Unbound

With a final, massive blow, the ward flashed and collapsed in on itself. Tarok started forward, a hammer in his hand. Without another word, he reared back and swung, shattering the frame around the portal. The vault door and the locking mechanism that held it shut collapsed, falling inward with a grand crash.

Tarok choked up on his hammer and grinned at the men around him. "We've done it," he said. "Lieutenant Gigg, clear this dust."

His lieutenant raised his hands, and a short, sharp breeze rippled through the area, pulling the stone dust from the air down into the ground, instantly clearing their sight lines into the room beyond.

Siva’s Grace. Tarok refused to blink, for worry that what he saw would vanish like an illusion. Before them all was a long hall pockmarked by wide alcoves, each filled with serpentine statues. Dragons.

In the open mouth of each Dragon were glass-like objects easily bigger than the Dragoon Captain’s torso.

"Domain cores," Tarok said breathlessly. They were so large and numerous that he could hardly believe his eyes. Dozens of alcoves, hundreds possibly, extended down the hall where two other rooms split off to the left and right. Each contained a statue and a core. “Grown from Dragons.”

Noting the sigaldry down the statues and up onto the ceiling, he traced them all down the hall toward a central, rounded wall, where a number of complex glyphs shone dully in the dark. It was clear to him that the Domain cores were meant for generating power for the fortress. At one point, they no doubt aided in creating the hidden Nests for the mature Dragons that his people had once trusted with their lives.

Tarok walked up to the nearest Domain core. It was beautiful, a faceted gem of irregular size and a deep, shifting color. However, a large crack marred its surface, robbing it of any light it may have once held. He looked to the next alcove, and the one after that. Every single one was flawed, cracked, or entirely shattered.

"Useless," Tarok growled, throwing the pieces of a core onto the ground. They rang like bells. "Spread out. Find any that work."

His men did so without question, moving through the area with a calm, orderly efficiency that befitted a true Dragoon. Within a few minutes, his order had borne fruit. Fifteen cores were without flaw and still alight with the churn of liquid power. Glory swelled in Tarok’s breast alongside righteous satisfaction. With five Domain cores of such size, they could purchase a fleet of Manaships, and the remaining ten would power them all.

"Gather them up," Tarok instructed his men. His hands were shaking with contained glee and he gripped his weapons tight. "We will use these as our rightful bounty."

It was fitting, in his eyes, that the cursed Dragons would leave them one final gift. A gift that would rip the control of his army, and the fate of Pax’Vrell, out of the hands of the Daynes.

In the turret at the top of Fortress Fenwald, the Grim Nightshade regarded them. "I can already tell that you have bonded yourself to a mortal, Yintarian of the Cerulean Skies. Do you so desperately wish for a return of the past that you would repeat its mistakes? Did the Oathbreaker teach you nothing?"

Yin made a strangled sound somewhere in his throat. "My Dragoon was loyal until her end. Emissary of the Green Wilds or not, I will not have you besmirch her name."

"You think I speak of your mortal riders?" The small mouse laid back its ears. "I speak of the Oathbreaker, the Weaver of Lies and Thief of Fate."

A jolt of lightning cut through Vess' core, stabbing her limbs while they bloomed inside her mind. She'd heard those titles. One of them was Felix's, and the other...

"You speak of Siva," Vess asked, "the Goddess of Fortune?"

The sheer derision that poured from the Grim's expression was palpable enough to press her back on her heels. "A thief is not a queen simply because she steals a crown."

"We are not speaking of her," Yin said, attempting to redirect the conversation. "I do not slave myself to the gods, Grim. I am free now, and will not be tethered again."

"Save by this one," the mouse said, its black eyes regarding Vess.

Yin slashed his claw through the air, as if to cut off the Grim's very line of thought. "She saved my life, and I hers. She has earned our bond. We are mutual beneficiaries of it, just as I hoped you would be."

"None have sought my power in time beyond reckoning. I do not see a reason to grant it now.”

“I have aligned myself to your nature, compressed my core with the elements of the Green Wilds, and I have honed my skills. I have done all that you have requested of supplicants in the past," Yin said, and his appeasing voice dipped into a gravelly snarl. "Why have your terms changed now?"

"Ruin." The word was a thunderbolt through everyone present, and the tiny creature seemed to take up more space than its physical form allowed. Its black eyes were dark recesses into the void, empty of everything. Vess shivered. "Its arrival will change the very fabric of Creation. What can any mortal, even the mighty dragons, do in the face of it?"

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"We can fight," Beef snarled. Hollow nodded along with him.

"You can try." The Grim was small again. It blinked. "You will fail."

"We'll kick Ruin's ass and send it home crying," Beef said, gripping the haft of his hammer. "Me and Felix are Un—"

"Enough!" Yin shouted, before glaring at the Minotaur. "They are not the focus of this bargain. It is you and I, Grim."

"So it is," the creature allowed. "Yet that changes nothing. You cannot—"

"What did Siva steal?" Vess demanded quietly. Her estimation of the goddess had fallen greatly while in Felix's company. Seeing them oppose him was eye-opening and more than a little disheartening—but she was ready for whatever uncomfortable truth might come out. "I must know."

