howl at the world. His every step pulsed with minute, misty particles of black cold that sapped the life from the flowers, dark frost spreading along their petals.

The vicar batted aside my torrent of flame with a flick of that massive sword. I barely had time to bring Oath up to the side to deflect the attack. Even through my telekinetic shroud, I felt as the massive sword–taller than even I was–sparked off my red-patterned saber.

I immediately shifted my stance, a coating of fire erupting over my knuckles as I twisted with the strike. I threw a punch at the vicar’s exposed chest, expecting to crater it.

Instead, that suffusing aura of grave ice sapped my fire of its strength, a deep cold spreading through my limbs that made me feel slow and weak. My fist hit the vicar’s chest, knocking him back a step, but it was far weaker than it should have been.

From underneath his hood, the vicar grinned. I inhaled, feeling as his aura coated the inside of my lungs. My entire body started to creak as dark ice spread across my limbs, hampering my speed and making my entire form feel like death.

I snarled in anger, thrumming my heartfire and fire magic. An unfocused coating of flame spread along my body, fighting against the chill. Simultaneously, my innate aether healed over the frostbite left behind.

Just in time for me to throw up a wall of pushing force, then duck. A stream of blue-black lightning–each tendril strangely solid and refusing to dissipate–was suddenly diverted high into the air.

Another vicar had fired that–one that was holding further back. I caught a flicker of surprise on the faces of my enemies. No doubt they expected my slowed reactions to allow a clean hit from that sneak attack.

I chanced a look to my side. Renea was engaged in a deadly duel with a man wielding an axe of blood iron, deflecting his swipes without even shifting her feet. Her deep white mana blade seemed to guide the man in a delicate dance that only he could lose. When the other vicar, holding kukris of soulfire, tried to jump at her from behind, the dark-haired woman casually threw a backhanded punch, cracking the man’s nose and slamming him into the dirt.

Yeah, she had that covered. Feeling reassured by her strength, I bolted for the greatsword vicar. I layered a shroud of sound over the edge of Oath, then enveloped that in a burning nimbus of fire. I quickly closed the distance with the vicar, swiping deftly. The man, slowed by his massive sword, struggled to shift his weapon into the path of my attack.

The aura of black frost around the man ate away at my own fiery barrier, but I pushed on. Every time Oath flashed, a bit more of the fire coating it was slowly snuffed out. I pressured the man, shifting around the garden, leaving footprints that burned and froze respectively. The man was sweating to keep up with my speed, and at our angle, the wall of Bloodstone Elixir’s headquarters blocked me from Jorta’s sight. He had no way out. Until finally, the shroud of sound beneath my weapon was revealed.

I feinted an upward cut. Having fallen into a pattern, the vicar naturally tried to smack it to the side. Expecting this, I then shifted to a stab that maneuvered its way right past the vicar’s massive sword. Only the tip pierced his shoulder, but that was all I needed.

My sound spell went off, mana particles smashing together as my vibrating power rattled the vicar’s insides. He shook, tumbling backward as his body convulsed. I turned, throwing Oath to the side like a boomerang as a torrent of decay-tinged lightning surged toward me. Using a telekinetic pull, I yanked on the greatsword vicar’s body, pulling him into the path of the lightning and obstructing me from sight.

The vicar barely managed to haul his unwieldy sword in the path of the attack. The lightning pushed him backward, knocking him over.

But I was already moving, gunning for the vicar who had thrown that spell. His eyes widened in shock as I seemed to phase into existence nearby, his hands swinging wildly to intercept me. But that was a mistake.

Oath spiraled in from the side, cutting deep into the vicar’s skull and shearing through something hard. The vicar collapsed, screaming in agony and clutching his face. I jumped forward, grabbing my returning saber, preparing to bring it down on my foe.

At the same time, my senses warned me as arrows formed of blood iron sought my head. I used a telekinetic pull on the ground, ducking low to keep my surface area small and throwing up a small dome of pushing force. A score of Jorta’s arrows diverted around me, peppering the ground like spears and leaving me safe amidst a field of black death.

The vicar I’d been reaching for screamed, lightning erupting from him in an unfocused tempest. It arced everywhere, smashing into the walls, carving up the dirt, and launching for me. I pedaled backward, surprised by the sudden ferocity of the outburst, but not fast enough.

A whirling current of solid plasma wrapped around my arm like a vine, constricting like a coiled serpent. The lightning flashed, half a dozen solid needle-like and jagged protrusions erupting and retreating back into the main bulk in instants.

