The Forsaken Hero

The room was quiet for a moment. Elaine looked at me with renewed interest.

”You can read it? Not even our most comprehensive runic dictionaries included some of the runes. Our archivists were stumped.”

I touched the cover again, smiling despite myself. ”The runes are old, and I’ve never seen them in the texts of this world. My guess is this spell was granted by Fate to a believer long, long ago.”

”Not of this world?” Elaine asked.

I nodded, but didn’t bother explaining. The only reason I could read it was because of the tome Nithalee had given me and the studying I’d done in the library in Haven. There was no reason to share those secrets with her, however, as they would surely lead to more invasive questions.

Elaine seemed content to leave it there and clapped her hands. ”Well, in any case, it’s now yours to do as you wish.”

Fyren sat down again, but his stare burned into the raven-haired woman. ”You’re giving this away, not loaning it? A ninth-level tome? There can’t be more than fifty in the entire realm!”

”That value is precisely why, ” Elaine said. She flashed me a smile. ”Besides, books only have worth if they can be read. Right now, all we’d get out of this tome is using it as a bargaining chip. But the number of powers who could even begin to afford it could be numbered on one hand, and all owe allegiance to the church. We’d rather burn it entirely than sell something like this to our enemies.”

”It’s that expensive?” I asked.

She nodded. ”It would bankrupt a small kingdom like Brithlite to afford even half the spell, let alone the entire thing.”

”Is this really okay?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. Moisture streaked the back of my hand.

Elaine smiled gently. ”There’s no need to tear up about something like this. Treat it as a gesture of our friendship.”

”Friends?” I whispered, hugging the book to my chest.

I could feel R’lissea’s eyes on me. Waiting. Hopeful.

”Okay,” I said, shyly nodding.

”Excellent. Now, in the case that you haven’t seen much of the city, I’d like to show you some of my favorite places to spend the evening. But first, might I offer you some advice?”

”Please!” R’lissea said before I could respond.

”As you wish, Life Hero. I would counsel you to seek out the elvish archmage. Your magic is powerful, yet I’ve noticed your skill is constrained to healing and support alone. You rely heavily on summoned elementals to fight for you, but I think you’ve discovered the pitfall there.”

R’lissea’s face fell. ”Yeah, I can’t summon anything more powerful than I am. When I fought Connor, our souls were about the same, but I couldn’t do anything against him.”

”Exactly. Summons are useful for dealing with many weaker opponents, but there is a hard limit for what they can accomplish. The elvish archmage specializes in Life Magic yet is a battlemage, having once been responsible for instructing the brightest mages at the Divine Throne. She’s young, not even two hundred, but I’ve studied with her and was astounded at her capabilities. You would do well to beg her to teach you how to apply yourself in combat.”

R’lissea nodded seriously. ”Thank you. I will.”

”What about me?” I asked. ”I rely on others to fight, too.”

”You should stay away from battle as much as possible. If you’re forced to take part, it’s probably already too late,” she said, eyes narrowing at me. ”But you’re case is different. Mages who rely on bonded monsters often encounter the same problem as summoned creatures, but your case is different. Your companions are freakishly strong, not to mention a little overprotective. You should look at developing your abilities to support on a battlefield scale rather than in one-on-one fights. That’s where you will be most effective.”

”So like I did in the battle against the dragons?” I asked.

She nodded. ”Guide, protect, and support, but never fight.”

”Couldn’t agree more,” Fyren said. ”Rely on us more.”

I got the feeling he meant more than him, Fable, and R’lissea. But the idea of trusting the Devoted still filled me with dread, so I pushed it aside. There would be time to worry about the fanatics later.

”There’s something else, too,” Elaine said.

She reached out and trailed her hand through the Starlight enshrouding me. It curled around her wrist, and for a second, I feared it would latch on, but something in her soul pushed back, and the Oracle of Eternity quieted.

”This looks awfully similar to the auras of ninth-level monsters and demons,” she said.

”You mean like Haven?” I asked.

”I’m not sure I follow. What is this...Haven?” she asked.

I flushed and covered my mouth, letting out a tiny squeak. R’lissea jumped in.

