Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads
Chul
The stone was cold beneath my palms, but I did not let it hamper me. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. Repetition after repetition after repetition of pushups kept my fire burning. My shoulders ached with that bittersweet burn of progress. My chest twinged with the wear of exhaustion, too, but still I went onward. Still, I sought the next step in my endless trek.
By my side, another was working through the same motions. The shade of my brother was there, matching my every repetition. I thought I could feel his fire, too, cultivated and enhanced by every bend of his arms.
Seven hundred and three. Seven hundred and four. Seven hundred and five. The pulsing urge of my body to move and act kept each number rising as I pulled my mana inward, refusing to use it in this dire time of recuperation.
And my lifeforce flowed. I could feel it, deep in my heart as it wound its way along my veins, following every canal and tunnel of my body. And as my heart rate rose and my body ached, that sensation I'd always sought was finally there. Now that I had felt the spark, it had finally set alight what had been dormant.
No, that is false, I thought, grunting with exertion as I pressed out another repetition. My heartfire was always there, in the fire I harnessed during every press of my muscles. I simply knew not its true name.
Much time had passed since I had begun work on my brother's plan. I knew not the count of days, but the workings of aevum held little sway in this cavern of petty despair. So I had mined the acclorite when I could, shattering the corpses of those long condemned, and leaving them like demented offerings to my cruel captors. And in the aftermath, I had honed in on the light in my blood with Toren's wise assistance.
"You can call it on your own, Chul, as you're able to feel. But you're still unpracticed in its manipulation," Toren said beside me, his voice entirely unstrained by the great labor of his pushups. "Channeling my abilities gives your burgeoning aether influence a pathway. Like putty being pressed into a mold, or liquid metal flowing along forging grooves. Focus on that sensation when we align."
I had offered my brother the same hand I'd given the Worker of Wonders not long ago: we should exercise together! Such was the best way to keep one's mind and body ready for the trials of life.
Seven hundred and fifty, I thought, my arms struggling not to give in. Sweat beaded along my temple, dripping into my beard and catching there like a junebug in a glintsilk spider's web. I have surpassed myself once more!
I groaned, pulling myself back to a sitting position as I worked my shoulders. The mote of fire in my blood was still there, obvious and bright in the light of my exercise.
I needed to… harness it. Call to it, as I had learned to do.
I clenched my fists, my brows furrowing in pained concentration. In the mirrored routine of what I had once done, I called to it with that mindset of… hammer blows. With the crushing desire to slam steel against steel and fists against stone, as I had found when I had turned those crystal corpses to shards worthy only for harvest.
And it flowed. With every pulse of my heart, the aether flowed along my veins, moving and soothing my aches and pains. It did not heal or help or hinder, for I was yet unskilled in any such art, but it still flowed in a way I had never known in my life.
The great aetheric artists of my clan claimed that the two sources of my aetheric insight—djinn and phoenix—must have been incompatible, I thought, feeling that energy course like molten honey along my veins. They were wrong, but not in the way we suspected.
Toren's measuring assistance came not long after. Like steam in the bellows of a great engine, I sensed his soul approaching mine, his touch along my aether. Through my Vessel, he pushed my lifeforce to do things I did not understand, and in turn, I drew on his understanding in a tumbling loop that I struggled to fathom.
But the results showed for themselves. My body slowly healed from the inside out, the flesh of my aching form knitting together under subtle flickers of orange-purple.
"Chul."
I kept my eyes squeezed shut. Toren's voice was quiet, somber in a way that I did not think I had heard. "Yes, my brother?"
"I've been very… very focused of late. I know I'm hardly here to really help with these new powers of yours, as I've been scouting out the area around this pocket dimension and all. But I am…" Toren sighed, the sound like the breath of a mournful sea gale. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm so hard on you. It isn't fair."
I did not open my eyes. "You are just in your recriminations," I said, feeling my sense of heartfire fade to the background. Still there. Always there. But unless I made myself weary, I would not hold it in my hands. "I have sinned greatly against you and yours, and justice would see my body before the people of Darv."
The cavern was silent for a time—silent except for the flow of the terrible Hoshwater and the distant chipping of the Worker of Wonders' whittling craft. But I could hear my heartbeat above it all, rising to my ears and pulling at my emotions. Mother had always said that I felt before I thought, and that was something I must always be wary of.
But none spoke of the dangers of thinking before feeling. Because when the thoughts of all I had done came, the feelings that came after were like knives in my chest, each carving wounds that would never heal.
"You've tried to do better, Chul. I didn't give you the credit that you deserved. You… saved Seris from that basilisk. You saved Cylrit, Lusul, Dromorth, and everyone else that would have otherwise died."
I opened my eyes, staring furtively at the ghost of my brother. He sat there, mirrored across from me. The dawnlight flowing around him was dimmer now in his contemplation.
