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~Late Summer, Begnion Era 647~
Soren flew over the occupied city of Nevassa in the dark of the night, torches and fires lit by the occupying Begnion forces calling out to him like signals in the night. From his vantage point on top of Allani, he could see them jeering and tormenting the citizens in multiple locations all over the city. The cool summer night breeze whipped through his plain dark brown robes, his long black hair flowing in his wake along with the ends of a dark olive green bandana tied over his forehead, hiding his brand from view.
Over the past year, he had exhausted all diplomatic options in getting the Imperial Senate to relinquish control of the Daein throne to him. Any request to meet with the apostle was denied and his messages never made it to her, instead the senate sent responses back. However, Daein had not been built out of diplomacy, and it seemed that neither would Daein be freed by such a thing.
He found what he was looking for in the highest level of the city, to the northern edge, protected by high stone walls. The prison camp where his mother and a few other higher ranking Daein aristocrats were being held. All of them were slated to be executed the following morning, after he was supposed to strike a deal with the occupying Begnion Forces tonight, selling Daein to Begnion in perpetuity.
An attack tonight would make negotiating with the apostle later more difficult, but the safety of the political prisoners was more important for Daein’s future and he didn't have any time to waste.
With a soft whistle and a light tug on the reins, he guided Allani down towards a dark area of the angled wall between Daein Keep and the prison camp.
---
“And now presenting, Prince Soren Sisenand Daein,” a page called out beyond a darkened hallway, just inside the bright doorway leading into the dining hall of Daein Keep.
A young man wearing regal black silk robes trimmed in gold over white pants and a rich black cloak with a gold clasp walked forward into the brightly lit dining hall, his wavy dark purple hair parted over a dark red marking on his forehead. His hair framed his pale face and his dark blue eyes scanned the room, his hand twitching towards the dark magic tome holstered to his hip by a fine rapier with an elegant silver handle that was embedded with various jewels.
His dark leather boots echoed loudly in the hall as the senator currently reigning over Daein and other assorted Begion nobles turned to look at him. They were celebrating with the fine foodstuffs that had been forcibly ripped from the hands of Daein citizens who had done nothing wrong, other than be ruled by a tyrannical king.
He willed his face to remain neutral as he walked towards Duke Numida of Begnion at the head of the table and bowed.
“Senator Numida, Duke of Salmo,” the young man said after he stood upright.
“Ah, there’s that cursed spirit charm,” Numida spat out as he rose to his feet, eyes locked on the mark on the younger man’s forehead. “It’s good to finally meet you, Prince Soren.”
“A pleasure to meet you as well, Duke Numida. We’ve spoken so much through writing that I feel like I know you very well already. It is good to finally put a face to the messages I’ve received.”
“Yes, yes,” Numida said as he waved his hand dismissively. “So, you agree to my terms?”
The young man strained to smile. He had read the letters Soren had received, knew the proposed peace agreement that spelled the ruination of Daein.
“They mean to kill me as soon as I agree, Pelleas,” Soren had said simply once the last letter had been read. “If you’re still amenable to assisting me in rescuing the prisoners, you’ll be in a great deal of danger. Are you certain you’re up for this?”
“Of course,” Pelleas said as he nodded his head to Numida. “I truly do believe that by working together we will secure the best future possible for my people, and me as well, of course.” Pelleas was trying to sound like Soren, but it was hard to be as rude as the prince. He hoped that wouldn’t give him away, Soren had assured Pelleas that none of the people in Daein Keep had reason to know him well at all. Simply looking the part would be enough.
Numida sneered up at Pelleas. "Here," he waved and a cart was rolled over with a treaty, a quill, and an ink pot. He heavily leaned over in his seat to sign the agreement.
Pelleas leaned forward, taking up the quill and brushed a hand over his face to hide his lips as he mouthed an incantation, lightly dipping the quill in the ink pot, not getting up nearly enough ink, and signed something that was a close approximation of Soren’s signature. With his heart pounding in his ears, Pelleas set the quill down and looked up at Numida.
