The light was at Crow’s back as he walked, and he drew further from it by the second. He cared little.
Even without the artificial courage of his magic, battle had tempered his nerves. Contorting shadows held nothing for him to fear. Not when measured against the darkness he’d glimpsed through empty steel sockets mere minutes earlier.
It had been a victory, and even as the returning mundanity brought a hundred aches and pains to Crow’s attention, he knew they were a small price to pay. None of his bones had been broken. No muscles were torn, his strength was intact.
He took paradoxical relief in the creeping pain across his battered temple, yet so too did Crow recognise the battle’s warning for what it was.
How many strikes had he received before Unity provided him the means to permanently destroy the enemy? How much had his teammate struggled without someone to help protect him and grant him the chance to use it?
Crow had no desire to test their disorganisation against another battle, even one half so fierce as the last.
“I think we should tell each other what our abilities are.” He said, eying both his teammates and studying their reactions.
Neither filled him with confidence.
“I can’t. I’m sorry.” Replied Ethi, a hint of genuine regret in her voice. It was anathema to Unity’s tone.
“That’s a bit of a personal question, don’t you think? Personal enough to give someone an advantage in a fight.”
Crow frowned.
Of course it’ll give us an advantage, why else would I suggest it?
It took him a second to realise what the boy truly meant.
“You’re worried we might end up at one another’s throats?”
Unity nodded at Ethi as he answered.
“She is, too. It wouldn’t be the first time the Alliance has pitted temporarily allied contestants against one another. The second stage is built around teams, we’re still in the first. Anything goes here.”
He thought about that, then spoke again.
“It doesn’t matter. If we all know one another’s abilities then we’re all on equal footing, the same as if we all know nothing. But if we need to fight as a team, the former will leave us twice as capable as the latter.”
Another uneasy silence, and another realisation. Crow would have no hope of convincing them to trust him with words alone.
“I’ll go first.” He pressed, trying to ignore the baffled looks of his teammates.
“I’m a tetramage; capable of learning the Cutaris, Utalis, Manamis and Neramis spheres. My abilities are physical enhancement and a form of…
He hesitated, recalling vividly how his sister had warned him against brazenly revealing the remainder of his magic. Manamis was a tricky enough sphere, holding sway over the mind, yet to reveal he could use Neramis would be to mark himself as a great threat indeed.
Great enough to combine forces against, perhaps. The fear of painting a bullseye on his back proved stronger than the urge to brag, even with all the effort Crow had gone through to master that single, exceptional knack of his.
Mind turning to thoughts of the man he’d mastered it under, emotion threatened to overwhelm him. Crow forced himself to focus back on the practical.
Two of his abilities were derived from the sphere of time, of them he could explain one without making mention of it. Perhaps.
“I have a sort of forewarning.” He continued, forcing his doubts down. “It can’t be active all the time, like any form of magic, but it lets me see dangers coming a fraction of a second before they reach me.”
More silence, then a snicker from Unity.
“Well fuck. It was a nice gesture, but people aren’t going to be any more willing to give up an advantage than they are to accept a disadvantage.”
Crow’s face burned and his gaze dropped. Silence took them for all of ten seconds before Unity spoke again.
“Well, since I’m feeling generous, I suppose I may as well meet you halfway. It isn’t as if I’d need much of an edge to kill you in any case. I’m a pentamage, capable of using all spheres save for Itamis and Neramis. My main ability makes use of Atirstam, essentially it undoes all the little physical laws that keep objects bound together before releasing a pulse of energy with Cutaris to… well, you saw what it did to the armour.”
He had seen, and learning the nature of Unity’s ability explained much of what it had done. Crow hadn’t witnessed Atirstam before, not in person, but he’d heard of its unpredictable power.
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Picturing it unfolding once more nearly kept him from registering perhaps the most pressing matter.
“A pentamage?” He croaked, sure he’d misheard the boy.
Unity’s grin seemed far more self-satisfied than usual.
“That’s right. Five spheres, though I’ve only learned to use three so far.”
Crow found himself entirely unsure of what to say, and so he remained silent. They turned the corner without another word, though Unity continued his proud smirk.
Crow reckoned he couldn’t be faulted for it.
“Well then, are you going to share as well?” Came the boy’s pin-like voice. Crow turned to Ethi, realising the question was for her and waiting to see it answered.
She wasn’t facing either of them as she spoke, Crow suspected it was deliberate.
“Whether you share or not doesn’t change my reasoning. I’m sorry, but I can’t give you information like that.”
