The Forsaken Hero

The battle held its tension and chaos, even as we shifted into a more defensive formation. The elemental’s crystalline swords seemed to be everywhere, keeping all three of our front-line companions on the edge of danger. Their retaliation was futile, for the illusory body it surrounded its true form with was just that--illusory. Grace’s spear and Gayron’s sword disrupted it like mist, but it always reformed.

What was truly curious to me was that Korra’s combat arts had no effect on it at all. It didn’t have limbs or armor to weaken, but the watery dragon’s slid right off the ward, unable to work their way into its weave. The defensive art didn’t even seem to use much mana at all. All the force that hit it, the energy it absorbed, just...dissipated.

It was that familiar effect that caused me to embrace the Oracle of Eternity and observe it more closely. Perhaps it worked like Adaptive resistance, and...no, that wasn’t it, either. The mana truly seemed to be vanishing, not dispersing through the threads of fate. No excess energy was leaving the elemental at all.

So, if it wasn’t getting rid of it, where was it going? I drew stronger on the Oracle, magnifying fate until every thread and star was visible. They clogged the air, making the whole world seem submerged in an ocean of sparkling gold.

Every wisp of mana, every morsel of power, was visible moving through the threads like rain dripping down spider silk. It made my friends hard to look at. Their bodies and souls were woven from such dense starlight that they glowed like miniature suns. They were all unique. Korra was smooth and tranquil, graceful and flowing like ribbons. Grace was sharp and static, while Gayron was...well, I’d never really understood his power at all. Every one of his current flickers was identical. There was no main body, no original. They were all linked inextricably. I briefly wondered what happened to the unique experiences each had when they were dismissed. And how did he choose which one stayed until the end, becoming his new real body?

I had to push the curiosities aside. Despite the months, no, years, we had traveled together, I’d never dared to ask. Korra was a wall between us as surely as she connected us.

My eyes fell on the elemental, the one I’d been avoiding. If the others were suns, this was an entire universe. Its aura formed a tangled web of earthy brown. ON its own, it might be possible to follow, but the problem was it mingled in the same space as my own light. Both exerted the same weight against each other that they did against Enusia. The results were muddled, but I could clearly feel its interference.

And it could feel mine. With a start, I realized that the elemental was scrutinizing me. Not with eyes, for it didn’t even have those, but I could feel its focus and its curiosity.

That latter part scared me. I had felt, in the same way, the lava dragons, but they had been filled with burning, irrational rage stoked by a thousand years of imprisonment. I had fully anticipated this would be the same. That wasn’t meant to be; every assumption we were acting on could be wrong.

Korra finally managed to slip beneath its guard, punching it in the chest. I was almost blinded by the sudden surge of power, flowing from her soul up her arm, through her hand, and into the elemental. I tightened my grip on Fate, burning an extraordinary amount of mana to slow time just enough so I could understand what came next.

The mana flowed into its shield, splitting and divesting into every thread of magic. The entire sphere participated, lighting up like the sun moving across the earth’s surface.

It wasn’t a protective shell. It looked like one from the outside, but every single thread woven into the ward originated within the elemental’s soul. They reminded me more of tree roots than my wards, which were like a shield.

”It’s absorbing it all,” I whispered, the realization causing my tail to still. It was doing what I had worked so hard to make Adaptive resistance do, but on a scale I couldn’t imagine. How many eighth-level attacks had that been? Twenty, thirty? My soul would have burst from a fraction of that much mana!

And that wasn’t even accounting for non-mana attacks. Adaptive Resistance only absorbed direct mana from spells or effects, not the strength it might give to a sword, or the force of the meteor it conjured. But this creature drew in everything that so much brushed against its shield, somehow converting it into earth mana. From what I could see, it wasn’t coming back out. It attacked with its own strength, keeping everything it had absorbed deep inside.

”Is it...charging?” I whispered, tilting my head. Like a battery?

That was the only thing I could think of. It wasn’t fighting for vengeance, or to gain its freedom. If it used all that mana, it would overpower us in a second, free to slay us or to escape on a whim. Instead, it fought just hard enough to push Korra and the others to their limits, without ever actually crossing them.

I looked down at the Aethereal Prism hanging on my hip, pursing my lips. Didn’t I do the same thing? When Adaptive Resistance was spread across the battlefield through a Nexus, I cast all of the extra incoming mana into the lantern. That someone would do that to us, and purposefully bait out everything we had, was a terrifying thought, more so because I had no idea what it was planning to do after we were spent.

That wouldn’t take long. Gayron, especially, was starting to flag. Only ten minutes had passed since we first engaged the elemental in its first form, but his soul was starting to waver. His mana exertion was spread across his flickers, and he tired that much faster.

With my new understanding, I could see how the elemental was starting to ignore him, no longer bothering to cut down his bodies when they slipped up. Instead, it had begun working its way toward us, its focus on me. Could it sense the mana I was expending, but not at it? Or was it trying to scare R’lissea into summoning more creatures to fight it?

I decided it didn’t matter. The church had assumed this thing would fight and destroy us, there would have been no purpose to releasing it. Whatever it had done in the past, whatever their hidden records said, must have educated that belief. We needed to act accordingly.

But I couldn’t act blindly, not when it would only give this thing more power. I let the Oracle of Eternity go, turning to the only source that might hold an answer.

”Incinderus,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut. ”What is this? Please, I need help.”

Conveying more than words with soul speak wasn’t something my mind was comfortable with, but I managed to send a rough stream of memory and feeling to the fire demon lord. With the primordial mark, he was the only immortal mage I could hope to speak to in such straits. Otherwise, I’d have to gamble and summon a remnant, but the risk that they might not have any idea what was going on, or how to break it, was too high. I needed to save that ability for when the time came to fight Fate.

His response was immediate. ”A Prism Elemental? No! Don’t fight it. You must not give it any more power!”

”Er, too late?” I mumbled, wincing.

”Then we have little time. You must penetrate the shield with a single, overwhelming strike. The core is fragile and easily broken, but anything that doesn’t only strengthens it. What level is it?”

”Ninth...? And, um, we might have been fighting it for a while. Luke’s too far away to help, so we took it on ourselves. It’s absorbed over a dozen full eighth-level magical arts by now.

A wave of disbelief. I cringed, feeling it in my stomach.

”Then...run, I suppose. It’s fast, but its travel speed should be much lower than your wolf’s. If you’re already engaged, there’s nothing else you can do. At this point, I’m not even sure a ninth-level cannon could crack it open. You’ll have to wait for a few hundred years for it to weaken to the point you can take it.”

”We can’t. We’ve come too far to run,” I said, looking back, feeling the souls of the Fatesworn battling against the church. Their conviction burned bright. They trusted me. I couldn’t betray that, not when we might not have another opportunity.

”Then, I’m afraid you only have one option. A choice so dark and desperate I’ve never once considered it on the field of battle. If any should hear it was I who suggested it, not even hell will protect you.”

”What is it?” I asked, dread sinking into my heart. He hadn’t held that tone even when meeting Fate for the first time.

He took a long breath, trepidation in every word. ”Have you tried talking?”