In a few hours, the dark markings on the page from the tomeless dark magic would be gone, and a few scratches would be all that remained. It wouldn’t hold up to any inspection, but Pelleas only knew of the spell from Izuka’s tomes on forbidden dark magic, Soren had said it would be unlikely that the Begnion senate was learned enough to be guarded for such treachery.
Numida grinned widely and waved the servant with the cart away.
---
Soren leapt off of Allani’s saddle and onto the angled wall. He slid down several feet along the cold stone before pushing himself off and jumping onto the path of the wall surrounding the prison camp, twisting to fit through the crenels between the battlements on the wall. He landed lightly on the raised edge of the wall, looking over the interior of the prison camp, the wind and fire tomes strapped to his waist jangling and slapping his right thigh.
He quickly took in the troop positions and the location of the cells. The far cell in the distant corner. He could sense her heart without needing to see her. He could feel her recognition of his proximity, her pride in his approaching, her fear at him falling like her brother, her having been uncertain that he would come rescue her.
His hands tightened against the battlements.
---
Numida gestured openly to an empty chair to his right. “Please sit, Prince Soren.”
Pelleas bowed to Numida again and sat down. A servant came over to Pelleas and filled up the empty goblet at his seat with wine. Numida raised his goblet high into the air. “A toast to the magnificent empire of Begnion and our ability to guide Daein into a more civilized future.”
Pelleas raised his glass and toasted with the other Begnion nobles. He moved the glass to his lips as if to drink to the toast, and breathed out another incantation.
---
Soren pulled out the tornado tome he had managed to scrounge up and leapt from the wall. His thumb slipped into the pages, cracking open the fresh tome and the wind whirled around Soren as the spirits reacted to him focusing on gathering the magical essence within himself, channeling it through the energy inscribed into the tome. He landed on the stone paved ground between a group of five guards as the incantation flew from his tongue. “(Gather in a vortex around me that slices my foes!)”
---
Pelleas set the goblet down with a smile, holding his hand over the top of the goblet briefly, scraping the tip of his thumb against the edge as he lowered the glass to touch the liquid inside before it ran back down to the bottom and watched as the burgundy wine within the goblet turned black from where his finger had touched the surface. The black color quickly spread.
“Tell me, Prince Soren, how are you feeling?” Numida asked, his voice betraying his greed and deceit as he looked pointedly at Pelleas.
“About our new peace?” Pelleas smiled, playing innocent. His knees shook under the table and his stomach flipped within him. He strained to sound composed as he spoke, unable to meet Numida's eyes, but instead looked at his ear.
“Yes, yes, our new peace,” Numida said slowly, looking warily at Pelleas.
Pelleas swallowed, quickly assessing the position of the guards in the room. He just needed to arrive at the gates this morning, last long enough to get to this point. He could escape now, and the smell the spell was creating as it burned and purified the poison in the wine was beginning to become unbearable, anyway.
Pelleas met Numida’s eyes directly. “I am afraid that you’ll have to try not to be so overt if you wish to poison me.”
---
A spiraling vortex of wind burst into life around Soren before the guards could react. The cold winds formed from the spell rushed upwards, circling out around Soren and the winds became visible from the energy of the spell, forming blades of wind that cut into the guards through their armor.
The guards were blown back by the force of the spell and only one moved after landing on their back. Soren picked up a fallen sword and stabbed the twitching guard in the throat before looking at the other guards that were running towards him. His crimson eyes glowed like lava in the dark of the night, barely broken by the torches hanging on the distant walls.
---
Numida grit his teeth. “Well, you still fell for the trap. Guards!”
Pelleas felt his throat tighten as his heart pounded in his ears. He grabbed the stem of the goblet with shaking fingers, the action of closing his hand into a white-knuckled grip providing him some steadiness, and tossed the contents at a guard that was almost on top of him. The blackened wine splashed in the guard's face, burning his skin as the noxious fumes knocked him out.
