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Toren Daen

I felt Aurora’s pain as if it were my own, her scream–more of surprise than of the agony she truly felt–tearing across my mind.

It only cemented my resolve further. I ground my teeth, my head feeling as if it had been dunked inside a vat of acid as I struggled to maintain control of the building mana of the Stake of the Morning. My hands clenched around the hasta of solid plasma as I felt my thoughts center on one, single thought.

He hurt my bond, I thought, my eyes dilating as they focused on Dawn’s Ballad. The sword–which had torn a clean cut through Aurora’s Relic exterior–was glowing. I could feel the reaction of heartfire within it as it began to morph and change, the blade seeming to almost melt as it streamed into Arthur’s palm. He hurt Aurora.

“I am fine, Toren!” Aurora yelled as she pedaled away limply, though her voice was strained. “Just do what you need to do!” she added, her mind fuzzy.

As the spear of solid plasma settled into my palm and the guiding stream of telekinesis flashed like lights along an airway, my addled mind focused on one thing.

Images of all those I’d met in this world flashed before my eyes. Naereni, with her devious smirk and darting eyes. Wade’s inherent desire for knowledge. Sevren’s severe stare and burning passion for those he loved. Caera’s nonchalant confidence. Seris’ careful smile, something hopeful and terrible churning beneath like ever-shifting energies of yin and yang.

And like the shadow cast by a looming mountain, the grave reflections filtered through next. The man I’d failed to save so long ago in the Clarwood Forest, his abdomen melted through as I failed to reach him in time. The broken eyes of Alun as he saw his zombified wife in the Undead Zone, moments before he was ripped from life. And the hundreds–no, thousands–who had died in the Plaguefire Incursion.

And finally, Hornfels Earthborn’s broken stare as he saw the corpse of his brother. The brother I had slain.

I can stop it all, I thought, a thread of resolve worming through my mind like underlying rot. I won’t need to kill anymore. To take away any more brothers. To ruin any more innocent lives.

And all I needed to do… All it would take…

Arthur was stumbling to his feet, the runic tattoos on his arms churning and seeming to swell as he swayed drunkenly. The hope of this world–the only being who would stand between Kezess Indrath and Agrona Vritra–shifted weakly as his exhaustion was made manifest.

I hurled the Stake of the Morning, not allowing myself to think.

And Arthur appeared suddenly to the side as if he’d teleported, my attack searing through everything in its path as it continued unerringly through this city–which I knew was an abandoned djinni sanctuary.

Static Void, I thought angrily, Aurora’s exhaustion and weariness from whatever Dawn’s Ballad had done to her bleeding through our connection. Of course it couldn’t be that simple, could it?

“I’m fucking done,” I said at last, my fevered mind settling onto that one, certain truth. “Done holding back. Done hiding away and biding my time. Done trying and trying and trying to stay myself!” I yelled, the mana around me flexing and warping with my intent. Hornfels’ rabid fury burned itself into my retinas as if by a brand, the haunting memory scraping at my sanity. Arthur was so happy to just try and attack me. And I’d restrained myself so far. But if what he wanted was to die? “You want to fight me, Arthur Leywin? You want to face me, Lance of Dicathen?” I snarled, calling on my Phoenix Will.

Aurora’s control of her relic lapsed as her mind was brought close to my own, Soulplume rising from the depths of my core. I glared at Arthur Leywin–this world’s only hope. But also…

Also one of the anchors for the Legacy.

“And you know what?” I said, speaking to nobody–to nothing–in particular. The words I uttered clawed themselves out like some sort of decrepit creature from the depths of Mardeth’s torture chambers. The monsters within the labyrinth of Taegrin Caelum’s vaults couldn’t have been as vile as the resolve that surged through me. “I can complete my oath. Right here; right now. I only need to kill one. One anchor.”

I sensed the next act in Arthur’s intent before he even held the conscious thought.

I forced my heart to beat, just as I had when I faced the yeti within the mountain zone. My lifeforce flared like a fire that had been doused in gasoline.

