“Once I got some health potions in him, I managed to get him moving, but only barely. I could tell something was wrong so… I just tried to get him here as fast as I could.” Allana shifted uncomfortably, the plush cushions of the seats in Geoffrey’s office not enough to ease the anxiety tensing her muscles.
Geoffrey stayed quiet as Allana hurriedly retold the tale of their encounter in the tunnels underneath Rainbow Square. His dark golden eyes studied her for a long time. Allana knew better than to interrupt the master assassin while he was thinking, and instead poured herself a glass of gloam to sip on, needing something, anything, to do with her hands.
After several vials of healing potions, Tenebres had barely managed to make it back to Geoffrey’s home before he passed out again. Though alarmed at first, the assassin had inspected him, and concluded that the darkmaw’s bite must have contained a stamina-based poison. He had simply tipped a soft-green restoration poison into the boy’s mouth, strong enough to ensure the poison wouldn’t kill him, then announced that all he needed now was rest, so that his drained attribute could recover. The two had carried him to the house’s plush lounge and laid him on a soft couch, then retreated to Geoffrey’s study so that Allana could fill him in.
One silent minute after another ticked by as Geoffrey seemed to ponder Allana’s words. The whole time, Allana kept fidgeting, the liquor just as incapable of calming her down as the comfort of Geoffrey’s manor. Despite herself, she kept shooting nervous looks at the office’s door, towards the lounge across the hall.
Finally, Geoffrey spoke. “I’m starting to think I can’t send you anywhere without something like this happening.”
Allana slammed her empty glass down on Geoffrey’s desk, affronted. “It’s not like that!”
“Peace Allana, peace. It was an observation. Don’t add anything else to it.”
The wraith glared at Geoffrey for a moment, before sighing and sitting back. She really needed to get a better handle on herself, before she said something to her patron that couldn’t be fixed. She had only barely managed to put things back together with Tenebres after her previous outburst, and she doubted Geoffrey would be as accommodating. But… she just wasn’t used to concern for others mixing with her already violent temper.
Geoffrey continued, “I had a mentor, once, who would’ve seen your endless escapades as signs of something more…” The man trailed off thoughtfully, his eyes distant.
“What do you mean?” Allana asked, doing everything she could to keep the lingering heat of her frustration out of her voice.
The assassin took a deep breath through his nose, then exhaled in a great rush, shaking his head. “Nothing. Just lost in memories, I suppose. I had heard of darkmaws displaying this ability to adapt the traits of the beings they feast upon, but I’ve never seen it in person before, even after years in Emeston. And for the two of you, at your level, to have even survived an encounter, much less to have killed it… it’s quite remarkable.”
“Really?”
“When I sent you on this job, I believed you to be facing two mediocre lesser monsters, both in the lower reaches of that rank. From your description, however, I suspect that the creature you killed had actually reached the high end of lesser rank. Had it succeeded in killing either of you, it would likely have reached moderate rank, and I am one of only a handful of individuals in Lowrun who would’ve stood a chance against such a beast.”
Allana blinked in surprise. “Seriously?”
“Indeed. It is, in fact, difficult to estimate how many lives you and Tenebres may have saved tonight.” A warm, genuine smile spread across the man’s face, framed by his tidy goatee, the look startling in its simple sincerity. “I’m extremely proud to call both of you.”
Allana fidgeted in place, unsure of how to respond to the praise. Telik had always simply expected her to excel. Nothing she did earned her more than grudging acknowledgement of her success. “Then…”
“Yes. The past is behind us.” Geoffrey shook his head with a futile chuckle. “I had hoped, when Telik asked me to train you, that you’d prove an able student, but still… First Algus, now this spider-rat…”
“I couldn’t have done either without Tenebres,” Allana added in a desperate attempt to deflect the man’s praise.
“Yes, our curious little wraith…” Geoffrey’s eyes drifted to one side of his study, towards the room when he had left the sleeping boy. “What did you think of his performance today?”
“He’s lucky to not be dead,” Allana said frankly. “That bit at the end though…”
Allana’s words drifted off as she remembered the exchange. It had been dark in the cavern, and Allana had a hard time making out details–but she had heard the piteous squeal of a dying rat, and had watched as Tenebres somehow managed to fight off the abominable vermin, moving with a strength and surety foreign to the slender boy. “I’ve never seen him move like that before.”
“Very odd indeed. And he said it was from the void gift?”
Allana nodded. “He didn’t explain any more than that before he passed out. You know how reluctant he is to talk about it.”