Father had always said that the eyes were a window to the soul. He had told me that I must always look a person in the eye when I greeted them, for such was how I respected their being. Each time a pair of eyes locked, a communion of souls occurred. Such was the virtue of life.
So often as of late had my brother's eyes born anger. So much contempt and just fury. And as our souls met with every look, I could not help but retreat, burned by the veracity of my sins. I did not wish to meet his eyes any longer.
But I let myself do so, like a mountain wing questing onto an unsturdy branch.
"It was the just thing to do," I said, fearful of a chasm I could not foresee. "The strong must protect the weak. Such was Mother's teachings. I have been naught but a disappointment to her principles, so I could not…"
"Aurora loved you, Chul. She might have been disappointed in you—and me—sometimes, but this was not what she wanted for us." Toren let out a sigh, his charred features twisting in a grimace. "I'm angry, Chul. I'm just… angry at it all, with no direction or way to feel it. And I don't have her anymore to talk to. To help me feel. And I look down and see you. And you look so much like her, act so much like her. But you're not her, and I—"
My shoulders crumpled inward as I stared at the floor. "I am sorry, brother. I have failed to be the example she laid for me. This I know." I ground my teeth, my hands hungering for something to hold. Something to squeeze. I wished Mother were here. She would know what to say. "I am an unworthy replacement."
"Chul, that's… not what I meant." Toren let out a weary groan, shaking his head. Then he stood, before walking closer to me. "You're you, I'm me, and our mother is not here anymore. At least not until I bring her back. It's not about replacements. It's just… we need to make do with what we have. We don't always get what we want. And it's unfair to expect you to be someone you're not.."
Mother… I missed her. I missed her so, so much. That fleeting glimpse of her beneath the dark caverns of Darv made my heart ache with a longing I could hardly fathom. And as I looked up at Toren, his shade dawnlit and his aura hazy, words fell from my mouth that made tears blur my vision.
My mother had stood before me like this, not long ago. So close, yet so far beyond my reach. Burned and great, but loving and kind. She was all that was right with the world, lingering on the periphery. But the one who stared down at me was not her.
"I wish you were her," I muttered weakly. "I wish it were her. Not you. She was kind and loving, and great and beautiful and right. I would not feel such hurt in my heart if she were here."
The tears wavered there at the edges of my eyes, threatening to tumble like great boulders from an arching precipice.
Toren knelt before me, clasping his hands in front of him. Despite the hours of movement he had done, his spirit showed no sight of pain. Of course, it would not. "I understand her a bit better now. Being disconnected from everything. Unable to touch. Hear. See, smell. It's maddening. We're not meant to be like this, separated from our bodies. And she was like this all the time, caring for me despite it. And I'm… I'm not her example, either. I'm not being what she wanted me to be."
Toren's hand reached out, hesitating for a moment. Then he laid it on my shoulder.
"We're going to get out of here soon. We've got enough acclorite mined for the next step, and then we're going to reach the top of those godforsaken stairs. That wouldn't be possible without you, or your efforts to be better."
"I do not feel I am better," I grumbled, feeling undeserving of the warmth on my shoulder. "I cannot understand how I might be. I know not how I can fix things."
Toren was silent, his features deepening into shadow. His fingers squeezed my shoulder for a moment, imparting an ember of warmth into the wounded campfire of my soul, but we knew in our heart of hearts that I had spoken of the true difficulty.
"But I shall never stop trying," I vowed, as I had always. I felt my spark rekindle, igniting with the hope I always carried. "I will seek this path forward, even if I do not know where it is!"
"Such is life," Toren echoed with a smile. He slowly retracted his hand, staring at something behind me. "It's just about time, now. Wren's done with his work."
I blinked away my tears, pushing away the sadness. It was no longer time for feelings, but for duty and action.
The Worker of Wonders was loping toward us, his brow quirked as he stared at the place that Toren would be. I saw no schemes behind his eyes, unlike my brother's nest-mate, but I did see questions and wondrous curiosity.
A smile split my face as I pushed myself back to my feet, feeling my vigor return. "Ho, Worker of Wonders!" I bellowed, holding out my arms for an embrace fit for the greatest of warriors. "You have done well, have you not?"
I moved forward, ready to wrap the titan in a hug, but the scrawny asura slipped backward before he entered my range.
"No more hugs, oaf," he said with a twitch of his nose. "You smell like the swamp pits of the Dryadic Wilds, and I already can't get your blood and sweat from my rags."
"You are still foolish, Worker of Wonders," I said, shaking my head with sorrow. I looked at him with utmost compassion, hoping for his future. "One cannot embrace life if they do not embrace their fellows. You shall remain a tragic and sad man until you realize this truth."
