Chapter 475: Transcendence
ARTHUR LEYWIN
“I think he’s sick,” my mother said, rocking back and forth in her arms. “He’s not eating, Reynolds, and he hasn’t made a peep all day.”
My father moved to stand at Mom’s side. He stared down at nervously. “I can send for the doctor?” He made the statent a question, his voice rising along with his brows as he regarded my mother, uncertain.
Mom’s brows, on the other hand, descended thunderously. “Can you, Rey? That would be lovely!”
My father flinched back, rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, and mumbled, “Um, of course, I’ll…” Whatever else he might have said trailed off as he hurried away.
Mom rolled her eyes at his back, then refocused her attention on . “That father of yours…” She tried to smile, but the expression didn’t quite reach her eyes. She poked my stomach gently, wiggling her finger back and forth to tickle . “With any luck, you’ll get his good looks but my brains, little Arthur.”
I was aware of this exchange, but I did not think about it. My conscious mind sat nestled within my infant body, in control and living with it mont to mont instead of allowing the keystone to pull ti away from the way you might pull a carpet out from under soone’s feet. I clung to it, desperately intent on remaining myself, being myself.
I will not lose myself again only to wake up with the mories of another man’s life, I had told myself repeatedly while pointedly not thinking about the heartbreaking events of my previous attempt at the keystone. And I ant to keep this promise to myself. Only…I still didn’t understand how.
But I was starting to understand a piece of the keystone, at least. After my last two lives, I felt confident that I saw the trap in it—the reason one could not leave until they had “completed” the keystone—and why that was so unlikely. The lives lived were punishing in a way I hadn’t expected. Already, my mories of these lives were full of bitterness, regret, and loss. Despite not really being “myself” during these events, the mories of my decisions, of my feelings—my deaths—were vivid.
I was still unsure if Sylvie and Regis, and their respective abilities, were central to my continued progress, but now I was sure there was more to it than just that. Despite the djinn’s ability of foresight, it seed like a bridge too far to think that they had accounted for, expected, or even required the presence of three connected minds to enter and alter the keystone in whatever way would fulfill its purpose. What they had accounted for, on the other hand, was the requirent that a mage already know three very specific aether arts to have reached this point.
The abilities taught by the previous keystones had acted as keys to enter this puzzle, but as I sat within the days and weeks of mulling rumination, I grew more and more convinced that they had to be more than just keys.
After first arriving and experiencing the miracle of my own birth for the second ti, I shouldn’t have been able to see the aether gathering for my awakening, but I had. The importance of that had been lost on in the following repeated attempts at this life, but in retrospect, this strange fact felt like so kind of clue or hint toward the keystone’s solution.
But pursuing any clue was itself a problem I wasn’t sure how to solve. After all, how could I attempt to make a change to learn more about it if the act of making that change ant I lost all sense of what I was doing, at least until I was born yet again with an entirely new life’s mories stuffed into my exhausted brain.
There has to be a way to navigate this place more purposefully, I told myself, thinking of the Relictombs and the Compass.
A cry erupted from my tiny form, and I pulled back, letting ti pass as my mother cleaned and fed , a distinctly uncomfortable experience to focus on. Before I knew it, I was a toddler yet again, already near my awakening.
I lurched back into the present with a jolt of fear. I’m not ready to go farther. Not yet.
Perhaps due to my temporal proximity to the day of my awakening, I was again reminded of the strange sight of aetheric particles swarming as if to spectate that event.
I should not be able to see aether, but there are tis that I can. What could that an?
Tentatively, I reached for Realmheart. My infantile body contained no godrunes, of course, but my real physical body did. If there were tis I could see aether, it could only be because so sense of it was bleeding between the ntal keystone realm and the physical world.
But if there was so physical connection, I could not find it. Like my search for Sylvie, attempting to activate Realmheart revealed nothing.
Sylvie…
‘I am here.’ The ghostly apparition of my bond manifested in front of . She was sitting with her legs crossed and watching carefully. ‘It’s fascinating. I can see it all in your mind, everything we’ve already discussed across these multiple lives you’ve lived.’
Good, that at least saves the trouble of explaining it over and over again, I answered, realizing I hadn’t been shielding my thoughts at all, because there had been no need.
‘To continue our previous conversation, I think I may have an idea.’
I waited, silently encouraging her to continue.
‘If we need a catalyst to wake the real Sylvie’s mind and allow to bind to her, perhaps we can channel the energy of your awakening.’
How?
‘I have no clue.’
