Unbound

“You Unbound; so very violent.” The skeleton let loose a long suffering sigh that was unimpeded by the lack of a jaw bone. “Very well. I suppose you have earned some forthrightness.”

Felix grunted and dropped the mandible. It hit the uneven flagstones and broke apart.

“Ahem. I am Avet, yes. God of revolution, change, and deep, abiding passions.” The skeleton inspected his non-existent fingernails. “I’ll wait for the applause.”

Stone silence met the jawless Vessel, but if that disappointed Avet he made no show of it.

“Why did you let me into your Shrine?” Felix asked. “Last I knew, I was barred from all of them.”

“Banned. I can’t imagine why.” Avet snapped his fingers. “Ah, yes. Some might consider taking a bite out of a goddess to be in poor taste.”

“It was. She tasted awful.”

The skeleton’s face twisted, one eye socket deforming until it appeared to raise an eyebrow. “I am glad you find it amusing, boy. None of the Divine view it so.”

“Fuck the gods,” Felix said with a full smile. “So you’re here to—what? Threaten me?”

“That would be pointless. I am not as foolish as my siblings. I am here to warn you. The Pathless seeks your demise. Do not trust the Unbound known as Imara, for she is his Vessel, and far better suited to power than this stack of broken bones.”

Felix’s smile turned brittle. “I’m aware.”

“Oh.” Avert scratched his cheekbone. “That took the wind from my sails. Are you aware of her true identity? She’s—”

“I’m aware,” Felix growled, and this time his smile vanished altogether. “Your warnings are out of date.”

“So it would seem.” The skeleton’s bones rattled as Avet’s power rattled through. A new jaw formed, woven of bloody red and gold Mana. Fangs instead of teeth filled the mandible, and cruel spikes jutted from his chin. “I had hoped my warning through the fire would reach you in time to escape her influence. You fought then? And survived? You grow more impressive by the moment, Nevarre.”

“Your warning?” Felix narrowed his eyes. “When?”

The skeleton looked offended. “In the Hinterlord’s ballroom. I warned you of the Vessel’s approach.”

A memory sparked in Felix’s Mind, and like a movie, replayed with crystalline fidelity.

One of the many stone braziers around them flared with fire, popping as it consumed whatever fuel it ran on. In that noise, Felix’s Affinity tangled with something else. A voice, just on the edge of hearing.

The Pathless’ Vessel Has Arrived.

It couldn’t be denied. The words had matched Avet’s grandfatherly timbre perfectly. “So you did.” Felix clenched his jaw. “Thank you.”

“A paltry thing, and ineffectual it would appear. You still had to face her.” The tip of his yellowed finger tapped against his teeth. “As a reward, then…I will tell you of my brethren, and how much they have grown to despise you.”

Felix went still. A deep part of his Mind screamed at him, warning of danger. The rest of him agreed, but he needed information.

“Vellus…she has become more unruly than ever. She has endured her punishment for far longer than the rest, and it has left its mark. You, however, affected her more than countless Ages among the bloodstorm. Your refusal, your…appetite. She has lapsed into a terrible silence that even her wife cannot pull her from—but we are gods. Lucidity returns, slowly.

“When she speaks, she raves. About you.”

Avet laughed, but it was a dry, bitter thing. “Noctis is just as simple in her rage. She hates you for what you’ve done to Vellus…though she isn’t aware of all that you’ve wrought.”

The skeleton’s eyes glowed brighter, and Felix tried not to shift his weight nervously. He had no idea what Avet knew, and wasn’t keen on giving him any more ammunition.

“Yyero, the foulest of my brethren, wishes to remove you from the board. Consider yourself blessed that his attention has not yet turned to you. He may not be the strongest of the Divine, but he is…insidious.”

There was no chance Felix was going to leave it at that. He needed intel. “What’s Yyero doing, then?”

Avet smiled, his gold and crimson fangs brutish beneath his yellowed human ones. “He doesn’t say. Not to me. But I listen. It seems he is preoccupied with the southeast. His poisons and diseases love the wet, fetid stink of the area, so that does not surprise me…but perhaps it is the two Unbound that hold a greater portion of his attention.”

Southeast. Felix’s Mind whirled through what he knew of the other Unbounds’ locations. That’s…a tropical jungle. The Kobolds.

Avet tilted his head one way and then the other. “I can almost see the cogs turning. Delightful.”

Focus, man. Don’t give anything away. “And the others?”

