"I thought we had an agreement."
The deathly chill swept through the shattered streets of Acerno. It snaked through fissures and cracks and settled in the hearts of every man, woman, and child in the ruined, panicked town. At the sight of the Umber wolf, whose mane was black as night, whose eyes shone with a scathing heat, the people of Acerno knew death had come for them.
***
"Let's hear this information of yours," Germo said.
Miles from the town of Acerno, by the border of the whispering ash, beneath a copse of trees, the red hornet sat on stone stools in a circle with a low burning fire that Germo had conjured up at the center.
"In addition to what Sera must have obviously shared with you, I have two other secrets about the blood mage," Seth spoke in slow words and watched the faces of members of the team.
There was no eagerness or greed in their eyes. Even Sera remained still, listening and waiting like every other member that sat in the group. If betrayal was etched on their faces, it would make his decision easier.
Lie and bide his time to escape or be honest and hope for the best. They'd lie to him before; they'd probably do it again.
"Blood mages are weakened while they heal. While the mage healed from my light attack while I fought with my sister, I saw him falter. If the wound was deep enough, then…"
"Then he'll be too slow to defend against a follow-up attack," Ren finished.
Seth's first secret wasn't much of a secret. Any observant mage could've figured it out given enough time, but then again, learning the mage's secret was never the point. Learning about his weakness before the battle was. Fewer mistakes would be made, and it would improve their chances of winning the battle without any deaths or fatal injuries.
Even a silver of truth was rich with battle information. Information that if he parted with would make him expendable to the team again. Despite their declarations and promises, he found himself unwilling to place his trust in them.
"We aren't going to betray you, Seth. You are invaluable to this mission," Germo spoke up, sensing the young borderlander's unease. But his words only further angered Seth, feeding his distrust for the group.
"Why is that? As soon as I speak, I'm sure you'll tell Ren to cut out my throat and have Brick bury me so deep underground, it would take decades for them to find me?" After all, Germo had led the talks that led to these very problems. If they hadn't tried to cut him out, they would have been halfway to Grechit by now!
"Because you know the mage Seth, you fought him," Germo answered. "You might know more things about the mage than you realize, and that experience could save us in battle." Germo leaned into the light. His eyes glowed with honest determination. It almost made him believable. Even the noblest of men lied, what was nothing binding him to his word. It was a start, but there were no guarantees.
"We broke your trust Atreus, but you lied to use first, remember that," Tula spoke up, drawing everyone's attention at her soft words. She slowly climbed to her feet. "But I understand you can't trust us. We are all-powerful mages, and you find yourself at the start of a new path, alone and afraid. So let me offer you an equally important secret that will bridge that trust." She loosened her traveling cloak, and it draped to her feet.
Germo reached to stop her, but a wave of pulsing light pushed him back. Her tattoos shone, and every member of the team forced their eyes shut and looked away, everyone except Seth. Without prompt, mana rose from his blood core, and life sense flickered on. The world faded to grey, and then he saw it. The mana particles in the air swirled around her, shielding her. Scarlet particles, whites, greys, blacks, and dozens of other shade of mana, so obscure he couldn't fathom.
They looped around her several times before converging and then condensing into an outline of a mother in full embrace. Tula stood at the center. His vision shifted back, and he trembled as he spoke, "You are a blessed?"
The meeting venue changed after that. Seth distrust faded along with the light of Tula rainbow celestial cloak. A single word to the right person and she'd be whisked away by Iron guards and Emperor's lord enforcers. She was touched by a goddess, her cloak of mana was proof of it and the Emperor made a point of gathering those with dormant celestial might for the war effort.
Blessed ones were mysteriously powerful. Some of them held dual elements. Others were born with inscrutable knowledge of lost magics. They were enigmas. Devastatingly powerful Enigmas. If Tula were a combat mage, he would have run, but looking at her dainty frame. Her slight, yet determined eyes, he felt no crushing urge to flee. Perhaps she was the exception to the rule.
Her offer to trade secrets by no means fair, and it was enough to push Seth to set aside his fears and trust the team. He was certain he wouldn't be safer with any of the other teams he'd align himself with if he left anyways.
Besides, he already told them the second secret, might as well tell the third. The team traveled in silence, past the trees and thicket at the edges of the forest. When they emerged on Emperor's road, a repeating hexagonal path of white stone stretching the distance of the entire Empire, he listed the third and final secret.
"They can draw and freely manipulate the blood of the fallen from any part of the battlefield." He announced to the traveling team. After using that strange spell in the forest, he deduced that blood mages could do the same at greater distances. While he explained to them, he swapped out himself for the blood mage and the body for one of his slaughtered teammates.
"How fast are the spells?" Germo asked, with a hint of worry in his voice.
"Faster than my eyes could follow. If he's surrounded by corpses when we arrive, then…"
"Then nothing," Ren interjected. "Worrying won't do us much good now. The slaughter has probably already begun. The only way we'll beat that mage is with a carefully thought out plan utilizing the information we have acquired."
Germo and Ren plotted scrapped plan after plan and strategized as the team traveled. They looked to be lost in reverie, and Seth, sensing he would only hinder them, drifted to the back of the group where Sera and Tula walked.