I sat with the idea for a while, trying to use what I knew about magic to piece together a possible solution. Unlike with Sylvie’s resurrection egg, however, I was not handed so strange mystical answer. Whatever I did would be up to , and if it didn’t work, I might drastically alter the tiline and end up forgetting all over again.
I began reaching for Realmheart again, more as a ditative practice than any expectation that I would actually make the connection. It was like trying to curl the fingers of a hand that was no longer attached to my body. Sylvie and I remained there for what felt like hours to my disconnected brain and body, but I was certain that my mother would have co to check on if that were the case.
Pudgy fingers raised to dig into my bare sternum.
I scrunched up my face and scratched more vigorously. There was an itch deep inside my chest that I couldn’t seem to reach.
My vision flickered, and for a mont Sylvie lit up like an old Earth Christmas tree, her body made of light, both mana and aether.
The sudden change made flinch, and it blinked away.
‘What was that?’ Sylvie asked, looking at with a mixture of concern and excitent. ‘Do it again.’
I looked at her and tried to unfocus my eyes, to cross them, to stare so hard that the lights would appear again. When they didn’t, I closed my eyes entirely, clenching my little fists and straining to reach that mindset that had just flickered past like a moth in the dark.
There was a sudden rumble, and the room filled with an embarrassing sll. I grimaced, and my mother reappeared to clean and change . I endured the experience, afraid to slip free of the bonds of that mont. When she was done, instead of leaving to my business, she carried out of the room on her hip, bouncing and singing softly.
I was so close, I grumbled to Sylvie, who walked patiently along at Mother’s side. My fingers dug into my sternum again.
“Do you have an itchy, Art?” Mom asked suddenly, holding up for inspection. Her fingers brushed the spot with a soft humming noise. “I don’t see anything, but…” Her fingers sparkled with magic, and I felt the soothing mana move through . Although it wiped away the ache in my legs and backside from sitting so still for so long, it only highlighted the strange itch I felt in my—
My core! I squird, and my speech ca out as a burbling coo.
“Art, what—oh!”
I had shaken free of Mother and pattered away in my toddler style, doing my best version of a run back to the bedroom.
“Okay then, I can take a hint,” my mother said with mild sarcastic amusent as I crawled off.
Plopping back down, I turned my focus inward as best I could. Closing my eyes, I again reached for Realmheart.
The itching sensation grew more pronounced.
I felt a lopsided grin tremble across my face. My core, Sylv. I can feel my actual core. That damned itch…I can feel it.
Following the uncomfortable sensation like a beacon, my keystone-bound consciousness reached for my physical body.
Although my eyes were closed, the air within the bedroom grew warm with the sudden glow of atmospheric mana and aether.
Slowly, I opened my eyes and gaped at the motes of red, yellow, blue, green, and purple that swam all around . I took a deep breath, and a little shudder ran down my spine. With Realmheart active, I simply sat and stared. It was beautiful, and it changed everything.
I quickly began to feel tired, so I released my connection to the godrune. The floating mana particles faded away, leaving only the purple motes of aether. After another few seconds, they too vanished. Despite this fatigue, I wasn’t discouraged. In fact, I was exhilarated.
I have an idea.
Despite spending most of my conscious ti living in the present mont, the next couple of months seed to fly by in a blur. With the ghostly version of Sylvie at my side, I practiced connecting to and activating Realmheart, Aroa’s Requiem, and King’s Gambit. While Realmheart seed to work more or less as expected, I couldn’t utilize Aroa’s Requiem to repair a broken item as I had in ‘real’ life, and King’s Gambit served more to muddle my thoughts than to clarify them, and I had yet to duplicate the effect of splitting my mind and considering many possibilities at once. I suspected that it was due to my inability to actually manipulate aether inside the keystone.
Still, Sylvie and I had a plan that we were confident in.
The day of my awakening arrived at last. I began my ditation as usual, slowly condensing all the mana within my body to my sternum. Sylvie floated within , hovering at the center of that spot like Regis so often did. She was silent, but her thoughts were hyper-focused on the real Sylvie’s slumbering mind. Despite being asleep, her connection to remained.
Which ant that there were two halves of Sylvie’s whole present inside of .
It’s beginning, I projected to Sylvie. Hold on, it might get a bit bumpy in there.
Using the itch in my core as a tether back to my body as I’d done before, I activated Aroa’s Requiem and focused on the ghost Sylvie. At the sa ti, I opened my mind to the real Sylvie, reaching through our link to give her a strong ntal shake. Or trying to, at least. I couldn’t be certain if I was successful.
