Toren Daen
The Fiachran Ascender's Association was almost overwhelming. It towered over the nearby buildings, casting them in its vast shadow. Motifs of basilisks coiled around supporting columns, judging any would-be ascenders who walked the single paved path to the building.
On the side, a slim canal wove through the structure, allowing a steady flow of goods and people. Basilisk statues watched from here like gargoyles, too, keeping a watchful eye on their domain.
Hofal walked down the path lined with statues of mages without a hint of hesitation. I hurried to catch up, trying not to look like a wogart with how much I stared.
I was dressed in my best clothes. I wore a bright waistcoat with light embroidery over a plain white button-up shirt with loose, breathable sleeves. I wore my fingerless leather gloves, covering my red chain tattoo. Dark trousers and tall boots adorned my lower half, while a solid buckled belt held my saber and dagger.
I'd taken to calling my saber 'Oath' and the dagger 'Promise.' They were fitting names for weapons as refined as the deserved titles.
I fell in lockstep with Hofal as he went through the gates. The sound inside hit me like a wave, but I'd been expecting it. The ceiling was tall, with a dozen platforms for tempus warps and portals around the main hall.
As Hofal and I walked further on, I appreciated the various services this single place offered. It was like the Walmart of Ascensions: everything you needed, from training services to blacksmiths to healing rooms, could be found here.
Hofal led me to the area for ascender candidates, which was notably filled with people. I stood nearby as Hofal quickly signed me up for a striker's practical skill assessment.
The receptionist's eyes lingered on my signet ring when I handed her my metal identification card. I'd gotten that in the interim of training for this assessment. It displayed my name, birthdate, and miscellaneous information such as my home city. Stamped next to my name was the sigil of Named Blood Daen as well.
Once I was signed up, I moved toward the waiting area, receiving a few stares from the waiting candidates. They visibly sized me up, some of the boys tipping their chins up as they met my stare.
I raised a brow at one, wondering what he thought he was doing. Eventually, he began to flush, his posturing breaking under my visible skepticism. With a roll of my eyes, I sat down in a nearby seat. Hofal gingerly let himself into the chair next to me.
The posturing they do is absurd, I thought to myself. It feels pointless.
Granted, I was a twenty-something man in a seventeen-year-old's body. That young academy graduate sneering down on me looked too much like a high schooler trying to seem bigger than he really was.
"It is the way of this continent," Lady Dawn supplied. "They prance and puff out their chests like roosters, desiring their High Sovereign's praise above all."
I don't think using a bird analogy works when you say it, I thought to Lady Dawn absently. Considering you technically are one.
"It is foolish to call the phoenix race birds, " Lady Dawn almost squawked, sounding notably indignant. "It is birds that wish to mimic us, in the same way the basilisks attempt with their paltry wings."
Fair enough, I replied. Though the resemblance is uncanny… I teased, earning a huff of irritation from the bird in my head.
I was drawn out of my internal thoughts as I noticed a trio of mages walking with upturned noses and blank expressions on their faces. I might have called their expressions regal, except they fell closer to disdain. They all wore long, flowing robes of black with red lining, clearly uniformed. Thich chains were around their necks, a stylized black horn pendant sitting prominently on their chests.
Vicars of the Vritra Doctrination, I knew. They were the priests who preached the basilisk's doctrine of might and strength. Arthur was lucky to avoid these lunatics because he quickly became involved with noble circles. The vicars worked among the common person, acting as both walking spouts of propaganda and agents who reported to the High Vicar.
If the Scythes kept the nobility in line, then the Vicars watched the peasants.
One of them turned his head slightly, his attention narrowing quickly to my little spot in the waiting area. His eyes held utter disregard for me, which wasn't surprising. Many of these pseudo-priests were the self-righteous sort, and just from eye contact, I knew I didn't want anything to do with him.
When his eyes slid to Hofal, however, they hardened into something malicious. Feeling a nervous premonition, I patted my retired ascender friend on the shoulder.
"Hofal," I whispered. "We've got some vicars coming our way," I said hurriedly as they began to stride toward us in what seemed like choreographed unison.