And as the world turned monochrome from the surging timestop spell that Arthur had engaged, the aether of my heart pressed back against the encroaching separation from time. My eyes locked onto those of my fellow reincarnate; one of the only people in this world who might understand me. ”I can simply kill you, King Grey,” I whispered, clenching Inversion in my hand.

Arthur’s control of the aetheric spell faltered, then broke as my words touched him. I felt his intent warp with uncertainty and fear as he registered what I had uttered. Understood that I knew his deepest secret.

“What are you–” he started. But I didn’t let him finish.

I moved. One instant I was a hundred yards away; the next I was in front of my foe. Arthur didn’t even have time to react as my hand wrapped around his face in a crushing grip, the skin there sizzling from the heat of my body.

I hurled him toward one of the larger stone buildings. His body smashed through it as if the stones were paper. I vaguely noticed as Aurora’s relic receded from its Vessel form, the molten structure folding into its feathered brooch as my bond was drawn close to my mind.

“Toren, don’t lose yourself,” I heard her think to me. Or was I thinking that? Under the effects of my Phoenix Will, it became uncertain whose thoughts were whose. “Ask yourself! Do you want this?”

I didn’t answer her as I stalked forward, white fire trailing in my wake. My heart pounded in my chest, the noise drowning out all else as my blood churned. I’d already killed innocents. I’d already killed brothers. What was one more?

Miniature storm clouds formed around me as I continued onward, the ionized insides crackling and sparking with black lightning and eddies of wind. I ignored them as the mana within built.

Little motes of ice popped into existence around me, the ambient mana bending in one last desperate gamble. A domain of glittering snowfall finally surrounded my burning form.

And then the stormclouds began to hurl their fury at the world. Bolts of lightning the color of night snapped out from the miniature nimbuses of mana, arcing into the snowfall. Wherever that black lightning struck, it rebounded, bouncing from mote to mote to mote.

With each cascading chain effect, an aura of icy cold seemed to grow within the crackling roar of thunder. I was surrounded by a demented snowglobe of voltaic black death, those tendrils arcing like an impossible net.

And then they struck, surging inward in a tide of death. Electricity skittered across my telekinetic shroud, no longer able to pierce my defenses as I stalked forward. The ice imbued in those bolts tried and failed to make my body temperature shift at all. The hairs on the back of my neck sparked and jumped as the ionized particles brushed past them.

But as I was now, imbued with the weight of countless lives of asuran insight? This was nothing.

I waved my hand, conjuring a dozen feathers of solid white fire as each lightning bolt skittered across my shroud. Each feather sparkled and pulsed from compressed sound mana within, their intricate makeup almost a work of art. Then I clenched my fist.

Under the influence of my telekinetic emblem, the feathers zipped away as if of their own accord, each flitting to a single cloud as they dipped and weaved around the black lightning. Like hummingbirds seeking a flower’s nectar, they delved into the originating stormclouds with glee.

And then they detonated, rippling outward with a burst of vibrating sound mana and tongues of fire. The clouds dispersed violently, kicking up rocks and dust as they were forcefully destroyed. The snowfall was turned to steam, and then nothing at all as white fire engulfed everything.

And I felt the heartfire of my foe dip in exhaustion, his mana signature faltering and growing dim after his last assault. From within the building I’d thrown him, Arthur Leywin–Godspell, King, and Lance–lay broken in a heap of rubble, blood streaming from his lips as his Beast Will began to recede from near-backlash. His eyes watched me with quiet despair as I raised a finger, concentrating fire and sound mana along the tip.

My anger redoubled as I stared into his eyes, preparing to deal the finishing blow, yet hesitating all the same. You’re supposed to be everyone’s hope! I thought with irrational hatred. Supposed to make things better. But you’re a liability, just like Nico is.

Aurora was silent in my head, a slow, mourning sap of emotion interlacing me like a smothering blanket. I couldn’t tell where my emotions stopped and hers started. I was angry at Arthur: angry that he wasn’t strong enough. Angry that I wasn’t strong enough. But I also hated myself for seeing this option, while also recognizing its veracity.

I can just let it all go, I thought, my eyes blurring with tears as the white plasma along my finger built. Two creatures warred inside of me: the craven fool who feared taking the next steps in this war. That knew the easy way out lay in front of him: forgoing the future and what was necessary for the world, there was a shortcut. A quick ‘fix.’