A powerful pushing force erupted out of as my core ford and I awakened. Closing my eyes, I channeled Aroa’s Requiem into Sylvie, willing her to be whole and complete again. I projected my desire and request to the aether I knew was gathering around our ho to watch the explosion unfold, drawn by so unknown twist of Fate. I couldn’t manipulate it the way I did my own purified aether, but if I was right…
In a kind of echo of my condensing mana, the atmospheric aether also gravitated toward , through . Within the pushing force, within my body, within the core that was rapidly forming out of the explosion that leveled our house, the violet motes shimred and danced around the ghostly manifestation of Sylvie. The force of my awakening rippled outward not only in the keystone space, but it also vibrated through my physical body and the connections I had with my companions.
Sowhere outside of my self, I felt Sylvie’s eyes snap open.
Her ghostly form spilled out of , transparent golden eyes wide as she spun around. Montarily untethered from reality and uncertain what was happening, her thoughts snapped and sparked across the surface of my mind like the scales of the lightning drake. There was a liquid texture to her transparent body as she seed to shift and reform, aging and then deaging rapidly as she vacillated between the younger, pre-rebirth version of herself and the slightly older Sylvie I was familiar with over these last many months.
Sylvie, you’re all right. Don’t worry, you’re just waking up.
My bond gazed down at her incorporeal body, let out a scream only I could hear, then swelled outward, bursting into the form of a dragon. Her broad, black-scaled chest rose and fell heavily, and her long neck twisted back and forth, scanning the environnt. Had her very real fear not been pumping directly into , the sight of this huge, transparent dragon flailing around while my mother and father tended to none the wiser would have almost been humorous.
It wasn’t until Mom and Dad began taking out of the rubble of our ho that Sylvie seed to focus, her head snapping down and her eyes fixating on them as if they were a lighthouse seen through a long-fought storm.
Grabbing onto that attention, I tried to reach her again. Sylvie, it’s going to be okay. It’s , Arthur. I’ve managed to wake you up and…bind you to the ghost of your past self. I struggled to put the strange thought into real words I knew she would understand. We’re in the fourth keystone. And I need you.
Despite being able to see through them, I held her golden eyes. The huffing and puffing of her massive body slowed. One tentative footstep after another, she followed where Mother and Father carried , their conversation aningless background noise at this point. Her huge clawed limbs left no prints in the wreckage of the ho as she passed.
‘Arthur?’
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. It worked.
Sylvie opened her mouth to speak, but I held her mind and focused on the mories of everything that had transpired in the keystone so far. It took ti for Sylvie to work her way through the shared visions, but I didn’t rush her. Instead, we sat with my mother in the shade of a small tree as Father inspected the ruins and spoke to a neighbor, who had co running at the noise.
Finally, Sylvie’s focus returned to the present. She had shrank back into her humanoid form and now regarded with disbelief. ‘I saw so of what was happening, like I was dreaming. This is all…’ She trailed off with a shake of her head. Sylvie watched my mother slowly brushing her fingers through my hair for a minute or two, then continued. ‘I’m sorry, Arthur. I’m so sorry. The things you’ve had to endure here…it’s sick.’
I think you get out of it what you bring into it, I answered, watching Father pick through the rubble without truly seeing. The lives I lived here were the direct result of my own choices. Deviating from the experiences of my real life nearly always ends up resulting in…
I stopped, frowning, as a new thought ca to . Almost tentatively, I again followed the distant itch back to my physical body and activated Realmheart. While there was no physical manifestation of the godrune activating on my toddler body, aether and mana swam into my vision.
A fiery claw squeezed my heart, which began to beat rapidly.
Among the familiar colors that I expected to see, sothing else lit up under the influence of Realmheart.
‘What is that?’ Sylvie asked, sharing in my vision through our ntal connection.
There was a nimbus of golden light radiating from the house. Thin golden threads seed to connect the demolished house, , my parents, and places that weren’t places, but rather tis, both forward into the future and back into the past.
Fate, I thought breathlessly. This has to be Fate.
The gears of my mind spun as I tried to determine what had changed, what catalyst had allowed to suddenly see this manifestation. Was it Realmheart, or Sylvie’s awakening in conjunction with my own, or so more subtle insight I’d gained that expanded on the properties of my abilities?
Curious, I released Realmheart. Again, the visible mana particles vanished instantly, while the aether lingered and faded more slowly. The golden threads remained longer—so long in fact that I began to think it may not be related to Realmheart at all—before the threads finally began to dim and go out, leaving ghostly little afterimages in my eyes. Eventually, even the afterimages lted away.
