Tala floated in nothing.

Even to say she floated was technically inaccurate, as there was nothing to float and nothing at all in which to be.

Yet, it wasn’t the same nothing that she’d sensed outside the cell-tunnels.

There really shouldn’t be different kinds of nothing…

She honestly wasn’t quite sure how she was thinking, as she was rusting sure that she didn’t have a brain.

There was an odd pull at her being—soul, gate, whatever she was—along with a sense of light and comfort, near at hand.

It was like she was standing naked in a snowstorm, against the external wall of a chimney. The slight warmth of the wall made it clear that there was a lot of heat on the other side, and there was a door to get inside right over there.

The next world?

That seemed likely.

Had that not-Leshkin killed her? Really?

Are you slagged?

Something about the very idea seemed… laughable? Well, it’s not like I can actually laugh…

She did not like what was happening. Alright, Tala. Think, think, think.

If her gate had been forcibly kicked out of her body, it should have brought at least some of her natural magics along with her. She didn’t feel a build up of power, nor an access anywhere, so that meant that it was going into something.

All those natural magics pertaining to her body and biology would have been left behind affixed around ‘her body’—that’s why such were the most often available harvests from magical and arcanous creatures after all. There was the funny thing that most parts cut off before death were separated from the natural magics of a creature or person, those staying with the being the part was cut from.

Regardless, the natural magics more central to her may have been pulled free, more attached to her soul than her physical form. There would be no certainty in which had come along.

That’s why I can think, though. I have huge amounts of magic devoted to enhancing, mimicking, and improving mental function. I’m effectively operating on a natural magic brain at the moment.

That was… only marginally terrifying. Even if she didn’t have the hormonal systems to feel that terror anymore, the cognitive reality was still there, looming over her. The very fact that she was only cognizant because those magics had happened to come with her was like tripping and falling out of the way of a killing blow in battle.

No, don’t panic. Think!

She needed to figure out what else had come along.

Huh. The first thing that she noticed was actually her gravity magics. For as little as she used them in her day to day of late, they were at the core of her fundamental understanding of the world and her own magic.

And the final magic she found was her threefold sight. Nothing else remained.

Blessed stars, YES!

She diverted some of her power into those pathways, and something akin to sight returned to her.

The first thing she noticed was that the world seemed almost frozen around her. She’d been devoting so much power—her entire, unlimited throughput—toward her mental enhancements that her thinking had become effectively instantaneous. Amazing what can be done without the limitations of biology slowing me down.

Now, however, some of her power was going elsewhere, so the world was moving forward, even if at an absolute crawl.

Her threefold sight seemed to be originating from a space behind her body and a bit above, as if she’d been ejected out and back by Abridane’s hit—whatever that had been composed of.

The second thing she noticed was something she’d already known, but the reality of it struck her once again. The woods, ground, and other surrounding vegetation were painted a grotesque shade of Terry.

That thought could not be borne; she couldn’t deal with it just yet.

Finally, despite the incredibly slow movement of the world around her—she would guess at a minimum a thousand to one difference based on her perspective—the arcane prisoner’s eyes were locked directly on her.

Not her body, her.

That’s not great.

Based on her threefold vision—which was irritating to parse without Alat—her body wasn’t dead, nor were her magics gone, though both seemed to have gone through a shredder as her Fusing was broken. And here I thought that was impossible…

No… her Fusing hadn’t been broken, what her soul had been Fused to had been torn apart. There was no longer anything to be Fused to, and even the latent connection between soul and body was gone, only the magics she’d painstakingly maintained caused her body to have kept a resemblance of function.

Her armor also helped, holding everything together.

She suspected that her biology and remaining magics would sputter out soon enough with her gate no longer empowering them.

All the more reason to get back as soon as possible.

Tala suspected that Alat wasn’t with her, because those magics were explicitly designed to let Alat run as a secondary consciousness within Tala’s biological brain. Therefore, Alat didn’t have anything to think within, as Tala now was. She might still be in my body…

And that meant that Alat wasn’t here, because Tala wasn’t in her body. Because she was dead.

Don’t think like that, Tala. Don’t give up.

There was the continued, insistent tugging onward, but that wasn’t really an option.

She was not ready to die.

She was surprised that such mattered, and she might be reading too much into things, but she felt like she had something that she could do to prevent that end.

She tried to use her gravity magics to amplify her gate’s—her own—connection with her body, but the result felt like climbing the stairs and missing a step.

There didn’t seem like there was anything left to amplify.