And then there was the part of me that had been forged like iron through the hells I’d faced in this world. The part that mourned the loss of my innocence, yet recognized it was a fleeting beauty that wouldn’t ever come again. That knew, if I took this next step, it would be a sin beyond anything else I’d done.

Arthur’s eyes were glazed as they awaited their end. Yet even in them, I saw defiance. A refusal to just die. From how his heart was beating, I knew he was trying to move. To save himself from my attack. But his limbs wouldn’t respond.

I released my spell, a blurring white line of plasma thrusting forward like the spear of a god. At the same time, I heard a mournful cry: Sylvie Indrath screamed in preemptive grief and terror as my attack neared her bond.

And my attack burned a hole through the wall beside the Lance’s head, sparing his skull. Arthur wasn’t conscious any longer, having long since reached exhaustion. I gnashed my teeth, clenching my hands as I turned away. My adrenaline still pumped, and despite the closeness of my bond to my thoughts, that didn’t settle them at all.

I could separate us out easily enough, now. The emotions I felt regarding Arthur were complex and deeply rooted in the journey I’d shared with him as I read the lines of a page, but Aurora had no such intimate care. Still, I questioned myself over and over, unsure of my choice. I could still turn around; finish the job. Fulfill my oath. And oaths were what made us human, weren’t they? The ability to keep our word?

I let out a howling bellow, the churning mass of emotion in my chest tearing its way from me as if ripped free with ragged, black claws. The ambient mana warped and trembled, my intent chaotic and broken as fire, sound and telekinetic force burst around me. Why couldn’t I just make up my goddamn mind?!

My chest heaved as I stared up at the ceiling, my eyes–burning orange from the effects of my Second Phase–dimming noticeably.

“Why does it hurt you so much?” a low, weak voice asked from behind me. “I could… feel it. Why does sparing him hurt you?”

My eyes turned weakly to Sylvie. The massive dragon looked like she’d been pressed through a blender as she gently used vivum on Arthur’s body, the particles of purple sinking into his skin. I could feel her wariness; her own fear of me and what I could do. But this was Arthur’s bond, the more mature one of the two.

I felt my anger and chaotic surge melt away as I watched the scene. Sylvie seemed ready to act; to throw herself in front of her bond should I make a move. But my shoulders slumped, my Phoenix Will drifting back into my core as I abandoned Soulplume.

Aurora had tended to me before in much the same way. My bond watched over me in a way none others could; just as Sylvie did for Arthur.

In the place of my earlier irrational anger, I instead felt a sort of quiet, resigned despair. “No matter what I do, Sylvie Indrath,” I said weakly, kneeling to pick up Aurora’s molten relic, “whether I spare your bond or kill him now, I condemn thousands to die. I simply damn them at different points.”

The brooch looked little better than a lump of bronze slag. Apparently, the damage that the Vessel Form underwent translated to its compressed version. I could only pray that it would repair itself. That Aurora would get to fly once more.

Sylvie stuttered to a stop in her treatment of Arthur, turning wide, reptilian yellow eyes to me. “You know who I am?” she whispered quietly. Even at a low tone, her words made the air tremble slightly. A dragon indeed.

I snorted. My tired mind had forgotten for a moment that Sylvie’s true identity as a dragon–much less the granddaughter of Kezess Indrath–had been kept a secret from everyone, presumably most of the Alacryans as well. I felt the urge to simply lay down in this cavern and sleep. Perhaps if I did so, I wouldn’t feel so broken.

“Grey was brought here for a reason,” I said to the looming dragon, unsure as to what I should say. How much I could afford to reveal without implicating myself should the knowledge go free. “And if he’s dead, then that reason will never come to pass,” I said weakly.

Sylvie’s eyes widened perceptibly as my tired words washed over her. “You– You know how Arthur was reincarnated? You know why?” she said, shifting forward slightly.

“I’m of the phoenix, Lady Indrath,” I said tiredly as I began to walk away, each step like a lead weight. “Rebirth is the crux of our power. Did you think Arthur was the only one reincarnated into this world?”