“Ah, well, the Twins are as inscrutable as ever. They talk on and on about Justice and Mercy, but their hands are more subtle than the Weaver herself. But even they do not like your existence. You know this; we caught you peering at us through the veils. You heard them speak on your…upsetting nature.”

Felix remembered. He’d slipped through a connection into a terrifying place just long enough to catch a glimpse. “That I am Unbound, and that I am Primordial.”

“Nymean too, don’t forget that.” Avet’s affable tone went flat. “We never will.”

The grin in his voice returned immediately. “The Pathless, coward that he is, you already know about. His plans stretch back Ages, though we’ve only been seeing them come to fruition these last few centuries. The growth of his influence has been…surprising. I have not spoken to him in a long time, but I see the shifts in the Continent. Where he leads, none but the mad should follow.”

None but the mad? “What is he up to?” Felix asked.

“I am unsure.” A twitch overcame Avet’s bones, and for a moment there was a second set of bones behind the first. These were made of obsidian and gold, and they spread outward like vast, innumerable wings. Just as they appeared, they vanished. “The Remnant and I do not get on very well.”

Remnant? “None of you seem to like him. Why?”

“Why indeed.” Avet laughed. “Ask Siva about him, if you’ve the chance. I will only say that the Coward in White is aptly named.

“Speaking of our beautiful Weaver, Siva hates you too. Perhaps more than Vellus and Noctis combined.” A kindly chuckle bubbled up through his ribs. “I must congratulate you. Few people ever touch the warp and weft of fate, let alone manipulate it. To have the balls to sever the bonds of an Oath? Not once, nor twice, but routinely?” Avet clapped his bony hands together. “I applaud you, Nevarre. Truly.”

Felix furrowed his brow. “You talk like you aren’t one of the gods yourself. You seem delighted when I spit in their eyes. What exactly is your deal?”

“My deal?” A darkness flitted over Avet’s skull. “I am the god of change. Of chaos, some might say. To see something new, something novel among the staid patterns of this world is like liquid life in my veins. So you can imagine just how much entertainment you’ve given me, Nevarre.”

His thoughts raced a mile a minute as Felix pieced together a thousand disparate pieces of information. “And you gain power from chaos. Like the Urges.”

“As I said: you’re quite smart. Yet the Divine are not Urges. No more than a Dragon is a Sharpwing Skink. Both can be deadly, both can fly, but one stands at the apex of all Creation…and the other ruts in its own stink.” Another smile, kindly as the last despite the jutting fangs. “I am what I am. Our power shapes us as much as we shape it, boy. The weight cannot be shifted. One day you will see the truth of that.”

Significance. He’s talking about significance. “Vellus was afraid of you, and I’m beginning to see why.”

“Vellus was locked away well before the rest of us, chained to her moon and the eternal bloodstorm as punishment for violating our greatest law. She might be more than half mad, but she still manages moments of wisdom.”

“What law?”

“That is not for mortals to know, and it would not help you survive what is coming, Nevarre.”

“And you want that? For me to survive?”

“Of course. As I said, you are great fun. Chaos and revolution rage across the breadth of the Continent right now, and so much of it comes back to you.”

The words of Yorun the Makewright rolled around in Felix’s memory. Images came with it, fire and blood on the streets of Neer as riots turned to all out war against the Inquisition, recalled with such perfect clarity that a shiver ran down Felix’s spine.

It was cuz of you, Lord Autarch.

“Mhm. Your choices echo in this world, Nevarre, and I find the sound of them delicious. Why would I wish to see that end?”

“Even if I oppose you?”

“Especially then. A revolution against the Divine?” A thick golden tongue ran across his teeth. “Unimaginable.”

Felix gathered his thoughts, quickly sorting through things he needed to know and things that the skeleton in front of him might deign to answer. The problem he found was the lack of pattern to Avet’s revelations. He went from close confidant to distant god all in the same sentence. He was…chaos. Felix glanced at his Vessel, only to see the skeleton cheerfully staring right back, drumming his fingers against the stone.

“Take your time. But I don’t have all morning. Few enough come to my Shrine, but it will be missed eventually. And you cannot imagine the headache I’ll get from my family.”

“Missed—?” Felix’s Perception snagged on the vines and stone around him. What he’d taken for clutter and signs of age took on new light. “Those cuts on the vines, and the sheared slabs…This wasn’t here before. You moved it.”

“Oho! I had to help, but he got there in the end,” Avet crowed, fanged jaw wagging.

“The tunnel too, then. It wasn’t here when we arrived in the cave…how?”

