Unbound

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The darkness was gone.

Felix awoke.

The Beast… Where’d it go? He blinked at the brightness of the blue sky. Too blue. Wait—

That wasn't the sky.

Water?

“About time,” Zara said. She stood over him, her black robes stark against the swirling shield of water Mana that had formed a protective bubble around them both. “Does the Beast remain?”

“No, I—” Felix tried to sit up but it was like his abdomen had been sapped of all energy. He could barely move his neck. “I can’t move.”

Light flashed on the other side of the translucent bubble, and he didn’t need a Skill to identify what was happening. “Mages.”

“They seem to think you're the enemy.” She smiled, bearing her sharp Naiad teeth in a humorless grin.

Fire, earth, and ice dropped onto them and each time a piece of her shield was blasted away. Yet Zara stood over him like a stalwart sentinel. Her hands wove wrist-thick streams of water in a constant pattern, repairing the blue barrier the instant it was damaged.

3 of 3 Mind Essences Formed!

Tempering Has Begun!

“Can you muster your power?”

Felix grimaced. He didn’t have to move a muscle to spot the storm of energies roaring through his chest. It raged and pushed outward, pressing at his ribs like it was going to burst from him. “Tempering.”

“Damnation.” More weaves of water flowed from her hands, but their bubble was deteriorating now. “More Towers have come.”

Felix flared his Perception, eyes and ears burning as his awareness spread outward through war and water.

Levantier had been torn apart.

Everything that Felix had glimpsed between his Temperings had been true; for a while there, he had wondered if the Beast had been conjuring those visions as well.

No. It’s way worse than that. I did this.

The center basin of Levantier’s caldera had been ripped down to barren earth, and in some places the wounds were deeper. Water welled up between deep ruts and swaths of the naked mountain lay exposed, peeled away by his ravenous apetite. Far away, too far to be believed, the dusty earth gave way to the splintered remnants of Levantier itself. Mansions, spires, and tall tenements leaned drunkenly against one another, sprouting at the edge of ruin like stalks of corn in a field of cracked clay.

Nearer to hand, Vilas Tern’s skiff had smashed into the ground nearby, its hull ruptured and surrounded by injured mages in violet robes. What he couldn't see, however, was what tore at him the most.

"Where are they?"

"They're alive," Zara assured him. "All of us are alive."

A barrage of golden light and purple-white ice smashed into her barrier, not just peeling, but boiling layers of water into a fine mist.

"However, there are few Grandmasters who would like to argue that point.”

Manaships full of angry mages descended upon them, their Spirits bared like razor-sharp swords. They flew in tight circles around Zara's barrier, not just taking turns, but taking coordinated turns to drop a slew of spells upon them all.

Felix, jellied muscles or not, struggled to sit up, but only managed to push himself onto a single elbow before it felt like he would rip apart at the seams. His bones felt full of fire and his muscles ached with a dull agony that was worse than iron knives in his joints. He felt as if one wrong move would cause him to explode from within.

Fire dropped down onto their position, boiling away yet another layer of their barrier, but it stopped swiftly. A charred skeleton interposed itself, wreathed in white flame and wearing charred robes, it absorbed huge swaths of the Mana. The little that made it through met a secondary shield of thick blue force, as Alistair lifted his gleaming rapier into the air and deflected the remaining spells.

"Stars of the Sovereign!”

White, jagged points shot out toward the Manaships, a few finding purchase where they burned ropes and sails, but others were met by mages who lifted staves marked with intricate sigils. Wards turned aside the stars, deflecting them into the dusty earth where they exploded in great gouts of white flame.

"Stand down," boomed a voice from the Manaships. "You are protecting a threat to all of us."

"He's not a threat," Atar said, hovering on his plume of white flame. His naked jaw snapped shut, his eyeless sockets glaring out at the mages assembled before them. "And he's not yours to touch."

"Did you witness a different cataclysm, creature? Do not speak for Levanteer, Abomination. Your presence alone demands our retaliation."

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"You touch him and you die," Alistair leveled his rapier at the shouting Grandmaster.

Robed in a bright green trimmed in gold, the man clucked his tongue. "Foolish. The might of Levantier gathers while you stand here, shielding this man with your paltry magics. You may survive us, but you will not survive the Towers; I swear it as Grandmaster Verdant.”

The man paused, as if expecting something…and seemed disconcerted when nothing occurred. Verdant cleared his throat. “So I will tell you a final time: stand down or face us all."

try it, mageling.

The Grandmaster swallowed. Felix saw his old jowls shake, but his Spirit didn’t waver. "Kill them!"

Sonata of Dominance!

Felix didn't have the energy to marshal his Intent or Affinity, not without setting off the explosion that lurked in his core space. All he could muster was a brute force application of Skill. Earth speared upward, intercepting a hundred different spells as they thundered upon his friends. It burst—freezing, burning, and breaking—but his Mana was not lacking, and the dusty earth could not be torn down for long.

"Don't make me get up," Felix growled, shoving himself onto another elbow and grimacing through the pain. "You won't like me when I'm standing."