“He can be quite reticent where that gift is concerned. But…”
“He’s limiting himself too much,” Allana agreed, already seeing where her teacher’s thoughts were going. “If he had whatever ability that was he used against the darkmaw, he should’ve been using it the whole time, not saving it for when he was about to die.”
“And that’s only one ability,” Geoffrey interjected, twirling one of his many bejeweled golden rings around a finger as he mused. “We know he has this augment, the blood magic that he almost killed himself with, and this buff ability, but he should have another ability from his void gift as well, one he didn’t use even in the face of death.” He gave Allana a direct look, making clear what he was suggesting.
She shifted uncomfortably under that look. “I… I’ll see what I can do to get more out of him… but I won’t lie to him. Why is this so important?”
“You saw him out there, Allana. The boy’s smart. Brilliant, even. But he’s fighting with only one gift. If he keeps that up, he’s going to get himself killed–and maybe you with him.”
#
Tenebres stirred a little as Allana slipped into the assassin’s lounge, a room of comfortable furniture and, of course, a well-stocked bar, all arranged around a tidy fireplace. Simple pieces of artifice kept the fire burning steadily and funneled smoke through the house’s little chimney, keeping the room comfortably warm, softly lit, and faintly fragrant without becoming smoky.
“Lana?” he asked, blinking bleary eyes. “Where ‘m I?”
Allana was surprised by the warmth that filled her voice when she replied. “Geoffrey’s. Turns out he has a cozy little sitting room he never showed us.”
Tenebres nodded, the motion small, weak. “Right. I ‘member that now…” he smacked his lips, running his tongue over them. His mouth must’ve been dry. “How long’ve I been out?”
“A few hours. I just got back from an errand and came in to check on you.”
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“Oh.” A small smile curled Tenebres’s lips, but he clearly lacked the energy for any real banter. “Water?”
“Here.” Allana took a glass they had left on the low table next to the couch, and helped Tenebres sit up enough to take a few little sips. His slender body was heavy and limp in her arms, his gray skin somehow even paler than usual.
“Wha’s wrong with me?” he asked.
“Between the monster and your magic, you got pretty beat up. It had some sort of poison, too, which must’ve sapped your stamina.”
“So tha’s why I’m so sleepy…” Tenebres muttered. Without seeming to notice it, he slid back down from his half-sitting position, his eyes drifting closed. “Lana?” His eyes didn’t even flicker when he said her name.
“I’m here,” she told him.
“Tha’s good… am I gonna die?”
Allana blew a breath out her nose, and tried to keep her voice from showing the tears that were suddenly burning in her eyes. “No, Seo. You’re not going to die.”
That sleepy half-smile crawled across his lips again. “Tha’s good then.”
Allana chewed her bottom lip, filled with a sense of concern she had never quite experienced before. While she had feared for her own life plenty of times, she had never had to fret about losing someone she cared about–mostly because she hadn’t really ever cared about someone else in the first place.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be right here. You’ll be okay.”
Tenebres didn’t respond, seeming to fall back asleep. His breathing was shallow, but steady.
Anxiety chewed away at Allana’s guts. She knew Geoffrey was probably right. While stamina poison sapped away the body’s energy, it was extremely rare for it to kill. Tenebres would’ve needed a massive dose to rob him of the vital stamina he needed to keep his heart and lungs working, and the fact that he had been awake long enough for Geoffrey to get the restoration potions meant that he should be fine.
But still, Allana found herself furiously, irrationally, afraid. Afraid that she had lied to him, afraid that the darkmaw’s poison was stronger than they had thought, afraid that Tenebres would never…
Allana had lost so much in her life, but for the first time, she realized that she had someone she didn’t want to lose, and that terrified her.
So she stayed on the floor next to the couch, and gently slid her hand into Tenebres’s, where she could feel the warmth of his continued life, and would be able to tell if anything happened to him, if the poison started draining him again.
The boy’s eyes didn’t move behind his closed lids. His breathing remained steady, mouth quirked up in that tired little smile–but, ever so briefly, his hand tightened on hers.
#
“That was too close,” Allana told Tenebres the next day. Late morning sunshine shone through the gauzy curtains of Geoffrey’s lounge
The assassin had provided them with cups of thick, dark tea, and already Allana could feel it clearing the morning fog from her brain. She gestured for Tenebres to sip from his as well–this was clearly a high-quality tea, a rare luxury Geoffrey had offered without comment after Allana’s sleepless night.
“We had no way of knowing how strong the monster would be,” Tenebres pointed out. He blew steam from the top of his tea and took a delicate sip, then wrinkled his nose and added a small spoon of sugar.