Well, that isn’t ideal. She wasn’t panicking—likely because she didn’t have a body with pre-set fight or flight responses—and she was grateful for that. It was no time to panic.

The first thing she had to do was overcome her slow drift away. She didn’t think it was a physical direction that she was moving so much as simply moving on.

Yeah, none of that.

Her thoughts went to the rends in Reality that she’d seen at abandoned city sites. With that thought and change in mindset, reality threads came into focus around her.

She… wasn’t connected to much.

Due to proximity a few more stood out. There were some solid—yet still somewhat ephemeral—connections with her unit. She’d seen these before, but they somehow were clearer now than ever before.

Maybe because they’re more real to my current state?

She waited for Alat’s response, but of course, it never came.

Focus, Tala.

There was a transitory sensation associated with the connections with most of her unit, despite their obvious strength. It was disconcerting, but it also made a certain amount of sense. She was mainly interacting with them due to work, and once the waning of Alefast was over, she would likely have far less contact with them.

That was a punch to the non-existent gut.

But she didn’t have time to camp on the revelation.

Terry’s spirit was there, still in her body for the moment, though it was not anchored there by any means. She knew with utter certainty that if she passed on, he would as well, going wherever such spirits went. It might be the same place she was going, and it might not. She simply didn’t know.

It also was unimportant right then.

Her connection with Terry was powerful. The thread was thick, substantial, and unwavering.

She also knew that despite her gravity magics being one-way, trying to use a disembodied spirit to anchor herself to Zeme was a bad plan. It might be a form of paranoia, but it felt like knowledge intrinsic to her current state, as if by being a simple gate she had a better understanding of how gates actually functioned in the world.

But back on task, she saw other connections as well. She had powerful soulbonds, but all of those connections were oriented on her, depending on her for their stability, power, and existence. She knew with absolute certainty that trying to use any of them to save herself would end in disaster, no matter how much logic would seem to indicate otherwise.

She was their foundation and source of power, so she couldn’t stand upon them in turn, not in this way.

All of her other connections were too far away to be of any use—given the nature of her magics, distance was incredibly important.

That’s when her eyes fell on her connection to Rane.

She had somehow missed it in her initial inspections, not because it was small, but the exact opposite.

In this weird space that wasn’t physical, the use of physical concepts to describe it was deceiving, but where each other connection felt like a rope tied between herself and the other, her connection to Rane was a massive plain of level ground, waiting there just beneath her feet, ready to catch and support her.

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Her threefold sight shifted to focus on the physical Rane.

He was mid-sprint, bursting out of the cell-entrance tunnel with Force leading the charge.

The other members of their unit were coming but moments behind—now having mostly come back to themselves—but her metaphorical eyes were only on Rane.

He was there for her. He always had been, and likely he always would be.

She and Terry had almost held out long enough for backup to arrive.

Well, rust…

There were times that she wished he had more going on away from their shared interests, but whenever he wasn’t around, his absence was keenly felt.

It’s why she’d been joining him in a few of his ancillary activities of late.

But she was getting distracted, and there were important things to be about.

Rane was close. Her connection to him was solid beyond belief, and she wouldn’t endanger him by depending on it.

She turned all her magic toward amplifying the pull on that connection.

What she focused on would never be a physical force between them, but she wasn’t physical at the moment, so that hardly mattered.

Power poured through her and into those natural magics.

To her, it felt like an eternity, but by the movements in the world around her, it was less than a minute.

Her physical body had locked up, her armor becoming essentially statue-like without her controlling it.

Rane was solidly in a berserking rage. Even so, he was hitting Abridane far less than she and Terry had been, but every one of his hits contained kinetic impartment, which disrupted the Mezzanni more effectively than simple cuts or hits had. More than that, with her current view, Tala could see the magics of the rage bubbling up within Rane, and some of that power was flowing into every hit, making the resulting damage slower to heal.

Abridane managed to counter-hit Rane once while Tala was watching closely, but the power of the Mezzanni broke around the magics of the Sovereign boon, the berserker rage seemingly protecting Rane from that more existential danger. The energy had felt a bit slower to gather as well, which Tala interpreted as Abridane having been weakened by his overwhelming strike on her.

The other members of the unit were likewise engaging with the arcane—all save Mistress Cerna, who was weaving an incredibly complex magic seemingly geared toward protecting their soul-body connections, and Mistress Vanga, who was coming toward Tala to check on her.

Kind of her to come check, and those protections would have been useful before we were in the cell… Tala sighed internally.

