Toren Daen

I came to slowly, a horrible headache pounding against my skull. Besides that, my body ached in a dozen different places, sharp and dull all over. It took me a moment to figure out what had happened.

I was cold. Deathly cold. The chill ate at my flesh, sinking through my skin and biting my bones. The stars mocked me from on high, their warmth light years away.

I was outside in the winter cold, clad in my thin dark clothes. The mana that usually coursed through my body to reinforce me against the weather wasn’t there to protect me.

I instinctually tried to draw mana from my core, the act second nature after so long. Instead, I felt the familiar pain of a close brush with backlash coursing from my nexus of power. The mana flowed, but it carried pain with it.

I groaned in agony, trying to remember why I was beaten and broken under the sky.

“I told you you couldn’t fight him on your own,” a voice said from nearby.

I recognized it. And as soon as I recognized that voice, the reason for my pain crashed back through my head.

The Doctrination’s abduction of people. The infiltration. Finding the map of blithe routes.

Mardeth.

I had used my full power, then been swatted around like a fly. I was beaten once, twice, a dozen times into the stone. I was shown my weakness in full force.

And the blithe.

I snarled, moving my limbs. They ached with every shift as I hauled myself to my feet.

My knees buckled as I stood, making me stumble into a nearby wall. Instead of despair, I felt a growing fury rising in my chest.

“You shouldn’t move,” the voice said. “You took quite a beating. Mardeth dumped your body out here a while back.”

I turned lethargically toward the speaker. I recognized him immediately from his drooping mossy hair. I felt my anger redouble, my lips pulling into a snarl.

“I told you not,” I said, taking a breath through the sharp pain in my ribs. God, I hated feeling so weak. “To follow me.”

“I wasn’t following you,” he said, his eyes glinting slightly. “Your body was dumped right in my path.”

“How many fucking times are you going to use that excuse?” I hissed, trying to force my legs to support my weight. I brutally flooded them with the trace amounts of mana left in my core, the warmth of my power clashing with the pain coursing through my everything.

The mage furrowed his brows, slightly taken aback by my anger. I couldn’t sense his team anywhere nearby, but I was broken right now. Who knew what I was missing?

“As many times as I need to,” he said slowly. “You nearly got yourself killed.”

“Well, I didn’t. I hope your ‘employer’ is happy about that. Without her trapped weapons, she needs a lackey to follow in my footsteps.”

The mage arched a brow, undeterred. “Try not to get yourself killed, Toren Daen. My ‘employer’ wants you alive.”

Those words brought Mardeth’s last words to the fore of my mind.

“Will you break, or be like the Sovereigns?” he’d asked. He left me alive in some twisted attempt to build me up.

Just like this Renea Shorn.

“Tell Renea Shorn that if she wants anything from me, she can start by actually doing something good,” I hissed, taking a shaky step toward the mossy-haired mage. “There are over a hundred people being held by that psychotic vicar. You want me to be safe? Actually do something with your power.”

I shoved past the man, our shoulders colliding. I knew I was the only one to feel pain from that.

My legs shook with every step. Lady Dawn? I asked mentally. What happened after I was unconscious?

My bond appeared in front of me as I continued to pitifully hobble forward. She had a pinched expression on her normally stoic face. “You need to rest, Contractor,” she said softly. As if she was speaking to a child.

“Tell me!” I yelled, my patience wearing thin. I sensed the attention of Renea Shorn’s mage behind me, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t weak anymore. The Toren who broke under the boot of the Joans was gone. He didn’t exist anymore.

Lady Dawn’s face morphed slightly, my inability to mask my emotions over our bond telling her exactly how I felt. I felt my knees shake, my weakness pervading every part of my body and mind.

No, I thought, trying to fight back a choked breath. Don’t look deeper. Stay away from my shame.

“The lessuran dropped your body a few streets away from the warehouse,” Lady Dawn said after a quiet moment. “You have been unconscious for nearly an hour. I do not know what became of your compatriots.”

I looked past my bond. My anger burned like the heartfire in my chest. I took such solace in feeling like my actions had a purpose. And yet what was the point of that infiltration? I hadn’t accomplished any of my goals. Instead of finding out where the people were held, I had been tossed around like a ragdoll.

