Unbound

Vess sat cross-legged atop the edge of her core. The Temple to the Dawn Dragons spread out behind her, a vast edifice teeming with details that she had honed to perfection over the course of many months. Rising above it all was the gleaming golden Dragon, its bright wings spread wide and its eerie, uncanny gaze staring down at her back. She knew that there was no consciousness there in the statue. She had crafted it herself after the remnants of Primordial power had affected her.

The first remnants, she amended.

Over the months since then, she had come to know her core space with a new intensity that could not be denied. The mountaintops and their temple structures representing her Skills did not concern her—it was the storm below that made her pause.

In her hands, she wove small strands of golden light, turned claws, reshaped scales, and the coarse hairs of a white mane all together. The braid was loose—merely practice for the final event—but still she had managed to weave an interlocking cable as thick as her pinky finger. With a sigh, she released them all, letting the power snap back into the air around her.

A breeze blew from above, chilling her visualized flesh, even as it sparked with warm power.

Felix.

The breeze whipped itself into a gale of white-green Mana and the gleaming gold of dawn's first light. In the blink of an eye, that power snapped into place about red-gold bones and blue-white flesh. Felix formed from nothing to sit beside her. He didn't speak for a moment, simply existed at her side, staring down into the swirling clouds.

"How are you feeling?"

"Nervous," she admitted, "but confident. Those winds below aren't so terrifying now."

A roar shook the impenetrable fog—a sound that could have easily been a storm or a Dragon. Just above the cloud line, pieces of the mountain chipped away, flinging like loosed arrows into the gale.

"Not terrifying? I don't know about that," Felix admitted, "but I like your confidence."

Vess nudged him with an elbow, smiling all the while. She enjoyed that about him. He was steady as a mountain, but he let her make her own choices, her own observations, without putting words into her mouth. There was never any resentment or cajoling. Just care.

A bright roar shook the air, quite different from the tumult beneath the clouds as Yintarion landed across the chasm. His beautiful scales gleamed in the dawn's light that coated everything above the clouds and his white mane rippled majestically in the ceaseless breeze. "Together we shall weather this storm, little Dragoon."

Vess smiled. "Indeed we shall."

The Dawn Drake was another element of her core that Vess did not need to concern herself over. When first she formed her Draconic Bond with Yintarion, it was a thing of desperation. She sought to preserve his life, and quite pragmatically, needed him to save her own. Since then, they'd grown far closer than she could have imagined. Vess had come to understand the bond that Felix shared with Pit—she’d always known it was a special thing, but experiencing it firsthand was a revelation. For all the danger their closeness risked, it brought about so much more value to her life. Not simply power, but kinship. A family she had never expected from a creature she'd once been taught to hate.

Their bond was even stronger now. Yin could use Convergence, much like Pit could, to join her Spirit, allowing him to help with the weaving that was to come. According to Felix, it was the only way someone else could play a role in weaving her Pillars. As her Companion, Yintarion was her in many ways, just as she was him.

Vess took a breath, calm and smooth. "Secure your Fiendforge, Felix. We shall handle it from there."

Power spooled within her lover's chest, flaring visibly in that place as it traveled his channels, like red-gold, outlining the cracks between the dark scales that were layered atop him.

"Of course," he said, inclining his head in the exact perfect degree an emperor should. "Whatever the Lady wishes."

She smiled, and Yintarion roared, and they began the work.

finally! it begins!

Atar glanced at the bird of elemental fire flapping around his dark temple. The Urge’s wings flared with white flame pinions marked by streamers of bloody red. “Don’t get too excited.”

how could i not? this is what we’ve been waiting for, atar! our foundations will be solidified, a basin within which our might will rage! The bird-like Urge laughed, opening its white beak wide. our long-awaited reign will begin! generous and unforgiving…a power born in flame—!

"Shut up," Atar moaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose. For all that it wasn't his real body, every word Flame spoke was like a dagger stabbed into his skull. "Can you just give it a rest for a moment?"

my kind does not rest. i am not the Sleepy Fire, nor am i the Quiet Urge. i am the Undying Flame—as are you, atar, though you like to deny it.

Atar clenched his jaw. Unfortunately, he couldn't argue with the idiotic Urge. They were close. Far closer than ever before thanks to a great many misadventures across the Continent—adventures that Atar would not change the outcome of, even if it had come to this.

