Aiden gritted his teeth as his fingers broke under calloused hands. The bone snapped like a rotten piece of wood, its pointy, shattered ends piercing his flesh in a torturous cycle that dried the well of tears in his eyes.
The Providence whispered its tune of flesh-piercing stabs as another partial release wracked his body in a dozen different spots, but its song was not real—no one else heard it but him. There was no proof of its existence after the short-lived throbs that stole the wind from his lungs, no sign of wound.
He opened his eyes with a gasp and looked at his fingers for the third time. Unbroken. Normal as far as the eye could see, but the mind was harder to convince. The trickle of pain flowed back to Dyad Vessel, half of the pain returning to the Providence, half lost forever in the nightmares Aiden was sure to have.
No matter how much he tried, it was impossible to release less than one-third of the Providence’s reserves. Three uses. In a proper fight, even one could mean the difference between life and death, but that was only true when facing a single opponent.
The tune of Dyad Vessel filled his mind as he willed it to action again, but instead of the phantom pain that made his eyes water and muscles cramp, there was nothing. The imaginary space it occupied in his mind felt hollow, the Providence’s reserves drained to what was less than one-third of its full capacity.
A limit. An end to the pain. Thank the Maker.
Lead weighted his eyelids closed, but before sleep claimed him, he summoned the scripture one last time. Its cold blue light shone peacefully, but the information it displayed remained unchanged. The power that lay at the end of the road of progress never seemed so distant before.
***
The next morning flew by in a rush. Myra, who remained unnaturally aloof despite Aiden’s and Finn’s their attempts at conversation, summoned the two Aiden and Finn. That was for the best, Aiden decided—better to suffer her silence than entertain one of her recent training sessions, torture thinly disguised as education.
“This is how we make beggars look like Sovrans,” she drew a silver scissor.
To Aiden's surprise, the red-haired Sovran commanded the scissors with a level of expertise unbefitting her powerful hands. After half an hour, Aiden’s hair was combed back with a lustrous gel that both held it in place and gave it a peculiar minty aroma. A pristine white suit hung tight on his skin, but it did not hinder movement. The fabric stretched effortlessly with each flexing muscle, a creation that had to be related to magic.
Finn strode in front of him, dressed similarly, groomed to perfection, with a confident smile on his face. “Looking good, my lord.”
“You’re not bad yourself, my lord,” Aiden bowed with a smile.
The title still brought some uncomfortable memories, but he brushed them aside. This was one more step to getting his family back, nothing more.
Helvan strode into the room, two strangers following close behind. Miners. What in the cold abyss are they doing in a place like this? They… Aiden scoffed at his thoughts; these were his people. His appearance of a changed body did not change that, but without realizing he started thinking of himself as a Sovran.
I’m still a miner, no matter how I look.
One was well into his thirties, while the other one looked just a few years older than Aiden. Both resembled no one Aiden had ever met. They might have been no longer in Catalyst District 99—perhaps he would never see it again.
“Since everyone is gathered here, let me reiterate one thing.” Helvan looked at each one of them, likely assuring himself he had their attention. “Once outside, no one talks unless Myra or I say so. Not a word, not a whisper. Understood?”
A round of silent nods greeted him in return.
“Aiden, forfeit your name now, for you will be known as Draven Orisanth henceforth.” He looked away from Aiden before he could voice his protest.
Draven…
Aiden knew there was more to that name than met the eye, but he had more important things to worry about. Still, he could not shake the feeling that Helvan knew it from before he saw the scripture, before he saw what it called him.
“Finn, you will be Aemon Orisanth. We will discuss more about your background after reaching Elysium, but before that, just keep your mouths shut.”
“Aemon? What the abyss kind of lame name—”
The withering look Helvan threw at Finn made him stop in his tracks. They gathered around in a circle, hands linked as instructed. Myra held the hands of both strangers, while Finn—or Aemon—closed the circle on each side. Helvan stood at the center, eyes closed, the perpetual frown making a home of his wrinkled forehead.
“Close your eyes,” he said. “It is done.”
Aiden opened his eyes to see familiar ruins stretching to all sides, an ominous grave tune resonating in his bones. The Gate stood behind him in all its dreaded glory, the blue light of shining runes whispering its dangerous tune. He looked away before anyone questioned his resistance, adding a dizzy stumble to avoid undue attention.
“Shit.” Aemon gasped and wiped the tears from his eyes. “What kind of thing is that? Is that a door?”
“Silence!” Helvan snarled.
Catalyst District 99, or what used to be Aiden’s home. It felt hollow with no one waiting at the shoddy house he once lived in, an empty husk that brought nothing but painful memories to mind.
They made their way deeper into the district, in silence and nerve-wracking tension. Instead of heading to the center of the district, and the platform that stood under the Torch, they headed to the opposite side of the Gate.
