Victor of Tucson

Lam spied a group of soldiers standing around a camp stove, warm mugs steaming in their hands, and, feeling a little cozy in her heart from Edeya’s parting hug, thought she’d stop by to have a sip with the troops. Grinning, she walked that way and already had her favorite mug in hand when she stepped up. “Something good in the kettle?”

“Tribune!” the first to notice her sputtered, trying to salute while still holding a hot drink.

“Relax! At ease, everyone. It’s a chilly night, and the warm drink looked appealing. We’ve a big day tomorrow, so I thought I’d have a drink before sleep. Do you mind?”

“Of course, Tribune.” A young Ardeni woman bent to pick up the steaming kettle and poured it into Lam’s mug. She had interesting tattoos on the back of her hand and wrist, visible because she’d rolled up the sleeves of her uniform.

Lam smiled, blowing on the warm liquid to cool it, catching a whiff of hot cider and something spicy. “What’s the significance of that tattoo, the one with the broken wall?”

“Oh, that’s one our unit got after the Ridonne attacked our encampment!” A different soldier said, this one a burly Shadeni man. He pulled aside his unbuttoned uniform shirt to display the same tattoo on his chest.

“Ah, I’ve quite a few commemorating battles, myself.” Lam took a sip of the cider, enjoying the sweet and spicy mix. “Carry on! What were you all talking about?”

Another man chuckled, a wiry, bald-headed Ardeni with a long, jagged scar running the length of his forehead. “Well, it’s a little embarrassing, ma’am, but they were all teasing me about how one of the new recruits beat me to a pulp with a quarterstaff this afternoon.”

“New recruits?” Lam raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, aye, I’ve heard good things about them, watched ‘em drilling with you all. Seems they’re fitting in nicely.” Her words opened the floodgates as the unit started sharing their experiences working with the humans from Dark Ember, and Lam listened with a smile, enjoying her stolen camaraderie. She was about half done with her cider when a shiver ran up her spine, so sharp and cold that she almost dropped her mug. She turned to look behind her, sure some shadowy nightmare had come for her, but saw nothing except an empty path and, a couple of dozen paces down it, Edeya’s dark tent.

“Ancestors! Did you feel that chill? I hope a storm’s not coming,” the young woman with the tattooed wrist said. Lam didn’t turn to respond; she was still staring at Edeya’s tent. Something about the shadows and mist clinging to the ground nearby bothered her. The fool girl should have a lamp burning—all the soldiers had been admonished to sleep with a flame nearby while this close to Hector’s territory. She tilted her mug, draining the rest of her cider onto the ground, and then sent it into her storage ring.

“Thanks, soldiers,” she said, still facing away. They all hurried to wish her a good night and thank her for her company, but the words fell on deaf ears; Lam was focusing on Edeya’s tent, a dark feeling gripping her heart. Was she seeing things? Was she jumping at shadows? Perhaps, but Edeya wouldn’t mind her poking her head in to check on her. As she approached the tent, the chill in the air seemed to intensify, and Lam felt an irrational panic, a fear that something terrible was happening. She looked to the sky and glanced at the mountainside cloaked in darkness, but nothing save the chill in the air supported her mounting dread.

Nevertheless, almost unbidden, her heavy hammer appeared in her hands, and she began to pull Energy out of her Core into her pathways. Her wings shed more motes, sparkling in the dark, banishing the fog that tried to cling to her ankles as she drew near the tent. Her breath plumed in the air, and realizing that, she knew her perception of the chill wasn’t in her head. Lam heard something, then, a dark, sibilant whisper that lifted the fine hairs on the back of her neck. With doubt driven from her mind, she leaped the last few feet to the tent and yanked the flap to the side. “Damned roots!” she cried when she took in the scene.

Edeya hung in the air, gripped by thick ropes of sickly mist. Her eyes were white, the color drained from her irises, her face ashen, her mouth agape as a horrible rattling breath choked out through the constricting tendrils. Lam was so shocked by the sight of her distress that she almost missed the horror that hunched in the darkness at the back of the tent. A slender figure with ropes of shadowy hair falling around a pale face with blood-red eyes. As her eyes adjusted and her shimmering wings pushed back some of the darkness, Lam took in the creature and found that she was a woman. She stood in the darkness, pale breasts wreathed in that dark hair, fingers tipped in long, black claws like knives, fangs dripping blood on her chin as she grinned wickedly and ran her tongue over her lower lip.

