The Forsaken Hero

I drew in a sharp breath as the inquisitors closed in on Borealis, gripping my staff a little more tightly. Escape seemed impossible at this point, and Borealis wasn’t nearly as durable as Fable. But from my impression of his soul, escape was the last thing on the fate demon’s mind.

With another screech, he let his aura go, releasing his inner light over the entire city. His crystalline form refracted, following every beam of shining starlight at once. Every path, every decision, every possible action. They were more solid than afterimages, more real than illusions. Each one projected his full soul, intentions, and mana. A hundred branching timelines all occurring at the same time.

The mage inquisitor’s spell struck first, cutting through countless Borealises at once. But the instant the flames touched them, they faded away, returning to starlight. The arrows fared no better, punching through empty air. The final inquisitor’s spear, sheathed in sunlight, landed directly on another’s chest. Still, when the ensuing explosion faded, having consumed a massive portion of the sky, there were no demons to be seen.

Of the hundred demons, only a single one had survived the onslaught, narrowly avoiding an arrow to the wing and just diving out of range of the spear. But as the fire faded, he flared its wings, catching the rising updraft of scattered mana from the mage’s spell. He wheeled through the air, spinning gracefully and releasing an arc of mana from the tip of his wings. The twin streams formed a double helix of golden, crystalline light that resembled flowing ice more than starlight, moving like a comet across the sky.

It struck the spear-wielding inquisitor in the chest, penetrating his breastplate, tearing through the other side. The inquisitor screamed as the impact threw him backward; the controlled descent of his fall turned into an unchecked tumble. Thick rivulettes of blood trailed after him, but before he’d fallen twenty feet, Borealis was on him.

Desperate to save their comrade, the ranger fired a hail of arrows, and the mage began to cast, but again, Borealis refracted. Every arrow sank through an insubstantial demon, and Borealis reached the plummeting inquisitors with a low dive. He landed on his chest, and in a flash of claws, tore out his throat.

”No!” The mage’s scream was ragged, coming on the tail end of his seventh-circle spell. ”You’ll die for that!”

Borealis dove, and this time, when he refracted, it was on the offense. His prey, the ranger, scrambled out of the way, deploying every technique and maneuver he could, but in the end, the one Boreais he hadn’t managed to avoid struck him, drawing a claw across his back. He screamed as he was thrown from the roof of the building, slamming into the street below.

”Go! Kill that blasted bird!” the High Inquisitor shouted at the others supporting him. ”I can hold this alone! It’s strong, but my soul’s stronger!”

The other inquisitors wasted no time hesitating, charging toward Borealis.

”Which one’s the real one!” the inquisitor with the heavy shield cried as he swung his mace through what he had thought was the demon.

”Hell if I know! They all feel the same!” the mage cried, launching a sixth-circle spell. ”Even large-scale destruction spells don’t seem to work!”

One of the inquisitors knelt beside the fallen ranger, whispering a healing spell, but at the moment it resolved, and his attention was diverted, Borealis struck, weaving through a half-dozen attacks and slicing across the inquisitor’s eyes. She screamed and fell back, clutching her face, blood oozing between her fingers. Borealis was quick to put her out of her misery, slashing her exposed neck with a crystalline wing.

”Vicious,” Jenna muttered, shivering. ”Targeting the defenseless healer like that...”

”Of course. It’s the only logical choice,” Kahlen said, folding his arms. ”Only mortals would adhere to something as vague and abstract as ’honor.’”

”I’m curious,” Luxxa murmured, watching the fight with narrow eyes. ”Which one is the real one? It humbles me to admit it, but I can’t tell, either.”

”All of them. And none of them, I suppose,” I said, pursing my lips. ”It’s like...fate is what is, right? But also what was, and what will be. There are so many possibilities, but only one fate. And Borealis is the one that is.”

”That’s...”

”Absurd?” Jenna asked, shaking her head. ”That doesn’t make any sense.”

I shrugged helplessly, the tip of my tail twitching. Trying to ask which one was real was asking the wrong question. It didn’t have anything to do with real or fake. They were all Borealis. I didn’t know how else I could explain it. It just...made sense.