Hofal's eyes took on a pained look as he stood, waiting for the vicars to approach. The mages around us stopped trying to posture and instead seemed to find their own conversations extremely interesting. Nobody wanted to get on the wrong side of the Doctrination.
The lead vicar stopped in front of Hofal, looking him up and down with a sneer. "It seems you still haven't found your place amidst the gravestones, Hofal the Unblooded." His voice was grating, making me feel dirty as it entered my ears. The blatant hostility still took me aback.
"Zeneth," Hofal said stiffly. "Your robes are as clean as ever," he said, clenching his fists behind his back to hide them. "You've cleaned up after your dirty work well."
Zeneth's eyes flashed. "Do you insult your betters, unblooded? We do not grovel in the dirt as those we teach. Our clothes should bear no stain to signify the purity of our purpose." He licked his lips. "And yet your clothes are dusty and worn. What does this say about your own will?"
"I have worked for what I own and have, Zeneth, unlike your brotherhood, " Hofal said through clenched teeth. It occurred to me that I had never seen the man angry before this.
"Brotherhood?" Zeneth said, testing the word on his tongue. "We are the arms of the Sovereigns themselves. You still reject the Truth?"
Hofal looked past the vicar, keeping his gaze steadily on the wall behind the vicars. "I reject no Truth. What you were doing wasn't a pathway to Truth in the slightest."
"So you admit your apostasy?" the vicar said, his voice scratching at my eardrums. "I have orders to take you in for questioning. But I should slap you in irons now and haul you to our dungeons instead. So many have told the truth there that I know you will, too."
"We knew the truth long ago," the vicar on Zeneth's right said quietly. "Need only confirm it, yes."
"I wonder how your screams will sound?" the one on the left said with a manic glint in their eyes, the only emotion on their face. They asked the question as if they truly wished to know.
That was too much for me to listen to. I stepped between the two mages as their mana began to flare, cutting their conversation short. "Excuse me, vicar," I said, my tone clipped. "But Hofal here will soon be witnessing my ascender's examination. You can chat later if you wish, but the Ascender's Association is neutral ground. "
Zeneth's eyes burned with anger as he stared at me. "And who do you think you are, mage?" he said with his scratchy voice, flaring his killing intent and raising his hand to point at me. The intent washed over me ineffectually, and I felt my enmity at this man rise as he tried to threaten me into submission.
I cracked my neck, making a visual show of resisting his intent. "Toren of Named Blood Daen," I said proudly. "Now, are you going to stop flexing your magical muscles at me in the Ascender's Association's ground?"
A few of the younger mages waiting for their ascender's assessment were giving the vicars thinly veiled glares. The older mages around us, however, wisely kept their attention focused on their projects and fellows.
The vicar flushed, his already pale skin making the blush stand out more. "You dare to interrupt official Doctrination business, Daen?"
That caught my attention. "Official how? Is bothering me and my friend what the Doctrination spends its valuable time doing?"
The vicar seemed to flounder as his usual intimidation tactics fell short. Most people caved immediately to the Doctrination's whims. "Do you think I would tell a nobody like you?" he deflected, looking me up and down. His eyes lingered greedily on the weapons at my side. "Stand aside. Ex-Initiate Hofal will be taken for questioning. If you need him so badly, find him when we're done with him."
He reached his hand out to grab my friend's shoulder.
I snatched the man's hand out of the air and slowly, methodically forced it down. Zeneth coughed as the air was forced out of his lungs by my killing intent. "You will get no captives here," I said, watching the man squirm as he tried to yank his hand free of my grasp. But with my partly assimilated body and strengthened muscles, it was an effort in futility. "And you will treat Hofal with the respect he deserves."
The other two vicars tried to react, but they were far weaker than their leader. A dual push of my telekinesis crest forced them to their knees, continuous pressure over their heads locking them in place. They cried out piteously.
A few of the guards nearby gripped their spears, moving to break up our altercation. I absently wondered if they could separate me from these vermin.
My growing anger was uncharacteristic, but that didn't matter. This man had tried to threaten my friend, tried to bully him into torture. Was it posturing? Maybe. I didn't care.
