Ranvir staggered in place letting out a groan as his concentration faltered. In the depths of his power it was easy to forget his injuries, but the moment he slipped, even just a little, they hit him like an oncoming wagon.
His legs buckled and he would’ve fallen if not for Pashar’s quick reaction.
“What happened to him?” Ragnar asked his brows furrowing as he registered Ranvir’s presence. “He’s supposed to be in confinement.”
Ranvir groaned as he muddled through his suddenly hazy mind to find his power. He was still embracing the pressure it wasn’t supposed to be difficult. The pain in his side dimmed, replaced by a low crackle of power allowing him to straighten. He could feel his ribs pushing and shoving about where they really shouldn’t. It didn’t seem to have done too much damage yet, thankfully.
Ranvir realized he was swaying as he turned his attention to the principal, causing the old man to gasp and Pashar to smirk. “I got into a fight, sir.”
Ragnar cleared his throat and glanced at Pashar, “A fight?”
“The guard assaulted me then Master Sigurd after when I tried to leave.”
“You stopped him from fighting a master?” Ragnar asked raising an eyebrow at Pashar, who didn’t look much steadier on her feet than Ranvir felt.
“No, I stopped him from getting abducted by Naadiya,” she replied. “Now, I’m sorry but we need to have this conversation on the move.
“Sir, what’s going on?” Ranvir asked hoping for some clarification as another cry, accompanied by power, went out on the opposite side of campus.
“The factions are rebelling, or fighting, or whatever,” Ragnar gruffly waved the notion away as the hill of obsidian shards lowered to just above ground level. “My teachers are handling them.”
“Where were you to let this happen?” Pashar asked.
Ragnar shook his head, “I was wrangling two damned armies,” he shook his head and mumbled something about the spawn coming from the Goddess’ ass, “I’ll be damned if they didn’t surrender, yet they still refuse to cooperate,” he trailed off into further muttered curses.
Ranvir examined the principal closer as they walked, causing his power to flicker for a moment. It wasn’t rubble and dirt quickly accumulated from the fighting throughout the campus, but days of it that had collected on Ragnar’s uniform. He’d grown a stubble and the bags under his eyes were startlingly clear on his face.
Pashar cleared her throat and Ranvir caught a flicker of her tether-sense sweeping the area around them. For a single moment then it was gone, hidden from his senses. Intentional or not? He wondered.
“Saleema is coming for him,” Pashar said causing Ranvir’s back to stiffen. Pashar turned to look at him and nodded solemnly. “I made a deal with the Queen that allowed me to take on a personal apprentice and train them as I please. Even take them away from the academy.”
The principal grimaced, “That’s… bad,” he swallowed and Ranvir saw his gaze linger on him, “She’s not going to be pleased when she finds you gone,” then as an after thought, “I’m also not going to be please that my head administrator is leaving,” he shook his head, “You’re too good at your job.”
“Would you kindly hurry up?” Latresekt suddenly intervened in Ranvir’s thoughts, “You’re going to wear yourself down at this pace.”
Ranvir cleared his throat, “I don’t suppose you could give us a ride?” he gestured to the Parentage before turning to Ragnar. “I would like to be gone before Saleema comes looking,” he didn’t have to fake the fear in his voice.
Ragnar cleared his throat, “You know who she is then?”
Ranvir winced, “I’ve felt enough of her power to know that I should be afraid…”
“Wise,” Pashar said as stone gathered under their feet and they significantly picked up the pace.
In moments, they landed on the doorstep of the parentage and Ranvir gingerly stepped off his ribs shifting at the movement. Hissing out a slow breath he swayed before establishing order over his power.
Pashar grabbed him by the shoulder, “Where are you hurt?”
Carefully controlling his breath, Ranvir lightly grazed his ribs.
She hissed but was interrupted by a huge flare up of power. Light on a scale Ranvir’d never felt before. He didn’t even sense her approach, she simply appeared next to them. Twin-Master Naadiya al-Fayad glowered at the three of them, shimmering with light that caused heat distortion in the air around her. Ranvir staggered away from her leaning against the wall as he raised an arm to protect his face from the heat.