Pelleas leapt to his feet, withdrawing his tome of dark magic, and cast a carreau spell at the guard while the shadows on his body grew darker and his body felt lit by fire. Orbs of black energy swirled around the guard and closed in on them, intense pulses of blue electricity sparking between the orbs as they came closer together. The guard fell to the ground dead.
Pelleas looked at Numida and took a deep breath. “Are you sure about that?” Pelleas prayed Numida didn't notice how unsteady his legs were from his shaking.
“No matter how strong that spirit has made you, you won’t stand a chance against a senator as inexperienced as you are. Don’t engage more than you have to.”
“Why don’t you handle the castle then?”
Soren had smiled then, amused. “You want to sneak into the prison camp and then fight your way out against all of the guards with only one tome? I'm not sure you can manage it if you've never fought before, and you’d need to fly in on a wyvern while evading all their arches.” After Pelleas had quickly shook his head, Soren had added, "That's good. Whatever treaty they need signed to lure them into a false sense of security would be harder to get out of if it bore my signature. I need you in the castle to confuse them, but you should be relatively safe."
---
Soren quickly switched to the arcfire tome he held, burning a path through his foes with circles of intense flames as the air surrounding him became as hot as the Grann Desert in the middle of the day at the peak of summer.
He tossed the sword to the side and marched forwards towards the thickest formation of guards, dodging sword strikes and thrown lances, retaliating with blazing flames that seared the flesh of the Begnion troops.
---
Pelleas turned and ran towards the back door of the dining hall Soren had told him about, which only had two guards stationed by it, as the dozen other guards in the dining hall gave chase, trying to wind around the large table in the center of the room. The other nobles leaping back from their seats to run away from him certainly helped delay the guards as well.
He took down the guard by the handle of the door with another spell, and then winced as the other guard’s javelin scraped by his arm. There was a spike of pain as the blade of the javelin created a deep gash and blood fell down his arm. He ran through the door into the kitchen area, closing the door behind himself and pressed hard against the door with his back to keep the guard from knocking the door back open.
---
Out of the corner of his eye, Soren saw Zihark slip out of a door and along the back wall of the camp, moving swiftly towards the cells.
Soren focused his attention back on the guards, burning through the energy contained within the arcfire tome, gathering as much of his own essence as he could with each spell cast to cut through the enemy troops as quickly as was physically possible. Reinforcements would be coming soon.
His only reprieve was that the Begnion forces didn't know it was him, and so weren't panicking to muster their forces quickly enough to take him on.
But couldn't they send in a mage or two so he could pick up their tomes?
“You dare defy Begnion?!” A guard with decorated armor exclaimed as he rushed towards Soren with a sword that had a bright red blade.
Soren dodged the strike, not responding verbally aside from speaking the incantation for the next spell he cast.
---
A servant ran towards Pelleas, rolling a heavy oaken barrel along the ground and then grunted, pushing it up against the door. She had bright red hair.
“Pelleas, right?” She asked as she looked up at him, her rosy purple eyes studying his face.
“Jill?” He took a moment to recognize her without her armor on, some flour dusting her face, and her hair tied back into a bun rather than a ponytail.
Jill smiled and nodded. “Come on, that won’t hold them forever. We need to meet up with Tauroneo and get out of here with the prisoners.”
“I’ll follow your lead then,” Pelleas said before following Jill as she pushed her way through the kitchen, the servants backing away from them and clearing a path. She tore off the white coat over her, revealing a slim set of red armor over her chest and legs, although she was missing her pauldrons.
---
Zihark worked through the guards’ keys to open the cells, ushering the prisoners towards the door he had used, across the courtyard from where Soren stood, gathering the attention of every guard with a pillar of fire that rose through the sky like a beacon in the night.
Soren briefly caught his mother’s eye as she ran out of her cell. She stopped, her eyes wide as she took in the sight of him bathed in the light from the flames he wielded.
Zihark ran up to Almedha and put a hand on her shoulder. “We have to go before the reinforcements arrive!” He shouted, Soren only understood what he was saying by reading his lips.
