Unbound

Chapter Eight Hundred And Forty Three - 843

Elowen stood in the warded storage room that had been transformed into a teleportation chamber, marveling at the roots that covered the walls just as much as the Shadowgate that swirled at the far end. Above all else, she was fascinated by the magic involved. Like the Seal before, the sigaldry in around the gate was well beyond her conception of inscription, let alone knowledge. Not to mention the incorporation of the Spirit Tree—Elowen couldn’t wrap her Mind around how that might even be possible.

The enormous plant was endlessly charming, like something out of a fairy tale. It was the kind of magic that Elowen had hoped for when she'd arrived on the Continent, well before she'd learned the cruel realities of life there.

The vault was crowded, mostly by blue-cloaked soldiers that called themselves the Legions of the Fiend. They bore interesting weapons and armor, the latter matching even if the former was somewhat random. The Grandmasters were there too, flanked by one or two of their Master Tiers, and set off to the side. They were talking animatedly amongst themselves and even smiling, all of them clearly eager to be there. Elowen had enough dealings with them to know why.

He was finally leaving.

The bane of their existence, all because he made them work together. Elowen shook her head. She still couldn't believe what Felix had accomplished in a few short days.

"Was this truly the best decision?" Tern asked her for the tenth time in the last two hours. "I am not a leader."

"Yes, you are," Elowen assured him. "You stuck to your guns when no one else would."

Tern raised an eyebrow. "My what?"

"It means standing your ground, even when the entire Violet was against you."

“As capable as anyone else in this city. Hell, this whole Territory. I lost my head for a while there. I almost got taken by Siva and got you banished from the Violet Tower." She looked down at him, a smile stretching lips that she still wasn't quite used to. "Why did you stick around?"

Tern hesitated before answering. "I couldn't leave my home and my work. Or my students."

"You stayed for me?"

"Not just you. Don't get a big head, young lady. But I raised so many of you mages from Apprentice. What Tiir was doing was reprehensible, even if I couldn't remember why."

Elowen studied the gate ahead of them. "Siva had her hooks on all of us, didn't she?"

"She did.” Tern's old, wrinkled face scowled magnificently. "That boy did us a true service when he ate her."

"Yeah." Elowen laughed. "I still feel a bit awkward around him. Hard to look someone in the eye after you've tried to kill them."

"You could always stay here."

Elowen blew out a surprised breath that was a half-step away from a laugh. "You're serious. You'd want me to? Even after learning that I'm Unbound?"

"You think I care? El, you're the best student I've ever had. And it's not just because you reached Grandmaster more swiftly than any mage in five centuries. Your talents wouldn’t go unappreciated, certainly, but I’m about to wrangle a nest of vipers. I could use a friend."

A wave of affection just about bowled Elowen over. The old Elf before her had been a great teacher, and he'd been a rock she had leaned on more than once since she'd arrived at the Violet Tower. But she couldn't stay.

"I think... I think I have to fix what I screwed up. Mind-controlled or not, I set the Chthonic Star loose on this world. And I'll be the one to take it out."

Tern's scowl lightened into a beaming grin. "I'm proud of you. El. No matter what. Remember that."

Elowen straightened her spine, lifting her a few inches even as his praise made her feel twice as tall. "I will."

She wrapped the old Elf in a giant hug. He fought it for a brief moment before loosing a wheezing chuckle and patting her companionably on the back. When she released him, the murmuring crowd had gone silent.

Felix walked into the vault.

The Legion split before him, and he nodded at them as he moved languidly across the chamber. He wasn't in his armored form anymore, instead wearing the simple jacket and pants she’d met him in. He was shorter too, at least a foot shorter than her—but there was a coiled power in his limbs that was evident even as he walked toward the Shadowgate.

The Legion watched him reverently, some even mouthing something into cupped hands as he passed. The Grandmasters, however, watched him nervously.

Felix came to a stop near the gate and the fire mage said something she couldn't catch. The man laughed. Everything about him was dangerous, she knew. But he was kinder than she expected.