‘If this is Fate, then perhaps you can see it now because it has decided you can?’ Sylvie asked haltingly.
You think that Fate might be…conscious? Aware?
Sylvie blinked, nonplussed. ‘I hadn’t really ant it that way, but…it’s possible, isn’t it? Aether has a kind of consciousness, after all. Would Fate not also, if it is an aspect of aether? So far, it seems as if the lesson you’ve learned about your life—your ‘fate’—is that you already lived through the best case scenario. After all, you said yourself that every ti you’ve changed sothing, it has resulted in a worse series of events.’
And you think that the keystone, or Fate, or the djinn—whatever is driving this sequence of events—is trying to show that things have unfolded for a reason?’
Sylvie shrugged her incorporeal shoulders. ‘I wouldn’t dare to hope it’s that simple, and it does seem to fly in the face of your living through life exactly as you already had, since that resulted only in a sort of ti loop…but as for why you can suddenly see these golden threads connecting mont to mont of your life, if this understanding is putting you on the right track, then you’ve gained so insight that Fate wants you to have.’
I nodded along slowly. What she said made sense, but it was also very disconnected from how I thought about mana, aether, insight, and even the previous suppositions I’d made about the aspect of Fate itself, and I found it difficult to fix this new paradigm in my mind.
‘Why don’t we continue forward,’ Sylvie suggested. ‘We can check other points in your life for these trails or threads as well. Maybe we can confirm more about it or unlock so new insight.’
We don’t know if you can travel along the tiline with , I pointed out. If I retract my mind and allow events to proceed forward, you may be drawn away on the path you originally took during this ti.
‘Then I will see you at my birth,’ Sylvie answered with a wry smile.
I squird in Mother’s arms, and she let scramble free. With one last concerned look, she stood and returned to my father.
I sat on my knees beside Sylvie. ‘Enter my body. Just guesswork, but maybe it will shield you or keep us together.’
She did, and I pulled back from the world, letting ti rush by.
Are you still with ? I asked.
‘I am,’ Sylvie confird, and I felt relief wash through .
Progress. We were making progress.
I plunged back into the rapidly passing ti as we once again approached the mountain pass where the attack happened and I was separated from my family. I found myself sitting in the cart with my mother, who was watching the scenery pass while chatting with Angela Rose and paying no mind.
With the itch in my real core as a guide, I reached for my physical body and focused on the Realmheart godrune.
As expected, the world lit up with particles of aether and mana. And running through them, a thin thread of golden light, leading onward to the site of the ambush and the cliff. Thinner, fainter threads ran back from the glowing aura around the mountainside to each of us, as well as the hidden bandits. Pieces were clicking into place.
“Stop,” I said, my small voice commanding.
Durden pulled the reins, bringing our cart to a halt. The adults all looked at with surprise.
‘What are you doing?’ Sylvie asked, then, ‘Oh!’ as my thoughts passed to her.
“There is an ambush ahead.” I continued, explaining to the Twin Horns and my parents what was going to happen. As they hurried into position to counter the bandits, I released Realmheart and activated Aroa’s Requiem.
This ti, although the mana and aether particles faded out of view, the golden lines remained.
I reached out and took the golden thread leading away from the battle in my fingers and gave it a small tug. The world around rushed by, only it was moving in reverse. That small tug took back a few minutes. When I released it, the cart was again moving forward, my mother still seated beside chatting with Angela Rose, paying no mind. The point where I’d stopped the cart passed, and we rolled forward toward the fight that separated from my family.
Activating Aroa’s Requiem again, I pulled the thread forward.
The fight rushed by as if ti were sped up, but it was different than when I disassociated from my body and stepped away, letting life play out as it had happened without conscious effort or interference. This speeding up of events felt more intentional, with my mind and location both staying relevant to my place in ti. Events still played out the sa way, but there seed to be no risk of being caught up in the rushing tide of ti and the vortex effect I had encountered before.
Even as I plumted off the cliffside yet again, I grinned.
Everything was starting to make sense.
I hurried forward to Sylvia’s cave. It was another point in ti marked with the golden aura of Fate, which was no surprise.
‘I can feel the egg pulling in,’ Sylvie said as we descended into the cave where I would et my Grandma Sylvia—and Sylvie her mother—for the first ti.
It’s fine, go to it. I’ll see you on the other side.