I felt Sylvie’s emotions crack at my words as I began to walk away, confusion and disbelief raging like a typhoon. The mana in my core was regenerating quickly, yet the wounds all across my body were slow to heal. I had to resist the urge to limp as I surveyed my surroundings, recognizing this as a djinn sanctuary. A final resting place for them.

And then I froze in my tracks, my eyes blowing wide as a wave of power washed over me. I nearly fell to my knees in surprise as it cinched shut around my heart like a vice, compelling me… compelling my Will.

On instinct, I embraced Soulplume once again. Power surged across my body as I followed the call of something resonating deeply with my strength. Some primal voice in my mind told me that if I didn’t, I would die. That the unrelenting spear of power that blanketed me like death would claim the breath in my lungs as tribute.

“Aurora Asclepius,” an apathetic voice radiated out like the tide of a sea crashing against cliffs. The words themselves made the blood freeze in my veins, but I felt a rebounding terror of another sort wash through me as I felt the intent in the air.

I turned robotically, bracing against the power in the air. Arthur stood across from me, pulsing with dread strength as his auburn hair turned snow white from Realmheart once more. The runes covering his arms elongated, shifting like a living tapestry and burning against every inch of his skin. But it was his eyes that scared me. For they weren’t human: no, they were the empty, soulless husks I’d seen within Greahd’s void of a soul.

“An asura bound to a lesser’s soul,” Arthur–no, his Dragon’s Will–said. The intent in the air–a static emptiness that made fear surge through my veins–swelled throughout the cavern. “It does not matter.”

Sylvie screamed out to her bond on instinct, telling him of the dangers of what was happening. That he could not handle it. Yet I already knew that from the way his heartfire–shifting and moving from the influence of his acclorite–began to squeeze like hands around a throat.

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Arthur took a single step forward–and suddenly, he was no longer in the same space. Faster than I could process, he’d teleported, phasing into existence right beside me. Our eyes locked, the world moving in slow motion. His hand shimmered with purple light before smashing through my telekinetic shroud. Arthur’s knuckles ground against my jaw, the bone cracking and splintering as the world lurched.

I shot upward into the air, my vision flashing as my head rocked. On instinct, I tried to reorient, but Arthur was suddenly in front of me again.

It was only the resonant pulse of his heartfire that gave me any indication as to his position. I pulled my arms inward on instinct, crossing them over my face as the next attack came. My forearms splintered and cracked as my foe punched me, the aether within his strike radiating across my body.

Arthur said nothing as I shot diagonally back to the ground, a crack of thunder following in my wake. His intent said nothing; his eyes said nothing. The dread apathy of his Dragon’s Will subsumed all.

I crashed through a couple of buildings, the decrepit vines and crumbling ruins of the djinni sanctuary breaking from the sudden force before I finally neared the ground.

I skidded backward, digging Inversion’s shrouded saber into the ground to slow my movement. As I stared up at the Lance–who was hovering within a nimbus of purple–I gritted my teeth.

His Third Phase, I thought with a spike of fear and confusion. But he’s not at the white core yet. This was only supposed to happen when–

Arthur held out his hand, the palm facing me. A swirling nimbus of white fire and swirling frost slowly built along his fingers, the ambient mana itself–no, the very world–seeming to bend under the behest of its God. The presence that radiated from him made my arms tremble and heart quake. Arthur’s spell was tinged with specks of violet, the aether itself twisting to obey his call.

Like an asura, I thought, a bit of repressed fear streaking through my mental space. The amount of power that coursed through the atmosphere was reminiscent of Aldir. Reminiscent of Aurora.

Reminiscent of Agrona.

“You do not bow,” Arthur’s apathetic voice said under the effect of his Will, his hand brimming with power. “Unwise.”

And then a torrent of aether-tinged frostfire roared toward me. Out of instinct and desperation, I threw out my hands, quickly condensing a beam of white plasma along my palms. The spell hummed with energy as the ambient mana itself seemed to reject my presence.