I shoved the man's hand back, then released the telekinetic pressure on the vicars behind him. "Leave us," I said with finality.
Zeneth looked at me with an expression of absolute hate. "You'll pay for this, Toren Daen!" he screeched, shuffling back.
I didn't have time to think I may have made a mistake. "Leave. Us." I said again, narrowing my eyes. "We can settle this outside these walls if you want to bleed so badly."
It was then that a powerful pressure forced me to my hands and knees, breaking the bare stalemate I'd reached. I felt my own anger drain like water through a sieve, leaving only a grasping fear as I tried to figure out what just happened. The killing intent drove the breath from my lungs, making me flounder like a fish on dry land. The air itself rejected my existence, pressing down on me from all sides like the weight of an ocean.
"Toren Daen," a voice said from above me. The tone was slippery, dripping into my ears like venom. "We were warned about you."
My panic held for a second that felt like an hour as my instincts tried to catch up to what had actually happened to my body. My limbs were locked in place by an invisible force, each a clawing knife at my throat.
Then I felt Lady Dawn bolstering my mind, pressing back against the burden that sought to overwhelm me. I took a gasping breath, sucking in air as if I had never tasted it before.
"This might be fun," the slimy voice said from above. I could feel their breath physically, the stench of putrid sewage even denser than the sewers themselves. "Can you stand, little mage?"
The arrogance in the tone brought that anger back. Now, I recognized it as a bleed-over from my bond. Lady Dawn's fury toward the Doctrination burned hot as a sun, to the point that it began to affect my own thoughts.
I grit my teeth, trusting in Lady Dawn and myself. I put a single boot on the ground.
"Come on, come on!" the greasy voice said from above me, mocking my struggle. "I know you can do it, little mage! You're so close!"
Hofal was groaning face-down on the floor beside me, unable to resist the pressure. All around me, mages stalled in their tracks as they shied away from the confrontation. I used my emblem on myself, my telekinetic shroud slowly coalescing into place.
I pushed myself to my feet at last, sweat glistening on my forehead as I glared at my assailant.
It was a man with the same black-red vicar's robes as the priests behind him. His skin was a sunken gray, with splotchy patches of greenish-yellow blithe-stain all over. One of his eyes was misty, indicating some sort of blindness. His limbs were thin and gangly, the joints seeming to bend in the wrong directions in his thick robes.
There were tatters in the ends of his black-red vicar's robe where blades had cut into them. There was no hair on his head, but that wasn't the most eye-catching feature he held. The most prominent feature was his onyx horns, stretching straight out a foot from his scalp.
"Vritra spawn," I heard Lady Dawn hiss. "An abomination against life!"
That fire helped me look the Vritra-blooded vicar in the eye. My breath was coming heavily, and the pressure hadn't relented. I shifted into a combat stance, resting both my hands on Oath and Promise.
The entire Ascender's Association had gone quiet as we faced each other, many mages shivering in the corners and hurriedly calling their superiors.
"You've been a real thorn in my side," the vicar said, not changing his stance to react to my obvious hostility. My legs burned from holding under his intent. "Wrecking my product and ruining the Doctrination's vicars? And you're barely a mage."
My hands clenched on the pommels of my weapons. I didn't think I could fight this mage, especially without my First Phase. My eyes lingered on his horns; signs of Vritra blood. "I'm afraid I don't know your name," I said through clenched teeth, taking a glance at Hofal on the floor beneath me. His breathing was starting to stall, the pressure too much. I'd have to move this quick, or he'd drown on dry land. "Do you want to fight me?"
"What nobody seems to realize, Daen, is that the greatest power comes from pain," the Vritra-blooded mage said, ignoring my question as he leaned forward and drew a few fingers down his blithe-mottled face. "Do you know what you did, destroying the Joans? You made me feel pain, little mage."
My mind automatically flashed back to the ominous words of the mages trailing me not long ago. Blood Joan had powerful backers. You are not as safe as you believe.
