“Sit straight!” A thin stick cut through the air and burned a bright line of pain on Draven’s back. “If you keep hunching your back like that, it’ll turn into a hook!”
“What’s a hook?” Draven asked.
“Ah! Not important,” she snapped.
Myra’s patience ran thin this night, her voice trembling with an unfound anxiety that worried Draven. Every time that acute scream echoed in the forest, her eyes widened with a hint of panic. Her nervous pacing, shifting eyes, and impatience were strong enough to become contagious.
Just what in the Haven could scare an Empyrean?
None of those who held the answers were welcoming to Draven’s questions, and that worried him even more. Still, if they kept the information a secret, he had to assume it was for their good. The unknown was tempting to consider, but it was a distraction most unwelcome.
“You say the hexion formed a pool inside your astra, right?” Myra’s red eyes pierced his flesh. “That’s refined hexion for you—an energy tamed and loyal to its Empyrean, capable of leaving their bodies and still obeying their will.”
“So hexion by itself can’t do that?” he asked.
“It’s better just to show you.” Red light shined through her skin, coalescing at the tip of her finger. It exploded in a brilliant burst that dissipated in the air as if mist faced with the morning glow of the Torch.
“This is what happens when hexion leaves your body. It doesn’t know what to do,; it can’t hold an instruction or perform an Art, it just vanishes back to its realm. It’s dumb! But this…” Red light shone once again, flooding out of her skin like blood, congealing into a single droplet as she pointed her finger at a distant boulder. “Is what refined hexion can do.”
The drop of blood spun and disappeared right as the sound of an impact echoed from the boulder her finger pointed at. Draven’s eyes followed the direction she was pointing to and widened with disbelief. This is unreal. He looked at the hole in the center of the boulder, at the splash of blood that painted its corners, and his mind reeled.
“Can your master get a round of applause?” Myra crossed her arms and beamed a proud smile. “Or, you know, a compliment wouldn’t hurt either, truth be told.”
“That’s insane!” Draven burst to his feet, the cross-legged position the last thing on his mind. “Can you teach me how to do that? Come on!”
“That’s what I’m about to do, if you can be a little patient.” Myra looked at her nails with no regard for Draven’s impatience. “How’s your will doing?”
“You mean the bloody cloud? It’s gone. All I got is the refined hexion now.” Draven frowned. What was the point of even asking that? She knew what the Second Tenet's completion would do to his will.
“Not gone, spent. Think about it as a resource you can naturally produce—something that will come back with enough time. But your astra can only hold so much refined hexion right now.” She gazed at him with the proud face of someone who had been practicing a speech. “Does that make sense?”
“Not really.”
Draven closed his eyes before Myra could protest and dived deep into his soul. A nudge of intent was enough to summon the blood mist back into existence. It was small, nowhere near the size of the endless cloud that it had once been, but it was larger than before. It grew with every second, imperceptible to anyone but himself.
“Don’t get any dumb ideas!” Her voice brought him back to the outside world. “If you waste my time by spending your will again, I’m not teaching you shit.”
“I… hmm, wasn’t going to do that.” Draven steadied his heart.
“Hmph! Did you forget who I am?” she scoffed. “You have a long way to go before you can bypass my heartsense, you lying little brat.”
“Anyway,” she raised a finger to shut him up. “The Third Tenet is simple enough. Just meld your intent into your will, imprint the instructions into it, and use it to awaken the refined hexion to do your bidding.”
“What?” It did not sound simple at all.
Myra must have noticed the questions on his face, as she shook her head and laughed. “Honestly, Draven, just stop thinking and do it. It’s like telling a limb what to do—there’s nothing complicated about it.” Her eyes widened; she must have remembered something. “Start simple, small. Don’t want to lose a finger… or a limb, right?”
Dammit. What’s simple about that? His arm would not blow up because he willed it so. Refined hexion could do just that.
Simple. Nothing fancy. I know just the thing; I’ve seen it before. Easy, Aiden—Draven, I meant—you got this. Just will the hexion to do that thing to the rock. Just how Myra did it.
Draven pictured the image in his mind. A small droplet of blood condensed at the tip of his finger, rotating, building up speed but held back by his will. It would release at his command, at his target. At his enemies.
“I got this—”
The moment the cloud of will touched the refined hexion, it burst into motion faster than Draven could react. A drop of the refined liquid traveled through his arm, blazing an agonizing path, tearing through his flesh without regard for his safety. It was so fast that he wanted to scream, to let it go.
His arm dropped to the ground with a maddening rush of pain as the droplet emerged from a bloody hole in his index finger. The pain came rushing at him all at once. Draven screamed and grabbed his arm as the droplet whined with its momentum and shot at a nearby tree while he dropped to the ground.This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Tears obscured his vision. Dyad Vessel drank the pain with the glee of a thirsty animal. Blood flowed down his arm, soaking his shirt. It did not look good—there was too much of it coming, and it was not stopping.
“Well,” Myra’s hand flooded him with healing warmth, “We’re gonna have to postpone our healing lecture, or I’m afraid you’ll defy logic and grow a finger on your forehead.”
Amidst the pain, flooded with the torment of a messed-up limb, Draven saw a clear path. It was bloody and uncomfortable, and part of him doubted his sanity at even considering it, but it was something that he had to do—a new way of pushing Dyad Vessel even further.
***
The morning rays pierced Draven’s eyelids with a lukewarm sense of familiarity. Although he preferred the darkness of night, as it guaranteed him a few more minutes of sleep, the light was not unwelcome—it meant another day of training, one step closer to reaching Anaverith.