Lam’s fear fled from her as fury boiled in her heart. She screamed in outraged anger and sent a torrent of Energy into her hammer. Lifting it high, she brought it down, smashing the shadows with the weapon’s projection—a golden maul the size of a draft roladii that crashed into the ground, ripping the mist to shreds. The hammer’s impact rolled through the tent with a shockwave that upended furniture and sent rugs, splintered wood, and Edeya’s many little treasures flying. The explosive Energy of the spell disrupted whatever held Edeya aloft, and she fell, flopping to the ground, utterly still.

The darkness-clad woman stood tall and cackled as Lam’s shockwave rolled harmlessly over her feet, past her long naked legs, and tore through the back of the tent. Lam was already furious, but the laughter drove her to further madness. Her wings hummed as they sent her flying forward, hammer high, a deathblow aimed at the woman’s smiling face. She hurtled through the air, closing the distance to the center of the tent in a fraction of a second, but there her momentum halted; those thick mists that had held Edeya wrapped around her, stopping her like a butterfly in a net.

“Fool,” a hissing whisper said into her ear, and then Lam realized her error; the tall naked woman wasn’t alone. The prisoner, Victoria, was in the mist—no, she was the mist.

#

Victor slumped to the ground, dropping his axe, but not before he desperately tried to sever his connection to the Spirit Plane. Just as he’d held Victoria there, however, something held him. Was it the veil star? The smaller, pulsing echoes of it? Was it Hector flexing his will upon a weakened opponent? Victor couldn’t tell, and that knowledge deepened his despair. A sensation unlike anything he’d felt in a very long time began to seep through him, chilling him to the bone—hopelessness. Weakness and a loss of drive pervaded his being.

It happened so suddenly and with such finality that Victor was stunned by his new frailty. How long had it been since he’d felt weak? How long since he’d felt the world was closing in on him, that he was doomed and alone? The suddenness of it was the worst thing; he hadn’t had a chance to mount a defense, to rally his will, to fight back with his prodigious rage and lust for glory. Where was that lust now? Where was the anger? He was bereft, stripped bare, a hollow husk of himself. What had he thought he’d do, charging into the seat of a Death Caster’s power? What had he expected would happen when he confronted that baleful star of death-attuned Energy? Was he a god? Was he even a true hero? “No,” he spat.

Victor buried his face in his hands. What could he do? Bathed in the sickly, terrible light of the veil star, he wracked his mind, feeble as it felt, for an answer. He had trouble thinking about who he was, let alone what he could do in this predicament. He was just a stupid kid. How could he think he could face a powerful necromantic lord from a distant world? Was he a match for a being who’d gathered his power over centuries? He was in a trap, a trap he’d walked into like the idiot he was. Still, angry as he knew he should be, he had trouble stirring up the emotion. Naturally—the trap was draining his anger. Was that how it worked? Victor struggled to bring his mind back to the point he’d almost made.

“How . . . what worked?” Even his voice was weak, soft, and hoarse, a bare whisper that struggled to emerge from his lips.

Despite the frailty of his voice, an answering whisper came to him on the wind, “Child. Soak in the light of my star. Reflect on your worthlessness. As I slay those you love, remember that you are the cause. In a decade or century, perhaps I’ll pull you forth from your prison and make you a thrall, and we can reflect together on your failings.”

Something cold and wet tickled Victor’s cheek as he absorbed the words. It took his sluggish mind several seconds to realize he was crying. How strange, he thought, that he could feel such horrible despair and loss but not any anger or fear. Something tickled his mind again, and he knew he’d almost had a brilliant thought. Another wave of despair ran through him, though, pushing the idea away. What had the voice said to bring the moisture to his eyes? “Oh,” Victor moaned as he remembered the words; Hector was going to kill everyone he loved. “Valla,” he sighed, unable to muster the strength to vibrate his vocal cords.

#

“Victor!” Valla cried, leaping out of the bed. When she’d come to the room and found Victor in his meditation pose, unresponsive to her words, she’d figured he was conducting a Spirit Walk. He’d done it many times in her presence, so she knew the look of it. His face was always the same, serene and untroubled, and he never responded to words or even jostling shakes. When he’d moved against the Black keep, she’d learned all too well that he wouldn’t wake from any stimulus she could provide. Still, it didn’t worry her; his many spirit trips had dulled her to any risk involved. So, with a kiss on his forehead, she’d gotten ready for bed and climbed under the covers. That was when she’d felt the change.

