The Forsaken Hero

A small, fractured chime pierced the chaos and roar of battle, and I turned to the Aetherial Prism. The crystal core had fragmented, crackling with electric arcs of raging mana. I ran to it and pressed my palm to its warmth, only to find it scorching hot. I hissed, gritting my teeth, and began to wrestle my spell back from its depths.

My soul groaned in protest as the ninth-level spell settled back on my shoulders. I doubled over, suddenly out of breath, the wounds of the blades I’d just suffered flaring up. The spell’s flow had ruptured and was now at odds with the natural cycle of my soul. It took two long, painful minutes to bring it back into harmony and begin casting again.

And throughout that time, Arantius fought for me. His sword was constant, his step unwavering. No matter how Fate tried to push past him, he remained unmoved. The god’s perfect control over mana, his devastating spells and arts, didn’t even sway him.

I lost track of the battle, of everything, when I began the eighth-circle. The array was growing increasingly complex, forcing me to maintain tens of thousands of minute connections between the various circles. A single slip-up could be as small as making an easily replaceable rune disappear, or as calamitous as causing the entire spell to unravel.

The worst part was that I had no idea what would cause what. Normally, a mage would spend years studying their chosen spell, crafting it into a signature piece they alone were master of. Selena’s Arboreal World had been fashioned specifically for her forest, accounting for every hill, mountain, and grove. It gave her power and focused her mana, allowing her eighth-level soul to handle the burden of casting a ninth-level spell.

I had nothing. I had planned to cast it with Haven’s full support, but I couldn’t even be in the realm. Emlica must have foreseen this, which explained why she’d pushed me so hard to master my casting techniques. But even those countless hours of study and review couldn’t have prepared me for this spell’s horrors. Every moment felt like my last. The forces I brought to bear were magnitudes stronger than anything I’d wielded before.

I finally understood just how tremendous the Starfall’s power was: to level an entire city in an instant, and forge a sanctuary that held out against entire armies for years. The only thing that made this possible at all was the elemental’s teachings. Entwining the spell within my aura allowed me to draw on the divinity itself, acting as a stabilizing power as strong as the Ring of Sorcery and Aetherial Prism combined.

Ninth. The first rune appeared on the ninth circle, binding it to the eighth. I had no time to celebrate, for my soul screamed in protest. Every rune sent a fiery tingle through it, causing my tail to curl in pain.

Beyond, the battle was raging closer. More of the church’s skyships had been mobilized against us, forcing the Astral Fleet to retreat to the relative safety of the market. Their air-to-surface cannons lit up the city, erasing buildings and cratering the streets. Below, the Fatesworn had established a perimeter and now fought desperately to hold it. Inquisitors, church soldiers, and Heart-Cursed townsfolk besieged us on every front, slowly pushing us back. High Inquisitors kept invading deep inside, striking directly at me, though the Star Guard managed to hold them at bay for now.

The only thing that seemed to be going well was that my friends had kept the handful of arbiters and eighth-level beings from getting too close. The shockwaves of their battle shook the city, causing hundreds of casualties among the cursed and low-level soldiers.

Everywhere I looked, there was blood, death, and horror. Enusia groaned beneath its weight, the darkness and pain bleeding into my aura. I let it, drawing the feelings close, breathing them in until I couldn’t separate them from my own. My heart beat as one with the realm, and slowly, my mana began to entwine with the fabric of its fate, joining it to the stars of my aura.

Fable rose to his feet, shaking the blood from his coat and padding toward me. I turned the last page of the tome, and rested it on his snout, caressing his cheek. His glittering eyes reflected the final runes as they slotted into place. All of his injuries had already healed. He wouldn’t have to suffer them again.

The world held its breath as I closed the tome and let it vanish into my spatial ring. The nine magic circles hummed violently, crackling with golden mana. I raised a hand, and their slow rotation halted. Streams of energy twisted and curled from the circles, collecting in a single shining star hovering over my palm. It never grew brighter, but the intensity swelled, causing the air to shiver in anticipation. Dimensional fissures opened around me, only to close instantly as local fate mana surged in.

