Arthur Leywin

I held my breath as the Alacryan soldiers’ conversation continued unabated. My legs burned from the mana I forced through my channels, the sweltering heat within my little crevice making me sweat even further. While I kept my presence hidden with Mirage Walk, it was a constant effort just to stand. I couldn’t continue this much longer. Furthermore, maintaining the wall of earth in front of me strained something deeply in my body.

I’d come out here on a hunch, fearing the worst after defeating the Retainer, Jagrette. I’d flown with Sylvie–my core empty and my body burning from my near brush with backlash–all along the southern border of Sapin, tracking the source of the Alacryan forces that had ambushed the divisions of Dicathen along our southern flank.

But even if the battle near Slore was over, there were far more deadly matters at hand. The Alacryans shouldn’t have been able to sneak around to our rear so easily. After all, we’d expected them to attack from the sea or further east, but they’d somehow maneuvered to our least defended area.

The only way that could’ve happened, as far as I could see, was that the army had been intentionally let in.

If the dwarves had betrayed Dicathen, then we were not only potentially down two Lances, but also a third of our troops and military force. And after what I’d just seen in this cavern, my suspicions had unfortunately been confirmed. Alacryan soldiers strode about with dwarves within the cavern, tending to a large teleportation gate and ferrying more troops in.

Even as I watched the dwarves below usher in our continent’s enemies, I hoped they were only a minor faction of some sort. A rebel group, unsupported by the true powers on our side. But I hadn’t become a King in my past life by thinking optimistically.

I listened as the Alacryan contingent of soldiers left my little hidey-hole of conjured earth behind, muttering to themselves about the ‘Great Vritra’ and their ‘Bloods,’ I allowed the seconds to tick by. Each further beat of my heart made the air grow a little hotter, my legs shake a little more, and my concentration on my mana slip just a bit further.

But finally, I felt a measure of peace as the Alacryans retreated. I allowed the earthen wall in front of me to dissipate, the colder air a breeze on my face.

We got what we came here for. Now let’s go back to tell Virion so you can actually get some rest to heal your wounds, Sylvie pleaded mentally, her fox form stuffed in my jacket.

Yeah, let’s go, I thought back, already contemplating how I would tell Gramps and Aldir about this. The steps we’d need to take would likely be drastic. I began to walk away from the domed cavern, cataloging this disaster into the long list of disasters I would need to overcome.

But I was forced to turn back as I heard the entire contingent of Alacryans behind me kneel. I turned lethargically, Sylvie screaming in my head that we needed to leave, but the presence that exited the large teleportation gate made my blood congeal in my veins.

I’d thought myself ready. I’d confronted two Retainers; even killed one. Even under the suspicion that the dwarves had betrayed Dicathen, I had enough confidence in myself, Sylvie, and Virion that we could win this war. But as that obsidian-clad figure stepped from the gate, I felt my already weakened knees tremble.

Their aura was a suffocating presence throughout the cavern that sucked the breath from my already beleaguered lungs. The Scythe–for what else could she be?--looked about the cavern with apparent disinterest. I’d become accustomed to viewing every Vritra with an element of disgust, but there was something terribly beautiful about this one. Terrible, like the edge of a knife, but beautiful.

Amidst the crowd of kneeling dwarves and Alacryans, the woman–who looked only a few years older than Tessia–appeared small and petite, at least physically. But the aura she cast made it clear to all around that she was the largest there, if the two horns that thrust from her pearlescent hair did not already make it clear.

Sylvie had gone stiff within the folds of my cloak, her own thoughts and emotions forced into shock and terror as she witnessed the Scythe. Part of me wanted to run, even with Mirage Walk. Could I truly hide my presence from this creature? This Vritra of the hells?

I felt like a gnat facing a hurricane.

“L-Lady Seris?” an Alacryan soldier greeted the Scythe. Lady Seris looked down impassively at the Alacryan soldier who had spoken.

“Where is Cylrit?” the Scythe asked, her voice cool and smooth.

I remained utterly focused on the interplay as the nervous soldier moved to respond. But then something in my core twisted.

My gaze was forcefully drawn back to the teleportation gate as another figure stepped through. Though the kneeling Alacryans and dwarves paid the figure barely a note of acknowledgment before returning their attention to the Scythe, I felt my eyes narrow into pinpricks.

In my coat, Sylvie shuddered and curled up further, a note of terror in her voice. By my grandfather, she muttered. I–I don’t understand. How does he have so much aether?!

The figure was cloaked in resplendent bronze armor that looked like scalemail, adorned with sturdy pauldrons that looked bloody in the low light. A simple half-mask of a similar make covered most of his face from my view, but I could make out the color of his strawberry-blonde hair from where I hid. A symbol like a flaming heart stood out prominently on his mask, seeming to etch itself into my mind.

