My desire was stifled, however. Chrys, still able to move despite his injuries, pounced on me and held both of my arms down with his heavy paws, using more than enough weight to hold me in place; I’m not sure I could have moved if I was stronger. His blood dripped slowly in small droplets onto my neck and shoulder, his breath ragged, his face contorting in pain and thought, obviously trying to figure out a way to turn the tide, to get through to me so I would be back on his side of the fight.

That wasn’t going to happen, though. Not as long as I wanted to fight him. The old man behind me didn’t pose the challenge I needed to satiate the sudden battle lust in me, this thing so imposing, so wild and staggering in my everything, so detached from who I was yet familiar in some way, a desire I never knew I had that needed to be quenched.

I struggled to pull away from Chrys and grab the dagger I’d dropped just a short reach away from me, but he didn’t budge. He stayed on me with what appeared to be little effort, using most of his strength to simply continue standing.

“You can’t hold him there forever,” Dil said, a frown on his face. “He has it in him now, that need to fight you. And you, you’re injured badly. You’ll be out soon.”

“So you think,” Chrys said, sounding increasingly more ragged, drool dripping from his mouth in globs. “I’ll snap him out of it. Your power is only so strong.”

In a flash, a knife was in Chrys’s opposite shoulder and he nearly tripped off of me in sudden pain, releasing a cry that sounded like he’d been holding it in for ages.

“Shut up,” Dil whispered, his voice even more sinister. “You’ve been away for a long time, old friend. I might look weak and old to you, but we both know I’ve gotten stronger. You can’t—” he punctuated this with another swift toss of a knife he pulled from underneath the table, not even leaving his casual sitting position and still hitting the mark with such precision I couldn’t help but admire— “win with such feeble strength. Especially one you gained from me. Strength from another isn’t true, or so they say.”

A few of Chrys’s flowers drooped when he gave a toothy smirk and asked, “Who’s they? I don’t believe I’ve seen you leave this place since we got here all those years ago, and no one we knew was spouting nonsense like that to you back then.”

Dil began laughing then. No one joined in, as we all seemed to miss the joke. Even Neres seemed lost.

“Even so,” Dil said, “You’re just wasting your time not finishing this. Either kill the boy and come after me like you want, or do your little trick you seem to have. Your time is running out, and I grow weary. If you bore me, I’ll just finish it myself.”

Chrys muttered, “Oh you’ll grow weary,” so low that I could barely hear him—and I was directly underneath him.

Then, after focusing and taking in a few deep breaths, he shut his eyes then opened them wide, locking them with mine so that I couldn’t look away, though I wanted to. He didn’t speak, didn’t make a sound, just kept staring at me with an unblinking gaze, as if he were searching for something inside me.

Then, clear as anything I’ve ever heard, his voice echoed in my head:

DEFY IT

It was loud, echoing with so much reverberation my head ached. But the meaning hit me like a tidal wave, and suddenly I felt a surge of cold, followed immediately by the heat of pain from all the weight on me. I must have looked like I was hurting because Chrys lifted his paws off of me swiftly, nearly falling off the table. He looked worse than I thought he had before, especially with that knife poking out of him. There’s a famous statue called the Chimera at Sundown in Persea, and it depicts the creature with a bunch of spears and blades stabbed into it while it watches what is presumably the sun setting. I used to look at it with an intriguing bit of reverence back home.

Now I saw its basis, and even with a less hyperbolic number of injuries it felt worse to see. All I wanted was to face Dil now, head on.

Retrieving my dagger, Chrys nodded to me and fell over in a heap. I stopped for a second, unsure of what to do. It didn’t take me too long to remember how heavy he was, and that I wasn’t going to be able to carry him down the mountain and that without someone to fly me out of the castle we were stuck here. Taking a second to breathe, I turned around and walked over to Dil.

Neres was surprised, but Dil seemed more interested than anything.

“So, you’ve regained your influence?” he drawled, placing a hand beneath his chin.