And that warehouse was full of blithe. I had felt certain this place was done with that. But if Mardeth was planning to send it back out into the slums? What did that mean for the hope the Rats had so carefully fostered?

I remembered Mardeth’s last words to me. “But if you try and stop me again before we’re ready, I’ll hurt you. All the people I’ve taken? Their lives are in your hands.”

I screamed hoarsely into the night air. I turned as best I could, slamming my fist into the brick wall.

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The wall should have crumbled before my power. Any other time, the bricks would yield before my strength. But my knuckles cracked, spraying blood. The wall stood imperiously, defying me just like Mardeth had.

I was so weak.

A cloaked figure dropped from a rooftop nearby, landing with a sharp clack of boots on stone. I turned in my hobble, noticing the Rat’s mask over Naereni’s face.

“You’re alive?” Naereni said with a note of hopeful surprise. “I felt the power that was being thrown around! I thought you were dead!”

I noticed something clutched in her arms. Oath was unblemished as always, the red-patterned steel seeming dull to me. Promise, however…

My dagger had divots in its blade for each of the spindly fingers of the vicar. They were deep, sinking nearly halfway through the steel. The edge was nearly ruined, only sparse points still bearing a cutting edge. The tip was still wicked sharp, but it felt like a moot point.

I tried to latch onto the weapons with my emblem, an act that was past instinctual at this point. My rune felt warm for a moment, then the heat vanished like a candle in the wind. I snarled, hobbling toward the Young Rat.

“I’m fine,” I said stiltedly, yanking the weapons from her arms. She released them in a rush, seeming skittish. “That vicar nearly killed me,” I said, feeling an almost physical pain from the admission. I sheathed both my weapons, then paused. Renea Shorn’s spy was close, watching our conversation with keen eyes.

Naereni turned on him, a construct of ice manifesting in her hand. “Hello, stranger!” she said with forced cheer. “I’m afraid we’re having a personal talk. Between teammates. Peeking isn’t allowed, though you can RSVP for the next meeting at your mother’s house. We were all there last night, after all!”

The spy shook his head, his reed-like hair covering his face. He brushed off Naereni’s blatant provocation. “I’ll give Lady Shorn your message, Toren Daen,” he said, turning to look at the slums. “It has occurred to me that I know far less than I thought of the world.”

The spy bounded away, clearly reinforcing his body with mana. Several other shadows joined from various alleyways as he left, the rest of his team regrouping.

I had been able to sense them before.

“Who was that?” Naereni asked, looking at me with open concern. She gave me a more scrutinizing look. “Vritra’s Horns, we need to get you to a healer! You look like you were run over by an iron hyrax!”

“Renea Shorn’s spy,” I said, looking toward the west. An idea fueled by the anger in my stomach was forming, drawing my attention. “And I’ll be fine, Naereni. Don’t worry about me.”

“But your wounds–”

“Is Karsien alive?” I interrupted with a snap, unintentionally exerting my will over the ambient mana.

Naereni jumped. “Oh, yeah. He’s fine. We found where the people are being held under the warehouse! We even spotted Wade’s family. We’ll rescue them soon!”

I felt a phantom nail running down my cheek. Putrid breath eroding my senses.

“But if you try and stop me again before we’re ready, I’ll hurt you. All the people I’ve taken? Their lives are in your hands.”

“Don’t do it,” I said lowly, turning while using a nearby wall for support. “He’ll kill them. Kill them all.”

Naereni shifted uncomfortably, looking at my battered and bloodied body. “Who did you fight, Toren? We didn’t see. But the entire place shook. It nearly collapsed the ceiling. The amount of mana being tossed around… The pressure in the air…”

I closed my eyes, taking a steadying breath. But whenever my eyes closed, all I saw was a milky pupil and its devious twin. “Mardeth,” I said. “The Vicar of Plague.”

Naereni took a step back, shock emanating from her. “You’re… you’re alive?” she said, saying it as if it was a question.

The anger in my gut, which had begun to settle, finally reared up again. “I was left alive,” I snapped. “I was toyed with, Naereni. And he told me that if I tried to save the people he’d captured, he’d hurt them all.”