The Overseer Tower. Aiden did not know which one was more dangerous, the Gate and its forbidden nature, or the place the Overseers called home. But he was about to find out.
The streets became empty as word of their arrival spread unseen from one miner to the next. The Overseer Tower, a piece of solid stone magnificently sprouted from the earth, rose from the ground and connected to the ceiling in a seamless proof of Empyrean craftsmanship. It had no windows on the lower floor, only a gray metal door.
No guards patrolled the outside, for there was no need to stay vigilant against the so-called ratlings. If they threw their bodies mindlessly at the door, the only result would be the unpleasant sound of bones breaking.
Nothing but an inconvenience.
Helvan stood at the front, the two miners behind him, Myra at the back, Aemon and Aiden flanking both sides. A peculiar formation that resembled prisoners being escorted, and perhaps that was the intent.
The elderly man raised his hand and knocked on the door once, a simple nudge that carried no genuine force at first glance, yet the iron dented under his wrinkled knuckle and the whole tower seemed to vibrate.
Abyss take me. How could someone be so strong? Is this the result of commanding hexion? It has to be.
The door opened, and Overseer Corvanis, the bastard who killed Aiden’s father, greeted Helvan with his impassive face. “Eminence Karimonder, a pleasure to meet you. Do come in and make yourself at home.”
Aiden took a step back, the fear of being recognized fresh on his mind, but the Overseer did not even glance in his direction. Corvanis’ face was as punchable as ever. He wondered if a punch with all his strength would be enough to kill the Sovran in one shot, but he knew that for the fantasy it was.
Without Dyad Vessel, the Overseer would make quick work of him.
Helvan stepped inside without a word of acknowledgment. Eminence, the second stage of power an Empyrean could reach, was enough to command respect even from an Overseer. The room put Aiden’s definition of the word luxury to the test. Bookshelves spanned the entire sides of the room, tomes crafted in leather and metal linings shining under the amber light of an assortment of lightspheres that hung from the ornate ceiling in an intricate pyramidal design.
Four red couches made of dark wood surrounded a table of a similar look, a set crafted with luxury as the foremost aim and comfort as a sweet aftertaste. The four of them sat, the two miners standing behind Helvan, sweat dripping down their necks, while Corvanis strode up the stairs in the center of the room to the higher levels of the tower.
The blonde-haired man came back a few minutes later with a silver tray and four porcelain cups with steaming fragrant liquid—poison, if Aiden had to guess. Not even Helvan’s glare made him touch the thing. Corvanis looked at Aiden, his eyes examining him from top to bottom with worrying scrutiny.
Myra’s experiment had made it impossible to recognize him. The idea of a miner walking in Sovran skin was ridiculous, even if he stood as living proof. Yet Corvanis’ eyes lingered on Aiden for an uncomfortable minute.
“Is everything ready?” Helvan said as he took a sip.
“The remnant requires time to power up. Nothing but a few minutes, I assure you.” Corvanis stood with his hands crossed behind his back, no couch left for him to sit on.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Serves him right, Aiden thought, savoring the only petty revenge he could reap. One day, Corvanis would pay for what he had done, but Aiden refused to let hatred compromise the safety of his family.
Not today, Corvanis. Not today.
“That’s acceptable.” Helvan put the cup down, its contents drained. “Your fellow Overseer?”
“Away on patrol, as reported.”
It was clear Helvan knew the man, perhaps using his network of connections befitting the Witnesses of the Beyond. But was he so well known that an Overseer had to give him reports? Aiden found it suspicious.
“There has been an uprising in violence and resistance ever since the last Ascension, but we are acting to ensure it settles down with minimum bloodshed,” the Overseer sighed.
“Travor’s actions raised a lot of questions in Elysium. With the prices to procure catalysts as high as they have been, people start to question the wisdom in wanton slaughter.” Helvan raised an eyebrow at the blond-haired man, who winced and looked away.
Corvanis nodded before saying, “The man is competent beyond measure, but his bloodlust tends to get the better of him—”
A single knock shook the tower again. Rather than the force of the blow being enough to make it tremble, it felt as if the building thrummed by itself like a living thing. The door opened before anyone could say a word, and Overseer Travor entered the room with an exhilarating grin.
“You found the ratling, Corvanis?” Travor strode inside with energetic steps, but surprise took hold of his face as he saw their gathering. “Am I missing something?”
“The ratling? No.” Corvanis shook his head and motioned to Helvan. “This is Eminence Karimonder. You will do well to show him some respect.”
“Of course, it is a pleasure to meet a master of the Art such as yourself.” Travor said with a bow before turning to Corvanis. “What do you mean? Whatever was blocking my trace stopped just a few hours ago. I would not have noticed if I did not channel hexion into it every day.”
