14 - The Brilliant Flame

1090th Year, 1st Month, Winter

First among the ancient gods were those who embraced the elements. It was they who roamed the realm before the advent of time, and they who carved its mysteries. The darkest depths, the deepest caves. The brightest meadows, the tallest peaks. There was nary a destination dismissed of their joy.

Yet so too was it they who were first to depart and cross the great beyond. In their absence there remained the traces of their timeless marks.

In the oceans ran pure water, unseeable and all-correcting.

In the caves dwelled true ice, unbreakable and never-melting.

In the mountains reigned primordial flame, unquenchable and all-consuming.

In the skies raced arc plasma, unstoppable and ever-dancing.

And in the skies danced free wind, untouchable and all-embracing.

And so were formed their blessings, for even in death, they sang eternal.

Scriptures of the Savage Gods, Verse 2-1

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A pair of glimmering, silver gauntlets formed around my hands as I closed in on the goddess. The distance between us was just shy of a hundred meters; the smile on her face was clear as day. Her mood had been fully restored, even though I swore in my heart that I would never obey her again. It wasn’t like she was unaware. My emotions were all over my face. There’d been several points where I had nearly spiralled completely out of my control, where I was tempted to deploy my wings and strike her. And yet, she was perfectly content.

“This next foe is a far cry from a traditional fighter, but he remains a veteran of many battles. He has stared down warriors far greater than himself and toppled them with little resistance. In life, he was a shackle, a cunning rogue who defied all convention and eliminated his rivals with utmost efficiency.”

The man in question walked out from behind the throne. His body was covered in thick white robes marked with runic symbols. They were draped over his back, his shoulders, and even his face. But though his outline was clearly obscured, I knew exactly who he was, even before her threads lifted his mask.

“He was a keen politician, the statesman responsible for preventing your nation from collapsing into disarray. Alas, he fell in the end to a scheme even greater than his own. He is Celcus Augustus. He is your father. And he has appeared before you to gauge the growth of your heart.”

I wasn’t really sure what to do. My father’s hands were empty and it wasn’t like he was raring for a fight. Eventually, after staring for a few moments without saying a word, he approached. I wasn’t sure if I was meant to put up my guard, but I stayed my hand when I saw the look on his face.

It was a tired but satisfied smile, the same one that had always sat upon his visage after a long day’s work.

He moved his mouth, but there was no sound. The veil of death kept his words from reaching my ears. Still, I felt like I could understand him. He was calling my name, telling me how much I’d grown since our final encounter, commenting on the ever-dishevelled nature of my hair, and expressing his pride in my achievements.

And then, his hands on my shoulders, he looked me in the eyes and smiled.

My lips trembled as I returned his gaze. It didn’t feel right. I shouldn’t have gone any higher than his neck. His shoulders were meant to be broader than mine, in spite of his lack of muscle. The giant from my memories was gone, replaced by an old buck too tired and thin for his years. And yet, I knew. He hadn’t changed. That was simply how he had always been. In my youth, I had simply been too imperceptive to see it. It was hard to tell when comparing him to deer and horses, but compared to another adult moose, his size was easily dismissed.

He lightly thumped me on the back before taking a step back and tapping the base of his neck. I knew what he meant to say, but I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t repeat my brother’s crime.

My father smiled. He spoke another set of silent words, and without waiting for a response, vanished into dust.

I wanted to shout at him, to beg him to come back, even as he formed a spear in my outstretched hand. His later words had been unclear. I couldn’t even begin to fathom what it was he tried to tell me. Just that he had been happy to say it.

It was then that the fog manifested. It almost seemed a little out of order, given the spear in my hand, but I welcomed it, hoping that it would be related in some way to the man who had raised me.

When the white splotches cleared, I found myself sitting at my desk. My pen darted across the page, scribbling line after incomprehensible line with pinpoint precision. Even looking at the text, I barely understood it. I could tell that it was meant to be some sort of bill concerning hunting permits, but the reason that my future self gave for its rejection went right over my head. I really didn’t see how it was clearly an abuse of power sure to enrage the proposer’s neighbours, but apparently, I was so convinced that the very thought left my head throbbing.

I pressed a hand to my brow and lightly massaged my temples as I shifted the proposed measure from one pile to another. I began to fantasize about abandoning my post as I churned through the documents en masse. One by one, they moved and shifted; I kept pace until I sensed a familiar mana appear out of thin air. My eyes darted between its source and the page between my fingers, which just so happened to be a report on the individual that suddenly invaded my castle.

To say I got no work done was an understatement, but at the same time, I couldn’t blame myself. Because I knew that the man inbound was the son that I had wronged—the son I had driven from the castle just the previous spring.