“But–”

“That entire warehouse was filled with blithe.” I hissed, walking away. I used the wall for support, a single hand keeping me steady. “And I found a map of distribution routes. It was all for nothing, Naereni. Nothing!”

Mardeth was going to redistribute that horror drug to the populace again after we’d gone to such lengths to eradicate it at its roots. All the progress this place had made in the aftermath?

Naereni nearly tripped at my mention of blithe. I knew she had a past with the drug. She must have thought the entire district was done with that hellish substance, too.

How naive we were.

“What?” she asked, her voice seeming distant.

I turned, drawing the wounded metal of Promise. “I’m going to get stronger, Naereni,” I said, clutching the dagger tight and holding it in front of me. “I’m too weak to help you now. But I promised to make a difference. I won’t let that be taken from us.” Naereni raised an arm, clearly disquieted by my words. But I didn’t let her worry stop me. “But I will grow. And when I have enough power, I am going to nail that vicar to the effigies of his false gods. He will bleed for his sins. Then you can save those people.”

I saw another figure in the deep dark of the alley. Karsien’s eyes were shadowed, but I felt a kinship there. We had both been broken by this system before.

“I swear this,” I said lowly, drawing the ragged edge of Promise over my oath-chained palm. It tore a jagged cut, but the pain was overshadowed by my resolve. By my fury. “On my Blood.”

I felt a slight pull of… something in my chest, resonating over and around and through my heart. The red chains on my arm glowed slightly as blood dripped down my arm.

Mardeth wanted to make me strong; to forge me into his personal Kezess Indrath? I’d show him the might of the sun.

—

“You should not do this so soon,” Lady Dawn said, gliding beside me. She kept her eyes forward, but I could feel her attention over our bond.

My emotions had cooled into more steady spite as time passed. I limped my way through the streets, leaving East Fiachra and the Rats behind. I had a goal in my stilted trek.

And my bond knew it.

“You are wounded and… compromised, Contractor. To rush into battle so soon would be unwise.”

I felt my mana regenerating at a rapid pace from the feather in my core. Considering how long it was taking me to limp to the Ascender’s Association, my nexus of power would be nearly full by the time I was there. My body was inconsequential. My magic would ease the burden.

“I was toyed with, Lady Dawn,” I said, using her title. “Beaten around like a sandbag. If I don’t take risks, I’ll stagnate. Become fodder for this godforsaken system.”

I nearly tripped on a large piece of rubble, stumbling and bracing myself against the wall. I cursed aloud.

“I feel hate for this vicar as well,” my bond said after a tense moment. “His blood is a perversion of asuran and lesser union. A corruption of everything beautiful about children.”

I turned slightly, my eyes widening as I felt her anger. This was the fury she contained every time the Doctrination had approached me. This was the root of that spite.

“I may not hate this man the same way you do, Toren Daen. But I know the fire that burns in your chest. I know both sides of your anger and shame.”

I grit my teeth, thumping my back against a wall. I slid down it, my exhaustion seeming to redouble.

“I was captive for many, many years, my bond. I was held in chains that kept me from all that I knew and those I loved. And those chains only clasped my wrists once I became reckless.” Lady Dawn’s burning eyes peered into my soul from above. “Do not repeat my mistakes. Give yourself time.”

I closed my eyes shut. “I don’t have time,” I said. “It’s all going to happen soon. And I’m not strong enough to even fight that vicar.”

My bond watched me, her brows furrowed in a way I recognized as concern. Her outline of purple and orange light pushed against the night around us. “Then give yourself a single day. Recover. You cannot throw yourself into another battle so soon.”

“I thought you were against dictating my choices for me,” I said bitterly.

“I am not, Toren Daen. I am giving you advice, as you requested. I am telling you the truth.”

I felt an irrational anger at the phoenix, but I banished it with a force of will. I wanted to lash out at everything nearby. To show them all that I wasn’t a weakling to be trodden on. My actions made a difference.

But my bond had been nothing but supportive, a solid rock in the heart of a storm. I could not lash out at her.

I held my face in my hands, knowing Lady Dawn to be right. I needed to rest.