“Gosh, what an unforeseen turn of events.” Sneered Unity. Ethi stiffened at the barb, yet said nothing more.
The walk dragged on, and Crow felt a familiar weariness as the battle-rush slowly leaked from his system.
Minutes bled into one another, looming darkness thickening around them and making time an evanescent thing. Crow could measure it only by the tiring of his legs.
Strained grunts began from Unity first, the boy’s fitness apparently a far cry from his own, yet it wasn’t so long after that when the strain grew in Ethi, then Crow.
Just as he was about to ask for a break, the shadow ahead of him grew deeper still. Crow nearly walked into a solid wall of stone before he recognised it in the dark hall.
He stared at the obstacle, slowly seeing the texture of worn brick and eroding mortar coming into focus, but his gaze brought him no closer to explaining its presence.
Unity’s cursing was so acrid and hot Crow thought it might provide them with light.
“What the fuck do we do now?” The boy demanded, as if he expected an answer from the blockade itself.
“Is it another test?” Crow asked, though the words seemed hollow. “For patience or self-control?”
“Possibly.” Answered Unity. “Very possibly. Fuck that.”
He stepped forwards; crimson lightning hissing about his hands, moving in time to flexing fingers like conducted music. Before Crow could protest, the digits pressed against rock.
Crow covered his eyes and cried out as the wall erupted, falling back as much from shock as the concussive air and feeling a pain grow deep in his ringing ears. When the pattering of falling debris stopped ringing out around him, he looked up to see the boy standing triumphantly before a jagged breach filled with clotted air.
Dust clung to his clothing, marring expensive Gaen fabric and dulling the vibrancies of its weave. Unity’s grin seemed no less lustrous than usual.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Demanded Ethi, stumbling to a stand just feet ahead of Crow. Her fury seemed only to feed the boy’s amusement.
“Oh that really depends on which professional you ask. What isn’t wrong with me, however, is the inability to continue through the Sieve. Lucky the wall was thin, though. I’d not have had a chance of cracking it so wide if it weren’t made to be broken.”
As if by his command, the gap began to clear. What remained was a barbed crevice in the rock, two metres high and one wide. Pouring in through the yard-deep passage, Crow saw a glare strong enough to sting his eyes and banish the dark.
Relief and shock were almost enough to distract him from the sting of a dozen burning cuts.
“Warn us next time you’re planning something like that.” He muttered, standing with a grunt of effort. “What would you have done if we’d both been torn to shreds by shrapnel?”
“Do you really want to know the answer to that?” Unity asked, smile not faltering an inch.
Crow bit back his retort, looking at the gap and seeing that Ethi had already drawn near enough to stare deep within.
“What do you see?” He asked, yet fell quiet without her answering.
The scraping of rock and bickering of his team had subsided. Left the air still. Through that, Crow could clearly make out the muffled sounds from the room ahead. Human speech.
“Wait.” Warned Unity, halting Crow before he could even begin forwards. Ethi glanced back, answering the unasked question.
“I can’t make out much detail from here, there’s no way of telling whether they’re allies, enemies or something else.”
“We could wait,” Crow suggested, “See what else we can find out.”
“There’s no guarantee we’ll learn any more that way,” Ethi countered. “Besides, I don’t want to give the other teams any more time to get ahead of us.”
“Not to mention, we just blew a fucking hole in the wall,” Unity pointed out. “They’re probably having hushed conversations about the best way to deal with whatever’s about to come through, and if that turns out to be nothing I doubt they’ll just sit back and wait for our balls to drop.”
Magic touched Crow’s senses and made the decision for them. Thick and hot like magma, swelling around every inch of him like sinking marshland.
Crow felt for his own as he stepped forwards, feeling the same flash of power from both his teammates. He hesitated, drawing on his physical enhancement and basking in the rush of Cutaricist wildness and Utalicist steel that leaked into his mind.
A moment later, as he stared at the breach, Crow allowed magic to flow from his reserves and power his future sight.
Manamis dulled emotion and passion, leaving the gap, jagged as the toothy maw of a great beast, nothing more than a lifeless crevice. Neramis stilled his curiosity and thoughts, urging him to bide his time and wait rather than take action.
It was only the bestial Cutaris that kept Crow from falling for the captivating allure of such passivity.
Before the indolence had time to further wrestle with him, he hastened to the breach and squeezed into it.
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Sample of Survey Carried out by the Udrebam institute of Relations, Unixian Men , Circa 1,195 I.E.
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