He’s useful, Atar reminded himself, chanting it like a mantra. He’s useful. He’s burning useful.

Which, of course, was why the Urge was there at all. Unlike Vess, he had no powerful Companion sharing his Spirit—instead he had the dwindled remnants of the Highest Flame scorched into his Aspects.

Moonlight flashed above them, and Atar looked up. Felix appeared silently above the pillars white flame that represented the mage’s Skills, his very flesh forming from their crimson-touched incandescence. His substance swiftly turned dark, of course, fire solidified into glossy midnight scales that stretched over muscles sharply defined even beneath his tunic. The man cut a handsome figure, as much as that annoyed Atar.

Good looks and power. Oh to be Unbound, he groused.

"Looking good, man," Felix said and Atar started. Had the man heard his thoughts?

No that’s crazy. He’s not a god. “What do you mean?”

Felix hopped to the ground, feet light as shadow and just as silent, before walking down a row of Skill pillars. He looked like a demon, the light sinking into his scales as if it couldn’t touch him. All but his eyes. “Your visualization. It’s improved a bunch since the last time I was here.”

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Atar leaned against the burning basin at his center as the man approached. Flame squawked, flying around the room once more before alighting within his ring-shaped nest, his pale fires merging with the rotating power of Atar’s core.

"Still a few cracks," Atar lamented, lifting an arm to show them off. Chunks of his forearm were still missing, the gray skin split to reveal flesh that was nothing but chipped obsidian and charred bones. "Things have progressed, though. My robes are fully intact, and aside from one or two spots, you can't see my bones anymore."

Atar forced a smile. He never liked anyone seeing him like this, but Felix had witnessed far worse and hadn’t walked away. The mage had to remind himself, every once in a while, that the powerful weren’t all as callous as his former Master. “It could be better, but I’ll take it.”

"That’s a good attitude," Felix said with a laugh.

it is not attitude that serves us, Flame said from the center of the basin. He poked a wing at Felix. your consumption of those primordials, monstrosities, and urges is what fuels our greatest growth.

Felix tilted his head questioningly. "You aren't mad that I ate Urges?"

is the boot angry when it crushes an ant? no. it is a boot, and i am an urge.

"Huh," Felix said. "I guess I'm not surprised.”

urges do not have family or friends, Flame said. only those that serve them, or those they choose to serve.

"Serve?" Atar scoffed. "Since when?”

there has never been a bonding of urge and mortal such as this. we are unique, mage. we are equal.

Atar pursed his lips. Flame rarely lied—even at his most…pontifically robust, the Urge was simply grating. Both of them were equally present in Atar’s Body ever since they pulled themselves back from the brink of death.

"Anyway, things are going well, and I wish to retain that status quo. Felix. I assume you need to see the Sepulchre?"

If Felix had any questions, he didn't express them. He merely folded his hands before him. "I do.”

Atar gestured, and the obsidian around them was inundated with sigaldry. White flame filled the recesses of near-invisible inscriptions across the dark floor behind his core. The inscriptions flared outward, illuminating a complex array that Atar had painstakingly devised before perfectly visualizing into his dark Temple. He was quite proud of them. Every single bit was a practical application of true sigaldry. While a core space could represent many things, including the outright fantastical, he had no desire to design sigaldry that wasn’t true to reality. Much like his lover, he sought a deeper truth of the world and wanted to reflect it within his center. Where Alister followed the workings of mechanics, Atar was a Glyphmaster.

Stone ground against stone as a door split open at the array’s very center. “Come this way,” he said, before proceeding into the flame-lit recess. Felix followed.

Down a spiraling path cut into the heart of his Temple, Atar and Felix descended below the nest and core around the edges of a diamond-shaped shaft. Felix looked around in interest, but Atar was more interested in ordering his thoughts. He knew what the man was seeing anyway, he could envision the space in his sleep—and often did, of late. The basin of the nest above stuck down through the roof of the shaft, the obsidian pieces of it spiraling down into a point that extended to the very bottom. There, another wide stone basin spread out, filling a good deal of the massive chamber like a fountain in a luxury park. Glyphs and sigaldry covered the walls, lighting up with white flame that illuminated the glossy obsidian around them. Flame flew after them, descending in sweeping spirals as they reached the bottom.

Felix looked around, his eyes taking in everything. "This reminds me of the Temple of the All-Burning Flame," he said. "Is that on purpose?"