"Tragic and sad?" the Worker of Wonders snapped, leering at me with narrowed eyes. "You must have hit your head as a child. It would have been fascinating to see how you come to such idiotic conclusions." He sniffed, then held out his hands. "And if you embraced your fellow, you would have gotten us both killed. There's a few of these ready, but they'll turn you to glass faster than your two surviving neurons can fire."
While I had set about mining for these past days, the titan had been granted a great quest befitting his talents: the honing and sharpening of our weapons of choice. While the majority of our harvest was placed like bait for lingering prey at the edge of the staircase, some were honed to make blades.
In Wren Kain's lanky fingers, whittled throwing knives of acclorite gleamed dully. Their brittle handles were wrapped in strips of rags, granting the slimmest of handholds.
"You will be careful with these," Wren said sharply, his eyes darting about the room quickly, as if the dragons could see us all right now. "If you get one drop of your blood, sweat, or anything mana reactive on it, and you're going up like Xyrus City did with Spellsong's display. Do you understand that?"
I did. I grasped one gently, cradling it as one would a delicate feather. It floated there like a shard of fractured night, an instrument of death and wonder all at once. It appeared crude, true, but only if one did not consider all its creation had required. A sliver of death honed to a razor's edge. Toren's shade inspected it carefully, never straying too close as he kept his eyes narrowed on the instrument he'd devised.
"The balance is superb," I said quietly, admiring the care and dedication put into something so small. "For so small an instrument to be made with such greatness… It is amazing. Truly, you are a Worker of Wonders, Wren Kain the Fourth."
The titan, who had been retracting his hands as quickly as he could, paused, blinking as if struck. "Of course it is," he said, adjusting quickly as he scoffed. "There's no titan more talented than me in creation. You'd do well to remember that. In fact, making something so paltry is beneath me."
I stared at the titan with widened eyes, only now beginning to grasp the verity of my mother's words. "My Mother spoke of your craft long ago. She was right in all things, but I now understand that hearing is not the same as seeing!"
The Worker shuffled slightly, turning to look at the Hoshwater at the edge of the cavern. It was most certainly my imagination, but there appeared to be a flush of red coating his cheeks. "She remembered me, did she? Of course she would. I am the epitome of my clan. Nobody else could even come close to me."
The titan nearly preened, a smirk adorning his tired face as he fluffed the plumage of his mind. It was fascinating to witness, a legend of my Mother's stories come to life.
"Mother spoke of this, too," I replied, furrowing my brow. "She said that you were very small of body, but vast of mind and ego! She had hoped that you would learn of hubris and temperance before she left, for pride comes before every fall! You are just like the stories, Worker of Wonders!"
Toren winced beside me, sucking a breath in through his teeth. "Damn."
I blinked, noticing Toren's change. Before I could comment on it, however, the pompous air of the Worker of Wonders seeped away, lost in the mist of the Unseen. He glared at me beneath his eyelashes, slouching even more. No longer was there red in his features. "You don't know when to shut up, do you? Have you ever considered keeping certain things to yourself, or does it never cross your mind?"
I opened my mouth to reply, then observed how Toren's face was pulled into a grimace. He said he can feel the emotions of others through me. That would mean I have subjected Wren to pain.
My shoulders slumped, tongue heavy in my mouth. Another instrument that would only hurt. "I am sorry," I said lowly. "I did not mean to wound you, Worker of Wonders."
"As if anything you said could hurt me, boy," he scoffed, turning away. His lies were blatant and obvious, that much even I could see. He marched back to his little corner, muttering all the way. "You can get your pickaxe yourself."
I stood there, confused and worried as I held the crafted knives in my hands. Toren sighed at my side, his ghost crossing his arms as he watched Wren go.
"You inadvertently told him that the woman he loved did not feel the same way about him, Chul," he said in a low whisper. "Or at least that he likely would not have had a chance. That's the way he took it, even above how you called him arrogant. That can… sting. Didn't need any fire mana to leave ashes behind there."
I remained silent as I stared at the titan, trying to think of what I could say next, but I did not trust my words. "I do not comprehend this," I muttered tiredly. "What can I do to make this better?"
Again and again, that was always the question to which I returned. How do I fix what I have broken? Why did I break what I touched?
"Well, you've got to give this one a little time." Toren glanced at me, his hair flowing in an Unseen breeze. "It can be… hard, keeping it all contained. I can sense your emotions, too. I can sense it all bubbling up like a volcano before it bursts. In everything you feel. But when that volcano erupts, it is too late. So…"
"So I must keep the volcano from erupting?" I blurted, wondering at this wisdom. "That sounds painful, brother. Like a lid kept atop a boiling pot."
"No. Trying to squash it would only make it erupt even more violently, eventually. But find a way so that it doesn't erupt. So that it becomes a steady stream instead of an explosion."
I contemplated this for a time, my brow furrowed. "I shall try."
—
"Chul," Toren's voice said quietly behind me, "it's about time. One is coming."
