The Forsaken Hero

Luke’s head was heavy in my lap. I could barely smell his scent, and as I rested my hand on his head, any warmth I felt was imagined. He was even colder than I was.

"Xiviyah, reconsider. This is too dangerous," Fyren urged. "If you attempt this, your souls may become entangled. He will drag you down with him. He chose his battles. He refused to back down when he should have. His arrogance paved the way for his defeat. Let him suffer the consequences of his choices."

"That would be fair," I said, gazing down at Luke. Almost, I could imagine him sleeping peacefully in my lap. I looked up at Fyren. "It might even be just, after all the people he’s hurt. But life isn’t fair, and life isn’t just. Innocent people are killed all the time. And sometimes, the guilty go free. I don’t care about any of that anymore. But I care about Luke."

"Then do not fail. Do not reach your end before your path has run out."

"If fate willed that, it would have happened a long time ago."

That was it. Fyren stepped back, watching me with fiery, infernal eyes. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Working in Haven had been amiable, and in Oblivion, fate was eager. But here, under Enusian law, fate resisted my intrusion. Pressure built against my soul, a wall keeping the stars from my sight. I pressed on, bearing the pain that followed, and forced my way through.

Slowly, it began to give. More and more power gathered in my chest. The Oracle of Eternity burned, a searing heat that warmed my frozen soul. Tremors cascaded through fate as it collapsed, splitting open with an audible crack. I heard Fyren hiss somewhere in the back of my mind, and felt something shift in the world around me. Fate softened in response, and I slipped through, penetrating the weave.

Stars lit the world around me, impossibly dense and rigid. They formed exact similitudes of Enusia. There was the bench, the floor, my staff. Luke was like a constellation fading into the dawn, flickering in and out of vision.

A dreadful presence drew me beyond Luke and me, to a gaping black hole in the threads of fate. It was a vortex of nothingness, a rip in reality. Fear surrounded it, thick and tangible, causing the stars themselves to recoil. Those that were too close were drawn in and devoured, drained of all power until they melded with the void itself.

I wasn’t immune to that fear. It nearly broke my concentration, and cast my soul back into the outer layers of Enusia. I knew instinctively that it was a danger to the weave itself, a calamitous force that threatened every live in Enusia, and of which I alone bore witness.

But it wasn’t moving, and it didn’t reach toward me. It just watched. That meant Luke was more important.

I mustered my will, and concentrated on his fate. From my study, I could clearly differentiate the elements of his body and his soul. They were infinitely more complex than the statues, elementals, or spells I’d created, but in the end, they were of the same cut. And just as I’d suspected, they were perfectly whole. The problem was deeper, somewhere in the tangled threads of reality.

I dove in, searching for anything out of place in the chaotic harmony. I soon realized why Fyren thought our souls would entangle. Luke and I were far closer than two separate souls should be. Shared memories, feelings, and experiences all bound us in ways I never realized. Maybe it was just a remnant of the time our souls had actually entangled, so very long ago, or perhaps because of the bonds we’d forged since then.

Memories flickered through my mind, relived as if they were my own. I saw accepting the power of the Curse Emperor, and overthrowing his master. I saw the moment a demon first swore fealty to him, and the first time he took an innocent life. Everything that made up his existence here in Enusia. Everything that was being erased.

Deeper, darker, closer to the cold that emanated from his core. The memories got stronger, harder to ignore, and harder to separate from my own experience. His first meeting with Gayron. They had tried to kill each other. I felt his anger at being slighted, and felt my own hands around Gayron’s neck. And then their souls had connected, the apostolic mark resonating. An end to the conflict.

There, finally, I found something amiss, deep within the darkest depths. The stars were so faint here they were almost impossible to sense. A terrible black rift as empty as the void on the other side of the chapel tore through the delicate fabric, neatly severing him from the stars of Enusia. In my soul, they were entwined, but he was floating free and slowly drifting away. Just like I had experienced in Oblivion, a soul, a fate, without ties to any realm was destined to fade into nothingness.

