The Forsaken Hero

I sat on the edge of the bed, blood trickling down my back, soaking the rags of my dress. The once-delicate white silk now resembled the red ribbon sash at my waist. Darker brown hues marred the crimson, the fabric crusty with drying blood.

It was gruesome, yet... vibrant. Such a rich, visceral color. It had taken me some time after awakening from my vision to even realize my eyes had regained some strength. Now, though, I couldn’t close them. The shabby ruins of the room were truly beautiful. The broken glass, battered furniture, and grains of the hardwood floor...they had sharp, defined edges. Actual edges.

Distant objects remained slightly blurred, but it was nothing compared to the shadowy hell I’d stumbled through, wandering blindly through the streets, unaware if anyone had seen me or was closing in. If I had to wake up to that same, senseless world...

My senses had returned, but my options were still bleak. Without mana, I was utterly helpless. Any soldier, even the greenest first-level recruit, could overpower me. And if Luke found me, I would just be a liability, requiring all his efforts to care for me.

The last time I’d felt this helpless was when my master, Lord Byron, bound my soul and tortured me. Only Fate’s intervention had allowed me to escape to Heartland, where kind strangers nursed me back to health. But here? The only people in this city were the kind who had sold me to the Circle.

So...wouldn’t it be better if I continued to stay here? Luke and Jessia were causing the Empire problems, and if they called their armies, they should be able to break through. There were the skyships, of course, but Borealis had proved their defenses were far weaker than their attack power. Now that they were exposed, it wouldn’t be too difficult for the demons to compose countermeasures.

I hugged my legs to my chest, rocking back and forth. Something felt wrong, a piece missing from the puzzle. R’lissea wasn’t in immediate danger, Fable was still out there, and I was...I was...trying to hide.

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I sniffled. I hadn’t come here to hide. I had promised Luke I would help him destroy the church and free this world from their shadow. Hiding now, while everyone else fought...what was the point of it all? Wouldn’t that prove Soltair right? That I was a burden and incapable of contributing anything meaningful to a cause that mattered. That was why Aurle had died.

I was helpless then, and I was helpless now. Nothing had changed.

My feet slipped off the edge of the bed and struck the floor, sending a spike of pain up my legs. I bit my lip, holding back a whimper, and squeezed the sheets until my knuckles turned white.

I didn’t need to do anything. Staying hidden was the sensible choice. The soldiers had already passed by this place and were unlikely to double back soon. Fable would find me eventually, and we could escape the crystal enchantment, recover my mana, and heal.

And after that, I would...I would be the exact same. I would never become more than I was.

I sat forward, resting my hands on my knees. Even if that was true, I could do nothing about it. When Korra lost her mana, she picked up a new fighting style. But for me? I couldn’t even hold a sword, much less try and use one.

As I thought about the problem, and the information I learned in my vision, something Nithalee said struck me. Why had the God of Magic complimented my Aegis?

My tail started to rustle, and I soothed it with my hand. The God of Magic was the one who had pulled me into his Divine Kingdom and inquired about the shard. He was the one allowing the church to use the shards for the Heart Crest. What would he want to see me about? And why was my magic anything special? Surely, to a being who had lived countless millennia and knew enough about magic to be its god, anything a mortal could do would be pathetic. So what made mine different?

I lifted my hand, staring at my bloodstained palm, and envisioned the Aegis spell. I’d spent countless hours perfecting it until I could cast it as naturally as breathing. Even without castin git, I could practically see the runes appearing, and the soft, golden glow of the aura. But what made it unique? Why would a god bother to notice it?

I ran through the spell several more times before it finally occurred to me. Protective magic worked by absorbing force and distributing it evenly amongst the spell. That gathered power continued to build as it was attacked, until it overwhelmed the integrity of the runes and was released into the air. This lingering power caused the disruptive field that crippled most mages after their wards fell.

My wards were modified to expel this energy over a greater area, negating the discordant field. I had further strengthened my protective magic by incorporating aspects of the Canyon Crawler’s unique ability to it. Was that what the god meant? I found it difficult to believe no one had ever incorporated abilities in spells before. In fact, I found it more likely that most spells began as abilities, and magic was a means so that anyone could replicate their effect.

But in that case, was he trying to give me some kind of hint? But why would he try and help me? It was his follower’s fault that I was in this predicament in the first place!

He’d allowed the gods to use his shard to develop the Heart Crest. Now, for whatever reason, he wished to speak to me. What was it Nithalee had said? He was waiting to see if I survived.

So that was it. A test. The crystal enchantment must be a part of it in some way. The gods knew just how weak the Sun God’s Curse left me, so perhaps he was testing how I responded when my only strength was challenged.

If that was true, my tools were very limited. I had the passive abilities of the Oracle of Eternity, Adaptive Resistance, and my knowledge of magic. But those things were all passive advantages, not something that could actually help me do anything.

My thoughts wandered back to the Aegis spell. A god would never waste words on a mortal, even more so during a test. The only thing truly special about my Aegis was the Canyon Crawlers’ abilities. Considering the only resources I had were my abilities, there had to be a link.

But what even was an ability? From the little I’d researched and learned on my own, abilities were similar to spells, except instead of being woven from mana, they were woven from fate itself. Even the simplest abilities were more complicated than a ninth-circle spell and were inextricably linked with one’s soul.

I’d never really thought much about the nature of my abilities. I knew the Oracle of Eternity better than the rest, as I could actually actively use it, but Adaptive Resistance was as much a mystery to me now as it had been when I awakened. It functioned a lot like a protection spell, but...did it?

Whenever a spell struck Adaptive Resistance, the ability would flare, and then... poof—the magic simply vanished. Unlike normal protective spells, it had no limits or damage capacity. It wasn’t absorbing the mana, so where did it all go?

I closed my eyes, searching inward for the familiar touch of Adaptive Resistance. The ability felt amorphous, a formless warmth radiating from the deepest depths of my soul. There was nothing to grasp, so I willed it upward. It resisted at first, but with a little coaxing, it rose like a star ascending from the sea. A soft, tingling warmth spread through me, filling me from my horns to the tip of my tail.

I gasped, shivering as the heat peaked. Starry light emanated from my skin, painting the world in a golden hue. I activated the Oracle of Eternity, consuming some of my precious mana, and gasped. Fate condensed around my soul, growing so thick and heavy it was actually visible to the naked eye. The threads of Fate were woven so tightly it appeared as one cohesive whole, but as I studied it closer, my tail began to tremble. Was this all from Adaptive Resistance? Not even the Oracle of Eternity was this complex, and that was a power that could pierce Fate itself!

There were millions, if not billions of threads of fate, each one made up of the equivalent of thousands of runes. The weave was most dense in the center, where I usually felt its power well up. The threads dispersed as they radiated outward, ending in loose ends rather than tied back into the whole. These dangled like strands of hair in water, dispersing outward into the depths of fate.

I pursed my lips, barely holding back a smile. ”So it’s like that.”