I opened my eyes, feeling rejuvenated. My body was limber and powerful, coursing with lifeforce and mana. And as I stood from my failed meditation, the fire within raging for an outlet, I recognized the coming volcano from my mana core.
This one, I shall let erupt.
I slowly rose to my feet, rolling my shoulders as I prepared for the coming battle. I banished my earlier melancholy. Mother had always said there was time for contemplation, and time for action. I was a creature of deeds, not just words, and these I would see through.
"Worker of Wonders," I said, keeping my attention riveted on the runic archway to our escape, "the time has come."
I did not turn to acknowledge the titan, though I sensed him approaching me with the soundless steps of a shadow panther.
Toren had been drifting away from our prison, scouting the area as much as he could. And from observing the outside, my brother had determined something critical. The Indraths jailors, like every fat, gorged beast, were held to a routine. Petty, slavering things that returned at every chiming of the clock.
I held the pickaxe in my left hand, keeping it at the ready for the approaching battle. I wished for Suncrusher's heft and resilience instead, but this tool of mining would have to make do. Its blunted edge—if strengthened with enough mana—would offer me at least a single solid strike.
"They're coming for the acclorite now," Toren whispered just behind me. "That means it's night outside. There are fewer guards awake and alert outside this dangling fruit of a prison, which means that now is the best chance for escape."
They would never see us coming.
"So, what?" Wren muttered behind me, looking at the arch with barely masked distaste. "Are you just going to run up the stairs again? You've supposedly got a plan."
"I am not one to sit and devise intricate schemes, Titan of Kain," I replied, raising my hand. In it, one of the Worker of Wonders' throwing knives nestled like a projectile ready for the featherwick board. "This, I have always known. I take no credit for the wisdom granted to me."
I settled into stance as I sensed the coming jailor, their mana radiating power. I could almost hear their footsteps. I cocked back my arm, muscle and strength and tension coiled into one knot of potential energy.
I was reminded of my days long ago in my Hearth, playing at the featherwick board with those who were free. I had never truly grasped the art of letting my feathers drift across the floating islands, snuffing out the fires of every wick. Those who defeated me spoke afterward with consoling words meant to teach and guide, saying that while my throwing arm was superb, the goal was not power. It was grace.
But when it comes to power, there are none beyond me, I thought, my hawklike gaze centered on the arch. Let them come.
I saw a sliver of a boot. A flash of flowing robes. The bare hint of exhaled breath.
I released my own breath, then erupted like a solar flare. Mana flowed along my limbs, empowering every contraction. The movement of my arm was less than a blur as I hurled the dagger with perfect precision.
The acclorite streaked forward, a fell curse delivered to an eternal enemy.
It did not land true. I growled in anger, watching the dagger of acclorite as it hovered motionlessly, captured within the bounded infinity of the Wretched Staircase.
A dragon stood contemptuously a breath beyond the reach of his doom. Lacerating scars covered his face, each of them highlighting his rugged cruelty. Unlike Vajrakor, this one bore armor of bulky plate, the gleaming panels of interlocking silver untouched by the room's dust. The ageless air of the gods of Epheotus hung about him like silken robes, clinging leisurely to him in an aura of contempt.
"Admirable attempt," the dragon grunted, his golden eyes narrowing on the dagger's hovering point. It appeared so close to where he stood on those steps, but I knew the warping of space made the distance greater than I could comprehend. His grip clenched around a spear, the point gleaming and deadly. "But they always try something like this. Most of you kill yourselves in the attempt, though."
I slowly stalked forward, my pickaxe held low to the ground. I kept all my mana contained, refusing to let it leak into the atmosphere and spell my doom. "Will you cower behind your shield, Indrath? You contain me because of the fear I bring," I taunted, ready to leap into action as I slowly closed the distance. "Come in here and test the might of your blade, craven lizard. Prove yourself worthy of your arrogance!"
The dragon's lips twitched, his cold eyes staring out from behind a curtain of dark-streaked gold. Toren's shade was silent, and Wren muttered curses a ways behind me.
"The Warden is consumed by his petty desire to present himself above his captives, lessuran," the dragon said, his eyes dismissing me utterly as he instead considered the acclorite heaped at the bottom of the stairs. "But I am not. You are a raptor squirrel demanding the attention of silver panthers, unaware of your station."
The lizard of destruction said nothing more, instead gesturing vaguely to the air. I could not sense it, but I was able to bear witness to the warping of space around his feet as the acclorite slowly misted away, taken by some aether art. The acclorite dagger hung in the air before my quarry, captured in space. Unbothered. Dismissed.
My hand clenched around my pickaxe as I finally reached the dragon, my body tense and ready for the desperate flight that was to come. My heartbeat rose in my chest, anticipation for the coming battle focusing my intent.