"I won’t let you go," I murmured, studying the rift. It reminded me of Haven’s fall, but the scale was completely different. There, I’d been repairing damaged threads. Here, I needed to build new ones.

A bridge. Fate had said I needed to be a bridge.

Right now, most of Luke was scattered and alone, floating in the cold and darkness. I needed to be like the realms in Oblivion, and give him light and warmth. If he had the strength and the will, he would make his way toward me.

I plunged across the chasm, reaching the other side with a thought. I took a few moments studying the weave around me. There were impressions of his strength, and his convictions remaining within, but the rift had widened on both sides, and there was very little left.

A bridge. I didn’t need to close the river, only cross it.

My search quickened, and I flitted from memory to memory, looking for something, anything, to build on. Battles, losses, fears, triumphs, everything blended, but none of it I knew. None of it had enough to be woven from.

When I was beginning to give up hope, I finally stumbled across a tattered memory. It reacted to my presence, stirring like a flower reaching for the sun. I hadn’t expected that, and gasped as it enveloped me, drawing me into the weave. Our souls mingled, and a memory emerged, shared between us. The two united, becoming one.

The underground passage was prone to echoes. It had been designed that way to keep slaves from sneaking off. There were no torches or light crystals, nothing to light the way of a wayward escapee. But that darkness was my ally, coiling around me and catching my footsteps. My eyes didn’t need light. They didn’t want it. Light was a reminder of her, and I didn’t need another one. The terrible scars in my soul and written into my flesh were enough.

The walls were mortar and stone, rough against my tail as it brushed against it. I quelled its movement, lightening my step as I approached a checkpoint. Another passage intersected this one. I listened for a moment, letting my curses flow through all three roads, before turning right. There were more souls this way.

I had to hurry. They’d be coming through the shard at any second, and I had to be there. It might be my only chance to catch a glimpse of the one that they called the fate hero. If the rumors were true, she could prove a valuable ally against Enusia. And I was confident they were. Jessia had never misled me before.

Footsteps echoed, not my own, but hard and heavy. I pressed against the wall, easing my sword into its scabbard. The passage ahead was filled with divine mana. More inexperienced guards, letting their auras give themselves away. They’d grown lax in the absence of true danger, only having to contend with the occasional desperate runaway.

As they drew closer, the passage began to lighten with the uneven flicker of a torch, casting shadows toward me. Two of them, plus a third, whose shadow must have fallen behind. Closer still, and my shadows tangled around their feet, getting a measure of their power. A third level and two first.

I took my hand off my hilt. Someone on their level wasn’t worth staining my steel for.

The darkness bent to my will, and more tendrils began winding toward them. They continued, completely unaware of the curses mingling with their boots. Sloppy, or maybe arrogant. Any drunken mercenary would have noticed when the darkness failed to retreat before the light.

The instant they stepped around the bed, I clenched my fist. A dozen curses stabbed upward, penetrating through armor and flesh, anchoring into their souls. They went completely rigid, spasming as their defenses were stripped away, and their strength faded. One by one, they sank to the floor, their eyes glassy and lifeless. Their crystal fell and shattered, drained of its mana as well.

I breathed deeply as their power flowed into me, deepening the darkness around me. Curses were a fantastic thing. Some were dramatic, specific banes, like blinding sight, crippling limbs, or scattering a certain attribute of mana. But most were quiet, hidden, and deadly. They took all the warmth and the light from those that didn’t deserve it. Which was everyone.

I stepped over the gray, limp bodies and continued on my way. In a few minutes, I came to a door guarded by another pair of first-level guards. They let me through silently, succumbing to my aura even quicker than the first.

A staircase took me up several flights of stairs, dimly lit by wall-set crystals. I had to keep the curses from darkening them. Not because I cared if my intrusion was noticed–it would be–but because I didn’t dare risk alerting whoever waited at the top. Someone of my level would have no trouble slaughtering any number of guards, but that would be a hassle, and certainly draw the attention of the heroes once they arrived.

But now wasn’t the time to fight the Sun Hero. Not that I was afraid of a young, coddled boy, but because that would ruin my mission. The only one I cared about was the slave at his side. I would have her.