Unbound

Vess watched Felix zip into the sky, and despite the lightning that enveloped him, she could still make out his form quite clearly.

“Working on your Perception, Lady Dayne?” Darius asked.

Vess coughed and turned away from the sky. “What is it you need, Darius?”

Her father’s Chosen Hand was following the fading trail of Felix’s ascent. “Are you certain of your path?”

Vess blushed. “That is none of your business, Hand. Felix and I—”

“Are not what interests me.” Darius chuckled and glanced down at her. The man was just as tall as Felix had become. “He…I think I understand the Autarch now. Your father might have some words for you, but not I. Not anymore. No, what concerns me is that Dragon. I don’t trust it.”

The Hand’s words for Felix set Vess off-balance, but she was quick to plant her feet again. “Him. We have spoken of this already. Yin is not a thing, Darius.”

Darius snorted. “He is a monster the Dragoons swore to eliminate utterly. An order that you and I both trained for all our lives. We’ve seen how dangerous draconic Types can be, how clever and bloodthirsty. And you’ve bonded with it.” He held up a hand, forestalling Vess’ angry response. “Him. I need to know that you are well. The changes…have you had any issues with your core space? Your Skills?”

Vess took a calming breath before replying. “My core space is stable and my Skills are strengthened greatly. Nothing has changed since last we spoke on the subject, save that I am greater now than even two months prior.”

“I…am happy to hear that,” he said, and his Spirit rang with the sound of earnest forbearance. “I can see that you’ve grown more powerful, Lady Dayne. That much is obvious to even those who do not know you as well as I do. You have told me the Dragon’s perspective on the Betrayal, how the Dragoons moved against them and not the other way around. I cannot accept that, yet.”

Darius was right: they had both been trained by the Dragoons since a young age. She couldn’t expect him to buck the tradition of centuries based on her testimony alone. Yet if I cannot convince him of things, how can I convince the order? Or my father?

“But…I can trust you. I have been trusting you. I only ask that you hold whatever the Dragon says at arms length before embracing it—I could not bear something happening to you.”

“Darius…”

“With regard to the Autarch,” he said, clearing his throat as his Spirit went utterly opaque to her senses. “If you desire to pursue him, you will need to tell your father. He deserves to know, considering the implications, and from your own lips.”

Vess pursed her lips. “I plan to visit home again. Soon.”

The big man grunted. He’d been spending too much time with Harn. “Good. For now, I need not tell you to proceed cautiously.”

“I know. I plan to find out what that was. We were lied to, Darius. All of us. My mother too. I want to know why, and that requires me to return home.” She felt a hurricane in her chest, swirling without relief. “We will have the truth, and we will grow stronger for it.”

Darius blinked at her. “You’d bring a Dragon into Pax’Vrell?”

“He is proof.”

“He is the enemy, Lady Dayne. Wyrmling or not, you can expect an uproar.” He regarded her with hard eyes. “I simply hope you are ready for such a fight.”

In the distance, Vess could feel Yin basking in the glow of the last rays of sunlight, his meal utterly demolished. She smiled, but it was a thin, grim line.

“We will be.”

You did it! Pit cheered. Finally.

Felix still felt the embarrassment that had crawled up his spine and across his cheeks, despite the rush of success that propelled him across the skies. He felt lighter than he had in a while.

I didn’t need audience commentary, Pit.

I was helping!

Felix grunted, a smile curling his lips as he redirected his Skill and plummeted toward the ground once again. This time, he fell hundreds of feet in several long seconds, directly into Zara’s courtyard.

Lightning splashed outward, harmless but bright, as he pressed last second against his connections to the stone itself. He landed gently and straightened himself, unconsciously adjusting his tunic and jacket. A few people gasped at his arrival, but for the most part the bustling activity continued uninterrupted. The sight of servants still made him a little uneasy, but a glut of folks had migrated to Haarwatch explicitly to take up jobs like maid, ferrier, and butler or whatever. Just in case though, Felix made sure everyone was getting paid fairly. Vess had suggested a few stations in his burgeoning government that had made overseeing all the minutiae a bit easier. He still had barely any idea what he was doing, running a whole Territory, but delegation had become his best friend.

Thankfully, not too many folks had need of servants outside the cliff districted—the Foot, he reminded himself, laughing under his breath. Silly name. Who would want to live in a place called the Foot?

A lot of people, obviously, based on how many homes he’d had to shape into the cliff-face. Felix’s original intent was to make cool stone houses that stacked vertically and sat into the lower Tier stone of the cliff. But with the influx of petty nobles and monied folks from Haarwatch and even Setoria, it had quickly become a hot spot for the “important.”

Bleh, elitist idiots. Plenty of housing across Elderthrone, and they all want to fight over two dozen that I made here.

Felix hustled through the courtyard, playing with the letter that Zara had left him. He’d opened it on the journey south, and it contained only a single line.

Felix,

Please see me immediately. We must discuss your future.

~Zara

Ominous and non-specific. About what I’ve come to expect from Chanters. He shoved the letter back into his inside jacket pocket.

He smiled at the various people he saw around the estate. They knew him by this point, and more than a few gave back cheerful greetings. A few riffs of surprise spread out from some, those unfamiliar with the Autarch landing in the courtyard unannounced. Probably hired recently. He looked up at the looming edifice of carved stone, noting all the fine details he’d never put into it. Haven’t been here in a bit.

Just inside the front doors, a woman in a black dress with crimson skin and golden eyes stood with her arms folded before her. “Good evening, Lord Autarch. How might we be of service?”

“Oh, hey Melle, I need to talk to Zara.”

“As you wish, Lord Autarch. Follow me.” The Hobgoblin handmaiden led him to a side room outfitted with plush chairs and an empty fireplace. “Please, be seated in the parlor while I fetch Lady Zara.” She curtsied and disappeared deeper into the house.