"Look him in the eyes, Chul." Toren's voice reached me from behind, soft and somber. "You said that is how you see their souls. Do it now, before his end. Look every enemy in the eyes before you take their life from them, no matter how low they may be."
I followed my brother's wisdom, staring into the deep yellow of my quarry's eyes, barely a few feet away. Eyes… they were windows to the soul. Could this dragon comprehend the end?
I offered no words to this fell lizard as I raised my hand, brushing my fingers through the strange, compressed weave of space. I could not feel resistance, could not feel my movements slow. Yet as I attempted to lay a hand on the dragon, I found that I faced a point of no return; an event horizon that could not be crossed.
The plate-armored dragon kept his eyes locked on me, quietly condescending. "This spell alters itself to protect us as we pass through, lessuran. You will never lay hands on us."
I snarled, pressing further and further into the complex weave of rebounding space. My arm ached as it approached the dragon's shoulder, ever-closer but never… there.
"Indeed, you are different from the Warden," I growled, sweat beading on my brow as my heartbeat increased. Blood flowed along my veins, the rising drum of combat pulling me closer and closer into synchronicity with the soul at my back. "But you share in one thing, dragon. Arrogance."
The dragon had not deemed me worthwhile. He had simply gazed at my fingers as they struggled to approach, confident in his safety as he flaunted the powers of his forebears.
So when I swung the pickaxe in my left arm, calling to the shade of my brother, he did not think anything of it. As heartfire flowed along my body, outlining me in a stream of dawnlight, this lizard was too content in his arrogance. Too content to deem me prey.
The pickaxe gleamed with orange-purple light, the birthright of my mother battling the compressing force of the spatial weave. Toren snarled as we pressed on and on and through, rejecting the power of the enemy.
And finally, it passed by, before locking behind the dragon's leg. The asura had only a single moment of widening horror as the metal head of my pickaxe clung greedily to his greaves, the light of the rising sun banishing the eternal gray.
"Make peace with those you love," I snarled, before yanking my arm back.
The spatial spell buckled for a moment as I swept the dragon's feet out from under him, before attempting to pull him into the sharpened point of the still-hovering dagger.
The dragon, however, did not allow himself to be so thoroughly stripped of their balance and power. Even as he tumbled down the steps, he twisted, snarling as he barely avoided the waiting trap's deadly point. The lizard's gold-streaked hair flared as he adjusted, lashing out with a sideways fist and scoring a cut along my temple. I reeled from the force of the blow, unable to shroud myself with mana.
I stumbled upward, climbing the steps ever so slightly. I barely had the wherewithal to follow through, hurling the dragon down the staircase. We had switched our positions in a flickering instant, the light of my thundering heart banishing the darkness.
The dragon readjusted easily, finding his balance within the unending gray of my prison. He snarled up at me, his hand held out to the side as he prepared for a fight. I could see it there on his features: the anger, surprise, uncertainty, and confusion as he found himself suddenly lower than me.
I rolled my head, adjusting my neck as blood streamed down my forehead, coating my orange eye. The Worker of Wonders whistled as he inched closer to me, ascending the staircase just the slightest. He showed a mote of what I discovered here, his dark eyes reigniting with something approaching hope. He stuck close to me, watching the dragon caught in his own cage.
The blood seeped over my lips, the sweet taste of iron mixing with the sweat and grime of the days lost within my former prison.
"A solid blow, warrior," I acknowledged to the dragon below, adjusting my shoulders. My mana core was ready. "I shall remember you."
The dragon opened his mouth to reply, but then he froze. His eyes widened with rising fear before he looked down.
The remainder of the gray acclorite knives had been laid intentionally across the murky floor, nigh indistinguishable in the low light. And though the dragon had avoided my initial attempt to draw him to his doom, his boot had crunched atop a few remaining shards, shattering them.
The boot was humming with circulating mana, as I'd pressed the asura into fight-or-flight.
It happened quickly. The broken shards of null-light crystal surged upward like a living, hungry thing, latching onto the greaves of the asura. Higher and higher it climbed, crackling and popping as it covered him. Subsumed him. Gleaming white armor became a lifeless gray. Stretching arms calcified as the dragon was caught unawares.
I knew from the Worker of Wonders that one could survive such a process, overcome it, even, if they calmed themselves and severed their very limbs. Should they succeed in cutting the infection off at the root, calming their mana output, and banishing their fears… they might halt the process before it reached the core.
But this dragon would fail.
I did not stay to watch the rest of the process. Once the acclorite reached his core, the aftermath would be a doom that would claim all in its vicinity. It would drink suddenly of his reserves, before rupturing like a burst balloon.
A just end for a jailor, I thought, my vindictive pride at besting the fell dragon tempered by the sense of Toren's stare. Condemned by the traps that kept his prisoners in.