I nodded. “Yes, but it was only thanks to Chrys. If he were not here, you would have bested me.”

Grinning, he asked in what sounded more like a statement of fact, “What makes you think you can turn this around? Your better is passed out on the floor, and all you have is that little knife.”

“So do you,” I said, standing above him and looking down now.

“Want me to take him?” Neres asked, bending slightly into a ready position. Dil waved a hand and shook his head.

“No, gather up the remains of Chrys and take him to his chamber.”

Blinking, Neres remained in his ready stance. “Are you sure, lord? I can make quick work—”

“Don’t worry about it, Neres,” Dil cut him off. “It’s the responsibility of the old to teach the young, and a lesson is what this boy shall get. Now go.”

Still staring me down as if he were ready at any moment to take me on, Neres nodded and moved to Chrys. Struggling only a little, he hoisted the huge beast onto his shoulder and carried him out. The only sound we heard was the light scrape of limbs dragging across the floor.

The second the door shut, and we were together in that dimly lit room, Dil said, “Sit down, boy. We need to talk before this begins.”

Defiant, I said, “No. We do this now.”

Dil’s voice became an incredible boom, an omniscient command of unopposed strength. “Sit. Down.”

And in less time than it took to get there, I was sitting next to him once more, rather confused and shaken up. I didn’t even remember doing it.

“How did you—”

“We both know,” he smiled, the sound of his lips peeling off his teeth in that garish smile sending chills up my spine. “You’ve got it too, I can tell, though you don’t know how to use it.”

My eyes grew wider and wider. “Vastmire?”

He nodded. “Indeed.”

“Wait,” I said, shaking my head. “The people I know with Vastmire don’t use it like this at all. They just get stronger, they can’t control minds.”

“Well,” Dil said, shrugging, “I can’t control minds either. I can only influence them.”

“I understand that, but why can you? Can I do that if we both use Vastmire?”

Dil’s face crinkled slightly, confusingly. I doubt he expected such a question from the boy ready to kill him. I had decided, in that moment, that it was better to be curious than to try and simply kill him, especially when he wasn’t being aggressively hostile.

Just passively hostile.

“You’re from a place filled with Vastmire, and you don’t know how it works at all?” he asked, probing.

“Not at all,” I said. “I lived a pretty sedentary life.”

“Ah,” Dil drawled, eyes shining brusquely. “Well, in that case, allow me to teach you a little about how the power of Vastmire truly works. Hmm… An example would help you, I think. Do you know someone in your life that, without Vastmire, is very skilled or talented in some way?”

I nodded right away. “I know a musician of considerable skill. He’s very good, in fact his songs have filled me with tons of emotion on many occasions. Why?”

Dil continued, “Well then, let’s say he had Vastmire. He was granted the power in some way, just for the sake of argument. He would also not be as these men you know who are ridiculously powerful from it. Instead, there is a strong chance he would be able to manipulate others, maybe even the world around him, using the music he creates.”

No one had really explained how it worked before, but that was an interesting way of putting it. “So essentially,” I said after a moment of ponderous thought, “Vastmire is a way to enhance what you already are?”

Dil snapped his fingers affirmatively. “Correct, young man, correct. Sure you’ll probably be stronger or faster with it, but the true essence, the most important part of being a being with Vastmire is not the increase in power, but the increase in your own latent talent.

“When I was a young man, not much older than you are now, I realized that I was gifted with an interesting power. It’s not such a common one, or powerful on its own, but something that got me to the highest high of my life: the power to influence others.”

Wistfully, Dil sat back in his chair and shut his eyes, basking in the memory. “Anyway, if you have a latent talent, you can hone it too. I could teach you, guide you to a level of greatness that you wouldn’t achieve otherwise.”

“Thanks,” I said with a smirk, balancing my dagger in my hands. “But I’ve already got a great teacher, and I’d rather not get lessons from a man who will die soon regardless of whether I killed him right here and now or simply let time blow him away.”