“Get ready, we are moving.” Helvan signaled once everybody was awake and up.
Breakfast had better keep with their pace, or their bellies would rumble with hunger eventually. Draven looked at his arm, still swollen and aching. Myra healed everything, but that had been yesterday. He tried the Art a few more times, each attempt reducing the damage he inflicted on himself.
Dyad Vessel gorged on his failures. There was no need for knives to carve at his flesh anymore; the hexion was right there waiting for his call. It would not say no. The refined liquid was emotionless. Unbiased.
Aemon walked beside him in silence, his gait was awkward as he measured every step as if in a dance—another lesson from Helvan, no doubt. Ed and Cain struggled to keep up, but not as much as before. They seemed to get used to the pace.
“It won’t be much longer until we reach Anaverith,” Helvan assured in advance before Aemon could ask.
“Yeah, sure, gramps.” Aemon scoffed. “You’ve been saying that for three days now—”
Aemon’s complaint fell dead as he climbed the hill ahead. Something in his vision must have caught his attention. Draven sped up the pace just enough not to leave Ed and Cain behind, and soon the view was in front of him.
His mind had a hard time coming up with a word to define what he had just seen. It was a city, but it was much more than that. Sprawling grey stone sprouted out of the ground in a seamless wall that stretched as far as the eye could see. A line of people waited on the well-maintained road that pierced the city’s gigantic gate.
Anaverith.
Myra and Corvanis should have reached the city by now, unburdened by the slow pace or the duties of scouting the wilderness. The wall was tall, making the Sovran look like tiny dots from the distance, but some houses soared above it.
“One of the five major cities of Elysium, the smallest of them, mind you.” Helvan stopped, joining them in their silent contemplation of the view, yet he could not help himself with another lecture. “Myra and Corvanis are making contact with our people, so we can avoid the main gate and its dreadful lineup.”
Something tugged at Draven’s insides—an instinct, something he did not quite comprehend. He looked to the left.
Beside Helvan stood a green man. Light pierced through his body like he was not truly there, as if he was not solid. The wind blew at his face, at his clothes, rustling his hair and moving his attire even though the air was still. His face was emotionless, his eyes focused on the old man, who seemed oblivious to his presence.
Casually, he drew a thin, short dagger.
“Watch out!” Draven shouted a moment too late.
Helvan swerved to his right, away from the green man, and presented his back to him. The blade burst through the old Sovran’s chest in a spray of green mist. No blood, no sickly scent of metal in the air. The blade did not even cut Helvan’s black clothes or his flesh.
Helvan’s eyes widened as he looked down at his chest.
“One dead,” the green man muttered, his voice distant. “Four more to go.”
“Gramps!” Aemon roared.
The sheathed blade at his side flowed into his hand, and a step forward brought it into a seamless thrust that pierced the green man’s face as he retrieved his dagger from Helvan’s flesh. The man, the thing, walked through the blade as if it was not there, as if he was not there.
Helvan fell to his knees, a hand clutched at his chest, though no wound was left to tell his fate, a look of confusion on his pale face.
Green mist swirled around the creature as his body reformed outside the reaches of Aemon’s blade. His dagger raised into the air as he muttered, “You are next.”
“No!” Draven snarled.
The cloud of will manifested inside his soul. The image of the blood droplet drilling a hole through stone. Draven did not care what happened to his arm—all the potential pain was nothing but an afterthought. The green man was going after Aemon, and Draven would die before he let that happen.
Blood erupted out of Draven’s finger as the hexion took the shape of a small droplet. It rotated, built up momentum in a split second, and shot straight at the green man’s forehead. The creature blinked, looked at him, and smiled.
“Not going to work.” The dagger plunged.
Aemon raised his short blade to deflect the thrust, but the creature phased through the steel like it was of no impediment to the death sentence it intended to carry. It slashed the dagger at Aemon’s neck, ready to end the man’s life.
“Indeed.” Helvan’s cold voice froze the world.
A moment later, the green man’s head dropped to the ground soundlessly before it too disappeared in a burst of mist. Helvan stood behind the creature, a black slender blade with dark green edges vanishing from his hand.
“We should hurry. The Evoker will sense the death of its Specter, and more will come.” Helvan’s voice was steady. “Draven, Aemon, carry the miners on your back. We have no time to waste.”
“Are you… alright?” Aemon sheathed his sword with trembling hands. “Sorry, Gramps, I don’t mean to sound disappointed, but how are you even alive?”
Helvan turned to him, dead black eyes staring at the youth, mouth pursed into a thin line. “It matters not.” The frown on his face dissuaded all notions of inquiry.
Draven picked up Ed like a sack of coal and threw him over his shoulder. They ran in silence, headed to a small gate far from the main road. Two people stood in front of it—guards, most likely—and no other visitors lined up to enter the city. The wind rushed in his face, the sound of birds, the bustling noise of an approaching crowd.
The questions in his head were the only noise Draven truly heard.
The green man had been a Specter, a dead soul turned into an eternal slave, an Empyrean Art performed by an Evoker. Draven might be slow to connect the dots, unlike Aemon, but even someone as unlearned as he knew what those things were capable of—horror tales of their feats plagued the Catalyst Districts.
Every miner kid had heard of it at least once.
One strike and you were dead. No healing. No avoiding it. No other fate but certain death. Something made of pure soul and hexion struck not at the flesh, but at the soul itself.
But if that’s true, if the stories are real. Draven swallowed and kept running. He shouldn’t be alive.