I grabbed the Worker of Wonders' thin arm, hauling him close. He cursed as I began to run, ascending step after step after step in great, bounding leaps.
"What the hell are you going to do next?!" he grunted, as I ran, my body flaring with dawnlight. Thump thump thump thump. "What in the Labyrinthines are we doing!"
The thunder of my footsteps on the stones, the rush of wind. The pounding of blood in my ears, the pumping of muscles. The terrible, crystalline scream. The explosion behind me. All of it fought for my attention as I ascended toward wonderful freedom, the space around my heartfire-enshrouded form warping. The spell that had kept me contained, kept me caged fell before my brother's might. Before the thunder of our twin hearts!
"We must find my brother's body!" I bellowed, a smile beginning to stretch along my face at the exertion. "Such is the way forward, Worker of Wonders! And he has declared, your golems shall be key distractions! Do not let the Indraths halt our way! We shall find the light!"
I could sense the acclorite burst behind me as it finally reached the dragon's core, erupting outward in an incomprehensible cry of terror and shattering stone, yet I was already near the light. The very top.
I planted my foot, gripping the Worker of Wonders in one arm, my mighty tool in the other. I flexed, grinning at the light, then lunged.
We emerged in a great, massive cavern, adorned in flitting snow-fly lights that gleamed in pale, winter glows. The Mighty Hosh seeped along the ceiling in its silent scream, spreading like rot over the cracks and crevices of the underground. But inevitably, every single lurching stream bent toward a central point, roots coalesced in an angry knot.
A mighty willow tree grew upside-down from the ceiling as it gorged on the hoshwater. It stretched its many fingers down like a reaper's bony talons, grasping for the dead. They splayed about like countless webs, innumerable vines interweaving and interlocking. And from near every single branch, a fruit hung: a fruit of warped space and twisted crystal, with an unreachable door. Their shells were of hardened stone and purple runes, each whining balefully in their trap.
My uncle had often spoken of strange scenes such as these, mazes crafted of words hiding secret meanings he refused to say outright, but this was no metaphor: the great prison was a tree of countless fruits, each pit a dimension of despair. Each fruit contained within a dimension of warping space, condemning untold souls to the gray nothingness. I knew not how each of the bending boughs could hold so many prison cells, but it mattered not.
For we had just emerged from one such fruit, covered in blood, dust, and glory!
"Hahahaha!" I laughed into the cavern, my voice booming as I beheld the several flitting guards of the Indraths, caught entirely unawares by my sudden arrival. "I am free, fell dragons!"
Wren ripped himself free of my grip, his mana revving suddenly. His eyes were wide and focused as the many jailors—each in that gleaming plate—all shouted in alarm and surprise, gearing up their weapons and calling to their mana.
I hurtled downward like a dawnlit comet, holding my pickaxe high as I imbued it with phoenix fire. My eyes gleamed with the coming storm, the bloodright of my people urging me onward. But the dragons were not so quick to fall away from duty.
A dozen projectiles of pure mana, enpurpled lightning, and raging anger surged for me. A few of the guards were rushing forward to intercept my path, desperate to halt destiny. Instead, grasping hands rose from the cavern floor, blocking many of their arcing attacks as the Worker of Wonders called on his magic.
I slammed like a meteor into the stone below, bashing my pickaxe into the floor. The iron—unable to handle the force of the blow—warped and shattered. Then the cavern floor split, a great, yawning maw opening along the expanse as the cave shuddered. Phoenix fire roared up from below, obscuring me from sight.
The world was bathed in light and heat for a moment, my muscles aching and my core squeezing. I breathed heavily, a grin on my face as I stared at my brother's shade. Backlit by fire, he looked like something from on high.
"They will assume you'll rush for the exit first," I remembered him saying. "You won't be. You'll follow me to my body, and you'll do something very specific. And then you are going to run. You'll run and won't look back, not until I reach you again."
Run? Run? Why would we ever run from such life? Why would we flee from the just flames of battle?!
Toren pointed his arm silently upward and to the side, saying not a word. Neither did I, simply laughing once more as I leapt through the flames.
As I emerged from the raging firestorm, a hundred more emerged with me. Dozens of Chuls laughed like me, Wren Kains following in their wake. The Worker of Wonders' conjured golems looked so real as they swarmed like fleeing birds from a burning nest, running toward a dozen different exits.
I found the grumbling Worker at my side, cursing as he was wont to do. "This better damn well be worth it, oaf!" he growled, his body shaking. "We're still trapped! Even if they won't know which one is us, it won't take long to figure it out!"
The dragons were striking at the many golems with their pure mana beams as we surged for the tunnel opening my brother had indicated, streams of silver fire, and supercharged winds spiraling about. They shouted orders, already organizing and making a response. And just as Toren predicted, they oriented toward the exit: a place far from where we would be.