The air had grown cold, and Valla had felt something almost like a vacuum or void tugging at her Core, pulling at her Energy. As she leaped out of her covers, she saw that Victor had turned ashen and wan, the color gone from his vibrant flesh. Moreover, he was the center of the chill, and the ever-present, throbbing furnace of his Core had faded. His powerful spirit-attuned Energies had fled, and their sudden absence was still pulling at her own. “Victor!” she cried again, running to him, grasping the sides of his head, jostling him, trying to get him to open his eyes.

He didn’t respond, of course, and Valla felt herself being pulled as though she could be drawn through whatever void had taken his spirit. Crying with despair and fear, she let go of him and took a step back. “Victor! Wake up!” Desperately, she looked around the room. Where were his companions, his steadfast coyotes? Where was his great bear? Where was the heat of his dominating spirit? Something terrible was happening, and she had no answers. Would a healing drought work? With flickering hope, she dug one out of her ring and rushed forward again, tipping it into his mouth. It dribbled from the corners of his lips, and she clapped her hand over them, trying to tilt his head so the precious fluid would roll down his throat.

As he reflexively swallowed, she backed up, still feeling that horrible pulling sensation. She watched and watched for two long, painful minutes, and when he didn’t move or react, she snatched up Midnight and sprinted past him, running through the house toward the front door. She didn’t know who could help her, but she had Kethelket in her mind; he was old and had seen many horrible things. Perhaps he’d know what to do. When she burst through the door into the night air, she wasn’t prepared for what she found.

Chaos reigned around her. Pale, naked creatures ran amok, hunched figures bereft of hair with long faces bearing glowing red and yellow eyes. They opened their yawning mouths filled with fangs as they leaped upon soldiers who desperately battled for their lives and the ground the ninth cohort had claimed. Shrieks, screams, and bellows filled the air. Fires burned as spells thrown by the defenders ignited enemies and tents alike. Smoke added to the sickly fog to make Valla’s eyes water as she stared, mouth agape. Her hopes of finding help for Victor were dashed as she realized the camp was being overrun.

Scowling grimly, she drew Midnight from her sheath and felt a spark of hope ignite in her chest as her blade sang her song into the darkness. Wearing nothing but her nightgown, Valla lifted her glorious sword, spread her wings, and launched herself into the air. Victor was a hero, and he’d have to look after himself for now. The Glorious Ninth was under attack, and they needed her.

Once she was aloft, the cold wind tickling her feathers, she saw the scene more clearly. Dark shadows rushed down the hillsides, pouring out of the citadel, swarming the wall with their mad leaps and frenzied battle lust. They weren’t ghouls like she’d seen before, but something worse. She focused on a clump of the creatures overwhelming the defenders at the center of the wall and called down a lightning strike, pouring a good fraction of her air-attuned Energy into it. With a crack of thunder, blue Energy exploded in the pack, sending a dozen creatures flying and giving the defenders a chance to press the attack.

Valla scanned the air and saw the orange and ochre glow of Naghelli wings all over, doing their best to aid from the air, fighting the horde of undead savages. Were they ghouls? Were they lesser vampires? Whatever they were, the Ninth was struggling, failing to hold the line at the wall, and packs of the creatures were rampaging through the camp. Valla summoned her helmet from her ring, pressed it onto her head, and, trailing the silky layers of her gown, she lifted Midnight and dove for the largest group.

#

Gradually, Victor’s mind turned back to the despair he felt, to his depression at the thought of losing Valla, Edeya, Chandri, Lam, Kethelket, Sarl, and all the soldiers he’d come to appreciate. With the study of that despair, he wondered, again, why he wasn’t afraid. Hadn’t he always feared being alone? Why wasn’t he angry? Shouldn’t he be furious at himself, at Hector? Finally, his sluggish mind held onto the thought long enough for him to make the connection. Naturally, he couldn’t feel those things when this trap was dragging his Energy from his spirit Core—his spirit Core that fed on those emotions.

After he realized that, he shook his head. Didn’t he already know that? What was the point? Why did it matter? Finally, after going over the thought ten or more times, he realized what he’d been trying to bring into his conscious thought—he could still feel despair and love, but not his attuned emotions. His glory was gone, his inspiration, his fear, his anger—all gone. Briefly, despite the dullness of his mind, he managed to contemplate forming a different Energy—justice or courage—but how could he? He needed Energy to weave, and he had none. As soon as some formed in his Core, it was gone.