My stomach churned with each step he took. His visitations were rare; he almost never came to me for anything beyond the training we scheduled each week. And even when he did, it wasn’t in his own body. He preferred to possess his double instead. The associated ability was a mystery in and of itself, and contemplating it led me to consider the strange magic he always employed.

Whatever the case, it was evidence that I had failed him. I had failed to protect him. I had failed to become the father he needed. In his eyes, I was maybe an enemy or an obstacle, certainly not something that he could rely upon. And I was inclined to agree. Each time I saw him, I couldn’t help but consider the mistakes I made in his raising.

Only recently had that started to change. Only recently had I started to become the man that he had needed in the wake of his mother’s passing.

The sinking sensation in my gut only grew when he finally entered the room. He really did look just like his mother.

“Good evening, Sirius,” I said. My voice was quiet. I barely managed to keep my face frozen.

“Good evening, Father.”

“What is it this time?” I made a show of looking annoyed. Even though, despite everything that had happened, I was happy to see him.

“I don’t mind leaving, if you think I’m a nuisance.”

“You know that isn’t what I meant,” I said. The cheeky little bugger. I knew he could see right through me. “You’d never come to me without reason.”

“Because I hate you.”

I almost winced. The words stung. More than I ever thought words could. Still, I kept my lips steady and answered in my usual, practiced tone.

“I’m well aware.”

There was a moment of awkward silence. I didn’t know what else to say. Thankfully, I didn’t need to.

“When can you step away? For training.” he asked.

I glanced briefly at the report on my desk, which coincidentally was a mistaken communication about him. I almost wanted to scoff. It almost seemed like Sirius had waited for me to get to it before making his entrance, but I dismissed the absurd conjecture as soon as it came to mind. He couldn’t have possibly known. The documents had only just been placed on my desk that morning, and the boy had been away from the castle. I almost wanted to laugh at myself for even considering it.

Evidently, I was in need of a break.

“Now is fine.”

“Okay.”

His body double faltered, nearly collapsing where it stood as he vacated its body and allowed its artificial spirit to regain control, but stepping out from the distortion, my son gingerly caught his stand-in—the homunculus born from his blood—and aided it in regaining its balance.

Right away, there was a tug in my chest. I still wasn’t accustomed to his new form. He had only been away for a year, but he’d changed so, so much. Before he left—before I sent him to his death—his appearance had matched the fake’s. By the standards that governed his human-like shape, he had looked ten, maybe twelve, but he was sixteen. The discrepancy was even more tragic taking his ancestry into account. Cervitaurs and lamias were capable of locomotion within just a few minutes of birth. But it had taken him months to rise to his feet.

At the time, I had thought it inevitable. Violet and I, our blood was never meant to mix.

His birth was a miracle in and of itself.

And that was why it hurt all the more to know that I had failed him. To know that, in trying to raise him, I had only broken his spirit, and that I had chosen the path even knowing the future. It wasn’t until I vanished from his life that he finally matured. Physically, and mentally. I could only imagine how he fought tooth and nail to stave off the spirit of death.

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Sirius was still tiny. He was barely a hundred and sixty centimetres tall, and he lacked the obtuse musculature that stemmed from my half of the bloodline. Still, he stood head and shoulders over the homunculus. His face was more mature, and I could finally see the bump in his throat. Puberty had hit him like a boulder, but that was only half the explanation. The glowing red horn that sprouted from his head was a far cry from the cervine antlers that should have adorned it.

He had clearly ascended. And if the quality of his mana was any indication, it was not just once or twice.

My eyes went to his companions as he ruffled the homunculus’ hair. The one that sat on his head was a demon disguised as a fox, while the one that followed behind him was a yet dysfunctional key—a mechanical spider of Vella’s making. There was usually one more—a particularly lazy-looking lizard that waddled after him wherever he went, but it was non-present. It was strange how beloved he was by animals, but I was hardly surprised. I was the only one in the family for which that failed to hold true.

He left the room without another word, so I quickly got my things together and followed him through the castle. Soon, we were in one of the private courtyards—the same place we always went for training.

He grabbed one of the glaives off the rack near the entrance and entered the usual stance, but I stopped him before he started to swing his weapon.

“Do the forms in your own time. You’ve learned them well enough.” There was no point. All of the agents in the castle were finally under my control. I didn’t need to force him through such pointless exercises any longer. “Today’s lesson will differ from the usual fare.” I walked over to the armoury and grabbed an extra large shieldlance—a training weapon tailor-made for my use alone. “Your goal is simple. Survive.”

I didn’t wait for him to acknowledge the assignment before digging my heels into the ground and flying across the ring. I hadn’t the faintest clue as to how fast he could go, so I picked an arbitrary speed a few clicks faster than sound to better test the waters.