He didn’t have the horns or dark features I’d come to associate with the Vritra. That left me confused in and of itself, but for some reason, I felt my focus drawn to this strange man as he stood solemnly behind Lady Seris.

His aura was what made me so uncertain. It wasn’t the same powerful, dominant hurricane that the Scythe wielded; barely contained. No, this was more like a subtle, pulsing heartbeat into the ambient mana, brushing against my senses like both the beat of a drum and the ripple of lake water. With an affinity for all four elements, I was able to better discern the eddies of his power as it pushed and pulled in equal measure.

I felt my dimension ring vibrate on my finger as I stared down at the two–a Retainer and a Scythe, no doubt. I clasped my other hand over the vibrating ring, forcing it to stop buzzing. I didn’t know why it was acting up, but I pushed myself to absorb the words of the Alacryan as they talked to Scythe Seris.

“Forgive my rudeness, Lady Seris, but what of the new Scythe? I was instructed to take him to Commander Uto.”

“He’s not ready. Melzri and Viessa are still working on him,” Seris finally said, her apathetic gaze freezing the soldier to the floor. Behind Seris, the Retainer peered around the cavern, a curious expression peeking through his mask.

Another Scythe, I thought headily, my mind swimming. Sylvie whimpered within my coat, mumbling something about aether and power.

We need to get out of here, I thought, pushing myself to move. But as I turned to leave, I spared one last glance over my shoulder, just as the Scythe named Seris did so as well.

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I felt my blood run cold as we locked eyes for that barest moment. And not far behind Scythe Seris, that strange Retainer–the one who had spooked Sylvie so deeply–also peered in my direction.

Yet Scythe Seris continued on, unphased. She acted for all the world as if she had not seen me at all, though I was certain she had.

But her Retainer didn’t look away. I felt his eyes searching mine, peering into and through me. It wasn’t just that he could see me. No, I felt exposed.

I’m ready to fight, Sylv thought to me, her emotions still wrought with fear. I will, papa.

I didn’t dare breathe. I didn’t even dare respond to my draconic bond. I was sure my thundering heart could be heard by everyone in the cavern, a drumbeat not unlike the Retainer’s pulsing mana trying to rip itself out of my chest.

The Retainer’s mouth opened. My hand clenched, prepared to draw my sword from my vibrating dimension ring. If he would alert the Alacryans around us…

“Do not tarry,” Seris commanded to the Retainer as she continued to walk away. “Your duty is yet unfulfilled.”

The Retainer blinked, the spell between us shattering. He shook himself, as if only now remembering where he was. His mouth clacked shut. Then he turned, following after his Scythe with resounding steps.

I would not soon forget the man’s burning eyes, each like the caldera of an active volcano, nor the implications of the haunting last words of the Scythe.

—

I limped out of the cavern, pushing myself through the Darvish wastes as I plodded toward the southern border of Sapin. Sylvie finally pulled herself from my coat, enlarging to her full draconic form as we trudged away from the Retainer and Scythe.

I was certain both had sensed me, yet they’d continued on their way as if they hadn’t. I didn’t know why, and I felt a constant fear nipping at my heels as I trudged through the Darvish wastes.

I kept Mirage Walk active for fear of the Alacryan soldiers sensing me. Even as night fell, I zigzagged from boulder to boulder, every snap of a twig or brush of wind making me tense in terrified anticipation.

“Sylvie,” I whispered as we finally neared the treeline of the border. “What terrified you so much? Why did that Retainer scare you? I’ve… never felt you afraid before.”

My bond had begun to view herself as an asura. Her pride swelled in her status as a true dragon, and though she had felt trepidation and worry, I had not felt such terror over her bond before.

Sylvie was quiet for a long time, her sinuous black draconic form blending in with the night sky above. “You know of my clan’s aether arts,” she said quietly. “How Lady Myre taught me to heal and use vivum to restore the body.”

I slumped against a hollowed-out log. I wanted to go back to the castle. We needed to go back to the castle. But my body protested every movement I took, and I feared that flight–even here–would alert the Scythe back a way. And any use of aether or mana might alert them, too.

I rested my back against the log, feeling my eyes begin to droop slightly. “Yeah, you told me about that training. When that masked Retainer appeared, you seemed to sense something I couldn’t.”

“The Indrath Clan doesn’t store aether like we do mana,” Sylvie whispered above me, lowering her head so that it rested by my chin. “The elders of my clan tried to make an aether core within an infant with a birth defect that caused them to lack a core. And they didn't… They didn’t survive the procedure,” she rumbled weakly. “But somehow, that Retainer we saw was able to compound aether. There was so, so much of it radiating off of him in pulsing waves. I’ve never sensed so much in one place. Except from… my family.”