”I think you knew it as the anomaly. It was actually an incredibly powerful Ice Spirit that had mutated and gained sentience.”

Elaine blinked. ”...what?”

Fyren snorted. ”I had the same reaction, but it’s true. Its form was unstable and foreign to Enusia, which resulted in its power being burned off at an incredible rate.”

”And that formed the winter storm,” she said, rubbing her chin. ”Fascinating. I’d love to know how it mutated, and where it went, but from your oracle’s reaction, I presume that’s something of a sensitive secret?”

I nodded fervently, and she chuckled.

”In that case, you’re right. Monsters and demons are so strongly aligned with a particular attribute that it literally leaks from their soul, transforming the realm around it. The lava dragons, for instance, caused the ground to melt and lava to spring up from within the earth. Their power was so great that the lava was given purpose, becoming the horde of elementals that assaulted the city from within. Even should the dragons had settled down and never left the city, their aura would have driven these elementals to burn everything within hundreds of miles.”

Fyren nodded. ”Demons are even worse than native monsters. Enusia recognizes our souls as foreign. The dimensional wall grates against us constantly, resulting in burning more of our power away. But that’s mostly a hypothetical. It’s unlikely that a ninth-level demon could ever descend into Enusia, for that same dimensional wall would cripple any gate they tried to enter in.”

”Is that why Demon Lords are only eighth-level?” I asked.

Elaine looked up sharply, staring at the demon. Fyren just chuckled.

”Demon Lords are far more powerful than that. Their equivalent in the Divine would be archons. They must suppress their power to the eighth to be able to make it to a world.”

”And what of the Demon Emperors?” Elaine asked.

”Demon Emperors can only descend in the form of avatars, and only after the shards have been destroyed, the world plunged into chaos, and the dimension barrier weakened by the mere presence of hundreds of thousands of infernal souls. The avatar of an emperor is at the peak of the ninth level, or the very limit of what a realm can support without collapsing.”

” Then how can Archon do it?” R’lissea asked.

” They are given powerful Divine artifacts that stabilize space. They usually come in the form of amulets,” Fyren said.

The demon watched me unblinkingly as he explained, making me flush and stare at my lap. It was only after the conversation moved on that I realized what he was talking about. I didn’t like what that revelation might mean, however, and pushed it to the back of my mind.

Elaine, oblivious of the significance, continued, ”The point is, I can’t imagine why you would be exuding an aura like this. You would have to possess a source of attributed mana so powerful that it overpowers the dimensional barrier. Your soul isn’t near that strong, much less fueled by attributed mana. I can sense you still use Divine Mana like the rest of this world.”

I hardly noticed her usage of the supposedly secret truth of mana. My heart raced, my chest so tight I could barely breathe. A source of attributed mana? That had to be the Divinity, or perhaps the influence of Haven. The latter was unlucky because Haven would have warned me about it, which meant...

”I-I don’t know,” I said, staring at my lap. My tail flicked restlessly, aggravated by the intensity of their stares.

I couldn’t just tell them that I held what was essentially the soul of a deity, though. That wasn’t something I’d ever shared with R’lissea, Korra, and especially Fyren.

I squeezed my eyes shut. ”I really don’t know.”

They were quiet for a long time, but I didn’t dare look. At last, R’lissea put her hand on my shoulder, startling a squeak out of me.

”In any case, what can we expect? Is it dangerous?” she asked.

Elaine didn’t break away from staring at me. ”It’s hard to say, but I assume it’s benign. From the reports I’ve gathered, it triggers visions for those impacted. I haven’t heard of a single incident where the individual wasn’t benefited by it.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. ”Thank goodness.”

”That being said, until you understand more about its origins and effects, I recommend you keep anyone you’re uncomfortable with learning your secrets at a distance.”

”I will, and thank you. I really am glad no one got hurt. I was afraid that, um...never mind.”

She favored me with a smile. ”Happy to put your mind at ease. Now, gather your things. We’ve got a few visits to make.”

”Visits?” R’lissea asked.

Elaine clapped her hands gleefully. ”You haven’t happened to show Xiviyah the hot springs yet, have you?”