I let the beam streak toward the Anchor’s attack. They collided in a cascade of power, energy ripping and tearing itself apart. Steam and eddies of wind whipped and raged through the sanctuary in a roar that drowned out even my thundering heartbeat.

For an instant, they were in a stalemate. My plasma arts and the remnant of Sylvia Indrath’s barest intent smashed together, pulsing with the heat of asuran ghosts.

My feet dug furrows into the earth as I was forced backward. Unwilling to let myself be broken by this, I threaded out my telekinesis around me, bolstering my body and fighting against the grinding push.

It is getting more difficult, I belatedly realized as sweat streamed down my brow, to keep our minds separate. To remain distinct. We need to end this fast, lest Toren Daen cease to–

“Arthur!” Sylvie cried out mournfully. “Arthur, stop! Your body! It can’t take this! It’s killing you!” she screamed, stumbling on weak legs toward where our struggle for power lay locked.

“Listen to your bond!” I yelled over the din, my voice melodic under the effects of my Will. “You cannot sustain this power! It will be your end, Anchor!”

Indeed, as both Toren Daen and Aurora Asclepius, we knew that the boy could not maintain this power. Sylvia Indrath’s Will had accumulated insight for countless millennia–and the secret of this ‘Third Phase’ was simple. Arthur Leywin’s mind and body were being drowned in the full weight of that knowledge; that power. Perhaps he could get a little bit of insight out of it now, but his Vessel was too small. Too limited to truly make use of such might.

Except there was something perpetuating this transformation. Something to do with the strange pulse of heartfire that had coursed from the sword after it had taken a piece of my soul and meshed with the stone in his palm.

High above, Arthur sighed in arrogant disdain. “You no longer bear the mantle of asura, Lady Dawn,” he said. “You forfeited it with your life.”

He waved his hand nonchalantly, and a tremble went through the ambient mana. A flash of black-purple lightning traveled along his stream of frostfire, before hopping onto my own spell.

My eyes widened as the attack used my mana for purchase, redirecting itself toward me with the ferocity of a gnashing direwolf’s teeth.

I felt my mind burn as I engaged my telekinetic emblem, my reserves of mana creaking and warning me of the danger of pushing myself further. I used it to pull myself away from the streaking attacks, giving up on trying to hold back the aetheric fire.

I pushed myself upward on stilts of telekinesis, blurring as I barely cleared the distance necessary. Beneath me, Arthur’s spellfire tore into the earth, eating away at the stone with tongues of pinkish icy flame. A furrow a hundred feet long churned and roared as the lightning-enhanced frostfire carved its vengeance through the cavern.

I watched out of the corner of my eye as Arthur took another step. Yet this time, I was prepared for his teleport.

I spun midair, instincts honed over millennia of combat guiding me as I swung with a saber of white plasma. Arthur reappeared next to me in the air, a sword of ice touched by aether appearing to block my attack–after all, his sword had been absorbed into his palm. His apathetic purple eyes locked with mine as we struggled for a moment, steam rising between us.

“Once the greatest of your clan,” he said evenly, the golden runes that covered every inch of his skin flashing brighter for a moment. His heartfire cried out in anguish. “Now, little more than a parasite.”

“You are not Sylvia Indrath,” I said in reply, gritting my teeth as my muscles strained against my foe’s. Were I still in possession of my previous body, I wouldn’t struggle so much to match this lesser’s strength. “You are a remnant. A wisp of a dragon clinging to life; and damning the one you care for to oblivion,” I hissed, blood leaking through my teeth. I still hadn’t managed to heal my damaged jaw or arms, too preoccupied with this struggle.

“Then we are the same,” Arthur said without care, maneuvering his blade of ice beneath my saber and thrusting toward my heart in a piercing strike.

I eased off on my telekinetic supports, twisting as I allowed the purple-tinged ice to shear past my chest. I raised a shrouded hand, gently nudging his weapon upward and to the side as I retaliated with a rising swipe.

The Lance shifted in the air, the purple mass of particles letting him move supernaturally quickly. A coating of ice and earth misted over his hands, the atmosphere suddenly heavier than it had been before as the air pressure increased.