The blood on her shoulder had dried and most of it was flaking off as she rolled her neck, “There you are,” she looked up the building, “He’s in there then?” she asked casually placing a controlling hand on Ranvir’s shoulder, “Why don’t we go find your friend and we can be gone. A gift for Saleema,” tiny flickers of ember rose from Ranvir’s jacket, though the fabric didn’t quite catch fire, “and a gift for Asad.”
Ranvir winced at the smell wafting into his nose. Though she wasn’t directly blinding him, the heat was enough to make him to squint.
Pashar reached between them placing her hand on the twin-master’s elbow, “Let him go.”
The sound of Naadiya’s fist slamming into Pashar’s stomach was dulled by cloth. The smoke tethered crumpled and retched onto the floor, “You’re really not in position to bargain,” Naadiya spat on the back of Pashar’s head then cursed her in kisi. Gazing at Ranvir, she reached up and caressed his cheek with her hand, before digging her fingers into his face and dragging the skin down, “That really is something,” she muttered. “Maybe you really are her son,” she snorted at the notion and waved a white-faced Ragnar off, “Go back and play principal. Might be we won’t report this little incident to the alliance.”
She dragged Ranvir off as she slammed the doors open and stepped inside, “Lead the way,” she grunted and shoved him in front.
Hesitating for a moment, Ranvir debated leading her about. Her hand squeezed down tight on his neck, “Don’t think about it, Saleema just wants you. She doesn’t need all your fingers,” Ranvir felt Naadiya’s power surge as Pashar screamed behind him, cursing Naadiya shoved him forwards sending a spike of orange alarm through him, “Go before she forces me to kill her.”
Nodding, Ranvir headed up the stairs. He started gingerly up them sparing his side as best he could. Naadiya slapped him on the side of the head, “Faster,” Ranvir tried but he couldn’t strengthen his flesh with space without also locking its location. The best he could do was infuse it with his Concept. While Persist made it easier to tolerate pain, he didn’t know how much, if any, it made him physically tougher.
Let out a grunt of frustration, Naadiya breifly gathered him in her arms and heaved him into the air and up the first flight of stairs. “Here?” She asked dumping him on the ground. Blinding white flashes of pain sent lashes of red warning through Ranvir as he gasped on the floor. He’d essentially been thrown up the stairs.
“Someone’s here,” she muttered when Ranvir didn’t respond. “Lot of someones.” He heard her walk off, down the hallway in the direction of his room. Ranvir managed to fight down the pain even as it continued flaring in his side and got to his feet.
“How do you not know where he is?” He asked not certain who she was even looking for.
“Your campus is so stuffed with uninspired training and ill-defining exercises. If I had to go by my senses I could hardly pick him out of a lineup, not without a Concept.”
Not Dovar, then, Ranvir thought as he struggled after her.
She stopped in front of Ranvir’s apartment, apparently realizing out that four first-stage tethered in a single apartment wasn’t normal, “Open it,” she said gruffly after trying the door once, “Or I break it open.”
Ranvir stepped close and knocked once, “Guys,” he called his chest aching as it supplied his voice with just a little support. He debated whether or not he wanted to warn them but it didn’t matter. “It’s me. Open up.”
“Ranvir?” Es’ voice rang out clearly on the other side of the door, his tether-sense slipped out the door and scanned them both. “Who’s with you? I don’t recognize them.”
Rolling off the door, Ranvir leaned against the wall next to it as he manipulated space in the room. He waited for a moment with bated breath but Naadiya didn’t react. It must be lost in the power I’m drawing to my Flesh, he realized, he was likely further aided by the relative scarcity of space tethered.
“She’s an ankirian,” Ranvir waved a hand at Naadiya when she looked like she was going to complain. “She wants to talk with one of you,” she raised her eyebrows at this as he judged distances. He fueled a little more power into Flesh, using it to hide his use of veil as he drew a target on the door vivid purple.