Regardless, she was bending all her will toward trying to pull herself, using her connection to Rane. If Tala had had a physical form, she would have been sweating at the strain.

Her connection to Rane was amplified to the point that she was no longer in danger of moving on, but she wasn’t returning to her own body… which made a certain amount of sense.

She was tying herself to Zeme in general using her connection to Rane—likely in a similar manner to how a soulbound spouse’s gate could remain with a gateless. She was simply able to mimic the phenomenon without the soulbond… and while he already had a gate.

That’s probably why I’m not moving closer in? Well, it’s great that I’m no longer moving away and all, but not really helpful long term.

She lacked the magics to remake a body for herself, and while she might be able to pull something together at need, her body was right there, and such an attempt would be a long-shot to say the least.

Her body was right there…

Her body with Terry’s spirit sequestered within.

That might work… There was no danger of odd recursive dependencies ejecting them both from existence, so… maybe?

She focused on that connection once again and began to tentatively amplify the pull of that thread. It sort of worked.

There was something missing though.

Terry was helping to anchor her to the physical space in which her body waited, but there was still nothing tying her to the body itself.

It was still alive, her remnant magics having mostly put her back together, just like she’d feared what seemed like so long ago. But it’s good now. Perspective is a funny thing.

The heart was beating, the blood flowed through it, but the connection that had made it her was gone.

That is rather frustrating…

She needed something to connect her with her body once again, even if just for a moment. She felt like if she could make even the briefest of connections, it would naturally reset.

If I was Reforged, I could be sure of making a new body… Huh, is Master Xeel unkillable? She dismissed the thought for the moment.

It was only then that a surprisingly obvious idea came to her, though it likely only did because she could see the reality threads so clearly around her.

Her family was her family because of her body.

Sure, there were the emotional connections too, but if she’d had a different family, she’d have been born in a different body.

Sure enough, when she looked really closely at the reality threads trailing off toward her family in the distance, they seemed to almost fray, most of the connection going to her—to her soul—but some pieces were definitely going to her body, before coming to her soul with the rest of the thread. For some of her siblings the proportion was far greater, but she didn’t let that bother her.

Huh, none of Rane or Terry’s connections go through my body… I guess because we don’t have any physical component to what connects us?

There was a beat where Tala again waited for Alat to snark, but the alternate interface was based in her body. Alat wasn’t here with her.

Oh, she must be panicking if she’s even conscious at the moment. The body’s lack of movement made unconsciousness the more likely option.

My body. Don’t disassociate, Tala.

She focused back on the task at hand and amplified the portion of her connection with her family that went through her body.

Surprisingly, blessedly, that worked… mostly.

She felt her soul sink back into herself and her gate slotted right back in, settling in against the connections to her keystone exactly as it should.

But there wasn’t an actual connection.

She’d come to the right place, but the body wasn’t hers anymore.

She screamed within her magically wrought mind.

As she did so, she felt a resonance with something that was hers.

Throughout her body, there was iron.

Iron that was unquestionably hers.

Even without a face, she knew she was grinning.

MINE.

Her soul twisted, pulsing outward to confirm her authority and sovereignty over the iron, briefly connecting with that part of her body.

Existence took care of the rest.

Her eyes snapped open within her helmet.

Alat started screaming in existential terror and relief in one, and Tala knew she was only on the edge of consciousness.

Her body was torn apart more thoroughly than it had likely ever been, and her newly restored gate was roaring with power funneling into her healing inscriptions, even as her stores were being devoured at a feverish pace to enact the repairs.

Her healing magics were rebuilding her.

Her magics… rebuilding…

That’s it!

In her half-present state, she used her aura and will to pull Terry’s spirit forth and aspect mirror her healing onto him, using the might of her aura to enforce that yes, the splatter around them—fully within her aura and authority—was his body, which the magics were designed to pull from for the purposes of healing.

It helped that Abridane was being driven back, Mistress Cerna’s spellforms drawing on Rane’s berserker state for inspiration as she defended the unit. All told this meant that Abridane couldn’t make Tala’s aura too choppy at the moment.

It didn’t work perfectly—though whether that was due to her soul-deep exhaustion, or the limitations of the magics she was stretching just a bit past their intended use, she had no idea—but it did work well enough that Terry came back into physicality in the midst of an inrush of biological matter.

Mistress Vanga was watching with obvious fascination, but everyone else seemed to be purposely focusing on their enemy rather than the blood, bone, and viscera rebuilding itself into Terry.