Despite my curiosity about using Realmheart and Aroa’s Requiem to explore the different potential outcos of my ti with Sylvia, there was sothing else more imdiate that I wanted to accomplish. Sylvie was reborn as herself, and as I had hoped, the real Sylvie’s mind remained awake and conscious inside of her newborn body.
We sped forward, examining each major turning point in my life, unsurprised to find they were all marked by Fate. It was as Windsom transported us to Epheotus for the first ti that I was brought up by an unexpected and rather uncomfortable thought.
All of these monts marked by Fate…were they destined to happen that way? Did Fate make these monts happen?
Hearing my thoughts and understanding the underlying context, Sylvie’s tone was consoling when she answered. ‘You made these choices, Arthur. You know that. No one was pulling the strings making these things happen.’
Still, I could feel her lack of surety, only partially veiled from our connection. There were so many places where it could go wrong. Even when I have made better choices in the keystone, the result has always been my premature death. What if…Fate is prioritizing my survival over the good of the world?
‘Or,’ Sylvie began, her tone that of soone explaining sothing very simple to soone very dense, ‘your survival is what is best for this world. But I think I have to point out that this keystone and the events it creates aren’t real. How could it know what would have happened in every given scenario?’
Fate, I reminded her.
“Arthur, Lady Sylvie. I must insist we continue on,” Windsom said, turning to look at us against the backdrop of the many-colored bridge and Kezess’s castle, the twin peaks of Mount Geolus swallowed by an endless expanse of fog.
Activating Aroa’s Requiem, I sped forward through the bulk of my training until I reached a specific point.
“The fact is that you’re a walking collection of statistical improbabilities,” Wren said, looking at with clear exasperation. “You have an innate ability to comprehend the workings of the four main elents, as well as so of their deviating elental forms, coinciding so neatly with the fact that comprehension of all four elents is necessary to unlock the mysteries of aether, which the very princess of dragons just so happens to have kindly bestowed upon you. Everything about you is an outlier, boy. Even asuras don’t have that much innate talent and luck.”
“If that’s your way of cheering up, thank you,” I chuckled, getting to my feet. “Now, what’s next on our to-do list?”
“Before that, give your dominant hand.” Wren rose from his conjured earthen throne and approached .
Spreading out my right hand, palm facing up, I stared at the asura, waiting in anticipation. The next step was one I was less certain of than the previous revelations regarding Aroa’s Requiem and Realmheart, or even of combining Sylvie with her keystone-ghost self.
Wren pulled a fist-sized black case from his coat pocket, then opened it and removed a small pyramidal opaque gem. “This is a mineral called acclorite. By itself, it’s a rather rare but useless piece of rock. However, with the right refining and synthesizing process—which I will keep unto my grave, so don’t bother asking—it is capable of sothing remarkable.”
“Like forming a weapon. Or even, in the right circumstances, a living being,” I replied.
Wren’s brows rose up into his unkempt hairline, and he regarded with undisguised astonishnt. “So soone has been spilling secrets before their due ti, I see,” he said after a mont, recovering and glancing around sourly as if he would find the guilty party hiding behind a rock. “How unprofessional.”
“I’m going to tell you sothing, and you don’t have any choice other than to believe ,” I started, having already confird that this was one of those monts marked by Fate. I took confidence from the knowledge that I could simply reverse course and attempt this again if I failed.
Wren made a face, but I pushed on. “Although it takes much more than a year, this acclorite does in fact grow into a weapon: a conscious being combining aspects of Sylvie, Sylvie, myself, and a Vritra retainer nad Uto.”
Wren’s mouth curved into a wry smile as if he thought I were teasing him.
“Listen, Wren. This being is born in a place called the Relictombs—the system of dungeons or ‘chapters’ created by the djinn, and so he is able to feed on and utilize aether. So part of that being’s consciousness—his na is Regis—is currently sleeping within —kind of, except my body is…outside of this space and ti—and I need to wake him up. I think this acclorite is the key to doing that.”
Wren’s smirk had slowly slipped off his face. He was frowning at as if I were delirious or worse. “How could you know any of this, boy? The elven seer? Even if she’d shared so kind of vision with you, how would the—”
“It’s more complicated than that,” I interrupted, drawing a scowl from my tutor. “Suffice it to say that I know with utmost certainty that the consciousness that will grow out of this acclorite is here, now, with us. Sleeping. I want you to help bind the mind back to the stone and awaken Regis early.”
Sothing clicked into place in Wren’s expression. It wasn’t belief, really, but more like…intrigue, and a very real willingness to explore this possibility further. “What are you suggesting?”