“Who?” Sansir’s voice came clearly through the door.
“I don’t like this,” Es called raising her power. “Tell her to leave.”
Naadiya rolled her eyes and sighed, “Kids, either you open the door or I burn it down.”
“Leave,” Es called angrily raising his power in a threatening display. Ranvir paused adjusting the target on other side of the door as Naadiya put a hand on it. “Or I will make you regret it.”
The amount of activity going behind the door confused even Ranvir’s senses. Could also be the pain, though. “Warp is dangerous, yes. But you’re just a Dagger, kid. You’re not that dangerous.”
Ranvir suspected she was right. Her native presence was much stronger than a regular master’s and he knew that especially warp and space struggled with native presences as they dispersed so quickly. If her presence wore his control down fast enough, he might be the least dangerous person in the room. Even her standing that close to him was distorting his Veil’s grasp on the space.
Esmund’s power flared higher, to the peak of his ability. A strain on his tether he wouldn’t be able to hold, then finally after ten tense seconds, then the power faded, “Fine,” Ranvir had expected to hear defeat in Es’ voice but didn’t find it as the youth stepped away from the door.
The others followed Esmund. Ranvir couldn’t quite tell what they were doing until he recognized the one person who’d remained. Their presence was too weak to be a tethered, though they held something that faintly echoed of warp, or they were near something that held warp energy.
Then a fist-sized hole cut clean through the door, not even leaving wood dust in its passage. Nor did it leave stone as it cut through the walls of the parentage. It was a half dozen meters outside of the building before it’s power dispersed too much to continue.
Naadiya frowned as she looked at Ranvir, her face going into a halfway sneer before returning to confusion. She muttered in kisi before turning back to the door her arm blurring with light and heat as she swung.
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Screams, shouts, and cries filled the room as the occupants watched in horror as she entered the apartment. She made it two steps before falling over blood splashing onto Ranvir’s floor from the fist-sized hole in her chest.
Most of her power departed the body, the air crackling and snapping, like water on a hot pan, as it dissipated into the atmosphere. If he felt, he was sure others would too. “Spawn of Ingra’s ass,” Ranvir cursed burrowing terminology from his principal, “somebody’s definitely going to notice that.”
Grevor stepped forwards, “Right,” he tapped Es on the shoulder, “You got the strength to remove her body?”
Esmund shook his head struggling to stay standing. He’d thrown a lot of power into the ritual circle on the floor before the door. Then again they’d need a lot of power to punch through a twin-master. Ranvir wasn’t sure how much power Esmund had compacted into basin, but he’d guess it was into the high second-stages at least. It suddenly made more sense why Pashar had been so adamant that they hide the rituals better.
“I got it,” Ranvir grunted wrapping the body in a pocket. The corpse disappeared with a slight pop of displaced air and he strode inside. The sudden events sending a thrill of adrenaline through him, bolstering his strength.
He did a double take as he fully registered the crowd gathered in his apartment. Hjara was carrying an older girl on her hip, maybe four or five years old, presumably her daughter. Dovar was there as well kneeling next to a slightly older girl, around ten. Sansir, Grevor, Esmund, and Kirs were there as well.
They all did a double take as they got a closer look at him, “Ranvir, your eyes,” Kirs muttered narrowing her own gaze as she stepped closer. “How did you do that?”
He shook his head, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, I haven’t exactly had an abundance of mirrors to look at.”
“She’s wondering why they’re glowing purple,” Pashar said from the threshold. Her presence caused a long moment of silence as everyone tensed waiting for what was going to happen next. From the front Ranvir couldn’t see any burns. “Grevor burn the blood so it doesn’t seem to fresh. Sansir rub out the ritual markings, don’t want them to know a student can take out a twin-master, do we?” she started pointing as she handed out orders, she pointed at Ranvir, “You, get your daughter so we can leave.”
