Ben spat blood onto the crimson sand and tried in vain to wipe the sticky grains clinging to his sweaty brow. He rolled from face down in the blood-soaked dirt to his back. A lightning-quick thrust of a halberd dug deep into the ground where his chest had been mere moments before. A grey-eyed woman laughed a pleasant melody in a terrifying juxtaposition to the violence she had displayed.
“Good. Your instincts are getting sharper,” she said with a grin, allowing the young man time to bring himself to his feet.
The pair had sparred for what felt like two days and two nights in the bleak, corpse-laden desert. On the first day, he found Dee to be significantly faster, stronger, and more skilled than he had expected. Her ability was far from the imitation his Avatar had conjured to test his worth.
This is just raw skill. She can’t even call upon concepts here.
Dee had explained to him that it was impossible to draw strength from an Avatar inside a domain. From what he understood, trying to call forth the power of a concept or ideal, while in his inner world, would be like trying to pour water into the vessel that held the liquid in the first place. The entity was a part of the Wielder, and to expend its power internally would only result in irreparable damage to the soul.
Despite the explanation, Ben felt as if he faced a monster in the shape of a tall woman. He was yet to win an exchange, and Dee was a ruthless sparring partner. During the first few hours, she stopped short of killing blows, yet Ben’s realization of the fact made him reckless in his advances and attacks. The cuts, bruises, and shattered teeth that followed were a testament to the unspoken promise of punishment should he not treat the spar as a real fight. Though he didn’t fatigue inside the domain, Ben carried wounds and could not heal more than stemming blood flow. His mind was starting to feel the fatigue of pain and frustration.
Ben readied his polearm and fell into the familiar stance for what felt like the ten-thousandth time. Dee held out an open palm, indicating they should stop.
“We’re almost out of time,” she said as she swept her gaze over the horizon of the dreary landscape and became thoughtful as if recalling something. “He says you can ask three questions. No more.”
Dee let go of her halberd, and it dropped, evaporating in wisps of blood-red smoke before making contact with the sand.
“To recall any more memories would damage this fragment,” she gestured with an open hand to their surroundings, “and, subsequently, the form you see before you,” she warned, grey eyes hard.
Ben’s nerves began to hum, and he felt a knot twist in his battered abdomen. The woman’s offer had caught him by surprise, as he had hoped to sit and talk at length after their spar.
Shit. I didn’t think I’d have to narrow it down to three! Come on, think, Ben. What’s the most important question you have?
“Where did I come from exactly?” he asked.
The woman tilted her head and widened her eyes as if incredulous that he’d squander a question on something so arbitrary. She raised her brows questioningly. Ben nodded.
“Aetheria,” she replied without skipping a beat.
“No, I mean before that.” Ben clenched his cracked jaw in frustration and let out a grunt of pain.
“Time is running out,” she said with a voice that became slightly more muffled with each syllable. She glanced back to the horizon. “Is that a question? Because the answer will be the same. I advise that you choose carefully.”
The young man took a deep breath and closed his eyes before releasing the air out of nostrils, mangled from the beating.
Keep calm, Ben. She’s not gonna be more cooperative than this. What about a pressing issue? Why are we here in this domain? Whose domain is it? Will I be able to come back here…
Ben felt a headache bloom at the torrent of questions, new and old. The tall woman snapped her finger to draw his attention. The sound was oddly muted, as if he heard it underwater.
“Am I really a Herald, like you?”
“You are a Candidate…” Dee’s words became almost indiscernible. She lifted open palms in a hurried, beckoning gesture, brows raised in panic.
The bloodied sand began falling toward the sky in clumps and tendrils, slowly at first, but then it was as if gravity had been inverted for the world except for the Herald and the Candidate. The torrent of bloody grains buffeted his ears, and he screamed a question at the figure who was obscured by the gravity-defying, rain of sand.
“What’s my name?!”
“Eltuwa…” she spoke. Voice muffled and distant.
“Eltuwa?!” he cried back at the woman.
He tried to focus on the woman and glimpsed a grin and a nod through the haze before his vision went white, and a searing headache ripped through his skull.
“…Ben. My heart, please wake up.” A feminine voice spoke in a hushed whisper.
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Ben opened his eyes to see Ann’s blue eyes, a hand span away from his own in the darkness of the early morning. The young man felt as if he’d returned after days away from Red Maiden’s Trinkets and Baubles. A throbbing headache and a nauseous pressure in his throat told him that he’d been drinking the night before. As the fog of sleep began to clear, he vividly recalled the meeting with Dee and his subsequent beating that lasted for days.
It’s only been a few hours here on Aetheria.
Ben had struggled to get used to the feeling of desynchronization when waking from the extended dream time to real-time during the three-day trip down the mountain pass. He felt more rested with fewer hours of real sleep when in his domain, yet a hangover was a foe that he doubted he could best with magic soul time.
“Uhhnnngg… water please…” he groaned.
He heard the Keeper’s dress ruffle, and she pressed the mouth of her waterskin to his lips. He drank deeply and, after swallowing, felt worse than before. The loud drone of Ainsle’s snores grated on his fragile ears.
“I’m sorry, my sweet, but you need to get up now. Let me work my Aura as we go,” She caressed the light beard on his cheek. “I’ve not been idle, and I think I’m on the cusp of mastering the spell. So, I should be able to flush the toxins out of your body in no time at all.”