"When you returned with the team, I thought you'd betrayed me," Seth said. "I never imagined that you'd stick out for me like that." He turned to her, "Why did you."
She raised an eyebrow, "because I promised to help you. I thought that was clear from the very beginning."
Seth was flushed with embarrassment, "But you said… I thought you agreed to help me because of the reward."
Sera chuckled. "That was partly why." She turned to him with a smirk, "in the end, it was your tears that convinced me."
"What tears?" he smiled back. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Deny it all you want. But you should know that real men admit their weakness, isn't that right."
Tula giggled and nodded, "I've caught Germo cry a few times myself. Don't tell him I said that," she said with a laughing whisper. Three of them chirped on as they walked, and both women made several jokes, most of which were at Seth's expense. The conversation later diverted to stories about confronting mages and creatures who used lost magics.
Sera recounted stories of her various run-in with mages who practiced lost magics or 'deviant mages.' Much to Seth's surprise, they were interesting as they were unusual, and some of them seemed downright fantastical- a battle with a necromancer named Baldur, a mage that purely fought with attributeless magic.
They sounded like the highlights of an Equesian epic- a fictional series he fancied as a child. Seth scoffed as he listened to the tales of her mastery and power unwind and gathered counter-arguments and logic faults, waiting for his chance to lash out. But before he could strike, she left.
Sera hurried her pace to match Brick's, who called for her just as her story drew to a close.
"She's not lying, Atreus," Tula said, as they watched Sera jog ahead.
"I find it hard to believe that Sera, Pigtailed Sera, felled a Ten –foot fire breathing bear," he huffed.
"She embellished, but just by a bit. The bear was 9-foot, not ten. Germo measured after the beast fell."
Upon hearing her words, he deflated. "9-foot bear? Huh. I don't think I have never killed something that large. Even before I lost my magic, she was miles ahead of me. Now..." His eyes sunk. "I don't know if I'll ever catch up."
"Don't be so dramatic," she whipped. Her words took him by surprise. Before he could counter, she continued.
"Don't take me for a fool Atreus. Everybody else around you might not sense it, but I treated you. I know that mana still surges within you."
"What…" She knew. How long has she known? Then why didn't she-
"Why didn't I tell everyone that you had a hidden conduit?" Her voice was barely a whisper. The team walked ahead, with balls of fire hovering beside each member, all except the two members that now trailed behind.
"I said nothing because I know what it's like to shelter your secrets from the world Atreus, my birth mother had to flee Chiawandea. She feared what the nations of the continent would do if they saw my tattoos." She tucked her exposed forearm deeper into her traveling cloak. "It wasn't until I found Mother that life became more bearable. Being a blessed one can be a curse."
"I am sorry." All he could do was apologize. He knew very little of the pain she grew up with, but he feared in the days to come to understand it.
"Don't despair, Atreus. You won't suffer as much as I did," she said when she noticed she saw the sadness in his eyes. "Your lost magic, it is the element of darkness, is it not?"
Seth's eyes looked in the direction of the team ahead. He grabbed her wrist, halting their advance, "how did you know?"
She yanked her wrist free of his grip with surprising ease and resumed their walk, "We blessed ones are entrusted with power from a deity. Along with that power comes a magic sense that reveals most things to us. Though mine has not been properly trained, I recognize elemental magic when I see it."
She saw that Seth still lingered behind, and she spoke, "don't worry, I won't report you. I cannot remember Atreus," she smiled. Seth didn't respond, so she continued. "Anyways, darkness magic is delightfully strange in that it's almost impossible to sense when the caster is submerged in complete darkness. Even in the light, you will only sense its presence if you can see it, you have great senses, or the user transmits his intentions towards you with aura."
"So, what you're saying is I can use darkness magic this very instant, and the team won't notice." At her words, he found most of his fear and distrust fading.
She nodded, "Try it."
Seth looked to her with a worried look, but with further reassurance, he finally roused his darkness mana and let it spill out of his fingers. It writhed and danced in his hand, and Tula nodded with approval.
It was as she said. No one in the team stopped or looked back.
"Practice with it," she said, observing uneven edges of energy pulsing on the tip of his fingers. "Even without spellbook, you can improve your mastery by running basic manipulation spells."
"Thank you. I'll do that," he said. Her advice opened up a new world of possibilities. Since he departed Brightmont, he'd hoped from one disaster to the next. He thought of discarding his plan or at least modifying it to suit the current problem he was faced with. But now, as he stood, black miasma in hand, he truly believed his plan would succeed.
He looked to Tula once more, and with a genuine smile, he thanked her. She, in turn, thanked him. With the merit points they would gain from successfully capturing the mage, she would have enough to leave the Iphican continent behind. There were four more continents she could visit, and she was eager to travel the world and gather knowledge.
After exchanging a few more words, Tula increased her pace and left Seth to train. Though she had questions about why his darkness element was so untrained, she chose not to pry further. She, too, had her secrets. Secrets that she kept from Germo, her lover, or the rest of the team.
If Mother didn't ask her to keep the boy close, she would have kept Atreus at arm's length. She massaged her bruised wrist. He had something darker at the edge of his consciousness. A pair of hungry eyes that threatened to swallow her whole. There were some secrets that she was better of not knowing.