He unbuttoned his white uniform, retrieving a necklace that ended with a glass vial filled with blood. Helvan sighed, picked up Aiden’s untouched cup, and took a sip. Myra’s face soured as if she took personal offense at the man’s presence.
“Pardon me, Eminence, this is a matter I must attend to.” Corvanis touched Travor’s shoulder and tried to escort the man away, but the Sovran did not budge.
“He’s close, Corvanis! That damned ratling, he will regret the day he fled my blade.” Travor’s eyes glowed with red light.
Myra extended an alarmed hand to Aiden, who frowned in confusion before passing Finn’s untouched cup to her. She snarled and sat back with an angry scowl.
Madwoman. They know I’m close and you want tea?! Knock yourself out then.
“He is here!” Travor shouted, surprise and confusion overcoming the urgency on his features.
The vial shone like a red lightsphere. Something tugged at Aiden’s heart, and the bottom of his stomach fell from the couch as he understood the implications of Travor’s actions. The trace led to him. Myra did not want tea, she had tried to hide his presence from the trace.
Travor ignored Corvanis’s protests and walked up to Helvan. “Eminence, please step aside, for a wretched criminal has infiltrated your crop.” He looked at the two miners behind Helvan, and slowly a look of confusion settled on his face.
“I do not recognize them.” He grasped his pendant, and it shone brighter. With a stuttering motion, he turned his face to Aiden. “It’s pointing to you?”
Corvanis’s face darkened, and he moved closer, his steps the echoes of impending doom.
“That can’t be possible. You’re a Sovran.” He paled further, and blood seeped from his wrist until it formed a saber. “Eminence, what did you say your path was again?”
“I did not,” Helvan sipped the tea, uninterested.
Overseer Travor drew his blade and pointed it at Helvan. “By the power invested upon me by the Maker, I demand you answer.”
Helvan laid back in the seat, refusing to answer.
“Corvanis, assist me! He is the one who aided the ratling’s escape.” Crimson veins stood under Travor’s skin, and his muscles bulged with sheer strength. A veil of power spread out from him as he unfolded his Presence.
Shit. Aiden brought Dyad Vessel to the forefront of his mind, but it was of no use—the Providence was all but empty after his training.
Corvanis’s blue eyes turned into amethysts. “You truly are competent, Travor.”
Light shone from under his uniform as he raised his right arm, fabric tearing under his changing flesh. His skin turned a deathly shade of white, tensing until it strengthened beyond cured leather and iron. Black lines ran along his fingers and on the back of his forearm. Sharp obsidian claws sprouted from his fingernails as if born from the marks. A nasty spike pierced out of his flesh, adorning his elbow with another weapon.
“Save the compliments for later!” Travor took a step back. “Release your Presence already, we can’t let him use Chronos Domain! This traitor is dangerous—”
Blood splashed on Aiden’s face. He tensed, ready to engage, but the sight in front of him made him hesitate. Overseer Corvanis’s clawed hand impaled Travor in the center of his chest, a beating heart clenched in his grip.
“W-what?” Travor looked down at his heart. “Corvanis… why?”
“To fulfill my duty.” The heart exploded under Corvanis’s strength. He pulled his arm out from the man’s chest, the metamorphosis fading with flashes of purple light. “As always.”
“Traitor…” Travor collapsed in a puddle of his blood.
“You will need to come with us now, Corvanis.” Helvan stood up, walking beside the body of Overseer Travor and, with one glance, his head exploded in a shower of gore.
Though Aiden saw no motion, one of the old man’s boots was now soaked with fresh blood. Helvan continued to talk to the remaining Overseer as if they knew each other.
They are working together.
It was easy to deduce, but the implications of that revelation shook Aiden to the core. Did Helvan know that man’s hands were drenched with his father’s blood? Did he even care? Aiden knew he could trust no one, especially not Helvan, but seeing proof still hurt. Like it or not, he had started to see the old man as an ally.
Anger boiled inside of Aiden.
“I had hoped it would not come to this. With my position compromised, the Golden Flame Inquisition will send Evokers, perhaps even Dreamers, Helvan.” Corvanis wiped his arm with a cloth, knelt, and retrieved the pendant from Travor’s corpse.
“You knew him.” Aiden directed his words to no one, standing up with a boiling rage that scorched his soul. “He killed my father, Helvan!”
Helvan did not turn. “Your father’s fate was never Corvanis’s to decide, Draven.”
“He almost killed me! Dammit, Helvan, the man killed my father and got me whipped half to death.” Aiden shouted at the elderly man, destroying the couch with a backhanded blow.
The miners stepped away with horror on their faces. They were scared not of Helvan or the others, but of Aiden. The realization broke his heart.
