Unbound

The elevator dinged as it reached the seventy-first floor, and the doors opened onto a pale white hallway lit with sconces filled by purple Mana crystals.

Zara peered out. "Can you sense her?"

"She’s not here." Felix leaned back into the elevator and tapped the sigils for the next floor. The doors closed, and they fell silent.

“So we’re just gonna find her and convince her to come back?” Atar asked, leaning against the far end of the elevator.

knock her out and abscond with the unbound.

“I hate to agree with the Urge, but I do.” Alister checked his rapier in its sheath. “That is our best plan of action.”

“Not much better than what we walked in here with,” Atar pointed out.

“We’ll make it work,” Felix said. “And the Star…I’ll handle it.”

Atar was right, though. Whether there was a Primordial in the Vent mattered little to their goals at the moment. Elowen needed to be rescued, and the Chthonic Star had to be destroyed. However, other than the ward key for the upper levels, they had nothing to build upon the plan they’d brainstormed with Tern.

The doors opened again, but this time Felix winced as they did. That feeling of naked heat against his skin had redoubled. Alister groaned in pain.

she’s here.

Atar put a hand under the man’s elbow, helping him stand. Alister swallowed. “I’m alright. It’s just like walking into a furnace.”

yet there is neither flame nor heat. the unbound is burning her spirit, and if she keeps it up, she’ll burn us, too.

None of them were immune. Zara and Atar both winced in pain as they stepped off the elevator, and Felix felt a flush of irritation rise through his chest.

He locked it away.

“Walk fast, stick close, and be ready for anything,” he muttered, striding across the antechamber.

There were few exits from the room, and his sense of Elowen led him to a massive archway that opened up into a gargantuan library.

Shelves packed with books and scrolls filled every direction Felix could observe while in the corners, and spiral staircases led up to narrow pathways and balconies. The stairs continued, up and up, level by level, until it all loomed over them like a vast maze of books. Helping the maze connotations, dozens of shelves floated freely in the air, completely untethered to any path or balcony.

A vaulted ceiling decorated like the night sky surmounted it all, yet its details were faint with distance and light that criss-crossed the immense room from the upper levels. Enormous chandeliers made of glowing Mana crystal added to the illumination, until all but the most diffused shadows were banished.

"I've seen this place before.” A memory tickled Felix’s Mind, and it returned in full flower. An old vision of Elowen back before he had met Beef. She had been sitting, perhaps meditating, amid floating books. He saw those floating books now, moving between shelves without apparent rhyme or reason. A steady stream crossed the mazed spaces of floating shelves, creating a dense network that moved like a murmuration of birds, constantly folding and dipping as some books tucked themselves away before others pulled free.

A sound filled the room, beyond the shuffling of leather covers and slight rustle of pages which moved by unseen hands. It was another sensation he found hauntingly familiar, a buzzing sound that made his teeth rattle. Dissonance.

Shit.

He led his friends through quick turns past books that were chained to their shelves and tomes that were encased in glass cases. Following the buzzing in his head, he came to an open area, one that perhaps may have once had chairs and tables, but those had been cleared away. In their place, a glowing array had been inscribed into the floor.

Elowen, the Theron Unbound, sat suspended at the center, lifted off the ground as if levitating. Mages in their dark purple robes stood all around her, making notes and adjusting the array with their styluses. Elowen was perfectly still, her eyes closed and hands folded over her legs.

Felix’s first thought was that she was trapped, but there was no sign of struggle.

A mage lifted his voice above the hum of power pouring from his fellows. "Pagewright Elowen. Do you have stability?"

Elowen spoke, her eyes still shut. "I do.”

“Can you See?"

"I See the advancing tide. It reaches for us. It is inexorable.”

The mages exchanged glances. Several looked extremely concerned. “Let the tide remain unseen. It will harrow you. Do you see the Star, our weapon? Will it work?"

Unseen…tide? That was the subtype of his Race. Felix burned with sudden questions for the mages. What is she seeing?

“Something’s wrong,” Zara whispered.

Elowen jerked, her limbs suddenly thrashing inside the array. Magic flared around her, sparks of light spilling from her gown-covered legs as she hung amid the sigaldry. The mages spoke faster, their muttered words speeding up as they inscribed new features to the array as fast as they could manage. Lines of silver light reached up from the array to latch onto the Theron, as if to tie her to the earth, while Elowen bucked against them, her body seizing.

Are they using Oath threads to hold her down? Felix watched from behind a shelf, unsure what to do.

"What am I looking at here, guys?" Alister craned his neck to see through the bookshelf.

Atar was gritting his teeth. "Those sigils…they've created a focusing array."

Felix hadn't heard of that kind of array. "Focusing what?"