My arm erupted in pain as the spell punched through my telekinetic shroud like it was paper, shredding my arm a dozen times over. I growled, preparing to try and break it through sheer force of mana, before something white and buzzing flashed innumerable times in the air.

Renea’s pure white mana blade sheared through the spell wrapping my arm, the pure mana going through precise cuts faster than I could track. Capitalizing on the save, I pulsed a sound shroud around my forearm, further breaking the solid lightning into smaller bits, before a nimbus of fire destroyed the rest.

“Thank you,” I said, shifting back into stance beside Lady Shorn and massaging my forearm. The vicar’s last wild attack had managed to wound me rather deeply, and if I were any other mage, it would have disabled my sword arm. I surveyed the battlefield momentarily.

The lightning vicar was panting and heaving on the ground, a pool of vomit and blood around him. When he glared at me, I saw that Oath had sheared straight through his horns. He was grasping what was left of them in his hands.

No doubt what allowed him to create such an unusually powerful blast, I thought, my mind working analytically. The graveice swordsman was the best off as he reoriented himself, but he was still marked with a hundred small cuts where he’d failed to fully block his comrade’s spell.

And I surveyed Renea’s side. The axe-wielding vicar was slowly choking on a pool of his own blood, whimpering and crying as his lifeblood left his body. The soulfire mage had distanced herself from Lady Shorn, an expression of purest horror on her face.

She is a better swordsman than I, I thought with surprise. Far better.

It was a rare moment that I met someone more skilled in weaponry than I. More practiced, sure. More experienced? Almost always. But more skilled?

I’d taken lessons on blade work from Lady Dawn, an eminent phoenix warrior of the Asclepius Clan. With nearly every clash of blades I’d experienced, I’d usually found my skill to be higher than my opponent.

But as Renea coolly watched her outmatched opponent bleed out over her precious flower garden, I felt I had to reprise that statement.

“You are reckless, Toren,” Renea said, not taking her eyes off her fallen opponent. She didn’t seem to realize she’d used my first name again. “You do not care for bodily harm.”

I flexed my hand, amping my heartfire higher. The orange-purple light of my soul smoothed over the gaping wounds in my forearm, the flesh regenerating at an exaggerated rate. “I don’t need to,” I growled in response. I’d never been a quipper in battle. “I’m going to finish this.”

Renea looked at me oddly, a furrow to her brows, but I pushed it to the back of my mind. I drew on the deepest depths of my core, feeling the Will respond. I coaxed it to the surface, noting as my Acquire Phase set in.

My sense for heartfire expanded a dozen times over as the world became clear. My body thrummed with warmth. Where before I had to actively coat myself in fire mana to ward off the graveice vicar’s aura, I was certain my sheer presence would burn away anything he tried.

Jorta, still perched casually on a faraway rooftop, paled as I looked straight into his heartfire. It was shriveled and broken, echoing his wounds not truly mended. I absently wondered how he was even still alive.

He began to run, turning tail in a flutter of dark tassels. I calmly gripped the feather brooch on my chest, cocking my arm back as if it were a throwing knife.

Follow him, please, I asked my bond. I need to ask him a few questions.

Okay, Aurora replied solemnly. Watch yourself.

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I hurled the bronze feather with a pulse of telekinesis, the projectile glowing a burning white as it shifted form midair to that of a songbird. Aurora’s clockwork body extended its wings, screeching as it tailed the retreating Jorta.

I looked back at the three vicars left alive. They’d frozen in place, terror infusing their intent.

“Fascinating,” Renea breathed by my side, seeming unphased by the pressure I was giving off. “I don’t believe I’ve ever witnessed something like this.”

I felt more than saw her take a conservative step back, allowing her white mana blade to dissipate.

I threw Oath to the side once again, sending it in a deadly drive straight toward the lightning vicar. He called on his power in a rush, raising interlocking walls of solid electricity that tried in vain to stop its advance. My weapon continued on unerringly, propelled by my psychokinetic hold.

I blurred forward, twisting to throw a roundhouse kick at the grave ice vicar. The bulky man didn’t even realize what hit him as my shin, coated in a shroud of sound, impacted his side. I felt as my spell traveled through his body, pulping his insides. He coughed up blood and what I suspected was part of his own stomach as he hurtled to the side, smashing into the courtyard wall and cratering the stone.

I lazily thrust my other hand to the side, pulsing outward with a wall of shimmering sound mana. An absolute torrent of soulfire smashed into me, enveloping me in a long cone of decaying hellfire. The Vritra-aspected mana ate away at my vibrating barrier, but in the process of pushing through it had been dispersed and weakened significantly. After my sound shroud, it met a wall of fire that matched it strength-for-strength. And the barest motes that pierced my fire were swept away by a simple telekinetic wall.