The path of my saber slowed ever-so-slightly, allowing the Anchor to catch it in his outstretched palm. That gauntlet of ice and earth hissed and popped as it closed around the impossible heat of my weapon.

And then his blade was arcing down toward my shoulder, a razor-sharp blur of cutting water churning with amethyst light as it sought my skull.

Seeing no other option, I moved into the attack, letting the axe-like chop of his strike sink deep into the bronze armor on my shoulder. I felt it churning and cutting through, seeking bone.

Before it could part me in two, however, my fist–shrouded in plasma and awash with a telekinetic buildup–surged for Arthur’s sternum. Blood spurted from my clavicle as his attack dug deeper, ruining the pristine and beautiful armor made for my bond.

But the impact of my knuckles on the boy’s already damaged chest echoed throughout the room like a thunderclap. I could feel my sound spell traveling through his body, causing more internal injuries.

Arthur shot upward in the air, the icy blade ripped from my shoulder. I grunted in pain, my meager heartfire working to heal over the injury.

Yet still, even as he shot upward, I could tell the reincarnated soul was not yet done. Without another thought, I knew the aether was warping; bending to the demands of this foreign king. Icicles formed around me like a winter storm, before currents of wind sent them scything inward like knives.

Blood streamed down my shoulder, the wound not yet healed. I gathered my mana inward, building up fire and force in a concentrated burst as those winter-sharp points surged toward me. White flames and flashes of force sputtered around my breaking body, the light reflecting off the glinting daggers.

Then I let it erupt like a supernova, the pushback crumpling my telekinetic shroud. My blood sprayed and my bones creaked.

The mindfire explosion obliterated the shards of ice, leaving naught but steam and glimmering snowflakes as I fell back toward the ground, exhaustion threading through my mind as my core heaved.

But those glimmering purple eyes, high above… They demanded an end to this.

I swung my bloodied hands as I fell down, conjuring claws of white mindfire that tried to grasp the Lance in their grip. The Anchor retaliated with a flurry of frost that traveled over my attack like winter itself, freezing my mana as it traced back to me. Wind mana carried the icy wave onward even further, creating a storm easily the size of a building.

And I noticed as a single, red tear traced its way down Arthur’s cheek.

Mana reserves easily less than fifteen percent, I noted, my adrenaline driving me onward as I called on my telekinetic emblem. All around, chunks of rubble and bits of decimated vines rose into the air, before surging toward me. At my command, they began to twist and churn, a vortex of force and power creating a tornado with me at the center easily twenty feet wide.

I ground my teeth, feeling sweat bead on my temple as I focused, revving the churning mass faster and faster. My mana veins ached as I heaved for breath, hoping against hope that this whirlwind would be enough. Through it all, my heartfire worked feverishly to heal over the damage I’d experienced earlier, my heart pounding and aching.

Through the hurricane I’d created, I thought I caught a glimpse of Arthur’s eyes. Those two pits of violet seared into my own.

And then the wave of frost struck my makeshift barrier. The swirl of rock and force carried the storm in its wake, the stones within freezing and cracking as the temperature around me dropped significantly. My breath misted as my swirl of telekinesis captured the storm in its confines.

Have at you, Anchor, I thought headily, before clapping my hands together. You may be Indrath, but I am Asclepius. Know that I will not bow before you so simply.

My telekinetic tornado exploded outward, tons upon tons of frozen stone rocketing in every direction like shrapnel. Shards thunked into the ground like a Gatling gun, and every wall within a hundred-foot radius of me was peppered with holes as the air flashed.

I stumbled as my mana veins churned and ached, my core nearly empty. I snarled, staring upward as I sensed my foe.

Arthur fell toward me from above, a construct of electrified water churning in his grip. He hurled it down at me from on high like a deity’s spear, the air screaming as wind resistance was denied by his magic. As it surged toward me like a missile, the spear split a dozen times, becoming a writhing mass of purple-tinged tentacles. Each bore points as sharp as my talons and sparkled with black lightning as they surged toward me.

I weakly thrust my hands upward, narrowing my eyes as I called on my magic. My core protested–my mind screamed–and a flurry of solid plasma feathers appeared around me. My body trembled as I grasped each feather with telekinesis, then sent them toward the heavens like little hummingbirds.