"Divination magic. You can see the Harvinian Cross there on the left, and I think that's a glyph for unwavering sight. But divination is extremely advanced magic, especially in sigaldry. There's layers to this working that I cannot parse."

"Why is she floating there?" Felix asked.

Zara clenched her jaw. "If it's a divination array, then it should be feeding her information. Visual, if that is the right glyph I saw. It doesn't require floating."

Atar grimaced. "I haven't a clue why she's floating, honestly.”

“Divination is for what? Looking far away?"

"That's part of it. Scrying is what that's called, and that's hard, too. The Continent is filled with too much magic to get a good visual on things too far away. To punch through the interference would require both immense Skill and a great deal of power."

Alister had crouched low to see past the books and the mages crowding the array. "I don't think she's scrying. I think she's looking ahead. That's seizing. I've seen it before."

"A true Seer?" Zara asked, her fist clenched. "This Unbound is in more danger than I anticipated."

"What? Why?"

"Because the true Seers died—every single one of them on the Continent, all at once," Zara said. "On the very day you were summoned."

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The thrashing stopped. Elowen stabilized, the thick silver Oath threads laid so thick upon her that Felix could hardly see her skin beneath them.

"I can See it," she said, and this time her voice carried a resonance that shook the air until it wobbled, as if filled with a great heat. "The Star rises to the heavens, it pierces the vault of blue, it—"

Elowen recoiled, and the silver threads along her left strained as if being pulled taut by something beyond sight. "It's coming. It screams across the horizon, a plague born on the back of a force greater than the gods!"

“Release the tides!” the lead mage cried out. “Stare not at the Ruin! Focus!”

Unbidden, her words summoned images to Felix's Mind that he could not stop. A dark fire, raining from the sky in clouds of black.

A flame that didn't burn, but obliterated entirely.

"The Ruin's shadow blackens our doorstep! It chars the skies! The gods…” she gasped, sucking in great mouthfuls of air. “The gods watch! They laugh through bitter tears! The world will be scoured clean."

The mages faltered in their mutterings, and sigils burned beneath their paused styluses. The lead mage squared his shoulders. “Is our path forward the same? Will the Star serve us?”

“The Star is our only hope,” Elowen intoned. Above, bookshelves shook, and tomes fell from the sky. “Only the gods may shelter us in the dark. We must shatter the chains."

“She’s Seeing this?” Atar asked, incredulous.

“She is,” Zara confirmed. “But even Seers can be mistaken. Still, we must stop her before she looks too far. To see the ruin entirely is to invite its power against yourself. She will be destroyed."

Shit. Felix ran a hand across his face. “On it.”

He stepped to the edge of the shelving, and at the same time, the riot of noise abruptly stopped.

"Something else is watching," Elowen said into the silence. Her eyes snapped open, and they glowed an eerie, brilliant silver. She locked eyes with Felix. "Enemy! Urge of Consumption!”

Kill Him.

As one, the mages around her turned, robes whipping as hands lifted with burgeoning spells. A barrage of elemental power was unleashed.

“Greater Force Shielding!”

A blue semi-circle of force Mana appeared before Felix, blocking most of the attacks immediately. The fire was rerouted, however, pulled around the shield in a way that Felix thought was a new sort of Skill…but it only ended up gathering in Atar’s gray hands.

delicious.

“Stars of the Sovereign!”

The fire condensed in his grip, added to and molded into four-pointed motes of white flame that he sent careening back into their lineup. The ground exploded around the mages, their own shields flaring red as incredible heat sent them stumbling back. Yet almost immediately, they stood back up, hauled to their feet as if being pulled by marionette strings.

Silver strings.

"Watch out!" Felix stepped forward, marshaling his own power.

The mages bellowed a dozen Skill names and unleashed a volley of new magic. They plowed into Alister’s shield again, and this time, it was too much. It shattered.

Empyrean Embrace!

The attacks got no further than that—they were all claimed, pulled into Felix’s mouth with a single great inhale.

Skein of Fate!

His Skill, Intent, and Will came up against the Oaths that held the mages aloft. He chopped at them, but it was more difficult than ever before—the Oaths held firm, steel cables beneath a dulled butter knife, but his Will was stronger.

Discordant keys struck just beyond sight as the Oaths snapped beneath his Skill. For a moment, the mages sagged, released from their clutches—but only a moment.

With dawning horror, Felix saw the threads slither back. They latched onto flesh and burrowed into Spirit like vile worms, and the mages’ limbs bulged with sudden veins of silver.

Felix took a step back. "What the hell?"

The array behind them burst, sending a geyser of sparks into the sky that forced Felix to throw up a hand. The sparks were harmless, but not the blur that shot out from their confines. Elowen, robes rippling in her wake, blasted out of its center.

