The Forsaken Hero

Liceria was built on the confluence of two great rivers, nestled on the peninsula where they met. The city’s architecture echoed Bluegate Keep in several ways. Most striking were the design of the walls and the buildings within - sturdy, thick, and embedded with countless enchantments. Graceful towers rose above the wall every hundred feet, bristling with siege weapons like ballistae and more of those formidable enchanted cannons we’d faced at Bluegate Keep. The flags fluttering above the turrets displayed the Brilliants’ emblem and the Church’s insignia, a stark reminder of their united presence.

The rivers were broad and powerful, nearly four hundred feet across on either side of the peninsula. A massive, ancient-looking bridge spanned the two rivers, the city nestled in between. The city also had a magic crystal floating above the central keep. It wasn’t as powerful as the ones we’d encountered before, bearing only seventh-circle spells, but something was unsettling about it.

Dark threads of curse magic were mixed in with the usual buffs and enchantments meant to support the soldiers. They were thin and sprawling like a spiderweb, reaching out with a delicate, insidious strength to the tens of thousands of citizens below. It cast a dark shadow over the otherwise beautiful city.

”Fascinating,” Gayron said, his eyes lingering on the tainted mana. I realized it might have been his first time witnessing such a thing, but before I could explain, he asked, ”Is this what the eyes of the Oracle always see?”

I nodded, but before I could respond, I finally saw what Korra had noticed all along—the army. Where my gaze had been drawn to the beautiful, yet twisted curse, she had seen the soldiers: a black carpet spread out over the peninsula and the shores on either side of the bridge. Soldiers and mages, veterans and recruits, Church and Kingdom. Was this where Brithlite’s army had been hiding?

”Ten...twenty...thirtythousand?” Korra asked, her mouth agape.

”This must be where that damned undead hero retreated to,” Gayron said.

”But I don’t think he had this many to begin with,” Korra replied, her brow furrowed in concentration. ”He couldn’t have had more than ten thousand.”

I shook my head, my tail twitching anxiously. The vision showed an army far larger than anything we’d encountered before. Among the countless soldiers, I could make out faint pinpricks of light—the souls of powerful mages. There were a handful of sixth-level ones and even a few at the seventh level. Fortunately, I saw no sign of Connor’s soul or other heroes. While our army was outnumbered three to one, we were vastly superior in terms of raw power.

Korra and Gayron watched the city closely, their voices a low murmur as they analyzed the scene, picking up on a thousand details that escaped my notice. They spoke of troop movements, deployments, and defensive strategies, using terms that were mostly foreign to me. Once again, I was reminded that I had no head for military tactics or combat, and a wave of gratitude washed over me for the skilled individuals I had by my side.

That’s when I looked at Korra, my eyebrow raising in surprise. She was from an ordinary, peaceful world like me. It had only been a few years, yet she knew so much about war and fighting. Her life had been different from mine, but I had the distinct feeling it hadn’t necessarily been any easier.

”Is that all?” Gayron asked, a hint of impatience in his voice, once they finally fell silent.

I shook my head and raised my staff. Immediately, our perspective blurred and shifted, transporting us into the central keep. In typical Brithlitian design, the Shard of Omniscience was housed in a massive chamber with four open entrances. These entrances led directly from the chamber to the outside complex, supposedly meant to allow unrestricted public access. At the moment, however, the reality was far from the ideal.

The gates were sealed and barred with powerful magic, the enchantments easily rivaling any sixth-circle spell. Slender silver chains snaked up and down the Shard of Omniscience, their cold metal glinting in the dim light. A familiar crystal focus—the same kind Alverin had used to enslave the Last Light Company—hovered before it, using the chains to siphon the Shard’s mana. I focused the Oracle of Eternity on the Shard itself, searching for any sign of divine presence, as there had been before. It was only Fate’s presence, obscure and mysterious as it was, that had saved me then. If the god was there again, we would have no chance at all.

Fortunately, the only presences I sensed were mortal, so I allowed myself to relax and turned to the guards. I expected more Church or Brithlitian soldiers, but the dozen or so guards were clad in dark robes instead of gleaming armor. Embroidered on their backs was a silver chain circle, the unmistakable symbol of the Circle of Chains.

”So it’s true,” I whispered, a shiver running down my spine.