“But my son,” Almedha seemed to whisper as Soren dropped the spent arcfire tome.
Soren pulled the tornado tome out of the belt at his waist, and the flames fanned and grew to greater heights while the winds picked up around him.
“I’ll be fine,” Soren called out before shouting out another incantation, cutting down a pair of guards with a vortex of sharp winds. "Just go!" He hoped she got his intent through their connection rather than hearing him over the noises around him, but she was a laguz, so that might have been possible.
Almedha turned and ran with Zihark to the door.
That was the last prisoner. And the last guard standing in the camp quickly fell in front of Soren. Now to protect their retreat.
Soren barrelled his way through the guards trying to rush in through the front gate of the camp, largely evading their hands as they attempted to grab him and their weapons as they tried to strike him, only gathering a few cuts on his face and shoulders.
Once he was out, he turned, focusing their attention on him with a large tornado of wind cast as the center of their group.
---
Pelleas ran with Jill out to the back gardens of Daein Keep, where a green wyvern was waiting, snarling at a pair of guards trying to back it into a corner.
“You got them?!” Jill asked in a high pitched voice as she looked at Pelleas. She didn't have a weapon.
The shadows around Pelleas lengthened as he opened the tome, consuming the moonlight from above. The energy of the spirit within him burned like fire in his veins as the incantation spilled from his tongue. The carreau spell crashed into one of the guards, drawing the attention of the other guard away from the wyvern. Jill barreled into the guard with her shoulder, knocking him off of his feet and she pulled the lance from the saddle of the wyvern, striking the guard down before he could stand.
As the wyvern lowered itself to the ground, Jill jumped onto the saddle of the wyvern and held a hand out to Pelleas. “Come on!”
Pelleas ran forward, taking Jill’s hand and straddling the wyvern behind her saddle. He wrapped his arms around her as the wyvern leapt into the air with a few beats of its leathery wings.
---
Soren ran through the empty streets of Nevassa as the guards chased him, the light from their torches jumping with their footfalls and swinging with their moving arms. An arrow flew through the darkness of the night, striking him in the thigh. Soren stumbled but kept running, throwing the occasional tornado spell back at the group of guards to try and thin them out. It was a somewhat futile effort as more guards joined them from the side alleyways, some trying to leap and catch him with wide open arms that he avoided, with only a few fingers slipping over him as they attempted to grasp loose folds in his robes.
Eventually, he tore through the energy contained within the tornado tome and the pages ripped to shreds. Soren tossed the spent tome to the ground and turned a corner to face a dead end, a high wall overlooking the next level of Nevassa, some hundred and twenty feet below. There was a contingent of guards in front of him, blocking off his escape routes.
“You do know that you’re committing treason, right?” A man’s voice called out from behind Soren. This Begnion general wore burgundy armor trimmed in gold, and had reddish-brown hair that was slicked back over his head.
Soren turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow as the torchlight caught up to him. He knew what he looked like, red eyes gleaming in the shadows as he bowed his head ever-so-slightly forward, blood trailing down his cheeks from the cuts, so he allowed himself a smirk that was struck with deep shadows from the distant torches as he reached up and untied the bandana, letting it fall to his feet, the brand glistening from sweat in the torchlight.
“How am I committing treason by rescuing the people loyal to me?” Soren asked in a harsh whisper. He rolled his head to the side. “Oh, you mean against the imperial forces forcefully occupying my lands and behaving as tyrants over my citizens. No, I don’t recognize Begnion’s rule over Daein.”
A few of the soldiers stepped back. “You’re the shadowed prince! The Wraith of Daein!” One of them called out.
Soren supposed he had earned such a moniker in his many battles against Begnion’s troops in Daein’s clashes at the border.
“King Ashnard’s spawn or not, you’re no threat without a tome," the first soldier in the frankly ridiculously gaudy armor said, the uneven edge of his voice betraying his nervousness.
Nervousness Soren felt matched in his own heart. It was true, he was in a very dangerous position.