Dil chuckled dryly. “Don’t be so hasty, now. I’ve an advantage over Sage.”

Stolen story; please report.

That piqued my interest; I never mentioned Sage’s name.

“I already know what your innate talent it, the thing you’re best at. I could mold you into someone great, an unprecedented king for the ages. All you have to do is stick with me, young man.”

This time I hesitated. Not because I was considering his proposition, that was ridiculous to me. Maybe if he asked when I was sixteen or so. No, I was trying to figure out how to ask him my talent without conceding to his proposition.

The best I could come up with was figuring it out through elimination. “I’m already well aware of my talents,” I chided. “I just need to improve my fighting skills and my strength will shine.”

His lips peeled back at that. “That’s not your greatest asset, though. Surely you know this.”

Shrugging, I said, “Well yeah. I don’t need to improve my problem solving.”

Dil just grinned wider, and I could tell I was getting colder so I just dropped it.

“I’ll give you one last chance,” Dil said. “Will you be my student? My ward? An apprentice in the Mire?”

But I stood up and shook my head. “Of course not, old man. Today you will learn what it means to be strong.”

“No,” he snickered, the knives from beneath the table rising around him in the air like fluttering little birds. “No, today you will learn what it means to be weak.”

Without anymore warning than this, the knives began launching at me one by one with such swiftness that I could hardly react at all. The moment I saw the first one fly, I immediately hopped up out of my chair to run away along the table, but before I even took my first step a knife had sliced my left arm open. Grimacing, I ducked my head toward the ground and ran with my arms low so that it would be more difficult to see me. The other knives began launching towards me, one by one, but they all missed very slightly, some lodging deeply into the table and others zooming overhead. By the time I got to the other end of the table, all the knives were out of the air and I was breathing heavy from the mental burden. Pain tried to edge into my mind from the wound in my arm but I pushed it away; my attention returned to Dil, who remained in his chair, his pleasant visage staring back at me.

“You react well,” he called, a slight cough breaking up his words. “Were you to relinquish yourself to me this moment I would take you without hesitation. You are a prize, and you don’t even know it.”

Steadying my breath as best I could, I stood to my full height and yelled, voice only cracking slightly, “Take your ugly face and throw it off this mountain before I do it for you, you old barrel of piss!”

I sensed a frown from him, but it was hard to tell from my spot across the room.

“You’re too far from your knives to use them now,” I called, baseless and arrogant. “Get up out of your chair, or do you need someone to help you?”

At this, I heard him chuckle, wheeze, and cough in the span of a few seconds. He snapped his fingers.

Then the walls moved.

For some reason, I hadn’t noticed. It was hard to, I suppose, with his influence over me. I only saw what he wanted me to see, heard what he wanted me to hear, felt what he wanted—you understand. The whole time I was there, I hadn’t noticed that the walls, the ceiling, all were covered in darkness. But not the sort that is real, not the sort that exists naturally.

This darkness was an army of harpies, feathers painted blacker than black, that moved and rustled in a violent rhythm. Feathers tumbled to the floor, and I found myself spinning in circles to see all of them moving behind me. I leapt onto the table, unsure of where to go, if there was a place to go.

“While I could use the knives again,” Dil yawned from his chair, “I also wield influence over every other person or thing in this building. So you see, I will sit here and watch as you fight for your life once more, young man.”

Dil gave me an ugly, toothy grin; the harpies peeled free from the walls, he pointed a finger at me and nodded, and they all moved towards me in unison.

I’ve been in many situations with the odds stacked against me during my life, and this would only be the first of many where I was absolutely alone. Nothing, however, would ever feel quite so unsettling as the feeling that every being in the room was out to get me and was carrying out their plan to eviscerate me at the same exact time. Armies are trained to act in unison not only for discipline but also to enact fear in the enemy, and I was experiencing that first hand.