This is eerily familiar, he thought, looking around the parlor. The chairs, the mantle, the tiling on the floor…all of it was the same as Zara’s mansion back in Haarwatch. She even had bookshelves installed around the fireplace, thick with tomes he recognized from her shop. Felix ran his hands across them, feeling their molded spines, the faint ridges of gold leaf on the sigaldry. He was contemplating taking one and reading it in one of the overstuffed chairs when he heard the quick clop of booted heels down stone stairs.

“Felix. I was wondering when I might see you again.” Zara smiled at him, warm and welcoming despite her shark-like teeth. A brightly colored kingfisher sat on her shoulder, watching him as she gestured with an ocher-toned hand. “Please, sit. Do you need anything to eat?”

A flash of bright, white light filled the parlor, and Pit bounded across the floor as a russet-furred puppy. “Yes, please!”

Zara laughed. “Keru can lead you to the kitchens, Pit. We have plenty of roast Glitterhog to spare.”

Pit let out a high pitched howl and bounded after the kingfisher as it flew off Zara’s shoulder and around the corner. The sound of flapping wings and scrabbling claws on tile soon faded.

“Karys tells me you went north. I had not expected you back so quickly, but your Chancellor told me not to worry.” Zara sat opposite Felix, folding her long fingers across her lap. “I must admit, I was…vexed at your disappearance.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. The issue was urgent, but I’ve a new ability that allows for much faster travel within my own Territories.” He quickly explained what he knew of Labyrinthine Wing.

Zara leaned back in her chair once he was done, a tension fleeing her body that he hadn’t noticed until it was gone. “That clears up a great deal of my confusion. This new ability allowed you to travel to the northern border in half a day?”

“Way less than that. Most of my time was spent resolving a border dispute with the Risi, not traveling.”

“To move so quickly, even along Dark Passages…is there a limit to how many you can bring?” she asked.

“It’s limited by my ‘personal strength’ and the rarity and level of the Skill itself. So far I’ve had zero issues bringing five others with me, and the Passages were way more structured than what you’ve described.”

“It would be exceedingly useful for your Legion and Claw to be able to move across your Territories so swiftly. Nine Exemplars…a heady power.” Zara frowned. “I would advise only giving it to those you trust a great deal.”

“Mhm.” Felix had thought the same, and had already made a bit of a list. “I’ll be handling that shortly, in fact.”

“How are the Risi, then?” she asked.

“Fractious, apparently. The Coven of Cold Rock was there, along with a bunch of novice Risi Warriors. Thankfully I left an impression, and Kimaris went with her people to work out the terms of our new alliance.” Felix was fairly certain Naberius wanted more than just an alliance, but he’d handle that when he had the time. “But that’s for another day. Now I…well, I’m here to talk.”

Zara spread her hands, palm up. “Are we not talking now?”

“You know what I mean.” He fiddled with the hilt of his dagger, which buzzed pleasantly beneath his fingers. “I’ve been avoiding you.”

“So I have gathered.” Her ice blue eyes flashed. “Why?”

“A lot of reasons. Partly because Isla left a sour taste in my mouth, partly because Pit’s condition has taken all my attention and none of you could help.” Felix gritted his teeth and swallowed the mingled hope and anger Pit’s curse brought up in him. “And mostly because I don’t know what your people want with me.”

Zara leaned forward in her chair. “I have apologized for Isla’s behavior, Felix. I know that is not much, nor nearly enough, but I do trust that she was attempting to do what was best, given the circumstances.”

“I—” Felix wanted to rant about that, to rage against how Isla had nearly destroyed Vess’ core space in her misguided attempts—but he held back. It wouldn’t solve anything, and Vess had come to terms with her power. “I don’t know that I believe that, Zara. Isla seems to be playing a game where I don’t know the rules or the stakes. I know you Chanters want the Unbound to fight the Ruin. But I don’t know what that means! I don’t know what the Ruin is, what it can do, or how exactly I’m expected to stop a genocidal force of nature that can erase history itself!”

Books fell off the shelves around him as the force of his voice shook the air, turning the Mana around them into a tempest. Furious, he grasped that Mana with Cardinal Flame and hurled it into the fireplace, where it ignited the unblemished wood. Zara flinched.

“I want to trust you, Zara. But this order of yours…” Felix grasped at the air before letting his hands fall down to his sides. “It hides too much.”

Zara stood up. “Then in this moment, I will be as open and as honest as I can, Felix.”

“Really? No lies? No omissions?”

“I will tell you, as it was once explained to me,” she said, and her voice was sonorous. It echoes in the parlor as if it were ten times the size. “The Cantus Sodalus is the last remnant of the great Sorcerers of the Fallen Halls. Once called the Empyrean Halls, before the Ruin.”

“Wait.” Felix held up a hand. “The Empyrean Halls was a Nymean thing. You’re saying the—you’re saying your order is—”

“A relic of the Nymean Empire,” she finished. “Yes.”

“What’s the point of it?” he asked. “What’s your order’s mission statement?”

“To protect the Grand Harmony, those who can hear it…and to prepare the world for the coming of Ruin.”

A flurry of feathers and flapping wings heralded Zara’s kingfisher friend, Keru. He tore from the hall to land in a crash on the mantle. “Lady Zara! The basin is lit!”

Felix frowned as Zara’s entire body tensed. “It seems they have arrived a bit sooner than I anticipated. If you had been here sooner, or if you would have met with us—no. I should have explained all this long ago. Felix.” She licked her lips nervously. “The Cantus Sodalus wishes entry into Nagast.”

“What? From where?”

“From the Bitter Sea.”

“The one made of acid?”

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