“Do you think you are the only being capable of shaping the elements?”

“You shaped the tunnel? Or did you simply transfer the entirety of your Shrine from one place to another?”

“I am a god. I can do anything. If I but Will it, I could alter the very flow of the Grand Harmony.”

Avet’s Vessel swelled with power, and limbs of gold and crimson flickered from its chest. Its head darkened, and the world was pulled inward, as if the Vessel was the universe’s sole focus. “You play at controlling the paltry forces around you, but I once weaved the very fabric of Creation. Shifting about a Shrine is nothing to me.”

“Even chained up?”

The sense of power faded, and Avet tilted his skull. “Ah, but who said I was chained?”

Felix hesitated. “The others—”

“Are locked away, yes. Chained to their moons, in a sense. Yes. But I ask you, Autarch Nevarre, do I have a moon?”

He glanced up, though thousands of feet of rock stood between Felix and the sky. “You’re free? Like the Pathless?”

A scowl twisted the skeleton’s face, somehow. “I hope I have demonstrated that I am nothing like the Coward. But yes, I am unmoored. I am also, unfortunately, weakened when compared against my brethren. A consequence of trusting others, I fear.”

“Trusting the other gods, you mean?” That was something Felix could use. “What—?”

“Do you trust Imara?”

A sour rage rattled around in his chest, and Felix clenched his jaw so hard it hurt. He gave no answer, just stared and knew his eyes were burning brighter than ever before.

“My point exactly. Life is complicated, and you’ve only lived a few measly decades.” A wistful sigh escaped his teeth. “Imagine how things will be when you add millennia onto that number. Imagine the choices you’ll make. I am not on anyone’s side, Nevarre. Frankly, I cannot afford to get involved, and am risking much by visiting you here.”

“So why bother? More entertainment?”

“Yes. And no. My brethren have raged against their confinement since the moment they were bound. They will do anything to be free. Already they seek out their own Vessels. As Vellus sought you, and as the Coward sought out your sister, the others will contact the Unbound. Some may have even already accepted.”

Felix’s stomach lurched at the thought. A distant memory rang out, a vibration that sped across his overheating Mind before resolving into words he’d once heard, hanging in the dark beneath Haarwatch. Vellus had spoken of the gods and their Vessels as well.

“Which ones?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” Avet looked away, and the skeleton’s face he wore shifted subtly. “We are running out of time.”

Felix couldn’t waste his moment. “What does the Ruin have to do with things?”

Avet didn’t answer at first, but his eyes burned. Literal green flames poured from the sockets. “Words are not to be trusted. I cannot tell you all that I know. To do so would violate Ouranic law.”

“Ouranic law. What is that?”

Avet grinned. “That violates the law as well. The Ruin is coming, but things are different this time. We…the lead has broken, and it cannot be mended. The Ruin seeks to do what it was born to do, but no longer will it know mercy.”

“What are you saying?”

“When the Ruin arrives, it will lay waste to everything.”

If his stomach had lurched previously, now it almost dropped out of him completely. “Everything?”

“It is a change that not even I can condone. It must be stopped, but it is…a force beyond all you’ve known. The Divine could stop it, but the gods have no desire to do so.” Avet grimaced through the skeleton. “Know this, Nevarre. The Pathless’ pawn is making moves to secure her footing in the new world. The Hierophant has one Unbound under her thumb, and more may soon fall into her grasp. Her armies are on the move. I can feel them as my influence swells, as monarchies fall and cities turn to strife. Change is here, Felix. If you wish to survive, you must get ahead of it.”

“Ahead of it? How? It’s all I can do to reach the other Unbound.”

“Move faster. Train. Advance yourself into Master Tier instead of waiting for the perfect moment,” Avet said. “You are more powerful than you realize. Stepping into Master Tier as you are would improve your odds by an order of magnitude.”

“Master Tier won’t stop the Ruin.”

Avet blinked. “No. It won’t.”

“What will?” Felix demanded. “I’m told the Unbound were brought here to fight against the Ruin, but that seems to be impossible.” He’d won against impossible odds before, even against slivers of trapped gods. “How do I fight something no one but the gods could face?”

“The answer is simple, Felix Nevarre.” That sense of power swelled again around the skeleton, and crimson shadows gathered around half-seen limbs of gold and obsidian. A crown of strife appeared above his head, and a dozen eyes of green flame snapped open in the air.

“You must become a god.”

The shadows folded in on themselves, gone before Felix could even blink. The skeleton collapsed, and its bones scattered into dust.

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