Chapter Text
Essek was a very curious child. From a young age he was fascinated by magic. First it was only the little things, a night light that would burn without fuel and later small spells that would make him stand out. He was especially proud once he mastered a spell that would make him lift a few inches, so he would be taller than his brother.
It was little surprise to his mother that he then continued to go far once he was old enough to study dunamancy. It was, however, frustrating for him to realize that he seemed to be the only one interested in the magic itself rather than the deity associated with it, so he felt himself drifting apart from his comrades, spending more and more time alone, studying.
His mother saw this with a sad sort of pride. He continued to do well in his studies – soon being regarded as a prodigy of dunamancy – but how would he find his soulmate if he spent all his time alone?
When the den Theylss took an interest in him, she couldn’t be prouder. She also hoped it would help improve his social life, being part of one of the three most influential dens.
Essek for his part, was excited when his new Umavi approached him and offered him a place in her den. Surely, he would find some like-minded people in such a prestigious den. And while he did continue to learn much about dunamancy, he realized that especially in such a prestigious den, the divine was much more important than the magical. He soon learned to keep his questions to himself and study them in his spare time so as not to offend anyone.
Soon enough most of his contemporaries spent most of their spare time chasing their romantic interests and making a fool of themselves. He honestly could not see the appeal when he overhead some contemporaries talking about the people, they were attracted to our had their sights on. So, sometimes Essek thought that maybe it was not such a bad thing he could not seem to find his soulmate after all. Even though at times he thought that it would be nice to be able to share his interest with someone. But the fear that they would turn out to be like the rest of the dens and he would have to downplay his interest for dunamancy in front of his soulmate of all people so as not to be seen as sacrilegious, soon made him put the idea of searching for them out of his mind.
It wasn’t until he neared his first century that the soulmate topic came up again, even if it wasn’t of his own volition.
He was in his studies when suddenly his right arm began to burn as if he had spilt some acid on it. He quickly wiped at it but there were no holes in his garments. Confused he pushed up his sleeve to look at his arm – it was unblemished, yet the burning got worse. Then, as quickly as it got started, it faded again. It wasn’t until it happened again the next night, that the words of his birth mother entered his mind again.
“you will feel their pain as starkly as your own, for shard pain is pain halved”
If this was pain halved, he did not want to know what the whole felt like.
It didn’t happen again for a few nights. When it did happen again, Essek wondered what was going on with his soulmate for this was a pain he had never felt before. It was too focused to be something innocuous as them being clumsy and too regular for it to be accidents. He started trying to pinpoint what could be the source of the pain and what kind of work could cause such a thing, and for a few weeks, that was what he spent most of his research on – even if it got him nowhere. Eventually he settled for having a pain killing potion in his study and on his person if he went outside.
A few years passed and he barely paid his burning arms any mind, simply taking his potion and continuing with his research.
One night however, he felt his soulmate connection swelling again and reached for his potion, but this pain seemed to be different, less physical though no less intense. It very soon stopped but what it left in its place was stranger still. Instead of pain or the general hum of the bond he had been able to feel out in his research, what came across the bond was both oppressive and just ... nothing. A sort of fog that made him abandon his studies for the night in the hopes that he could concentrate better the next night. Except when he woke up from his trance, it was still there. The first few days were a struggle to cope with this new element of the bond. With time he managed and the silence in his mind became less pronounced and eventually became a background white noise he barely noticed.
Some years later his studies of dunamancy came to a standstill. He had studied what he could find without studying the beacons outright and that he wasn’t allowed. As high a position as he had been granted in the court, the beacons still were only to be taken out by the Queen herself and only for worshipping the Luxon.
One day, when outside the Dynasty’s borders, looking for new leads – or ideally a new beacon he could keep in his study, though he doubted he could find it if the dynasty hadn’t – he came across a fellow magic practitioner. He seemed to be equally fascinated with the potential of the unknown as Essek himself and after talking for a while they parted ways. Essek found that he hoped to meet Mr. Da’leth again, never quite having found someone with a similar interest in the arcane in the Dynasty.
They did converse more, both in writing and in person, and the Martinet – as Essek later heard his title was – picked up on his frustration that the beacons were untouchable. So, he himself very interested in a completely new field of the arcane to study, offered to hide the beacon at his place while they did their research. They negotiated a time and place and for a while it was great. As agreed, the Martinet sent him some reports of their discoveries though at first it was hardly anything new to a prodigy of dunamancy. At times, his associate Mr. Ikithon would send the repost though Essek tried to avoid the man where possible. From what he could tell of the man, he was, while skilled in the arts of pleasantries, not to be trusted.
One day, though Essek barely noticed it at first, the fog he had kept at the back of his mind vanished. As engrossed in his studies – and the strings he had to pull so his hiding the beacons didn’t go noticed - as he was, he hardly paid it any mind other than a brief thought to stock up on pain killing potions should the pain come back in its place. And even though it didn’t, for which he was grateful, at times it was replaced by other pain, though this time more varied and less specific. Sometimes it was tiny points of pain mostly in his torso, other times longer lines of pain as though slashed yet other times unspecific pain he could only attribute to an arcane source. He wondered absentmindedly if his soulmate was perhaps part of the Aurora Watch, fighting in the conflict he had unwittingly created.
The notes from the Martinet became sparser and sparser until one day he wrote that a drow had stolen one of the beacons. When Essek tentatively asked around at court however, he learned that an attack had been staged but that the drow they had sent had not returned, though he should have long been back. Between the Assembly and the Dynasty, they searched for the missing beacons, though only the Assembly and Essek knew that it wasn’t with either party. The Martinet and Essek continued searching for the missing beacons though to no avail. Until one day, a group of empire mercenaries entered the throne room and upon almost being arrested after being recognized as such, one of them pulled out the missing beacon from their bag.