Ranvir nodded forcing his mind away from what the change in his eyes meant. He stepped to the side as people began moving, when Ragnar barged in. Pashar intercepted him before he could step into the apartment and they began a hissed discussion. Ranvir caught Naadiya’s whispered name more than once. No doubt the principal was trying to understand what he’d sensed of the twin-master.
Stepping carefully, he found himself standing next to Hjara, who was watching over the crib, and Tola, her daughter.
“What are you doing here?” Ranvir asked wincing in pain as he picked Frija up, the crib wasn’t designed with broken ribs in mind.
“There was fighting in the streets and we decided that Tola and I should stay here,” Hjara sounded shaken. Ranvir didn’t know how to comfort her, his good side was occupied by Frija and his injured one didn’t really want to much other than lay down and cry.
“I’m sorry you got caught up in this,” he said, “None of this was supposed to happen.”
Hjara shrugged looking around with wide-eyes at everything that was going on in the room. Grev was concentrating a beam of light on to the blood, while Kirs came over with the pelt they’d once used to hide ritual circles. Sansir’s hands were stained white with chalk as wiped the last of the chalk into a smeared mess.
“Ranvir,” Pashar’s commanding tone jarred him out of the sluggish fugue that had fallen over him as he’d finally gotten Frija in hand. His daughter was surprisingly not crying, though she squirmed like she wanted to. Her wide eyes were instead peering intently around the room even as they grew watery. “We’ve got to go.”
Ranvir nodded kissing Frija gently on the forehead, “I have an idea,” he said entering the meditation room, finding it largely how he’d left it. Kirs had continued her experiments over the last few days, but his side with the unactive pocket-space was the same as before.
Reaching out, he opened the space and filled more energy into the basin so it would maintain itself. He felt Pashar move up behind him as he widened the aperture enough to step inside.
“You can travel with that?” Pashar asked.
“Anywhere,” Ranvir said with a nod, “in theory.”
Latresekt snorted as it paced his insides. After the shock of his sudden advancement, Ravnir’s largely gone numb to most of his feeling and the gray landscape the creature moved through reflected that. “Without guides you’re greatly overestimating your accuracy.”
Ranvir bit his lips, “I might not have a lot of precision, but I should be able to get us away.”
Pashar narrowed her eyes as she considered the option, “That might work. You’re not going to accidentally drop us on a glacier or in the middle of the black desert, right?”
Ranvir hesitated turning his attention to Latresekt, who listened through Flesh responded, “You’re not limited to a single try. Just move again if you get it wrong.”
“No,” Ranvir said then winced as he broached the other problem, “And I can’t bring everyone.”
“What?” Esmund asked. He’d clearly been listening to them and this revelation forced him to his feet. “You’re leaving?”
Ranvir turned around, “It’s…” he didn’t know where to begin, especially not while looking his best friend in the eyes and seeing the injury of the realization there.
“Saleema will be chasing us,” Pashar said, “at least for a time. You couldn’t have stayed together even if we weren’t traveling through in the space.”
Ranvir swallowed as he saw Esmund work up a protest, however Kirs stepped forwards and grabbed his arm. She looked at him intently and he seemed to gather himself. “When can we see you again?” she asked.
“I’m not going to be able to reliably travel with the pocket-space without a guide,” Ranvir said wincing.
“Guides,” Latresekt corrected. “They’re beacons oscillating at a very specific frequency, usually the same ley-sea as the guided, that’s you, with wavelengths that aren’t entirely physical, usually devised by the wielder, again you, themselves. They allow for precision travel through the Liminal.”
“If you can make a guide, or maybe more than one,” Ranvir said trying to translate. “I’ll need it to find you.”
He could feel Latresekt scowling as he tried to relay what the creature had said even though he didn’t understand it himself. “She’ll need a part of your power to create a… lighthouse? Signal fire! To attracts your senses.”
“You’ll need my power to create a signal, a light, that I can find. With the guide I should be able to direct the pocket-space.”