Except Rane. Rane was still assaulting Abridane with single minded purpose.

The last thing Tala saw before collapsing to the ground—just in front of Mistress Vanga—was Terry’s talons striking the forest floor. The last thing she heard was his shriek of indignant rage, promising vengeance.

* * *

Tala came back to herself outside of the cell of Abridane, Lord of the World Wood.

Her threefold sight immediately told her that the cell was closed once more. Her unit was entirely alive, and the Paragon was sleeping off to one side, clearly exhausted from the ordeal.

-Hey, you. You’re finally awake.- The alternate interface sounded strained.

Alat? Are you okay? Tala was immediately concerned.

-I’m… I’ll be alright. I think I was separated from our soul for a moment there, before I… stuttered somehow? I think I wasn’t aware of the time our soul was gone except for that brief blip. I didn’t like either part…-

Are you going to be okay? Tala filled the question with a sense of genuine concern and care.

-I am, yeah, but I think I’ll be quiet for a bit. I need to recenter myself.-

Whatever you need. Take the time.

-Thanks, Tala.-

Tala returned a feeling of affection, then shifted, moving her stiff back.

When she stirred, everyone noticed and came around, checking on her, and filling her in on what had occurred.

She’d kept the prisoner from escaping and busy enough for the others to recover, alter their preparations, and re-engage. They hadn’t been able to kill him, but that hadn’t ever really been in the realm of possibility to begin with.

Their mission was complete, and everyone was going to be fine. In the end, they’d only had to keep him at bay for around ten minutes.

With Rane effectively immune—even the one time he’d come out of his berserking state, being hit by Abridane had thrown him right back into it—and Terry no longer sticking around to be hit, everyone else stayed at a distance. Since the Mezzanni’s soul-kicking attack seemed to be quite close range, they simply didn’t allow him to close on them.

Between the seven of them working in concert, it ended up being much easier than Tala would have expected.

Mistress Vanga insisted on giving Tala a full check-up, twice.

Masters Girt and Limmestare asked Tala if she was really sure that she was going to be okay at least a half dozen times each, and Master Clevnis and Mistress Cerna—after ensuring that she was alright—each apologized to Tala for not over-preparing, even though, when pressed, they couldn’t tell her what they would have done differently with the knowledge that they’d had.

She assured everyone that she would be fine, and that she didn’t think that they could have acted elsewise with the information that they had. Cell work was dangerous, and things like this happened sometimes. She was just glad that it had been her who had been hit, rather than one of them.

Terry squawked at that, eliciting chuckles and inquiries as to his health along with copious amounts of jerky and other meaty snacks.

When the chatting eventually died down, the unit members gave her well-wishes and left her with Rane and Terry.

In that space, she turned to regard Rane, who was sitting beside her, a serious look on his face.

“What are you thinking about, Rane?”

He sighed. “You died, Tala. I don’t know what happened, or how you’re here, but I saw your body without your gate. You were gone.”

She grunted, then nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think I was…”

She briefly explained the highlights of what had happened on her end.

“And then I helped Terry reconstitute before passing out from the strain.”

Terry trilled gratefully, and Rane grimaced. “I don’t like how close I came to losing you. I don’t think there’s really anything we could have done differently without perfect foresight, and there isn’t really anything we can do differently going forward. —It would be silly for me to ask or expect you to avoid danger, after all.— I just don’t like how things went… It was too close to disaster.”

Tala found herself smiling, and she leaned in for a kiss. She was eternally grateful that Rane was there, that he would be there forever.

That’s what she wanted, and that’s how it would be. Her very soul hummed in contentment at the notion.

Terry looked between them, head turning back and forth. He was bound to her, so he would know what she was feeling at such a deep level.

When no one said anything else, he visibly slumped and let out a clearly exasperated squawk.

That got both of their attention, and they looked his way just as he used his own will and connection to pull one of Tala’s bloodstars into the superficial.

He then moved it toward Rane’s mouth in a distinctly implicative manner. He did pause it before it passed the man’s lips, though.

Rane’s eyes widened, and he looked to Tala. “Is this him or you?”

“Him… But…” She swallowed and glanced away, finishing in her own mind. But I like the idea.

Rane’s gaze firmed, clearly rightly interpreting her actions. He seemed to make his choice, but then hesitated long enough to take a deep, steadying breath before he asked, “Will you marry me?”

She looked back, meeting his eyes, an utterly uncontrollable smile overtaking her features. “Yes.”

Here ends Flockbound, Millennial Mage book 11