“No? Care to test that theory?” Soren only raised an eyebrow in response and let out a loud whistle, raising his arms in a menacingly confident open invitation to attack him.
The soldiers jumped back at the whistle, some of them quivering in their boots.
The smirk on Soren's face widened. And his father didn't think he could command respect nor fear from his enemies with magic.
Soren heard Allani’s roar in the distance, it would take her too long to reach him where he was for him to avoid a fight completely.
The lead soldier hesitated for a moment. “I am General Gerou for Duke Numida. I will bring you in to answer for this crime.”
“I tire of speaking to senators and their lapdogs. I’ll answer to the apostle, and the apostle alone.”
Gerou sneered. “Audacious little runt, aren’t you? I’ll make you pay for all the Begnion soldiers you’ve killed.”
“You can certainly try, but it would be better for you if you stood down.” Without a way to fight back, and surrounded on all sides, he had no choice. He had to go through with his back-up plan and allow the others to escape without these forces turning and giving chase to them. They had to get out of here.
“Tell me, Pelleas, is it true that those with pacts with spirits can cast blood magic freely?” Anyone could cast a small spell, light a candle for example, without a tome, but do make a spell, a real spell, without a tome, the energy of blood needed to be offered as the binding agent.
“Wouldn’t you know? You’re also a spirit charmer.”
“Izuka’s texts are rather lacking in that area, I’m afraid, and I’ve never risked it for simple experimentation. Do you know?”
Pelleas had frowned and shuddered. “My teacher explained it to me. Once, before I was able to find a tome to use after he died, I used blood magic. It’s hard to control, but the spirit mitigates the side effects. I can’t imagine the toll it would have taken without this mark of Spirit’s Protection.”
“What side effects?”
---
Jill flew through the night sky, landing in the lowest level of Nevassa, near a gate that led out to the hills below the aqueduct. She landed and a general wearing bright white armor with a shield of the same shade stood under the light of a torch, the bodies of a dozen guards laying on the ground by his feet.
“Jill,” the man greeted. “Good to see you have him.”
“General Tauroneo, is everything going well?” Pelleas asked as he leapt down from the saddle.
“Yes, thank you for your help distracting them, Pelleas.”
“I just can’t believe it worked as well as it did. Prince Soren and I look so little alike, aside from our charms.”
“It’s the charms that did it. Outside of King Ashnard’s innermost circles, few people spent enough time with the prince to recall what he looked like exactly, and you're a close enough match. Begnion in particular only had a few survivors escape from fights against Prince Soren, and they probably never got a good look with him up on his wyvern.”
“Plus, wearing clothes like he does and carrying his sword helped,” Jill said. “Have you heard from Zihark yet, Tauroneo?”
Tauroneo shook his head. “I saw the fire magic Prince Soren used from here, so I assume it’s just taking Zihark some time to get our people down here. We’ll hold this position until he arrives.”
---
Soren weaved around Gerou’s lance and circled around behind him, towards the larger pack of Begnion soldiers.
“See, in order to make me pay, you will need to hit me, and your lance is no match for Petrine’s,” Soren called out. He had managed to evade or avoid being killed by over a dozen strikes from her in a row on multiple occasions to amuse his father, and she had never held back.
Gerou yelled incoherently as he rushed towards Soren with his lance.
Soren stepped to the side as a few of the other soldiers overcame their fear and ran forwards.
He was still too far away from the closest Begnion mage to be able to take their tome and use it. The melee fighters would soon close in around him.
Soren reached out with his hand and grabbed the blade of the lance as Gerou began to recover from the missed strike. The metal dug into Soren’s hand, his blood flowed freely down the head of the lance.
“Seems like you’re doing my job for me.” Gerou proclaimed confidently.
Soren exhaled quickly and then inhaled, clenching his hand on the blade of the lance and more blood spilled down it as the air around him sparked with embers as the spirits reacted to the energy in his blood.
Gerou’s eyes widened. "You can't cast magic without a tome!"
"Can't I?" Soren sneered to hide his anxiety at using a magic that had been forbidden for a good reason, although he was taking all reasonable precautions. He hesitated for a moment.