His eyes kept up. I could see them clearly following the edge of my weapon with pinpoint precision. He moved his weapon at the perfect speed to parry my blow. Evidently, the speed I’d chosen was a little too low.

So I bolstered it just a little.

My wooden blade cut right through the armour around his neck, but that was all I allowed it to do. I pulled back at the very last second, only lightly scraping his skin so he would know the hit was confirmed.

“One.”

He flashed me a look of irritation when I enumerated the mistake. Righting his broken posture, he twisted his body and drove his spear toward my midsection. His second action was quicker than his first—an even match for my sudden burst—but speeding up a little more, I parried the blow with a flick of the wrist and lightly tapped him over the head.

“Two.”

Again, his annoyance drove him to accelerate. He launched himself into a twisting stab, only to suddenly pull back when I moved to strike. Somehow, he had predicted the trajectory of my blade before I had even locked it in. It was an absurd, perhaps even impossible read. Alas, another burst of speed denied the parry. I lightly scraped my blade past his flank, tearing his armour alongside the uppermost layer of skin.

“Three.”

I almost couldn’t stop myself from smiling. He was trying not to show me the full extent of his abilities—a desire that was clearly at odds with his competitive streak. But while he hadn’t managed to commit to restraining himself—he continued to speed up every time I took the lead—it wasn’t like he had totally lost control. I could see it in his eyes as our blades continued to dance. He was working out a way to fit the pieces together.

It took a few blows for him to reach a conclusion and do away with his two-legged form. Flesh sprang from nothing; his body swelled, doubling his height and increasing his length by a full order of magnitude. He suddenly became almost exactly what I had expected when I first imagined a child born between a lamia and a cervitaur. Though only three-quarters my height, the front half of his body was almost a perfect match for my own. The only difference, aside from his horn and the plates on his cheeks, was the precise composition of his front legs. Rather than hooves, they ended in a set of reptilian talons.

The place where his body would have ended, had he been a pure cervitaur, was met instead with a long extension. The tail, which started as thick as his body and gradually narrowed to a fluffy tip, was almost as long as his mother’s.

His mass had no effect on his speed, but it allowed him to negate the weight of my swings. Finally, he had use for the techniques I had hammered into his body.

My chest swelled with pride.

Pride and pain.

In the year he spent away, my son had become a warrior. It was precisely the result that I had hoped for, all those years ago, but the reason was difficult to swallow. I didn’t want to be the reason for his suffering. I never wanted to be the object of his hatred. If anything, I had always wanted him to live a life of luxury, free from all the worries and stress that accompanied the rage of war. That was half the reason I had maintained my position, why I had never shirked my duties and retired to a quiet life in the countryside.

And yet, for some bizarre, godforsaken reason, I had chosen to burden him with a concept as silly as duty. I had chosen to scold him instead of offering my support. And if my future self’s memory served correctly, I had never even told him that I loved him.

I didn’t understand why I completely failed to bend the rules in his favour—why I hadn’t reshaped the public’s expectations myself in the thousand preceding years—when I had readily thrown the world out of whack for his mother.

But while my present self was completely bamboozled, my future self was calm. I smiled when he finally caught my blade. It was still imperfect; the angle was off and his hand was a little unsteady, but he would have performed a textbook parry had I not furthered the rate of my acceleration.

It didn’t show on his face, but I could tell from the way his eyes moved that his frustration was building. We were finally starting to reach the upper limit of his speed. He abandoned his grace in a last-ditch attempt not to be outdone. He threw up sloppy, careless blocks, with one particularly egregious attempt angled completely off-base. That was what I thought, at least, until I suddenly felt a strange pressure on my arm. Something was pushing against it, even though I could clearly see that nothing was physically present.

He had finally gotten desperate enough to resort to his strange magic.

I could have easily shrugged it off, but I was too curious to let the opportunity slip by. I allowed him to shove my arm—to raise my lance and bash it into his misaligned blade.

I had to fight back the urge to chuckle. He had been so caught up in meeting my blade that he ignored the opportunity to counter; he could have easily displaced my hand in another direction whilst delivering a strike straight into my gut. But he was too smug—too obsessed with chasing the designated outcome—to concern himself with his missed opportunities. It didn’t show on his face. His expression was as muted as my own, but I could see it clearly in the rebellious look that radiated through his eyes.

His celebration lasted for all of three milliseconds. I raised the foot hidden in his blind spot and drove it square into his chest. My jagged hoof cleaved right through his armour and tore into his flesh. But he was not the only one to be wounded.