The mages didn't listen. Their ships thrummed, rising above his impromptu barrier to rain down their many Skills. Most were Journeymen or Adept, but dozens were Masters, and while Felix might survive, his friends certainly wouldn't.

Alistair threw up more shields, blocking the spells that arced from above. "I can't do this much longer. Atar!”

“On it! Incendiary Vortex!"

The skeletal mage rose up, pale fire spreading from his bony hands until it formed a miniature cyclone that spun around them, encasing the broken skiff and all the rest within its circumference. The flames cut into the ships beyond the earthen barrier, forcing them to pull back. But it could only expand so far.

Atar snapped his teeth together. "Quickly!”

“Greater Force Shielding!"

Blue force Mana surged upward, clasping around the edge of the vortex into a strange funnel shape.

focus, atar! sharpen yourself to the deadliest of edges!

With a scream of effort, Atar clapped his bony hands together. The vortex collapsed upon the funnel.

It fed through it.

A beam of white-hot, condensed flame speared out of their combined efforts and hit the Grandmaster of Verdant's ships head-on. Warlords flared, rippling with rainbow colors before they all turned a deep, unhealthy red.

Before exploding.

Debris rained down, providing them a moment of peace before four more ships rose in their place, firing down with all the Skills they could muster. Felix's Intent was badly bruised by his Tempering, and his concentration was terrifyingly scattered. He could hold the earth all day, but hardening it into something capable of keeping out their enemies was impossible. His friends—he was unsure how long they'd been fighting, but it was clear that they were failing fast.

One wrong move…

Mages shouted, Skills resonating in the warm summer air as rocks and ice fell from above, destined to crush them all—before they were halted in mid-air.

Elowen stumbled out of this skiff’s wreckage, face bloodied and one of her antlers broken, but her hands blazed with purple and golden light. At her back, the Tern hobbled out, his own purple Mana seizing onto Elowen's power as it trembled. The old mage flicked his wrists, forming pale constructs on the fly that built around Elowen's Skill, reinforcing where her Will and Intent were failing her.

It wasn’t enough.

He could feel them. Just as the Grandmaster had promised, more ships were coming. Soon, they would be overwhelmed.

Felix cast about, looking for something he could use, but everything was gone. Devoured. His forehead hummed, distracting him. He—

"The Crown!" Felix summoned it, letting the Crown of Elysium settle across his head once more, and immediately that humming turned into a fevered song. A familiar song.

Right! Those purple idiots—The Violet Tower had altered the city, changing the location in an attempt to command more Authority than they could bear. It had backfired spectacularly. But now he could make use of it—It’s here!

Buried beneath the earth no less than 20 feet away, it was covered in hundreds of pounds of dust and debris that had fallen around his Beast's false flesh. That was no obstacle. Not for Felix.

Sonata of Dominance!

The barrier he'd maintained dropped, his attention completely diverted as the earth parted ahead. Mages dove into the gap, their ships cresting the fallen earth as their decks swarmed with unreleased Mana, all of it aimed down upon them.

"Enough!"

His shout tore through the sky like thunder on a clear day, shocking everyone present. It was a trick that could only work once.

Once was all he needed.

At his command, a disc nearly fifty feet in diameter rose through the softened earth, lifting both Felix and a surprised Zara up into the air upon it. Ancient patterns and precious metals glinted across its surface, sparking with gold and silver as it reacted to his supine presence.

The Seat and Seal of Levantier.

Do You Wish To Establish Your Authority?

Y/N

Yes!

Authority Recognized!

Unbound Detected!

Superior Primordial Detected!

WARNING! Authority Cannot—

A familiar pressure skittered across him and Felix braced against it—but it was over before it ever truly began.

Inheritor Status Recognized!

Inheritor Status Supersedes All Bloodlines!

Authority Granted!

All Hail The Inheritor, Warden Of Levantier, Felix Nevarre!

Authority fell upon him like a mantle, dragging his shoulders down even as it raised his head higher. His Crown thrummed with ancient power, and Felix sensed a great many things all at once. The edges of the city—the edges of the Territory itself—were clear to him as if a map were laid out before his eyes. Equally clear was the store of dangerous power beneath the mountain—things that slumbered beneath the weight of Ages. They were there, beneath them all, thrumming like a struck chord in a concerto that had long since ended.

His for the taking.

Felix tapped into the barest edge of that power, just for a moment. The Authority of the Warden hummed to life, surging in uncoiling sparks of gold and silver around the Seal.

"Song of Restriction!"

All at once, a great weight fell upon every single Manaship, and the inscriptions powering their engines blasted apart. Master mages all those below them fell to their knees or simply passed out, crushed by the pressure of the Territorial song. The few Grandmaster mages scrambled to regain control, but their Spirits qualified as their spells fizzled in their channels.

The ships crashed to the earth.

“Enough,” he repeated through tight breaths. “You’re all…in time out.”

The last thing he saw was Zara’s concerned face before everything went black.

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