Allana rolled her eyes, as much at the boy’s actions as his words. She had never understood the rituals people had with their tea, and on the rare occasion she drank any, took it dark, strong, and hot enough to nearly burn herself. “That’s not what I mean, Seo, and you know it.”
Tenebres shrugged, but kept his eyes on his cup, apparently unable to look Allana in the eyes. “Do I?”
Allana frowned. “Seo, you almost died because you insist on using your Blood Magic and refuse to use your other gift!”
Tenebres’s own face tightened with some mixture of emotions Allana couldn’t quite sort through. “That’s not true. I used it there at the end.”
“The buff ability, right,” Allana acknowledged. “But you held off on using it so long that the backlash when it wore off nearly killed you!”
Tenebres shrugged one shoulder, his eyes still sullenly downcast.
“I just don’t get it!” Allana insisted, unable to keep a little hint of frustration from creeping into her voice. “It’s your gift now, Tenebres! If you just keep wasting it like this, you’re never going to get anywhere!”
“Wasting it?” Tenebres repeated, finally looking up. Allana was shocked to see tears rimming his eyes. “You remember how I got this gift, right? The sacrificial altar and all that?”
“I do,” Allana said more softly. But she slid a little steel back into her tone as she continued. “But who cares? You know where my gifts came from, Seo. One bought by a man to give him another lever over me, the other produced after months of being routinely poisoned. I hate what they represent, that they’re just creative ways for that bastard to control me. But I use them anyway–because if I didn’t, I’d be dead!”
Tenebres’s eyes slowly drifted away from her again, and Allana tried to suppress another surge of irritation. He could at least look at me!
But before she opened her mouth, she tried to rein in her temper, to look more closely at her friend. And she was surprised to notice that his face wasn’t stubborn, or sullen, and distant. It was twisted with shame.
“Seo?” she tried to be more gentle this time. “What is it?”
“I… I didn’t tell you everything,” the boy admitted quietly.
“What is it?” Allana repeated.
“Did you…” Tenebres stopped to take a deep breath before he continued. “Did you wonder how I got out of there? After I got my gift?”
Allana thought back to his story, and realized that Tenebres had never elaborated on that part. “You told us… something went wrong with the ritual,” she recalled. “The sacrifice didn’t work, and by the time it was all over, you were a wraith, and you had this gift of the void, and the cult was dead.” Allana’s eyes went wide, shock shooting up her spine as she realized what Tenebres was saying. “Seo… did you…”
Tenebres shook his head, then stopped himself, and shrugged helplessly. “No. Or… Kind of, I don’t know. It’s this gift. Its main ability lets me summon these things, these fiends, by sacrificing my own attributes. And without meaning to, I used it. I summoned this monster and it killed all of them. There was nothing any of them could even do. It killed my–killed the entire cult. Everyone except me.”
Allana blinked, trying to process the boy’s words, and what he noticeably wasn’t saying. His parents had been in the cult, he had told them. They had stood by while he was to be sacrificed. If this demon killed everyone, then his first use of a gift ability had killed his own parents, in addition to his captors.
She had no idea what she was supposed to say in the face of a confession like that. “Tenebres… I’m so sorry…”
The boy swallowed thickly. “I couldn’t control it, Allana. There was nothing I could do, no matter how much I tried. It killed everyone, no matter how much I told it to stop. It just wouldn’t.” Tenebres finally looked up again to meet her eyes, and Allana could see the tears streaking down his face. “That is why I don’t use my void gift, Allana. It’s evil. And it could hurt you, hurt Geoffrey.”
“I rather doubt that.”
Allana’s head shot around, and she gave Geoffrey a positively venomous look as he entered the room.
Tenebres looked from the assassin to Allana, and she could see the pain, the betrayal, appear on his face.
“Allana… did you–”
“No!” Allana insisted. “I had no idea he was there, Seo, I swear!”
“She didn’t,” Geoffrey told him, slipping into the plush armchair across from the lounger they had claimed. “I asked her to talk to you about your other gift, but I didn’t warn her I’d be listening in.”
The boy turned a similarly venomous look on Geoffrey now, but the assassin shrugged off the pair of glares, unfazed. “You’re my student, in my house. I’d argue you didn’t have much right to privacy in the first place.”
Allana opened her mouth to tell the assassin off, but Tenebres rolled his eyes. “Stop, Allana. He’s right. It’s about time I lay everything on the table.
Geoffrey grinned and leaned forward in his seat. “Excellent.” The blonde man steepled his fingers together under his chin. “Then if you don’t mind, I have some questions.”