The battle stilled as the last traces of mana collected within the star. I lowered it and held it close to my chest.

”Impossible,” Fate whispered, staring at me through Arantius, as though the remnant didn’t exist. ”You couldn’t have–”

”What once was shall come again,” I whispered, closing my fist.

The star exploded, releasing all of its mana at once. Instead of traveling through the air, it swept directly into the weave of fate, flooding every thread, channel, and star. The tidal wave hit me first, then blasted outward in a radial pattern, leaping from soul to soul and touching every Fatesworn within the city.

The impact knocked the wind out of me, but the warmth brought an ecstasy unlike anything I’d experienced before.

The magic circles dissipated slowly, their power fully expended. I gasped, collapsing to my knees as the last remnants of strength drained from my body. My soul still thrummed with life, a celestial vortex of fate swirling around me with myself at its center, but I struggled to draw a single breath. The cosmic force pressed down upon me with the staggering weight of a mountain.

A silver visage formed before me, a hand outstretched. With trembling fingers, I took it, and strength flowed into me. I met Verity’s gaze, and she gave a solemn nod, pulling me to my feet.

”You’re alright,” I panted, shivering from the power coursing through me.

”And you’re glowing,” she said with a half-smile.

I looked down at my hands, flinching at the sight of myself looking like a remnant. A little more solid, but every part of me, from my tail to my horns, glowed a burnished gold.

A deafening explosion tore through the air, and a Fatesworn skyship crashed to the ground, ripped asunder by several eighth-level cannons. Three enemy skyships soared through the hole in our line, barreling toward me. Fable leaped off the ground, expanding to his full size just as they unleashed a volley of lances. Adaptive resistance flared briefly as it was overwhelmed, and a beam the width of an ancient tree punched through his shoulder, exploding in with blood and gore. He roared in pain, but before the dazzled sunspots faded from my eyes, fate wrapped around him. Blood, torn muscle, and burned fur reversed their course, flowing back together.

Fable hit the lead skyship with full momentum, completely unhurt, as long from nose to tail as the skyship’s hull. His sheer weight dragged the skyship down, his claws tearing canyon-sized rifts in the reinforced hull. His jaws bit down, and a mana cannon exploded, setting off a chain reaction of secondary explosions that silenced the screams of the crew.

”What happened/” Verity asked, soft with disbelief. ”His wounds...you didn’t heal him...”

A high inquisitor with a soul well into the eighth level broke through the star guard, approaching me directly. Luxxa and Kahlen met him bravely, though there was no hope they could win. In seconds, he’d penetrated their guard, his sword stabbing right through Luxxa’s breastplate. She screamed, gurgling in blood, but scarcely had the blade withdrawn when fate twisted again. Luxxa’s sword ran through the inquisitor’s chest. He looked down in utter shock and horror as his blood cascaded down the blade, but before he could muster a healing spell, one of Kahlen’s floating swords decapitated him.

Luxxa stumbled back, staring at her sword clutched in her hand. She dropped it like it was a serpent, feeling at her chest, but there was no blood or even a scar on her armor. She looked at me questioningly, and I gave a slight nod.

Scenes exactly like that began playing out across the entire battle. Fatesworn who should have died didn’t. Attacks that should have landed did so, but had no effect. Mana they spent on spells flowed back into their souls, leaving countless dead in their wake without a trace. Even more terrifying, Fatesworn who had fallen since the beginning rose in pillars of golden light, restored to the condition they were in before the battle began.

”No one’s dying anymore,” I whispered, stumbling forward, leaning on Verity. At long last, I could keep that promise.

”What did you do?” she asked.

”What was now is, and is to be. While the spell stands, our fate is written. Nothing can change that.” I glared at the god, who floated motionless in the air, his gaze fixed on me. ”Not even him.”