Again, he fell into a wallowing well of self-loathing. He thought about his stupid mistakes, his lifetime of failing in one way or another, and he capped it all off with a reaffirming whisper, “Without my Energy, I’m nothing.” When he heard the words aloud, however, something stirred in his heart, something related to glory but different, something that had been held down by his loss of that bright, wonderful Energy but not wholly banished—his pride. “I’m not nothing,” he whispered, and then, mustering everything he had in him, he managed to make his vocal cords rumble in a faint growl. “I’m Quinametzin.”

At the words, the thing in his heart grew hotter, and then he realized it wasn’t in his heart but in his chest. His despair and the weakness he’d felt as his mighty Core was depleted had been so overwhelming that he’d forgotten his breath Core. Even so, shouldn’t he have felt it? Shouldn’t he have realized he still had Energy within him? As the heat grew, his mind became less sluggish, and Victor realized something: The trap had depleted his breath Core, too, but it couldn’t stop it from replenishing. “But how,” he breathed, and then the ball of magma in his chest flared again.

Victor closed his eyes and focused his inner eye upon his magma breath Core, and though it was dim, smoldering weakly, it burned. He exhaled and took his first, truly deep breath since he’d fallen into despair. Sure enough, hot tendrils of roiling red-orange Energy, carried by his breath, flowed into his magma Core, charging it further, brightening the furnace in his chest like a bellows in a forge. Victor took another deep breath and followed the trails of those ribbons of fiery Energy, and now that he’d identified them, he could see their long, wispy tails leading away into the magma tubes that opened beyond the ring of his veil star prison.

As the heat spread through him and the chill of his Energy-deprived titanic form faded, he found his thoughts coming more quickly and sharply. The emotions tied to his spirit Core might have faded and might be eluding him, but his breath Core held a different kind of smoldering rage, and he could feel it echoed in the mountain beneath him. The veil star prison was keeping him in, was blocking his regeneration of Energies, but it couldn’t block the furious wrath of the mountain beneath it. It was like trying to put a wine cork on a fire hydrant.

Now that he could think again, Victor put his mind to work—what could he do with his breath Core? Could he pull its Energy into his pathways and into his Spirit Core, changing it into rage-attuned Energy? What if he could? What would being enraged do for him? If he could recover enough, perhaps he could force his way out of his trap. Maybe he could battle this prison with his will. He shook his head, doubtful. He’d had a full Core when he came in and lost it so quickly that he’d never had a chance to fight. If he converted his magma-attuned Energy to rage or any other attunement, he’d just lose it again.

Could he force the magma-attuned Energy into his pathways and then use it to cast a spell? Could he berserk with it? Was that a thing? Could elemental Energy be used to alter one’s state? He’d never seen any “fire berserkers” or anything like that. He glanced at his status sheet, and doubt grew heavy in his heart. Even if he could manage the spell, it would be a shadow of his normal Iron Berserk—his magma Energy had a maximum value of five hundred, whereas his spirit Core topped twenty-one thousand.

Growling and inhaling, savoring the hot magma-attuned Energy as it entered his lungs, Victor grabbed hold of Lifedrinker and stood up. If he could do that much, could he fight back? Could he break this trap? Victor stepped toward the veil star and started gathering his breath, preparing to exhale, sending his magma Energy out with his breath. He stopped, though, noticing something different. The fog around him had thinned. When he looked past the smaller veil stars, shielding his eyes from their painful, pulsing patterns, he saw thick, hot vapors rising around the nearby magma tubes, and the deathly mist was retreating from the heat.

“Oh?” Victor looked at his feet, imagining the roiling lake of magma in the center of the mountain. He closed his eyes, and with all his might, he sucked in an enormous breath, willing his lungs to keep filling, willing the magma in the depths to come to him, to fill his Core and expand it. With an explosion of heat and warmth, he felt his Core expand and stretch, and then, like he’d broken bands strapping it tight, it surged to new heights, and more Energy came into him.

***Congratulations! You have learned a new skill: Breath Core Cultivation Drill – Basic.***

***Congratulations! Your breath Core has advanced: Base 6.***

Victor looked at his status sheet, saw his breath Core Energy had risen to six hundred, and lifted his head to the baleful, pulsing star and roared. As his voice faded, sucked into the misty air high above his head, he felt an echoing rumble from beneath his feet, and Victor began to breathe, returning to his new cultivation drill with a savage purpose. “Time to wake up, big brother.”

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