I’d love to tell you that I quickly went through my options in my head and began systematically breaking the enemy formation apart, made my way to Dil and sliced his head off, then headed back down the mountain with Chrys.

It’d be great still to tell you that Chrys showed up and helped me out just then, tearing through the enemy with power only conceivable by immortals and children with nothing but time and imagination.

And at the time, I’m sure I’d like to tell you I closed my eyes and woke up back home in Persea, with my mother’s palm on my forehead, fingers sifting through my hair with gentle care.

Well, here’s how it went:

First, I gripped my knife tight and started running forward to get some distance from the back wall in a vain attempt to take out Dil very quickly. My thoughts were so loud I almost yelled, calling for the Vastmire to take over me and allow me to cut the room down. But once again it didn’t come to me. I felt just as weak as always.

I made it just shy of the center of the table when the harpies finally descended on me, their talons obscuring my vision in a sea of sharp, pointy danger. Swiping at them wildly, I managed to put them off by cutting off whatever was there—probably their claws, I’m not sure, I wasn’t looking—and I barrelled forward, swinging when they would close in again, otherwise keeping my knife at my side. And for a short time, this worked fine.

However Dil was, if anything, a cunning man.

Midstep, I was dragged into the air by a harpy, yanked up by my shoulders. I’d been in this situation before on the island, but this time if I cut the claws off the harpy I’d have fallen into a pile of them, all ready to tear me apart. So I hesitated.

In every battle I usually come out not only a stronger fighter, but a smarter one. Learning is one of the virtues of man, or so I’ve heard. And I can tell you right now, in this fight, I learned that hesitation is not something you want to do in a fight. If your idea is stupid, dumb, impossible, don’t hesitate; just go for it. Failure is salvagable in motion.

While I was held in the air, more harpies came and grabbed me, one on each arm, then the harpy that initially hoisted me up began untying the Wisp cloak from around my neck as we fluttered closer and closer to Dil, floating across the room in a slow glide that gave me too much time for imagination.

Dil’s face became grave, and he held out his hand awaiting the cloak to fall into it. The harpy let it fall, and the talons holding my arms seemed to grow longer, sharper. Pain crescendoed to bursting, from the claws holding me to the slow burn of being held in such an uncomfortable way. Dil saw it in my face, and he shook his head.

“You really should have taken my offer,” he consoled. “You’d have been great.”

Without a word, the harpies not holding me fell to the ground and lined up around me, forming a circle with no spaces, no place for me to go even if I was on the ground and could move.

Then, simultaneously, they began their torture.

Each one opened their long, sharp beaks and began nipping at my legs, removing flesh slowly and systematically.

I think I screamed. I must have.

Dil said something, but the sound didn’t resonate.

I thought of Sage, that I’d let him down.

I thought of Chrys, and wondered if he was meeting a fate similar.

My face started leaking from everywhere; tears rolled down my face; snot slid into my mouth; spit collected on my chin, my neck; and I thought of Conifer, of his family, of his quest to find them. And I thought of how little I had done in my own life up to this point, how little I even mattered. And for just a moment, I accepted my death, slow and painful as it may be. I accepted it.

Then I thought of my father, my mother, my kingdom, of my legacy. Things I hadn’t really thought about before. I never knew how much I cared for that sort of thing until that moment, and it took a lot more than this later to really solidify what I cared about most in my life. But these thoughts hit me like cannon fire, and I felt something slip.

The next harpy to bite me couldn’t break my skin.

All of a sudden, energy that wasn’t entirely mine overflowed me, like some kind of gift from a patron deity. I recognized it, the familiar sense of power, the knowledge that like this I was unstoppable. My goals would be realized, and I would continue to exist. The comfort of knowing I would live, the unceasing promise of pain to those in front of me. That was Vastmire.