”If we can’t pin one down, destroy them all!” the inquisitor shouted, grunting as he took a heavy hit from the demon on his shield. ”Use it! If these demons are here, then the Oracle is, too. The intel was right!”

”But that would--”

”Just do it, or we all die here! She’ll be caught in the blast!”

The mage gritted her teeth and withdrew a slender, fluted rod from her spatial ring. The mere sight of it caused my soul to prickle, sending a wave of shivers down my spine and tail.

”That’s not good,” I whispered as she raised it, my tail curling.

”Is that an artifact?” Jenna asked, tensing.

The mage poured her mana into the rod, emptying her soul in the space of a single breath. She dropped to her knees, coughing blood and trembling, but managed to hold it aloft. ”Sundered Skies!”

An enormous magic circle appeared, stretching across half the city. The air thickened, its pressure compressing my chest, making breathing difficult. It drove the Star Guard to their knees, all but Kahlen, who was at the peak of seventh. The magic circle held more mana than any eighth-circle spell I’d seen, yet not quite enough to be a proper ninth-level spell.

The sky darkened against its burning light, filling with ash and cinders. Small ripples appeared across the circle like pebbles dropped in a glass lake. Molten streams of thick, viscous fire spewed from the heart of each growing circle, falling upon the city. They blotted out the sky like rain, guaranteeing that, at the very least, every individual under the circle weaker than sixth-level would be incinerated.

This was too much, even for inquisitors. Didn’t they know how many tens of thousands lived here? How many innocent?

There was no time to think about it. Before the spell had even finished, I had my staff raised. ”Grand Aegis!”

The seventh-circle spell resolved in the space of a few seconds, but not before the first pillar of fire struck the ground. It was almost fifty feet wide, carving a twenty-foot-deep trench across an abandoned marketplace. The ground blackened and cracked, buildings melted on their foundations, and the air itself combusted, a storm of embers.

A magic circle dwarfing that of Sundered Sky materialized underfoot, passing through buildings, walls, and even the terrain in a single flat plane. Incandescent golden light rose like evaporating water vapor, enshrouding the city in a thin fog. It extinguished magical flame wherever it flowed, rising into a translucent dome that shielded the city.

The full power of the Sundered Sky landed with the force of a volcano, dozens of individual plumes striking the barrier. But as it neared the light, never mind penetrate it, the columns of fire shattered, torn into countless ribbons of mana. The threads dispersed through fate, stripped of their attributes by the stars themselves. The sheer volume made the air waver like it was underwater, a concentrated river that rushed toward my soul.

My breath caught as it flowed into me, my tail going rigid. There was too much mana, too quickly. More than a single eighth-circle spell could ever have. But Adaptive Resistance didn’t stop, drawing magic from across the entire city, converting it to mana that pushed my soul to bursting. My chest tightened in panic as the flow didn’t cease, and I quickly diverted the flow to the Aetherial Prism. The relief was immediate, and I sagged, panting lightly.

I let the spell fall the instant the Sundered Sky was over, but it was too late. The battlefield had frozen; all eyes turned toward us. Let alone the inquisitors, anyone with half a soul would have felt the tremendous surge of mana at our location.

”Whoops,” I mumbled, taking a tentative step back.

”What was that?” Luxxa asked, raising an eyebrow.

I shook my head. ”I didn’t mean to...I thought a seventh-level spell would be weak enough, but...”

”Never mind the spell,” Jenna said, her eyes wide. ”Was that all Adaptive Resistance? It even grabbed my mana!”

I nodded dumbly, my chest tightening as the realization sank in. Adaptive Resistance was too strong. I had only intended to block the fire, but it wasn’t just the power of the Sundered Sky; it was every art, technique, and spell within the Aegis, every errant magical current caught within the light. As a sponge dropped in a puddle, it had drawn everything to me.

”Secure that wall!” the High Inquisitor shouted, ”I’ll keep this monster at bay!”

He lunged at Fable, sword raised. But Fable, sensing my distress, was in no mood for games. I gasped as a sudden weight fell on my soul, and the world flickered. There was a violent jerk, and the breath left my lungs. I staggered back, landing against Kaheln’s chest, a sick feeling in my stomach. When I looked up, the battle was over.