He’d have to trust Pelleas to help, once this was all over.
He’d be completely at Pelleas’s mercy, and Pelleas might not help once he realized what had happened.
That the mark on Soren’s forehead couldn’t be that of a Spirit’s Protection.
But Soren had to get out, and had to keep these forces from chasing after the prisoners.
Ike’s words from a little over a year ago echoed in Soren’s head. "I guess, just believe in those around me and put faith in them to do their best, and I do my best for them. They respond to that."
And Soren had been trying to do that, the best that he was capable of. It always worked out for Ike.
Soren sharply met Gerou’s eyes and uttered the incantation. “(Take my spilt blood and for a moment, burn bright and burn bold, strike down my enemies and only my enemies.)”
Time seemed to slow down. The blood pouring down from Soren’s hand, the blood on his thigh, and the dried blood on his cheek glowed with orange energy. Where it touched his skin, it seared the flesh, leaving bright pink markings as the blood turned to white ash.
An instant later, large, billowing plumes of fire sprang to life around Soren, their sound echoing throughout the city streets like thunderclaps as the flames grew upwards and outwards.
---
The sound of explosions rang out, sounding at the gate below where Pelleas fought a fresh wave of guards with Jill and Tauroneo.
“As for these side effects, someone of your talents ought to be able to deal with them.”
“You mean as someone who works with spirits and is skilled in dark magic.”
“Did I mumble?”
Pelleas had frowned, huffing a little. “Yes, I can. I know that ritual well, I studied it thoroughly with my teacher and again after I used blood magic, just in case. But with the raw essence that we have now as adults, the effects of a spell like that would be devastating and terrifying.”
“Tomes offer control, limits, and direction, I know. Blood magic was forbidden for a reason beyond the curse inflicted upon the caster, but it's good information to have.”
Pelleas looked up and saw the plumes of explosions fading over the upper level of the city, and yet the buildings on that level were outlined clearly against the flames, whole and intact. “He really controlled it,” Pelleas whispered.
---
The flames died down around Soren as he felt blisters from the heat forming on his exposed skin. General Gerou struggled to get to his feet with the severe burns on his body.
The flames hadn't touched the buildings around him, and he saw the faces of civilians staring out at him from nearby windows, eyes wide in either fear or awe. Unharmed.
That was good.
Soren fought off a wave of vertigo as he bent down to snatch up a fallen thunder tome as it lay forgotten on the ground, the energy within it fighting off the flames burning on the ground. He walked past Gerou and suddenly bowed his head as something shifted in his peripheral vision, an instant later a ballista round rushed past his head.
Dozens more guards rushed up to where Soren was, held back by the flames that were slowly dying down along the streets around him over the bodies of the dead soldiers. He whistled into the air, sharp and short, and walked towards the wall, strapping the tome into a holster at his waist. There was an answering roar and Soren leapt off from the wall, landing moments later on the saddle on Allani’s back, grabbing the saddlehorn with his numb left hand and holding on to properly seat himself. She coasted over the rooftops of the city as he stuck his feet into the stirrups and grabbed the reins in his hand.
He directed her towards the gate that led to the hills rolling under the aqueduct to see how the others had progressed. Tauroneo, Pelleas, and Jill were still there fighting. Soren directed Allani towards the path Zihark was supposed to be taking to see what the hold up was, following the turmoil in his mother’s heart until he was circling the streets of the middle levels as alarm horns sounded from Daein Keep.
Soren spotted Zihark fighting against a wave of guards, protecting the freed prisoners as they were backed against a wall. Soren opened the arcthunder tome he had picked up and flew along the line of guards, striking them with several bolts of lightning, the air around him crackling.
“Prince Soren!” Zihark called out.
The guards turned towards Soren as he rode on Allani’s back. Zihark rushed in and cut down one of the guards. They worked through the line of seven guards together. There were footsteps as several more guards ran down the street towards them.