Atar nodded. "It was a horrible moment in my life, but it was where our bond, however reluctant, was formed." He reached out and put his hand on the wide basin. It was a smaller yet exacting replica of the basin in which the Highest Flame once burned. The difference, of course, was the obsidian spiral extending from the ceiling. And, of course, that it was empty of all light.

this has meaning to us both, Flame said, before landing on the edge of the basin, near to where a number of inscription styluses were laid out.

Atar ran his hands across the basin and made note to devisualize those tools. They were a mental shortcut that he no longer needed. "To ignore that its role in our lives didn't sit right with either of us. So I incorporated it in the overall design."

Flame hummed in clear agreement, and Atar spotted Felix glancing between the two of them, his Spirit veiled and his expression unreadable.

"Anyway," Atar said, coughing slightly, "this is a nest, similar to the basin above where my core burns.”

“I thought he was your core,” Felix said, pointing at the Urge.

i am. i am also myself.

“Makes perfect sense.”

“Ahem. This is where the stolen heat and flame go after it's consumed, but before my Urge can incorporate it all." Atar pointed at the basin’s center. “We’ve been storing it there, and it’ll be released when we weave.”

Flame flew back up, spiraling tightly around the obsidian construct that extended from the ceiling. His voice echoed throughout the glossy, burning chamber. this is a funnel through which our power is channeled from above, but also where it can be sent back up if needed.

Felix nodded along. "The Pillars will be formed in this room, then?"

the sepulchre, Flame corrected, flying back down.

"Right," Felix said. "Where, though?"

"Along here," Atar gestured around the circumference of the room. Their sigaldry lit up as his attention shifted to them, scrawled over every inch of the flooring. But where he pointed, the nine spots were blank, as if awaiting something. Felix walked closer, inspecting their circumference.

"You're going to inscribe them into place?”

"It was my idea. But—" Atar hesitated, his confidence wavering. "I cannot figure how we are to weave our Pillars from this.”

“That’s up to you. You said you read the notebook.”

“I did.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Atar licked his lips. “I have…doubts.”

He hated admitting that aloud to anyone, let alone Felix. Yet when Atar mustered the courage to look at the man, Felix was leaning over the empty Pillar ports.

Ignoring him.

“Felix,” Atar said, anger swiftly replacing his discomfort. “I said—”

“I heard you.” Felix stood up. “You have doubts. I don’t.”

Atar blinked.

“This sigaldry makes sense—the elemental fire comes up here, right? And then you’ll be weaving the condensed strands together?”

“...that’s the idea, yes.”

Felix spread his hands. “Then what’s the problem?”

“I’m not sure I can do it, okay?” Atar admitted. “The complexities of what your notebook suggested were almost incomprehensible. Only by filtering it through my understanding of sigaldry did I come close to being able to grasp it, and even then, only just!”

Felix sighed before walking back toward Atar. “Barely understanding it is a thousand times better than I had it. When I wove my Pillars I hadn’t a clue what I was doing, and neither did Pit. We just trusted our gut and danced to the music.” He grabbed Atar by the shoulders—not hard, but firmly. “Stop whining.”

Atar’s eyes widened. “You absolute—!”

“That’s better.” Felix grinned. “Use that anger.”

Flame perked up, flapping his wings. you know of the burning? the rage?

“I know that sometimes I need something to eliminate distractions,” Felix said. “I know that anger can focus me as much as calm at times. You’re the same way, Atar. From everything you’ve told me, you’ve had a rough life. From the desert to the Grandmaster of Fire to Haarwatch, it’s all been rough trails and uphill battles. If you aren’t sure of the path ahead, then there’s only one thing to do.”

Felix picked up the stylus from the workstation and handed it to the mage. “Blaze a new one.”

Atar took the stylus in numb hands, staring around his Sepulchre. “What if it’s a bad one?”

"Good and bad doesn’t really play here. Only if it makes sense to you and Flame."

Atar and the Urge shared a look.

Felix noticed. "Look, walk me through the sigaldry, step by step. If there’s anything glaring, I’ll help however I can. Sound good?”

The burning bird hopped excitedly on its metal perch. the eyes of the emperor on things would be…a boon.

“My sigaldry is perfect.”

Felix grinned. “I expect nothing less.”

Atar exhaled sharply through his nose and nodded. “Follow me.”