Of their own accord, my attacks sought tendrils of water, diving within and detonating. The resounding boom of each attack exploding rippled through me, the hammer of my heart heard above all of it. Remnant particles of water carried electricity as they splattered against me, making my body twitch and spasm as the foreign aether within invaded my system.

And I felt something dig painfully into my chest. My mana winked out as something invaded my heart, a foreign force exerting itself.

I lethargically looked down, my vision–which seemed to be overlaid in red–struggling to register what I was seeing. Fingers covered entirely in golden runes thrust into my chest, their aether-laden tips no doubt brushing against my heart.

My heartbeat nearly stopped as I felt a surge of terror course through my system. Arthur’s purple eyes were cold as he stared into mine, his fingers clenching around the core of my soul.

“Yours were never the true wielders of aether, Lady Dawn,” Arthur said, blood dribbling from his eyes and nose. Somewhere in the distance, a dragon cried in grief. “Your aether arts forgo the world for the petty, inconsequential self, while ours…” His hands pressed a mote of aether into the nexus of my power. “They command the world itself to our heel.”

My world exploded into pain, my heartbeat disrupted. I collapsed to my knees, screaming in agony as foreign aether tried to subsume my lifeforce. My vision blackened at the edges as I clawed at my chest.

I felt it: that all-consuming domination as it slowly began to work its way through my veins. It usurped my own life, a strange parody of my own aetheric draining technique. But no, this… this was the world reclaiming what belonged to it.

The world outside fell away as I was left alone, my aether abandoning me. And as my consciousness slowly slipped toward oblivion I’d never wake from, I found myself almost… amused.

The Anchor was right, I thought, my mind running like tar as my senses receded. Is it not presumptuous of me to try and fight against the world? What is one man–one asura–to the vastness of it all?

My heartfire sputtered weakly, an encroaching tide of purple chipping away at it in a slow, methodic draw. The control of the dragon tore away that of the phoenix, leaving a withered husk.

“No,” Aurora’s voice said, suddenly so very clear and concise despite my Second Phase’s grip on my body and mind. “No, you’ve already proved that the world can change!” she said, her tone rife with mutual pain. “You chose to make things better! Chose to pursue a grander future!”

I blinked my eyes, visions of a mirror lake and endless expanse beneath a smiling sun flashing in and out of my perception. I vaguely recognized it: the Sea of the Soul, where I’d met Norgan one last time during my Sculpting. Where my mind had been remade nearly a year ago as I and Toren became one.

And atop that expansive lake, Aurora’s shade stared at me with resolution. Her chest was bleeding anew, the hole over her heart weeping red. There was a new wound on her body, one I didn’t recognize. A small cut beneath her eye made it appear as if the beautiful woman was crying blood. Her eyes didn’t burn.

“You will not let it end here,” my bond said with iron. “You will see your choices through. You believe you have sinned in killing innocents? You believe your actions worthy of retribution?”

I coughed, my vision of the Sea of the Soul sputtering out as I was greeted with the frozen ground beneath me. “Live to see the consequences, my son,” Aurora said across my mind.

My fists clenched around the dirt at my feet. My heartfire was almost gone now, subsumed by the washing force of Arthur’s power. Soon there would be nothing left. Nothing to keep my soul sustained and anchored to my vessel.

My heart throbbed, a sputtering speck of orange-purple fire left within. I clenched my teeth, Aurora’s words rumbling through me.

Live to see the consequences, I thought. Live to see the results of your actions. Don’t run now.

I forced my heart to beat–one, thunderous echo. It resounded out into the cavern like the crash of a war drum, the organ within clenching painfully. But as I enforced myself, the aether trying to dominate my body halted, uncertain as my will resurged.

“No,” I said from the ground. “No, you’re wrong.”

My heart beat faster. Harder. Arthur’s aether was pushed back, his pure violet banished by streams of dawnlight. Strength returned to my exhausted limbs as my lifeforce returned, flowing along not just my arteries, but my mana channels and veins as well.