"I'll give you more pain if you keep threatening my friend," I said, fighting to keep on my feet. Inside my head, Lady Dawn burned. Maybe, with her help…
The Vritra-blooded mage's eyes snapped to the ailing Hofal. "Oh, that thing? How much air do you think he has left? The average mage can survive without their breath for a minute straight." The vicar licked his lips almost sensuously. "I know this well."
I drew my weapons slowly, my mana coating them in power. My enemy's eyes trailed over the red-layered steel, standing straight as I leveled them in his direction. He looked surprised to see it. Not afraid, exactly, just taken aback. He seemed to reach some sort of conclusion as he drew his eyes over the weapons.
The mage turned around, his horns glinting in the light. "My name is Mardeth, little mage. Keep that in mind."
The three vicars hastily fell in behind Mardeth as he strolled out, shooting venomous glares back at me. Where the other priests had seemed to float over the ground, Mardeth lurched unnaturally with each step, his twisted limbs making his walk ungainly.
The pressure relented over me as the mage left. I sheathed my weapons, kneeling down to check on Hofal. He was barely conscious. I shook him gently as nervous murmuring grew around us, people finally able to breathe.
Lady Dawn snarled as the mage left. I could now tell that much of the anger I'd felt toward the vicars was drawn from the phoenix. Not all of it, of course, but it spurned my actions forward in a way I didn't expect. She hated them deeply.
Personally.
But there wasn't time to worry about that. Hofal groggily came to, his bushy eyebrows squinting in confusion.
"You almost passed out from the pressure," I said. "He's gone for now, though. Come on, can you stand?"
Hofal gingerly let me help him to his feet. He probably weighed twice as much as I did, but he felt limp in my arms as I hefted him up. "Who were those vicars?" I asked, feeling drained from the encounter.
Hofal slumped into his chair. Both he and I were on the receiving end of a dozen stares from around the room. The boy who had tried to posture to me earlier nodded in respect as we met eyes.
"I used to be an initiate in the Doctrination," Hofal said, staring at the ceiling. He looked empty, his usual reaffirming air drained away. "But those vicars shouldn't be in Sehz-Clar. They're based out of Etril. I thought they wouldn't find me here…" he trailed off.
I registered what my shield friend said, but I remembered how that mage–Mardeth–said I caused him pain by destroying the Joans. And his blithe-scarred face…
"I'm sorry, Hof," I said, grasping for something to say. "Do you need to cancel this? If you need time to recover, I can wait a few days to take the assessment."
"No, no, I'm good," the big shield said. He pawed at his jacket, retrieving his pipe.
"I don't think the Ascender's Association allows smoking indoors," I said with a bit of humor.
"They don't," Hofal agreed. "But right now, I don't care."
Mardeth had only backed off from our confrontation when he saw my blades. I didn't have the feeling he was afraid of them; not in the slightest. It was more like they were an unexpected variable in dealing with me.
I would have to send a thank-you note to Renea Shorn, even if Oath and Promise had tracking spells in them initially. I had a feeling our fight with those who peddled blithe was far from over.
Are you okay? I asked Lady Dawn. Her anger had simmered off like vapor leaving boiling water, but it still clung to her thoughts.
"I am well, Contractor," Lady Dawn lied. "I will not let my emotions influence you again. That was unacceptable of me."
It was an uncomfortable sensation, but I wasn't outright angry at the phoenix. You weren't trying to do it on purpose, I acknowledged, looking at the ceiling. There was a mosaic of an ascension portal on it, a dozen familiar runes matching those on Blood Daen's sigils.
"That does not excuse my error," Lady Dawn replied. "I wronged you, Contractor."
I huffed. Then you'll have to go light on me in training next time to make up for it, I said, hoping to reach a compromise. The phoenix really, really hated influencing minds.
I felt a note of hesitation over our bond.
I'm joking with you, I said to the asura, feeling tired. I hadn't even taken my assessment yet. I'm not hurt by what you did. It's not permanent, and I'll learn from it.
The phoenix didn't seem to be convinced, but before I could pester her more, I heard a voice over the loudspeaker. "Toren Daen, Ascender's Candidate! Report to Booth 3!"