The torrent kept coming, however, unrelenting as I heard the soulfire vicar’s screams of anger. He was expelling truly absurd amounts of mana in an attempt to overwhelm me, yet I remained unharmed in the center.

But the nature of his power and overwhelming reserves of mana will wear this barrier down eventually, I thought, raising my other hand. A bead of concentrated plasma settled between my index finger and the tip of my thumb. Through the torrent of mana, I focused in on the black heartfire of my quarry.

I flicked my bead of solid plasma, accelerating it through a wave of telekinetic force. It blurred red as it pierced straight through the soulfire vortex, then seared through the black heartfire I could see.

The torrent of black decaying fire stopped nearly immediately, sputtering out as the vicar’s heart was pierced. He stumbled backward, a smoking hole evident in his robes. He looked at me, uncomprehending, before he collapsed.

I exhaled as I felt his heartfire extinguish, turning to look at the graveice vicar. He was struggling to move, his massive greatsword held before him. I pointed a finger at my final opponent, amping fire mana with vibrations of sound. Then I released a steady beam of plasma at the dying man.

He actually managed to place his massive weapon in front of him like a shield. My burning-hot spell began to slowly melt through the vicar’s weapon. I saw fear flash in his eyes.

But I wasn’t going to needlessly extend this farce. Oath flashed in from the side, the edge wet with the blood of the lightning vicar. It flashed, decapitating the bulky priest while he was preoccupied defending from my beam of plasma.

I exhaled as the man’s body slumped, spurting blood that seemed to freeze the moment it left his corpse. I surveyed the battlefield, noting the black arrows peppering every inch of soil. Small fires burned all around, and the courtyard wall was destroyed in several places. Patches of dark frost claimed the fountains, freezing the water into something decrepit. This small slice of heaven, which once bore the scent of a hundred different flowers, had become a graveyard.

I turned to peer at Renea Shorn, then forced myself to look away. While in my Acquire Phase, I could feel something churning from her. I instinctively knew her cloaking artifact would unravel under my gaze.

“I’m going to follow that last vicar,” I said. “Get some answers from him. I’m…” I turned to look at the decimated area in front of me. Though from my sense of heartfire I knew the employees of Bloodstone Elixirs had successfully evacuated, I knew Lady Shorn well enough to understand she would lament the loss of such a wonderful place. “I’m sorry this happened to your home.”

Without giving her a chance to reply, I surged into the sky on a mindfire stamp, blurring toward where I sensed Aurora’s puppet strings.

It was barely a chase. With my telekinetic range enhanced by my Will and my reflexes heightened, I was able to blur along through the streets of Aedelgard at a speed that would have baffled any other mage. My ears heard the deep black thrum of Jorta’s heartfire as I closed in, a predator following his prey.

He pushed his way through a crowd of people, throwing them toward me and drawing his bow. He lined up a black arrow in front of a few suddenly terrified men and women.

Aurora, I thought.

I know, my bond replied seriously. Her songbird construction zipped down from the sky, crashing into the vicar’s bow. His arrow, which was primed to shoot through the civilians in front of him to reach me, instead launched into the ground. People ran in terror, fleeing like mice as my presence approached.

Realizing nothing else would work, Jorta fired a quick bolt at me. I caught it casually with one hand, then used Oath to deflect his succession of arrows. I tapped down on the ground, stalking forward relentlessly as he fired a neverending stream.

I cocked my hand back, lining up my sights once more, before hurling the vicar’s own arrow back at him.

He screamed as it pierced his thigh, pinning his body to a wall he tried to use his bow again, but Aurora’s construct ripped it from his hands. He snarled in anger and pain as I approached.

“You’re a fool, Daen,” he muttered as Aurora delivered the short bow into my hands. I crushed it between my palms. “You’re such a fool,” he said, his anger shifting to something more maniacal.

“Any why is that?” I asked, pressing Oath’s edge against his neck. “You’re the one about to die.”

Jorta cackled, his stomach bubbling strangely. “You fell for it once, following that note we sent! Leaving the people that truly need your salvation. And now you chase me, leaving her to our devices once more.”

I blinked in surprise and yawning horror as Jorta’s stomach began to dissolve into murky green liquid, revealing the horrid wound I’d given him before. Jorta’s mouth streamed with blood. “They’re all going to die, Daen! Starting with her! He made you a promise and it’s time to pay the price!”