The added implications of this made me shudder. “I thought only the dragons could influence aether,” I whispered, feeling unnerved. Aether was what made the dragons reign supreme over the other asuran clans, and if Sylvie thought something impossible… “And you’re saying Agrona has… found some way to store it? Using this Retainer?”

Sylvie was quiet for a time as she huddled around me in her draconic form, sheltering me from the cold. “Everyone has a bit of aether in their bodies. If I try really, really hard, I can sense that energy. That Retainer’s power was like that, only a hundred times more powerful. I don’t know if Agrona figured out a way to make that aether bigger, or if this is a sort of anomaly. We simply don’t know.”

I gnashed my teeth in quiet frustration, but there was a strange reservation that flowed over my bond with Sylvie that distracted me from the hundreds of questions bouncing about in my head.

“What is it, Sylv?” I pushed, sensing her uncertainty.

“You said it was only the dragons that could use aether, but that’s wrong,” she said quietly. “The ancient mages could, too. Before they vanished.”

I blinked, feeling a sudden surge of wakefulness as I registered my bond’s words. “What do you mean? I thought us ‘lessers’ weren’t able to touch that energy at all.” After all, I only had the barest influence from Sylvia’s Will, slumbering deep in my core. Static Void–the spell where I separated myself from the normal flow of time–was inherited from her understanding.

Sylvie was quiet, shifting nervously on her haunches. I had the distinct impression that she was masking her emotions from me, keeping her true thoughts hidden. “I can’t tell you everything, Arthur, but think for a moment. Think of all the remnants of the ancient mages that your people use. Those dimension rings you carry? The teleportation gates that your people use? And a magical flying castle? What sort of magic do you think powers all of them?”

I breathed out, my eyes widening. “Spatium,” I uttered, the words coming into place. “It’s all using an edict of aether. Of course! How did I not see it before?”

I turned to my bond, another question immediately popping up. “But if these mages were so adept at using aether that they could network an entire continent, how did they vanish?”

Sylvie’s bond went utterly dark. I blinked, surprised and concerned from how she turned away from me, as if… ashamed? “There are secrets that you can’t know yet,” she said in a quiet rumble. “One day, maybe I can tell you. But there are things that can hurt both of us, should we push too far.”

Feeling somehow colder than ever, I settled back against the log, trying to decipher the meaning behind my bond’s words. But the exhaustion I’d been barely keeping at bay pressed against my consciousness, threatening to pull me under.

I’d fought in battle for hours on end, then faced a Retainer. After barely surviving that encounter, I’d trekked hundreds of miles south to unearth the true allegiances of the dwarves. And now every action was paying its toll.

I felt myself drifting off to sleep, promising myself I’d awake in an hour or so to make the final journey to the castle. My eyes began to close as Sylvie shifted above me, her anxiety prevalent even without our bond’s tether.

And then my eyes snapped open when the dimension ring on my thumb buzzed irreverently. I cursed as I sat up, unable to sleep yet due to the irritating vibrations.

My ring had been humming and vibrating for the past hour or so since I’d left the cavern, but it had slowed down as I moved further away. I’d almost forgotten it due to the chaotic nature of my own thoughts, but now…

I threaded a tendril of mana into my dimension ring, easily finding the source of the disturbance. But when I summoned it from the depths of the pocket dimension, I found my jaw gaping.

Dawn’s Ballad vibrated like an unsteady hand, pulses of orange-purple striations streaming along its teal surface. The end, which had been weathered flat by the touch of the Retainer, Jagrette, sparked and sputtered light the color of a waxing sunset like blood. In my hands, the matte-black handle burned to the touch. It was winding down, the energy dispersing, but…

I remembered the stickly asura, Wren, telling me about the source of this sword. He’d fashioned it for a phoenix named Aurora, but she’d vanished before he could present it. And apparently, it had begun to react to her presence and actions recently. Wren had practically fawned over my sword whenever it displayed reactions like this, but for it to happen now of all times…

Sylvie looked at the sword with wide eyes. “Papa,” she whispered, her voice a low croon, “There’s something you should know. I didn’t say so earlier, because it just didn’t make sense. I’ll admit, part of me didn’t truly believe it, either. But now, with Dawn’s Ballad acting up…”

I turned wide eyes to my bond as she matched mine with pupils of slitted gold. “The phoenixes can influence aether slightly, too. But the Asclepius Clan–the resplendent phoenixes of the Great Eight–deserted Epheotus long ago with their Prince Mordain, seeking refuge with Agrona and joining his horrid cause.”

Sylvie looked deep into my eyes. “We don’t only have to face Vritra lessurans in this war,” she said, coming to the same realization as me. “But phoenix hybrids, too.”