She had to remind herself that he was from Earth, just like her. He fit in so well with the people from the Continent, it was easy to forget. That sense of belonging was something she’d never really found in this world. Aside from Tern, her friends began and ended with the woman in the cottage who had found her at the very start. Elowen had been forced to fake her way through everything until she became strong enough that she no longer had to try. But even now, as a Grandmaster, she operated from a place of fear.

Perhaps that was why it was so easy for Siva to get her hooks into her. She still remembered the sweet promises of Grandmaster Tiir and the silvered whispers of the goddess.

Elowen shuddered, pulling herself away from that treacherous reverie, only to notice her Skill within her core space flashing. It hummed to life in a way it had a few times before. It was her divination Skill, the one that made her a Seer.

“Eyes Unclouded,” she murmured.

Before her, the world split. People were the same, and almost everything else was unchanged…save that where Felix stood, there were now two figures. One was laughing with his friend, and the other—Elowen swallowed—the other was a hulking Beast. Twice the size of Felix, and yet seeming as vast as the sky itself, filled with fire and lightning beneath its inky hide.

It was power.

It was hunger.

It looked right at her.

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The pattern of her Skill faltered, the vibrations skipping to a stop. The vision vanished.

“El?” Tern put a hand on her forearm. She hadn't realized she'd been shaking until he touched her. "El, are you okay?"

"I'm... I'm fine." Her mouth was dry, making the words come out as a raspy croak. Ahead, Felix stepped up to the Shadowgate and gestured. It flashed with a deeper darkness, and the sigaldry shone gold and silver against the obsidian roots. There was no sign of the Beast. "I'm fine."

There was a humming rush, as if a bunch of chords were played in quick succession, ambling across Felix's flesh. Silvered notes in the dark.

He passed through them, stepping into his Void Sanctuary.

The moment his heels hit Fiendstone, however, he paused and listened. Things seemed fine, but when his vision cleared from the shadow, he stilled.

Huh. The gate’s changed position.

Or perhaps the city had changed shape.

Before, the portal to Levantier had been at the base of a tall tower made of glittering Fiendstone. Now it was tucked away into a columned portico. Hexagonal pillars surrounded a wide platform, upon which were inscribed a geometric diagram of stars in lines of liquid gold. It wasn't quite sigaldry, but the symbols still hummed beneath his feet as Felix stepped past them and down a short set of steps.

Just outside the triangular roof and down the steps was a wide hexagonal plaza, at least a hundred yards across and filled with still more geometric designs. The Fiendstone was dark here, touched with a piece of shadow from the portals, which only served to accentuate the gold and silver inlay. Surrounding the plaza were eight other porticos, all designed in a similar fashion, save for an exquisitely detailed frieze in the triangular space between column and roof. Each one was an echo of the Shadowgate designs back in Elderthrone, shaped to resemble Gharion, Jaast, and Sunara, among others.

Most notable, though, were the trees. They flanked each portico, one small and one passingly large plant. The larger was clearly a piece of Atlantes, as all the trees in his sanctuary had been on his last trip through. But the smaller was dark and faceted like chipped obsidian.

Felix glanced around, spotting two pathways. Both led to stairs, one up and one down, but the higher structure looked to contain other porticos—other Shadowgates. Do they contain the gates located in the Jaast Heart of Darkness?

He'd have to check that soon. For now, however, Felix flared his Perception and listened. The vibration of his Void Sanctuary in his chest filled his attention as details permeated across his senses.

Golden light shone from the sun far above, more than perhaps mere sunlight might provide, and the sky was a pristine blue, so bright it made his eyes ache ever so slightly. The wind stirred around him, and the scent of spicy jasmine and sweet citrus was carried upon it.

His Skill was as steady as stone. There was no quivering, no sign of a breach.

Felix let loose a pent-up breath. He had gone first because he could get away from the Whalemaw if it had shown up, but his allies couldn't. If I have a part of Veridaan inside me, then the Whalemaw is so much more. A Cardinal Beast with a primordial's flesh curse.

That was goddamn scary.

He shook off that image and stepped over to one of the nearest gates. It was clearly active, but the shadows were thin. Felix tested it, reaching a hand into the dark, but he knew the outcome before his hand passed through without effect.