"Worry not, titan! This is all according to the great wisdom of my brother!" I said, smiling as we navigated at speed through winding tunnels, Toren's shade silent and solemn as he pointed this way and that. "We shall all witness his greatness!"
I had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be so immersed in mana. The atmosphere was heavy and thick with it, the fire attribute seeping into my body and swirling in my core as I engaged mana rotation. Onward and onward we went, the explosive sound of battle behind us as the entire mountain trembled from asuran might.
And I saw it: a runic archway, inscribed with glyphs of glimmering amethyst. Beyond it, an endless catacomb of blocky pillars, each adorned with items of import and mystique. There! That was it! That was the place my brother spoke of, where we would find salvation!
"See, Worker of Wonders?!" I echoed, my footsteps cratering the stone with every move forward. "Our goal is at hand! You need just—"
Toren's shaded eyes suddenly widened, a flash of fear creasing his burned features. "Chul, wait! There's someone ahead! I can hear their heartbeat, feel their mana! They're waiting—"
I barely had the wherewithal to blink in surprise, questioning what my brother could possibly mean.
Then the Worker of Wonders cried out in pain, a crunch echoing behind me. I whirled on instinct, bringing my fist about in preparation to face whoever had ambushed us.
Vajrakor stood there, his arm embedded up to the elbow in the Worker of Wonders' gut. Blood and viscera streamed along his quartz-white robes, seeping like a terminal stream through the crystalline folds. His eyes were vindictive in their cutting lavender as he snarled, ripping his hand free of the titan's gut.
The song of my heartbeat became one of grief and fear as I hurled a fist at the dragon's face. The Warden avoided it with ease, kicking the Worker of Wonders' corpse away. His dark hair was a raven curtain of rage as he snorted.
"Pathetic," he snarled. "Pathetic, that you'd think I wouldn't predictsuch a direction."
The dragon slammed a fist into my stomach, the reverberating impact pulping my insides. I coughed blood, stumbling backward into the unending catacombs. I slipped beneath another punch, but was caught in the chin by a casual knee. Then another punch sent me tumbling through the room behind me.
Curses, I thought, my vision wavering as I fought to keep hold of my fire. I coughed blood onto the stone below me, feeling how much was broken. I am weak from capture! But I will tear him apart, I swear it! I shall see this beast—
"The others flock to the exits, but I knew your lessuran selves would go here the moment the alarm sounded," Vajrakor snorted from far away. He gestured with a casual backhand, and his pure mana swelled to absurd heights.
A wall of radiant energy billowed out from him, tearing through the pedestals and turning them to less than ash. It approached like the wall of a tsunami, obscuring and white and angry. I growled through bloody teeth, woozy and uncertain. Mana flowed and flowed along my limbs, reinforcing my body as I crossed my arms in front of myself, bracing for the approaching tidal wave.
But I knew, deep in my soul, that I would not be able to survive this. As fire coalesced around me, weak and tarnished from capture before a coming hurricane, I felt… fear. Despair. I stared into the blinding light as I braced for oblivion, lamenting how I had failed my brother. My mother. Heartfire flowed along my body, healing my wounds under the direction of another. But still, it was not enough to see me to the Dawn.
I will… I will push past this, I thought as the wall approached. I will right my wrongs, bring my mother back to life… It cannot end here!
A hand on my shoulder ripped me from my despair. Toren's voice feathered across my ears, solemn and somber. "Every bit of my insight can be channeled, Chul, so long as there is alignment," he muttered quietly, somehow audible even over the approaching roar. "And you were right. You're the entire damn ocean."
Two words drew themselves from the depths of Toren's shade.
"Resonant. Flow."
I felt myself suddenly swell. It was not like the earlier shroud of light and fire that had pushed back the spatial warp. It was not the soothing touch of healing as it washed away my many internal wounds. No, this was… This was transcendence. This was my body demanding that it become more, my mana veins flowing with untold power and energy.
My core emptied in a single, flashfire instant as my entire body swelled with fire. So much fire and fury and power, all condensed into a flashpoint of might. Every wound I bore shone with aureate magenta at a volcano's eruption.
And as the wall of white approached, I didn't block. Instead, drawn on by the maddening swell of power in every crease and crevice of my Vessel, I swung my fire-coated fist. I was yelling. Screaming. Roaring and raging against the world.
And when my fist struck the tsunami of white, it split. Phoenix flame tore through draconic pure mana through brute dominance, before following through in an arc that seared through the ceiling in a roar so loud it made it hard for me to hear my own thoughts.
I fell to my knees, smoke and steam rising from my body as I wavered at the edge of consciousness. My core struggled through backlash as I failed to comprehend what had happened.
Vajrakor's eyes wavered with suppressed fear as he stood to the side, just barely out of the range of my last-ditch attack. The arc of fire had melted through the rock for five hundred yards, utterly demolishing every single bit of resistance in its way. The edges of the dragon's robe smoldered with flames, but he didn't seem to notice.