“That’s… great, Ann,” Ben said with his best attempt at praise for her efforts, but the impending ejection of his stomach’s contents mashed his tone into a drawl.
Ann smiled, regardless. Immediately Ben began to feel better. He sat up, and to his surprise, no oral projectiles accompanied the action. He ambled to his feet and stretched as the radiance of the short, blonde-haired woman’s Aura cascaded over him in blissful warmth. The feeling of home. His nausea had almost completely vanished, and he turned to the woman in surprise.
“I can’t hear your chant. Have you mastered, uh, Giovanni’s retreat?”
“Gialessi’s reprieve, my heart.” She chuckled. Ben thought it to be the most pleasant sound he’d heard since waking up on the beach. “Not quite yet. Though I understand the components well enough now that I should reach proficiency in a few days.”
The young man stared at the woman’s soft blue eyes. “You’re amazing, Annie.”
“As long as I’m useful to you, I am content,” she said before her eyes narrowed. “We really should hurry. I can feel the current waning. Please, shall we go?”
Ben nodded and began slipping on his boots. As he reached for his gambeson, he felt the mocking call of nature.
“Hmm. I have to go.”
“Yes, my darling. We do.”
“No. I mean, I have to go,” he grimaced.
The Keeper tilted her head and furrowed her brows before Ben thought he saw a literal light bloom in her head. “Oh. There’s a chamber pot over there… you can dump the contents out the back window when you’re finished.”
“Thanks.”
The young man attended to his needs before emptying said contents out the window. A cry of alarm and a curse was heard from the street below. Ben leaned out to see his unintended target and observed a man dressed in dark full plate armor with a war hammer hanging from a loop on his hip and a small, black round shield on his back. Ben couldn’t make out the man’s features in the pale, early morning light as he spiritedly walked away down the street before breaking into a run as he reached the corner. The young man’s guilt turned to suspicion.
“Ann, could you come here for a moment?” he called out in a hushed voice.
The Keeper called back, mimicking his tone. “Need some help, my darling?”
“Yes, I mean, no— Is it normal for guards to patrol the streets alone at this hour?”
Ann tip-toed to the window and leaned her head out. “I haven’t spent enough time in this port city to be sure, but I agree that it’s odd,” she whispered.
Ben frowned and noticed that his hangover was completely gone. He felt well rested, if a bit hungry. Ben considered Ann, who had made an effort to master a spell from an opposing school which, from what he understood, wasn’t an easy task. The fact that she had done it specifically for him did bother him to a small degree, but he supposed that her personal growth should be praised regardless of what her motivations were.
“I’m better now, by the way. Thanks, you’re really incredible, you know?” Ben said.
The Keeper’s cheeks blushed a light shade of pink, and her lips curled in delight at the praise.
“I’d say you’re quite the charmer… but we really should go,” she said as she hastily buckled the remaining belts on Ben’s gambeson.
Ben nodded and followed the Keeper through a winding path of clutter to the stairs. Ann grabbed an old spear from a barrel with the words ‘spears only!’ painted on its side and handed it to the young man.
“Where are we going?” Ben asked in a whisper as they descended the stairs.
“I don’t know, but it’s not safe here.”
“What about Ainsle and Bertram?”
“I fear that waking the Red Maiden would incite an equal reaction from our enemies,” she said matter-of-factly. “Don’t worry, my darling. You’re not alone.”
Ben frowned as he descended with soft steps toward the shop floor. He closed his eyes for a heartbeat to try and discern Ann’s cryptic meaning through their bond. He felt trepidation with a hint of determination swirling inside her being.
Okay. I got nothing from that.
Ben sighed internally.
The pair reached the door behind the counter and entered the dark room to find Jor frozen mid-stride with her big green eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. Ben thought the raven-haired woman had the look of someone caught sneaking back into her parent’s house after meeting a lover in the dead of night for unwholesome activities.
“Jor, hey… did you have a good time?” the young man asked.
The Squad Leader chewed her lip. “I’m sorry Ben,” she said, tone laced with remorse.
“Woah, it’s none of my business. I mean… You should follow your h-”
A loud crash drew Ben’s attention to a faded-red, airborne door that ended its brief flight in a clang against a dusty set of armor. Three armored men burst into the store with weapons drawn; one held a lantern and pointed with his free hand at the young man.
“That’s him, Inquisitor,” the lantern bearer said in a gruff voice.
The men parted to allow a short man wearing light, polished steel armor to enter the cramped shop. The Inquisitor had neatly combed, short-black hair with an impeccably maintained beard. Cold blue eyes regarded the young man over a hooked nose as he stood in front of the guards, arms folded. Ben felt the man’s presence to be substantial, not as much as his own had become over the course of his rigorous training, but notable nonetheless.
“Good morning.” The short man spoke haughtily. “I am Inquisitor Edas Crell. Are you the one known as Benjamin?”
“What if I am?” he asked, tone defiant as he felt deeply disturbed at the thought of Jor leading these men here.
Ben glanced at the Archer, who refused to meet his gaze.
“Then you are hereby detained for illegally and wilfully entering the city of Honeydew with no intention of declaring yourself or your identity to the relevant city offices. As of this morning, the city has officially been put under martial law; to deal with the blighted migrations and the ever-present terrorist threat; who incite and facilitate the subversion of peace in the Empire.”
The Inquisitor nodded to a guard to his left, who stepped forward with manacles in his hands.
“Let’s not make this harder than it needs to be, lad,” the guard said in a low warning.