Kahlen hadn’t lied, after all. But was that really a good thing? It left us indebted to the Lord of Ash, and if I’d learned anything about demons, that was never a good thing. I almost would have preferred to discover Kahlen had been sent to deceive us. I was still grappling with how much to trust him, and now the waters had been further muddied.

”How much control over this do you have?” Korra asked, breaking me from my troubled thoughts.

I shrugged, motioning with my staff and shifting our perspective to get a better look at the magical device attached to the shard. ”A lot more than I’ve ever had before, but that might not extend to visions of the future.”

”So this is happening right now? Real-time?” she asked.

”Something like that, give or take a few hours. Given how dark it is, I think this is going to happen later tonight,” I replied absently.

The device was slightly different this time, with a much greater range. The changes weren’t perfect, though, and left the Heart Curse itself weaker. The version they used in Bluegate Keep required Adaptive Resistance at the Sixth level to break, and while it was impossible to know for sure, my guess was it was an entire level weaker.

”Could you show us something else? Maybe what Grace is doing?” Korra asked.

”Why do you care about someone like her?” Gayron asked, his voice laced with a hint of suspicion. ”Aren’t the heroes your enemies as much as they are mine?”

Korra shrugged, a contemplative look on her face. ”Not all of them, at least I hope not. But Grace and I are something like friends, I guess you could say.”

”You’re certainly similar,” I muttered under my breath, a flicker of amusement crossing my face. But then again, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Korra was the only reason we’d managed to escape the last time we encountered Grace. If she hadn’t wanted to fight Korra on equal footing, she would have unleashed her deadly Wing Legion and crushed us back in Blue Rock City.

”I-I’m not sure, it doesn’t really feel right,” I confessed, my voice filled with uncertainty. ”Fate is...unreliable, and rarely shows me things that aren’t directly related to my goals or the Circle. I don’t have as much control as it seems, actually. It’s mostly just thinking of something and hoping I get a relevant scene, or something at all, even.”

”Hey, Gayron, wasn’t Luke headed up to the northern battlefields?” Korra asked, seemingly out of nowhere. ”He might be there too.”

”He is?” I asked, surprised. For some reason, my heart skipped a beat, and my tail flicked back and forth. Probably just some lingering instincts from when our souls were intertwined, I reasoned with myself.

Korra grinned, though I sensed she was trying to suppress it, and Gayron just shook his head, chuckling wryly.

”I suppose it’s possible,” he said, ”though I haven’t kept tabs on him since we last parted ways. At the very least, Evla will be there.”

I bit my lip, thinking quickly, then reluctantly nodded. ”I suppose we could try, but like I said, I’m not sure if it’s going to work.”

”That’s all it takes? Interesting,” Korra said, her grin widening. ”Let’s give it a shot, then.”

I glanced at her, brow furrowed, before nodding. I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant by that, but I didn’t waste time pondering it. I gripped my staff tighter and closed my eyes, trying to picture Grace’s face in my mind. My memories of the Storm Hero were blurry, though. I’d only seen her on a handful of occasions, and rarely in circumstances where I could genuinely get to know her. My brow creased with the effort, and I found my thoughts wandering. Before I could stop it, the vision reacted, shattering into threads of light.

”This is in the future,” I said, my voice hesitant as the vision took shape. ”Perhaps a few days or weeks from now.”

”It actually worked!” Korra exclaimed as the scene solidified. ”There’s Grace!”

A sprawling battlefield materialized before us, filled with tens of thousands of soldiers and demons locked in a brutal struggle. There, at the heart of the chaos, stood Grace, locked in a fierce duel with an unfamiliar apostle. Their battle was a spectacle of raw power, unleashing shockwaves that tossed aside anyone who ventured too close, like mere playthings in the hands of titans.

”So it’s Edrin, then,” Gayron said, nodding. ”The Apostle of Air. Not a great match for the Storm Hero, to be honest, which probably means...”

He trailed off, glancing at me. I blushed slightly, tearing my eyes away from the other apostle on the battlefield, the one I hadn’t been able to look away from since we arrived.

Luke stood atop the head of an enormous bear-like demon with a seventh-level soul, his gaze sweeping across the battlefield. His Aura of Curses swirled around him in full force as he chanted a spell, mana weaving from his soul so thick it almost obscured him entirely. Eight magic circles rotated slowly above him, filling the sky with dark, crackling tendrils of curse magic—an eighth-circle spell.