“Toss me that tome,” Soren said, pointing to a tome lying on the ground by one of the enemy mages, “And then get going. I’ll hold them off.”
Zihark grabbed the wind tome and tossed it up to Soren before running back towards the prisoners they were rescuing.
Zihark waved his arm towards an alley. “Come on, let’s go!” They got to their feet and ran the way Zihark pointed as Soren turned his focus on the enemy soldiers.
“My son!” Almedha called out.
“Keep going!” Soren called back, urging Allani forwards as his head began to fill with fog and crimson lines crawled over his vision.
Just a little longer.
He could hold on a little longer.
---
Pelleas turned as more footsteps approached them. A swordsman with silvery hair wearing purple clothes broke through the shadows, the blade of his drawn sword gleamed red in the night. Pelleas tensed for a moment, but then recognized Zihark and so Pelleas relaxed, seeing people wearing tattered brown clothes break through the darkness beyond the swordsman.
“Zihark, you took a while. Were you held up?” Tauroneo asked.
Zihark nodded. “Prince Soren helped me clear the way. Let’s get out of here.”
Tauroneo nodded, gesturing to the open gate. “Let’s not waste anymore time.”
“I’ll find Prince Soren and let him know the mission’s been completed,” Jill said as Zihark and Tauroneo started getting the free prisoners ready to flee. Pelleas looked among them, trying to figure out which one was Prince Soren’s mother.
“Please bring him to me as soon as you find him,” Pelleas said, “He might need my help.” Pelleas had survived the effects, but Soren had cast a much stronger spell. He might need the little healing magic Pelleas could wield on his own, or the rituals Pelleas knew.
Pelleas couldn’t begin to guess how much blood a spell like that would take.
Jill nodded. “I will. Now get going.” Her wyvern flew off into the night sky.
---
Soren tore through both tomes that he had been able to grab. The dark crimson fog in his head made it hard to keep an eye on the battle, arrows and spells struck him more often than he would have liked, arrows burying into his body and tearing through Allani’s wings that he thought he ought to have been able to avoid if he could just see clearly.
“Prince Soren!” Jill’s voice cut through the cold winds whipping around Soren as he cast a spell using the arcwind tome Zihark had thrown earlier.
Soren looked over at her.
“Let’s get going!” Jill called out, pulling her wyvern back to stay out of range of the ballista targeting Soren.
Soren urged Allani towards the aqueduct that brought fresh water to the city.
Jill cut a wider path out of the city on her wyvern, avoiding as many of the guards trying to take Soren down as she could, only occasionally being focused on by the Begnion soldiers.
As he passed over the aqueduct, Soren’s head began to throb, and a cold feeling traced down his spine, like an icy finger touching his skin. A distant fire mage cast a meteor spell that struck Soren in his already spinning head and he fell from Allani’s back.
He whistled to Allani, ordering her to find shelter just before plunging into the tepid waters below, quickly falling into a channel that fed down into the city’s underground water system.
Soren held his breath until his lungs began to burn, the crimson threads over his vision growing thicker with each beat of his heart. He adjusted himself until he was facing upwards, or so he thought, in this flow of water with his head spinning as it was, he wasn’t sure. He reached out his hands, letting it graze against the stone forming the closed waterway.
Give in , a voice, similar to Ashnard’s whispered in Soren’s ear under the water, but there was nothing nearby. You have no right to live now. You have no right to breathe after you turned your back on the one person who gave you purpose.
“Soren, you know when Ashnard dies tomorrow you'll still have the right to breathe, right?” Ike’s voice echoed in Soren’s aching head. The image of Ike faded into oblivion.
Soren couldn’t remember why, but he felt like he still could breathe without Ashnard.
He felt like the path leveled out and a pocket of air formed over his face. He breathed in quick breaths, the air burning in his lungs, slapping his senses awake as he looked around the interior, dimly lit from grates over the sewer system.
He grabbed onto a ladder to a grate as he passed by it in the flow of water, and struggled to hang on.