Felix kicked forward, meeting her in mid-air…only to get tackled by a rack of antlers and two quill-callused hands. They blew back, smashing through shelf after shelf and scattering books by the hundreds before his back met a cool surface that yielded into scattered shards of stained glass.

They tumbled out into the sky. Mid-morning sun shone to the east, and Elowen held him fast.

"Urge of Consumption," she cried, "You are not welcome here!"

Felix drove his knees up into Elowen's gut. She cried out, and her grip slackened, the force of Felix's attack sending him hurtling straight downward toward Levantier far below.

Adamant Discord!

Lightning sparked around him as he grabbed onto a tether connecting him to the sky, stopping his momentum all at once while Elowen slowed, her robes rippling in the wind that gathered at her hooves.

"I’m not an Urge!" Felix shouted back up at her. “I’m—”

Silver eyes flared. "I’m not speaking to you."

Within him, his Hunger roused, roaring wordlessly.

Elowen flared with power, her purple-gold Mana seizing a decorative stone cornice and ripping it free. It hurled at him, but Felix hauled on his connections and dodged it easily. He didn't expect the second volley from below. A river of colored glass shards shot up at him, slicing at his legs before his Perception could catch up.

Sonata of Domination!

His control slipped over the shards, rebuffed by Elowen's potent magic. So instead, he hardened the air around his feet, and the remaining glass shattered against a shield beneath him.

"Is that all you can do?" he asked, looking back up. "Throw garbage at me?"

The deer woman licked her lips, and purple power surged up her arms before she darted away.

CHASE HER! DEVOUR HER!

Hey! No backseat driving!

Elowen zipped ahead, the wind rustling her robes with every hooved step she took. She wasn't faster than him, though.

Adamant Discord!

He blasted forth, thunder rattling the windows of the Violet Tower compound all around them as a cloud gathered at his waist. The sonic boom that followed shattered them all.

Elowen spun, hands raised into a fist that she jerked toward her chest. "Chaos Beckons!"

Before Felix could reach her, all of the broken glass blasted into him from behind. He hunched against it, his garment shredding and his scales taking care of the rest.

The Theron closed with him, and Felix looked up just in time to get punched in the jaw. The strike cracked like thunder, almost as loud as the woman's hand exploding into bloody ruin.

Elowen screamed in agony.

Felix reached up to wipe the blood from his face. Her blood. "Want to try that again?"

She ran. He growled to himself and followed. Elowen zipped ahead through the outbuildings of the violet tower, buzzing rooftops and ricocheting off spires draped in fluttering banners, each time just a bit closer. At every turn, Elowen blasted the terrain around her and seized the debris with her odd Skill.

"Chaos Beckons!"

Now that he was expecting it, Felix dodged her attacks time and again, though that didn't prevent the lady from surprising him. Stone, glass, shingles, and even a few gargoyles were hurled at him from all angles, yanked toward her like fish on a line.

She isn't trying to fight. She's trying to escape.To where?

Elowen just seemed to be moving in circles around the Tower grounds, weaving in and out of the purple-draped outbuildings. He couldn't figure out her plan or even if she had one.

It didn’t matter. It was time to end things.

Felix hauled back on a tether of connection, the one that bound both of them together and which she could never truly escape. He shot forward, lightning crackling in his wake.

Claws outstretched.

"Order Departs!" Elowen shrieked as he drew near, and her antlers gleamed with purple and golden light. Her power shot outward. Much like his old Reign of Vellus, it was a blast wave of force that hurled everything away from her body in a sphere.

Felix braced his arms, his limbs wreathed in lightning as her power faded. He wasn’t sent back, but she had stopped him. "I'm not your enemy," he shouted above the crash of destruction. "I'm Felix Nevarre—”

“Unbound. Primordial. I cannot See you, but I know you."

She can’t See me? He landed on the protruding support next to a large gargoyle. It leered down at him. "Then why are we fighting?"

"Because you wish to stop me." Her eyes blazed silver, and a new voice emerged from her throat. And I Will Not Allow That.

"Siva," Felix snarled.

You Had Your Chance To Join With Me, Nevarre, And You Squandered It.

"Release her," he demanded.

A silver shadow manifested behind her, as if he were looking at the silhouette of a woman through frosted glass. The silhouette leaned closer, as if whispering into Elowen's ear.

This One Does Not Listen To Reason, Ascendant.

Destroy Him.

The silver cords pulsed around Elowen's neck like a tightening noose before they tugged her arms up into a specific and complicated gesture.

"As you wish.” Elowen’s fingers spread. "Core Manifestation: Tome of the Witness!"

Oh fuck.