I sensed Arthur above me as he raised his hand, trying to finish me off before I could complete my goal. But an unfocused wave of telekinetic force–far, far stronger than it usually was–sent him flying backward like a purple comet.

I woozily pulled myself to my feet, barely skirting around backlash. I clasped my chest as the final embers of the Lance’s aetheric influence were banished from my body. I groaned in pain as my heart squeezed, the effect of this technique nearly too much for me to handle.

Light the color of a waxing dawn streamed from the scars on my hands where I held them over my heart, meshing with the glow of the feathered runes along my arms. My entire body burned as my heartfire traced along my mana veins and channels, following the echo of my heartbeat.

I coughed a mouthful of blood onto my ruined armor, staring at Arthur as he rose to his feet on limp arms. I blinked, forcing my vision to focus as I had to merge the many split images of the Lance that clouded my sight.

He didn’t look much better than me–blood streamed from every orifice he had, coating his body crimson as the runes along his body flared weakly. His heartfire told me the state of his body–it was breaking down, of course. Just as I couldn’t maintain this new technique, neither could he keep himself from destruction.

But I wasn’t looking at Arthur. No, I was looking at the remnant of Sylvia’s Dragon Will pulling him on like a puppet. His eyes narrowed as he observed my broken state, that apathetic mask cracking in surprise.

My mastery of this technique was clunky, unpracticed, and extremely dangerous. Every pulse of my heart risked permanent damage to my body. But through the accumulated insight of practicing with Circe Milview’s blood array, learning more from Lance Olfred’s widened mana channels, and my control of lifeforce, I’d arrived at this power.

My body was my own. I was the master of my own self, and through my control of lifeforce, anything was possible. Under the effects of Resonant Flow–the name I had given this technique–I simultaneously widened my mana veins and channels with heartfire, allowing a greater flow of mana, while also squeezing them to concentrate everything that flowed through. Like a man pinching the end of a garden hose to make the pressure going through increase, I took control of the conduits that carried strengthening energy.

“You are… different,” Sylvia’s Will said, rising into the air on eddies of aether. “Your control of aether… It cannot be allowed. Not for the necessity of the Indraths and the safety of this world.”

I struggled to keep my eyes open as my Vessel burned. I felt as if every channel in my body was on fire as my mana began to run dry, rippling pockets of agony spiking with every beat of my heart. Purple-orange light glowed from every one of my scars, the power trying to break its way through.

Arthur held both of his hands to the side, then clenched them shut. Space visibly warped as he began to heave on the aether around him, pulling it into a central sphere as he glared at me through bloody eyes. I didn’t understand how he could still move.

I weakly began to call on what measly reserves of mana I had left, holding my hands in front of me. Plasma slowly coalesced as I did the mental equivalent of squeezing the last bit of liquid from a waterskin, preparing for this final confrontation.

Aurora, I thought, my mind strangely lucid despite the pinpricks of agony subsuming everything, have you ever fought a dragon?

She didn’t respond, all her focus intent on guiding my spell along. Arthur’s strange aether art of compressed and twisted space bent the light above us in a blatant disregard for physics, the haze around us from a dozen still-burning multicolored fires twisting and scattering the light into all their composite wavelengths. His blood streamed to the ground beneath him as he ignored his failing body.

It was beautiful to watch in a strange, deadly way. Like the detonation of a supernova or the accretion disk of a black hole, there was a surreal wonder in watching Arthur bend the world against its natural confines. To watch a single man mold space itself like putty. All four elements lingered in the air around us. Snow fell around with little electric currents, and remnant firestorms pushed those about, too. And all that was drawn inward by the Lance.

If this is the end, I thought headily, feeling a strange dissociation as I prepared one final gambit to keep myself alive, then it’ll be a beautiful way to die.

And then Arthur’s spell shuddered, popping as it winked out. The dizzying array of light that streamed throughout the cavern twisted and snapped, imploding on itself as the aether returned to its normal state. I blinked, looking up at the Lance from below. I watched as his purple eyes clouded over, and then his hair shifted back to its normal auburn. The runes adorning his body evaporated into yellow motes as they whisked away, abandoning their owner.

And then he fell, his broken heartfire snuffing out as his body finally gave in.