“You’ll never strong enough to be of worth to me, but your skills will do to help me reach my true potential. Help me grow strong, (destroyer)!” Ashnard’s voice echoed in Soren’s mind.
Soren screwed up the little strength remaining in his body and pulled himself onto the ladder, unaware that he could no longer recall the image of his father, nor remember why he felt motivated by spite to continue to push himself forwards.
“Do you think a Branded can truly become a king of beorc? ” Stefan’s voice called out in Soren’s mind, before becoming silenced.
He pulled himself up a rung of the ladder, even though his body felt like it was weighted with lead. Soren didn’t know if Daein would accept him, but he knew he wanted to try, forgetting that a place within the Grann Desert had been offered to him.
“Branded have as much value as anyone else, or at least, that’s what I was told. I hope you figure that out someday.” Nathalie’s voice said, before the memory of her was consumed by the fog in his brain.
He pulled himself up another rung. Someday he might be worthy of being accepted, of deserving his name.
His name? What was his name?
“(Destroyer,)” a man with dark purple hair and black eyes snarled, holding him by the face. The man’s cold steel gauntlets dug into his pale skin, bruising the flesh. Tears of pain formed in the boy’s red eyes and he glared up at the man. “(Destroyer,) you will help me achieve my goal of making a world where only the strong survive, or you will die.”
No. He wasn’t that. He wasn’t that any longer.
“Do you want to know what I would have named you?” Almedha’s voice called as she sat across a table from him, her hand over his. “Sisenand.” She whispered the Goldoan name conspiratorially to him, trying to encourage him to turn against his father. “He was my mother’s older brother, who died in the Flood.”
He had rejected that name. He had rejected her. Her face disappeared into the fog consuming his mind as he pulled himself up another rung on the ladder, no longer even able to name the woman he had rejected.
“Soren,” A man with blue hair and blue eyes said gently, as they stood in front of a graveyard, a wyvern around him. “We'll have to promise to meet again,” the man whispered softly months later, cradling his face with a hand.
His head hurt, as he tried to cling to the memory. He had promised to return to somewhere. To someone. The person who had named him. A person who loved him. A person who wanted him without any obligation to.
A stabbing pain wracked his body as the spirits claimed the memory despite his efforts. Tears fell down his face at how empty he felt.
He couldn’t even recall what his name had been now. Had he ever had one? Who was he? Who had he loved?
All he was was a man trying to climb a ladder, from a sewer. He had been fighting. He was injured. His arms and legs ached from arrow heads splintered from their shafts buried into his flesh.
He had been fighting soldiers trying to hurt innocent people. Was it a tyrannical leader? Was it? He didn’t know.
Did the world always look so tinged by red and black? Hadn’t there been other colors? Blue? Wasn’t that his favorite color?
What was his favorite color?
What was a color?
He pulled himself up to the last rung of the ladder and was stopped by a grate set over the opening. He reached his hand up and pushed on the grate. It barely budged.
Just stop. Give in. The harsh voice whispered in his ears. It no longer sounded familiar, but why would it? It had never been familiar.
"I have not come this far to fail now!” Rajaion’s voice called out from when he had fought to save a boy and a woman.
Had he been the boy?
The man pushed against the grate, tears falling down his face as Rajaion’s face, too, was claimed by the fog.
The grate moved under the man’s efforts. He couldn’t stop now. No matter what. The fight needed him. He pulled himself out onto the city streets and started walking in the shadows.
The fight needed-
He fell to his knees in a dark alleyway and tumbled forwards until his face was in a dirty pool of something foul smelling in a back alley.
Him.
Whoever he was.
Whatever he was.
The fight needed him .
Consciousness began to fade from his mind as the cold and pain seeped into his body. He lay between two houses in a city he did not know, in a country he was not familiar with beyond knowing it needed him.
Its people his to protect.
Its enemies his to kill.
There was the sound of chirping as a small orange feathered bird landed on the index finger of his left hand that lay in front of him, his right hand pinned beneath his body.
In the distance, a wyvern roared from the ledge of the aqueduct before flying off to the west on bloodied wings.