I can't access them from this gate. Damn. For a moment there, he thought he could get around using the Heart of Darkness. That would have been cool.

Felix retraced his steps, returning to Levantier's portal and pulling out a gold coin from his pouch as he walked. He stopped just within arm's reach of the exit and tossed it gently through. It vanished with a soft, breathy note. And then he waited.

Less than a minute later, Darius and a company of Legionnaires poured through, splitting around him like a river around a boulder, their weapons drawn as they marched out into the plaza.

"Everything's good?" the man asked.

Felix gave a silent nod, and the big man led his soldiers down to assemble. His other friends soon followed.

"Oh my god," Elowen said, mouth agape, as she cleared the Shadowgate. Her hooves rang out with each step against the Fiendstone platform. "This... what is this place?"

"Mind Skill," Atar said.

"In Felix's core space," Alister added. "The gate co-ops a Mind Skill from the person that activates it."

"For what reason?"

"To traverse the Void."

The Theron swallowed, and the small chains between her antlers jangled as she twisted and turned to look at everything.

"Wow. This is quite different than before," Zara said as Team Magic settled into place once more. "The Ourea's influence?"

"That and hitting Grandmaster Tier, maybe," Felix said.

The Legion had assembled upon the hexagonal plaza now, and Felix swiftly accounted for everyone, before jerking his head toward the set of steps that descended into the city proper. "Elderthrone's this way."

They walked just a bit, but at the first landing, where a railing extended across the edge of the square of the plaza, Felix paused.

Whoa.

It was as if he were seeing his Void Sanctuary for the first time. The central palace was still there, but everything else was different. Green was everywhere. Trees and grass and flowers filled the streets and the tops of buildings until they all resembled nothing so much as wild gardens.

Alister paused beside him at the railing. His eyes as wide as his smile. "Incredible. I don't think it's any bigger, but this is a drastically new place."

Atar quirked an eyebrow. "Does it feel different to you, Felix?"

"Yeah, it does. It feels," Felix laughed. "Less safe."

"That's…concerning."

He waved off Atar's worry. "No, it's fine. I wouldn't have brought you through if it was a risk.” He breathed in that sweet spice on the breeze and released it softly. "But I think my Grandmaster Feature has influenced the Skill way more than previous Tempers."

He led them down the steps a bit, passing three more landings before they reached street level. There, it was even easier to see how the boulevards and buildings were truly changed. Felix was swift to notice that the windows and the doors were functional now. Instead of being sealed—the pieces of the buildings themselves carved facades that did not function or move—now they clearly were hung on hinges and slides, indicated by more than one being ajar or cracked open very slightly.

Leaves, like ivy, poured down the sides of Fiendstone buildings, and in some places, roots extended out of those doors, crawling across the steps as if the place had been overgrown. And yet, it didn't feel abandoned to Felix.

Strong walls, but open. He reached over to a door they passed close by and turned the latch. It swung inward on soundless hinges. He flared his Perception, but other than the sense of plants there was no one inside.

They kept walking, following his sense of the place that told him exactly where to go to find the portal back to Elderthrone. They were led on a wide, rambling tour of his Void Sanctuary, and he got to see more of the trees up close.

Previously, small copies of Atlantes had abounded down medians and along sidewalks. Now those same trees were twice the size, and their roots had overtaken several thoroughfares, where the branches now touched in the center of the street. Moreover, as with the porticoes, obsidian saplings were everywhere, rising through Fiendstone like weeds through cement. They had joined his Atlantes, filling courtyards with vines and moss and faceted roots.

There had been parks before, but now they were filled with both types of trees, as well as low shrubs and bright wildflowers. Not faceted and made of stone either, but real wildflowers. It was from these that the scent of jasmine and citrus emanated, filling the winds that rustled branches and as Felix paused to take a deep breath from them, something flashed away from him, fluttering through a tree. He jerked backward.

"What is it?" Darius said, hand on his sword.

Felix raised his own hand to stop the man, as well as everyone else. "Hold on." He looked closer. On the branches before him were real, living birds.

No.Not birds.

“Are those…” Elowen gasped. “Are those Dragons?”