“While this is all very fascinating,” Pashar said, “We should really get going. Can your space carry me with you?”
Ranvir looked at her then tried sensing for her, hesitatingly he shrugged, “I can’t tell.”
Her jaw flexed and her presence vanished almost entirely from his senses, “Does that help?”
“Maybe?” As he spoke Kirs ran past him and to the board where they’d made the shorthand for ritual meditation, “Try.”
Pashar shook her head but did as suggested. The space groaned and started draining the power more rapidly. Running his senses throughout, Ranvir nodded. “It’ll hold for a while, at least.”
Pashar nodded then waved for him to step in alongside her, hesitating he glanced at where Kirs was rapidly scribbling a basin as fast as she could. Esmund approached him. His friend seemed uncharacteristically somber, though it fit with his mood at the moment, “When will I see you again?”
Ranvir shook his head, “If all goes well, a month or two?”
“Think closer to six,” Pashar said from the pocket-space. They both winced before Esmund pulled him into a gentle hug, trying to avoid squishing both Ranvir and the baby. At this, Frija finally started crying. Her wails filling the room as the others turned.
Surprisingly, it was Dovar who approached next, “Hey,” he greeted gently, “this is Asny, my little sister. Asny, this is my good friend Ranvir, though I suppose you can call him Uncle Ranvir.”
Ranvir shushed and patted Frija as best he could while crouching before the young girl, “You look like a strong young woman,” he commented offering his hand awkwardly in a gentle greeting.
She stared curiously between Ranvir and his child before gently taking his hand, “Um… I’m not,” she said shyly.
Ranvir smiled at Asny, “I’m sure you think that, but I know what I see. You’ll come to rival your brother one day, I’m sure.”
She quirked a little smile before tugging on Dovar’s pant leg and Ranvir straightened, his Concept shielding him from much of the pain. He noticed the grief in his friend’s eyes and hated that he’d been robbed of the time to understand what had happened.
“Stay safe,” Ranvir muttered shaking his hand before Dovar led Asny away.
“You too.”
Grevor and Sansir approached next, “You gotta tell me how you managed the eye trick,” Grev muttered. “That’s pretty neat looking.”
“I’ll tell you when I figure it out,” Ranvir replied with a grin, he had a pretty good idea where it came from. Wrong time and place unfortunately. They hugged, “Until we meet again.”
“Until we meet again.”
Sansir seemed at a loss for what to say, so he just hugged Ranvir, “Take care.”
Ranvir nodded, then before he forgot, “Naadiya was after one of you, I’m not sure which.”
Sansir smiled, “I’m sure we can figure it out.”
Pashar spoke up, “Seek out Saif, he’s the ankirian advisor to the Queen, he can protect you if Ankiria attempts anything.”
Sansir and Grevor nodded at her, “We’ll look into it.”
Kirs approached then, “It’s not perfect but it’ll do for now,” she gestured to the basin she’d drawn on the board.
Frija’s crying had tapered off in the somber mood and she looked exhausted. Her head wobbling on her tiny body as her eyes kept blinking shut.
Kirs grabbed his forearms, “Thank you, Ranvir. You’ve led me down a path I couldn’t at all have foreseen.”
He shook his head, “You helped me more than I’ve helped you.”
Rolling her eyes, she drilled a deadly finger into his good side. It stung worse than his ribs, “Just let me say this you ass. You set me on a path that I couldn’t have predicted, that I could’ve never in a thousand years have seen coming. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you’ll be the first name in my ‘thank yous’ when I write my book.”
Ranvir felt himself tear up as he looked at her, then at the rest of his friends and finally to Pashar who seemed to be going out of her good skin from the waiting. “Thank you, Kirs. And thank you all, I could’ve never gotten half as far as I have without you.”
“Go time,” Pashar hissed, “Fill the stupid circle and go.”
Nodding, Ranvir directed his Dagger to the basin and let power flow into it. At his current strength taking it easy was almost as strong as Esmund’s straining himself attempt. Whatever else he’d done, his tether was capable of hauling power by the ass load.