Then he looked back at me, and I saw rage. "You ignorant mutt!" he growled, taking a marching step forward. "You think you can escape my prison, ruin my caves, burn my robes? I will rip your stolen aether arts from—"
Something erupted from the ceiling: a dozen streaking spears of earth, each lancing toward the dragon. Vajrakor roared, his face rippling with black scales as he dodged backward, barely avoiding the tips.
The Worker of Wonders—who I had thought lay as a corpse not far away—dropped from the ceiling, the earth bending to his will. "Come on, Vajjy," he said dismissively, "you're not done with me yet."
I felt an arm beneath my shoulders, hauling me upward woozily. It was hard to see, hard to feel. Backlash hurt.
"Mother?" I begged quietly, feeling the blood seeping through my rags. "Mother, I… I missed—"
"We're not far, Chul," Toren's voice said, seeping through my soul. "We move. We do not stop. We ascend, and we never falter. One foot in front of the other."
The catacombs rumbled around me as I haltingly followed his directions. One foot in front of the other. My muscles burned. My head hurt. I wanted my mother. I missed her touch, her warmth.
Stones passed us by, battle raging behind me. I saw Suncrusher, neutered and dead, devoid of her fire and life. Just a husk of empty metal. I saw a weave of plants, a wreathe of feathers. I thought I saw Mother, cold and lifeless. She shouldn't be empty.
"The horn, Chul," Toren commanded. "Grab it."
I blinked through bloody eyes, focusing on one of the items atop the pillars. A horn of purest white and streaking heartfire. And I remembered. Memories pushed through my mind. Memories of justice and fire and brotherhood.
I growled, grasping the base of the horn. My blood streaked over the white, each scarlet droplet racing to the tip. I wavered, turning to the side. Toren's body lay not far away, a gaping wound in his chest. The room rumbled with a draconic roar, sending seizing tremors of backlash through my channels.
I stumbled to the side, nearly falling. But Toren's shade did not let me fall. He pushed me onward, nearly shoving me toward destiny. I fell to my knees near the pillar, staring at the corpse. And with a weak hand, I brought Inversion down, slotting it into its place. Piercing my brother's heart with a heartfire spark.
I blinked, smiling triumphantly. "Haha," I wheezed weakly as I felt it all align. "An easy task! Such is nothing before the Sons of Dawn!"
Vajrakor stomped up to me, bleeding from many wounds. I could not see the Worker of Wonders, but a thousand smashed constructs lingered in the battlefield behind. His black hair was an unruly mess, stained red with blood.
"You have met your match, Inferior Dragon," I mumbled, smiling at the creature as it marched toward me. "I will savor your death. Justice comes."
He said nothing more. Just kicked me to the side, sending my backlash-ridden body through three pillars, before cracking the third. I felt my back shatter, the bones finally giving out without mana to protect them. And still, I laughed, even as darkness clawed at my vision.
The dragon stomped forward, his hand coated in a rippling of pure mana. Scales of deepest obsidian coated much of his face and arms, contrasting with the tattered quartz of his robes. "Your kind… always thinking you could wield aether. Always thinking it was your right. It never was. Only that of the dragons, not some birds. Lesser beings didn't deserve such things."
I stared weakly up at the approaching dragon, strangely lucid in my exhaustion and agony as I slumped in the cratered stone. I thought I could understand him for a moment. So driven by his inferiority, he sought to put others down. Instead of honing his mind and muscle and technique in the face of his failures, this lizard only sought to tear apart all that proved him pathetic.
The dragon raised a knife-hand, preparing to drive it into my skull. His lavender eyes were maddened with that raging inferiority. "Phoenix and leviathan and djinn… They're a stain. A perversion of the natural order. Your mother was a whore to put you in this world, lessuran. I would keep you to suffer forever if killing you were not the wiser choice."
I smiled up at the dragon. "Have you made peace with your… loved ones, Vajrakor?" I asked, echoing words uttered not long ago. "The Beyond beckons."
Vajrakor sneered dismissively, preparing to finish it all. Then he froze. The world itself seemed to halt in time, a presence unknowable and vast and searing filling the room. Like the radiant corona of a star itself, it subsumed even the petty aura of this so-called deity.
The dragon's lavender eyes snapped to his shoulder. A hand was there, firm and undaunted and alive. Orange-red feather runes covered every inch of his body, glowing as the mana fell inwards towards him like a collapsing star. Inversion glowed in his chest, His ashen hair flowed in the breeze, dead and nearly lifeless. But his sunlit eyes—they were anything but lifeless. They were alive with rage hot enough to burn worlds.
"I made an Oath," he whispered, his cool and melodic voice traveling through the suddenly too-silent room, "that I would feast on your heart, Vajrakor Indrath."