Instinct took over and I rolled my shoulders, jerked my arms forward. The talons holding them would have cut me to the bone if I did this normally, but I felt nothing besides the wind my speed created. Dil’s eyes flickered, and a smile I couldn’t hide was on my face despite the disgusting liquid all over it. The harpies around me tried to hold me down, but I brushed them aside with idle swipes of my hand, sending them sprawling off the table as I walked the few steps forward to Dil. He narrowed his eyes, eyebrows slanted not so much angrily as they were wary, unsure of what I would do.

Bending down, I took the cloak from his hands and wiped my face with it.

“I think,” I said, muffled from the cloak, “that you’ve lost, old man.”

When I stopped and looked back at him, I saw his eyes widen and I felt a lump in the back of my head. I touched it but nothing was there; I realized then that he was attempting to influence me but couldn’t get passed my defenses, or rather the Vastmire protecting me.

Dil sputtered, which was uncharacteristic.

“Kill him,” he yelled, and the harpies turned that room into sheer chaos. A chaos, I recall, I saw with a level of calmness that frightened me. The scariest thing about Vastmire isn’t that people can use it against you or that its power is so dubious, so unpredictable without prior investigation. I’ve met plenty who use the power in ways that were unique entirely to them, such as Dil and his influence. But the scary part is when you are using it yourself, and you have this moment of clarity where things that seemed impossible, were dangerous a moment ago, become simple annoyances that you defeat without trying. And you see, just for a second, in an out of body experience, that you are the scary one now, the unstoppable force in front of these people. And you wonder if you can stop yourself.

I know for a fact that I couldn’t stop myself.

Without a second thought, I punched a harpy in the beak so hard that it disappeared off its face, and the harpy was sent rebounding into other harpies, then they went through the wall. My hand throbbed dully, but I kept using it in that same way, demolishing each and every one of them as they came near me, all without a second thought. None of them could touch me.

Before I knew it, every single harpy was down and out, and we were surrounded by at best groaning, at worst unmoving bodies. His army was defeated, and neither of us knew how. Not really, anyway.

All that was left was Dil.

He was out of his chair, knees wobbling from fear and age, and he backed up one step, two, then fell over a dead harpy behind him, hands held up over his face, his primitive shield.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself, feeling Vastmire would be unnecessary now, but the energy still billowed out of me obscenely.

“Please!” he kept saying, shaking, sputtering like he were the victim.

Holding Sage’s dagger up, I took a second to think things over. I asked Dil, “Why does Chrys hate you so much?”

“What?” he asked.

“Chrys has been bent on killing you for longer than I could probably understand,” I continued. “He’s got something against you, and the more I got to know him, the more I see that he doesn’t want it. Revenge isn’t something that is his natural state, it’s something that took over him. So you had to have done something pretty messed up to get his whole perspective twisted like that. Did you influence him?”

“What?!” he whispered.

“Did you make him do things for you? Things he didn’t want to do?”

“What?!” he kept saying, over and over.

Crouching down, I started feeling bad for him.

“You know,” I said to myself more than him, for at this point he was long gone. “Had you not tried to use me, and then proceed to try and kill me, I probably wouldn’t be doing this right now. So in a way, this is your fault.”

Dil was still panting, like an animal caught in a trap.

I tossed the Wisp cloak, which was in my other hand still, on top of him, draping his body so I couldn’t see him.

Then I held up Sage’s dagger and tried to breathe deeply again, push aside the Vastmire. But I couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried it stayed with me. So instead I tried to, as gently as possible, slice downward. I went fast but held the knife loosely, expecting it to probably bounce off the cloak and scare him.

Instead, the cloak and Dil were both cut into two pieces.

I stood up, looking at everything around me, still breathing heavily, energy welled up so much it was making my heart race. I couldn’t stand there like that for long. Not moving was almost an impossible task. Maybe I couldn’t handle that I’d just killed an old, defenseless man in cold blood. Or maybe it was just so exciting that I had to move.

So I left that room, the dining room tomb of royal death, and took to the halls to find Chrys, the bloodsoaked dagger Sage gave me still hanging loosely in my hand.