As his power flared filling the basin, Ranvir noted a presence locking onto it. It fell on him like the ancient and powerful Varumgándr herself. Panic frantic in all the colors he could imagine sprawled inside Ranvir for a single moment, before pressurized growl from Latresekt suppressed them.
He drew on his tether like he’d never done before. Like he’d never been able to before. Power spilled into him so freely and strongly that drifted off his body in purple lines, bending at right angles.
Focusing on where Saleema’s tether-sense touched the world, Ranvir drafted plate of hardened space to block her exit, then bound the plate in chains of space as thick about as his wrist. Reaching with Dagger, he drew them from the full length of his power, so they would anchor outside of narrow angled reach, then infusing them with his Concept. As his Discipline left them behind the chains Persisted, lasting beyond their natural degradation as he drew new ones.
His friends gasped as his power flooded the area, to the point where he could even sense the run off from himself. Pashar cursed from the pocket-space having realized what was happening, “Run! All of you! Get out now!”
Ranvir grunted as his plate was impacted by Saleema. It wasn’t a proper attack just his expression clashing with her native presence. Thankfully, once space had a claim it handled native presences very well, like ice and obsidian, rather than like warp or light which tended to either disintegrate or disseminate when touching an overwhelming presence.
Created space slammed into Ranvir’s creation, but it barely buckled.
Chortling, he took a step back as Saleema struck again. Nothing, she was barely making a dent in his expression. Turning to look at Pashar he raised a single eyebrow. She stared back at him, purple light reflecting in her eyes. He could feel that light emanating from him.
Kirs and Esmund were disappearing through his front door as he stepped into the pocket-space.
“What happened?” Pashar asked, as he closed the aperture.
“She touched on the same issue Master Floki had when dealing with her spaces. It’s very hard to destroy space when the only thing you can throw at is space.”
Pashar’s eyes widened, her gaze turning beyond him. Frowning, Ranvir turned to see an aperture in the living room opening as his was closing. She’d just moved her connection point.
He stared with wide purple glowing eyes as Saleema screamed, power steaming off her, as she hurled energy aimed to stop his aperture from closing. She looked ragged and torn. Something had cut away the hair on her head the only thing covering her upper chest was a few fresh bandages.
Grunting with effort, Ranvir ripped the aperture shut. The opening reverberated from the impact of clashing against new space. Freshly created space. Going pale, Ranvir staggered back from the opening that still remained.
“You control the space,” Latresekt called, Ranvir could feel it stoking the fires of his anger. Gritting his teeth as Frija began crying again, Ranvir hurried back until he stood next to Pashar. Then more than halved the size of the pocket. He brought the walls together, splitting the space in two.
He began forging a new connection point into the wall as he managed to fully section them off. Frantically, he struggled to jam together a connection with Vednar before the the new smaller space drifted off.
Sweat pebbled his skin. This part of the space was now cut off from the ritual and he had to maintain it himself, along with the connection to Vednar, sustaining his own body, the pocket holding Naadiya’s body, and remembering it’s location relative to the plane.
He swallowed as he turned to Pashar, “That was too close.”
“It’s over?”
Saleema’s senses hammered into the pocket a second before the full might of her power bore down him. Excess space slammed into their tiny world. Despite her never having given it shape or form it still dwarfed anything Ranvir could’ve done before or after improving his tether. It rattled the entire space searching for a weak point.
The connection snapped.
Ranvir gasped for a moment, the backlash of his expression forcefully breaking sent a frozen knife of red and white into his skull. It only lasted for a moment, but when he regained his senses and reformed a connection point Vednar was gone from his senses.
“You’ve done it now,” Latresekt growled.
“What?” Pashar asked, her voice firming as she painfully grabbed his bicep. “What, Ranvir?”
“She…” Ranvir took in a deep breath looking down at his daughter. Now was not the time to fall apart. “She threw us off— I think she threw us off Vednar.”