The Grim considered Vess for a long, breathless moment. She wasn't sure why she had spoken up, only that she needed to—had to—and now the spirit's regard was like staring into a storm-tossed sea.

"She stole her power. All of them did," the Grim said. And the wind whispered with its voice. Clouds drifted over the midday sun, plunging them into shadow until only the summoning circle blazed with light.

"The gods," Vess said. It wasn't a question. Her mouth was dry, but she forced the next words out. "Who did Siva take her power from?"

"Many. But Siva stole her largest portion of potency from Veridaan. She Who Was Broken," the Grim said. That chord of derision had shifted lower into a dirge, a lament. “The Supreme Primordial of Oaths.”

The Dragoons spread throughout the elongated chambers, which extended beneath the undercroft in an odd Y-shaped formation, centered around a rounded pillar covered in sigaldry. A massive foundational column made of solid, Tier IV stone. Tarok suspected the entirety of the Fortress Fenwald rested atop it. The arrays laid into the stone weren’t carved, but inlaid by some ancient practice, metal and higher Tier stone pressed into the matrices of the material until its surface was a maze of symbols. They connected to array chains on the ceiling, spreading down each of the three hallways like golden grapes on a vine and slowly pulsing with power from the fifteen Domain cores.

He had seen similar things within their own citadel, Scalebreaker Citadel, though nothing so grand as what he found in this ruined outpost. The array formations in Scalebreaker provided a great deal of power and versatility to the defenses of the citadel that acted as both the Duke’s palatial residence and the Dragoon’s Stronghold.

I should get a scribe down here to copy these inscriptions. Scalebreaker Citadel did not use Domain cores to power its features, as such things were exceedingly rare. Instead it relied upon Mana crystals, imported from places such as far-off Ahkestria. Expensive and taking many months to receive, perhaps Tarok could replicate the inscriptions from Fenwald. That alone might be enough to win back the scattered loyalties of the Dragoons…once the Hierei was dead.

Gold-blooded bastard, he nearly spat. That fool Autarch believes he can sunder Oaths, and perhaps he can, but there is only one way to break cajoled Oaths…and I will take great pleasure in piercing the Hierei’s throat with my own spear.

The inscriptions went dead as the glowing cores were removed, one by one and carried to the captain. His men walked about, plucking the least broken Domain cores from their alcoves—even they could be of use in the war effort.

“Captain, I—something feels wrong—” Lieutenant Gigg, carrying two fully alight cores, gasped as a flash of power pulsed through them all. His entire body went rigid, and he fell, hitting the stone floor so hard he—he shattered.

“What in Siva’s name?” Tarok took a step toward the dead Dragoon. “Gigg—?”

All around him, the sigaldry flashed a deep crimson and purple. Zipping flows of Mana shot across the ceiling and into the central pillar, igniting specific sigils on its way. Around him, the still-whole Domain cores flared with sympathetic light, and Tarok howled in pain.

Everyone still touching a Domain core collapsed with a groan as their power fled them, pouring into any nearby cores, even as they clattered onto the ground. Broken Domain cores flickered into fitful life, spitting sparks into the air from the top of their alcoves as if the Dragons were breathing once again.

Tarok took a pain filled step back, flaring his Perception as he tried to grasp exactly what had gone wrong. Each and every Dragoon around him had collapsed, clutching at their chests as Mana and something else seemed to be pulled from their Gates.

An ancient series of swirling glyphs formed of gaseous mana appeared on the foundational pillar. It taunted him with its meaning, but Tarok couldn’t parse it through his dimming vision. The shape changed, bolstered now by rigid, crystalline structures that traced its edges.

Somewhere distant, a terrible roar ripped through the air.

Tarok fell to his knees, his own power fleeing from his Mana Gates until his limbs felt as weak as a child’s. "What is this?"

There was no answer as he fell, and the stone around him was rent asunder.

"Supreme Primordial?" Vess asked, confusion etching his features. "I do not understand.”

“The gods were not always gods, Dragoon." The spirit considered her with its black, depthless eyes. "For whence did you think they sprang?"

All around them, the fortress shook, as if something stirred at its heart. Everyone glanced about, their faces a mask of confusion and alarm.

"A great force has stirred," Hollow said, her voice barely above a whisper. "The stone quails."

“Your people violate the laws they once held dear. The honored dead are defiled.” The Grim tilted its head, its gaze never leaving Vess. "I think the terms of this bargain have changed."

"What?" Vess flinched as a roar shook the battlements, the sound originating from outside.

"Do not let him move," Yin bellowed, his command echoing through the air.

A chitinous cage formed around the creature, just as the Grim shifted its stance. Thick bars held it in place, but with a single whipping motion, the Grim shattered it. Beef recoiled, his face contorted in pain.

"Live or die," the spirit intoned, its voice resonating with an eerie calm. Vess wasn't sure if it was the ground shaking, or if the spirit’s now naked, bloodthirsty Intent quaked the entirety of the world. "Show me your worth!"

It attacked, while outside the world fell apart.

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