Jorta’s dying laughter crashed around in my head as his words clicked. I felt my pulse thrum as I turned around, rocketing back into the air. He lured me here, I thought with sudden panic. Lured me away from Renea’s side! That was why he ran! I need to get back there!

If it was even possible, I raced back along the edges of the streets even faster than before. Every telekinetic push and pull I used along the buildings to anchor me left dents and gashes as my force moved out of control, turning me into a bullet as I raced back to Bloodstone Elixirs.

I arced over the courtyard wall, feeling like a yoyo that had been yanked in a dozen different directions at once. My eyes took in the aftermath of my recent battle, watching in horror as something erupted from Renea’s shadow, lunging for her.

I was about to cry out, but Renea casually summoned another pure mana sword. The dark inky mass impaled itself on the razor-sharp sword, coughing fluid up. It tried to swing an arm down, but Lady Shorn easily flourished her blade, severing the hand that tried to thrust down at her.

I landed back in the courtyard, standing stock still. I watched the shadowy form materialize fully as it died, revealing another vicar I’d missed. An assassin. And in their severed hand was a syringe swirling with green and red liquid.

Blithe.

I looked back up at Renea Shorn, feeling a wave of relief as we locked eyes. I thought I might have seen the same emotion flash in hers, but…

I was swallowed by darkness. A blackness that encroached on my soul, compressing and barely contained. It yawned as wide as the city, swirling with carefully controlled power. It was a hurricane ready to blow, supernaturally withheld. And it all was barely leashed under Renea’s cloaking artifact.

Toren, Aurora’s seething mind said directly into my own, Toren, you need to withdraw your Will! You can’t let this spell overcome your mind! By nature, it decays!

My eyes burned with pain as I slammed them shut, wincing as I broke eye contact. My forehead beaded with sweat as I pulled myself from that darkness. Renea seemed to belatedly piece together what had just happened, her eyes widening perceptibly and her lips coming to a thin line.

I let my Acquire Phase go, allowing it to shift back into my core. Renea’s phantom voice scraped against my mind as I realized what I’d just done. “You delve deeper and deeper, Toren Daen, ripping away my protections one by one.”

And I’d just torn away another layer. What lay beneath was as expansive as a sea, and I felt I’d only just gotten a glimpse. Part of me, the pragmatic part, implored me to engage my Will again. Tear away the mask and identify a potential threat below. I could try and cover it up however I wanted, but Renea was dangerous.

She is so much more than we could have imagined, Aurora thought hastily. Tell her nothing. Her Vritra blood runs strong and deep. You must extricate yourself from here as fast as you can before she can engage it.

Renea slowly strode toward me, a deep scowl marring the lines of her face. I resisted the urge to take a step back, remembering the bottomless well of power she kept leashed underneath. “What did you see, Lord Daen?” she demanded in a voice that was carefully cool and sharper than graveice.

I exhaled, trying to measure Aurora’s advice. I couldn’t up and run. I suspected that would only start a battle I wasn’t prepared for. So I needed to talk my way out of this. “Nothing,” I lied, matching her gaze once more. Without the insight granted by my Will, I couldn’t pierce through that artifact through brute force. “I didn’t see anything,” I asserted again, but internally, I was trying to figure a way out of this.

Toren, Aurora said carefully, as if she were sneaking around a sleeping bear that she didn’t wish to wake, She knows you are lying.

Renea stood across from me, her arms tense. Her eyes searched mine for something in a demanding way, imploring me to speak further. Yet I allowed my own to wander as I tried to think of a way out of this. If there was something I could say or some tactic I could use to facilitate an escape. As my adrenaline dissipated, my thoughts came more clearly. My pupils settled on the syringe of red-green blithe still clutched in the dead assassin’s severed hand.

And then Jorta’s dying words replayed in my mind. “He made you a promise and it’s time to pay the price!”

My adrenaline returned in full force as my body went rigid. Thoughts of Renea Shorn and her secrets banished themselves from my mind as I turned toward the faraway portals. Even Aurora’s forcibly calm and melodic voice drifted to the background of my thoughts. If I was lured here to Bloodstone Elixirs, what was Mardeth trying to keep me away from?

“Oh, God,” I whispered, my body locking up as the implications reached me. I’d miscalculated. I’d thought I had time. Time to grow stronger. Time to protect those I cared for. Time to gather myself and my power. But I didn’t.

Mardeth wasn’t waiting for Seris to leave for war.

Fiachra was in danger.