My foot practically melted as it pierced his flesh. When I pulled it away, I found that the few bits of hoof still present had been turned to coal. The wound only lasted for an instant. My leg regenerated in a heartbeat, but the sensation still lingered.

I knew it right away.

There was only one manner of fire that could burn me so easily.

The primordial flame.

A chuckle escaped my lips. I couldn’t stop it from inching its way up the length of my throat. I had already known that he could use it. It was written in the reports from those who didn’t know his identity, and its spark still lingered in the city he had burned to the ground. But I hadn’t ever expected for him to have it buried within his chest. It wasn’t as if he was experiencing any obvious side effects. From his breathing—his chest had only started to heave as his speed was drawn to its limit—it didn’t even look like he was strained.

I couldn’t help but suspect that he had assimilated it and made the divine matter his own. But I couldn’t be sure from just a glance. And I had to know for certain.

Knocking away the blade aimed right for my throat, I dug a nail into my thumb and drew a string of blood. By tracing the digit through the air, I ordered the crimson fluid to move like a whip, to race toward his flank at twice his top speed. It wasn’t possible for him to dodge, but at the very least, there was enough time for him to react. But perhaps because he was so thick-headed, or perhaps because his fire magic was slower to cast, he pressed on with the intention of discarding a limb.

By all means, that should have been the end result. My whip drove through his upper arm. But upon piercing his flesh, I found it suddenly disappeared. I might have understood had he worn any magic-resistant gear, but his armour had no such property. The simple steel was hardly capable of defending against my attack. So what then turned the fluid to mist? The answer was clear, even though I had only caught the briefest of glances.

Where anyone else would have had blood, Sirius had nothing but fire.

Another laugh escaped my lips. I almost couldn’t believe it, so I attacked again. Faster. Faster than he could have possibly seen. Faster than he could have possibly moved. In that singular, fraction of a second, I struck a dozen times and confirmed everything I saw. It was everywhere I checked. His arms, his legs, his ribs, his skull. None of the cuts I inflicted drew even a smidgeon of crimson, and half my weapon was turned to ash. There was no way to pierce his flesh without touching upon that which could burn all of creation.

It was clear from the extent of the assimilation and from the almost normal warmth that his body emitted. He had it under control. He must have been capable of its manipulation.

I was convinced. There was no doubt in my mind. So drawing even more blood from my veins, I crafted a crimson torrent—a tide that could not be evaded—and crashed it down upon him.

He barely reacted in time. Stopping midcharge, he threw up a spherical shield and endured the bloody downpour. It continued to hold even as I converted the wave to a vortex of tiny, severing blades, and even as I mixed my divinity into its composition.

But then, just as I was about to unleash even more of my power, his bulwark shattered. It was almost a dozen seconds earlier than my calculations had foretold—his body was still rich with mana, but a quick look revealed that something had gone terribly wrong. His magic circuits—the pathways under his skin meant to transport his mana—were glowing, visible in a way that they never should have been, lest subject to extreme duress.

And that wasn’t all.

They weren’t just visible.

They were visibly damaged.

There were hundreds of tiny breakages scattered all over his body, and the seemingly unbroken pieces suffered from a variety of different maladies. I was no doctor, but even I could see the constrictions, dilations, and distortions. A series of old wounds. Sourced from another conflict.

He collapsed as soon as I undid my spell. His legs shook, even as he stabbed his spear into the ground and heaped his weight on top of it. His mana was leaching into his muscles and disrupting their function, perhaps even ripping them apart whilst engraving their fibres with unwanted formulae. It was a nasty condition, perhaps one that would need months if not years to heal.

Shaking my head, I lowered my weapon and cleaned my blood. I was unable to simply return it to my veins, so I compressed it into a tiny orb and captured it in one of the capsules that always hung from my waist.

“I would have elected for a different manner of training if you informed me of your condition. Go rest. We will resume with something less strenuous once the symptoms abate.”

The words left my lips. And then, I returned to the present.

It was as the world came back into view that I finally understood my choices, that I finally reasoned everything through.

In his time away from home, my son had obtained great power. And it was precisely because I drove him away that he grasped it between his fingers. I still didn’t want to scar him. But I feared that pulling my punches, not allowing things to play out the way that they had in the goddess’ predictions, would only serve to change the outcome.

I had to hurt him if I wanted him to be strong. I had to hurt him if I wanted him to be able to protect himself from Vella’s machinations. I had to hurt him for his own good.

I wasn’t capable of it just yet.

I couldn’t even imagine steeling my heart the way that my future self had.

But just like the goddess, who watched on in perfect silence, I knew that it was sure to come.

As the seasons passed, as the years ticked by, I would build my resolve.

Because he was the proof of the life she led.