“I dealt no sentence to you, that sin died with the last breath of Overseer Travor’s passion for violence.” Corvanis pointed at him, his impassive facade crumbling to frustration. “I gave you a way out, you cretin. An apology was all it would have taken for me to fake your death, yet you chose to run your tongue.”
“You fucking dare—”
“Shut your mouth!” The Overseer’s face was red with anger. “Your impudence cost the lives of good people. Melissa and Tom, they were innocent, rendered to nothing but corpses because of your childish outburst. Or did you forget that?”
A blank void overcame Aiden’s mind. The Sovran, Overseer Corvanis, the man who killed his father, the man who did nothing as both Mel and Tom died, screamed with an anger he had no right to feel. The emotion that flooded his voice was real. He took their death as a personal failure.
“You tied my hands, made me watch like a powerless bystander as those people were slaughtered—”
“Enough, Corvanis.” Helvan patted him on the shoulder.
“So much for staying silent.” Aemon winced. “Myra is the quiet one now. Is it just me or is that weird?”
“Shut up, Aemon.” The red-haired woman snarled.
“Of course, master. My apologies—”
“Corvanis, will you please lead us to the remnant? I might remember insanity if I remain here one minute longer.” Helvan walked up the stairs, accompanied by a grim-faced Corvanis.
Myra was the next to follow, ushering the miners to hurry in front of her.
Aemon approached Aiden with silent steps, his smile gone. “You good, Draven?”
“I… don’t know.” Aiden sighed and let a new breath wash away the dark emotions inside him.
“You want to jump that Sovran?” He nudged Aiden with an elbow, his smile tentatively returning. “We’re probably gonna lose, but I’m down if you are.”
“I’m not sure that would do any good.” Corvanis’s words rang deeply in Aiden’s soul, their echoes demanding he face his actions. “I thought all the wrong that happened to me was because of them—because of him. But… I have to stop denying my part in it. I’m as guilty as him, maybe more.”
Aiden walked up the stairs alone. When he looked back, the expression on Aemon’s face made him wince. It resembled his own, for reasons unknown.
***
The windows of the Overseer Tower were a portal to a view few had the privilege to witness. The wide expanse of Catalyst District 99 stretched in all directions, sprouting from under the Torch and ending once it touched the forbidden surroundings governed by the Gate and its ruins.
Everything looked so small from up there.
A circular plate hummed with the melody of the runes behind them, its intrusive noise a challenge to ignore. It was something Aiden got better at with each passing day—pretending he did not hear it, averting his gaze as if the sight caused him pain. Pretending. Averting. Lying.
“It’s ready,” Corvanis said, his voice sullen.
“Gather around then, hands linked.” Helvan chimed in with the instructions.
Aiden walked to the center of the barren room, stepped onto the rune-inscribed metal, and ignored the sight of several runes he had never seen before. The low noise increased to an overbearing thrum that echoed inside his bones, rushing alongside his blood, throbbing painfully in his eardrums.
Everyone else displayed no reaction other than an averted gaze, so Aiden did the same. Or tried to. Sweat dripped down his neck in concerning rivulets.
“You alright, man?” Aemon nudged him with a confused frown.
Aiden nodded out of instinct, too fast. If Aemon noticed, he let the matter rest.
Aemon at one side, Corvanis at the other, Aiden took their hands and ignored the dark thoughts that plagued his mind. Bile rose in his throat as the blood on Corvanis’s hand melded between his fingers, but he swallowed it and closed his eyes.
“Remember, once we step foot into Elysium, not a whisper.” Aiden felt the old man’s gaze on him, but that too he ignored.
The remnant whined an acute screech, enough light bursting from the runes inscribed on its surface to blind any curious glances Aiden might have tried to steal. It vibrated slowly at first, but its intensity picked up with each passing second until it shook the foundations of his soul.
The thrum grew to a crescendo, then went still.
Aiden opened his eyes with tentative curiosity and wariness, but the sight that lay outside the windows stole the wind out of his lungs. A long row of towers stretched to one side, each similar to the one he set his feet in, their numbers spanning farther than his sight could reach.
Ninety-nine—he knew with no need to count—all connecting to places similar to the cave he grew up in. But that was not what drew his attention.
Beyond the row of towers, beyond the hint of the wall that gave origin to them, lay an endless expanse of green. His eyes searched for an end, his soul craved the comfort of the known, but his heart beat with excitement as he gazed deeply into the horizon that stretched without limit.
The ceiling lay in the distance, the light of countless torches decorating it like precious gems floating in vibrant blue water.
Helvan walked beside him and placed his hand against the window, shoulders sagged like he carried an unsurmountable weight. After a silent, deep breath, he turned around, his obsidian eyes showing not a hint of joy or wonder.
“Welcome to Elysium.”