“First, set the acclorite under my skin,” I said, holding my hand out again.
Wren let out a long breath, then took hold of my hand and began pressing the opaque gem into my palm. I hardly registered the pain, and soon enough the acclorite disappeared underneath my skin.
I flexed my hand a couple of tis, staring at my palm. Nothing happened.
“Now what?” Wren asked.
“This is your area of expertise. How could this rock turn into a conscious, living creature?”
“It’s rare,” Wren answered. He, too, was staring at my hand. “With suitable focus, determination, and input of energy, a weapon grown from acclorite will contain so asure of self-determination. This is born of the wielder, and fully binds a weapon to its user. But for the acclorite to grow into a fully self-aware, conscious being, this transfer of energy must be matched by an incredible will and, usually, a significant amount of desperation. Your state of being when the weapon manifested plays an essential role, as do the source and variety of inputs prior to manifestation.”
I smiled in amusent, recognizing Wren’s words here as an echo of what he’d said when he discovered Regis was a conscious manifestation in my real life. “And sothing of the acclorite remains, though. You said…well, nevermind, but if Regis were here in body, you would be able to sense the acclorite’s energy, right?”
Wren rested his hands on his hips and tapped his fingers rapidly. “I would. A being born of acclorite is mutable in nature, but the signature of its origin should be perceptible even if it were present only in a disembodied form. Unless that form was shrouded inside the body of another living being, where its own signature would be disguised by the mana and natural rhythm of the host—the heartbeat, breathing, circulation from core to channels, et cetera. This may be made yet more complicated if the being is—how did you put it?—outside space and ti, whatever that ans.”
“But if you knew it was there, and the host in question allowed you, could you find that sleeping mind?”
Wren regarded as if I had completely lost my own mind. “I won’t pretend to even fully understand what that ans, but…” His eyes narrowed, and he mussed his already tangled hair. With a scoff, he waved a hand and conjured a flat bed of rock, indicating I should lie down. I did so, and he stood over . “Close your eyes and stop the noisy gears of your senseless brain from spinning so I can focus.”
I bit back a sarcastic retort and tried to do as he ordered, letting my mind still and go blank. My breathing slowed, as did my pulse. Calling back on multiple lifetis of practice, I fell into a ditative blankness.
Wren’s hands passed over . I could sense them, but I didn’t focus on them. He humd thoughtfully, then let out an irritated huff, his warm breath washing across my face. Then, after what felt like a very long ti, “Aha…”
Physical fingers pressed down over my sternum, and fingers of magic probed deeper, wriggling through flesh and at and even deeper than my core into sothing ethereal and intrinsic to my being—the nexus of where my waking consciousness in the keystone t my physical body outside of it. I focused on the weak sense I had of Regis’s sleeping mind, which I felt even in that first mont after appearing inside the keystone, and hoped that the spotlight of my thoughts would point Wren in the right direction.
“Stop that, boy. Just lay there and act like the braindead loon you are. I take back every positive thing I’ve ever said about you. There’s no way you are anything but a complete and utter kook—” He cut off with a sharp inhalation, and I felt the incorporeal fingers close around sothing. “By the ancients, you are right. An acclorite-born being…I can feel it tethered to you—no, woven into and through you, as tied to you as your own nervous system…”
A warm, familiar energy floated up from my sternum through my chest and into my arm, then down the arm to my hand, guided by Wren’s magic. He snorted with delight. “I’ve never rehod a consciousness that already exists into an acclorite crystal before. It shouldn’t work, but if you’re right and this…Regis…was really born from this acclorite…” The acclorite burned hot as molten iron in my palm, and I gasped at the pain. Wren grabbed my wrist, pinning my arm to the stone.
Purple light glowed through my skin, which felt like it would burn away at any mont.
‘Arthur, what’s wrong? What’s happening?’ Sylvie’s voice sounded in my mind from where she still trained with her grandfather in Castle Indrath.
My eyes rolled back into my head as my body bucked. A powerful hand pressed against my chest, holding flat and preventing from hurting myself. Not that I could have felt it past the agony of the acclorite.
A black will-o-wisp the size of my clenched fist floated free of my flesh, and the pain vanished. I sank back, no longer bucking against Wren’s arms, sweat pouring from my face and my breath coming in desperate gasps. I just barely made out the ball of dark light, within which two bright sparks glinted like eyes and a black slash below them looked like a wry smile.
I had no breath to speak, no focus to generate words. Even my mind seed clouded, and I couldn’t sense the thoughts of either Regis or Sylvie.
The will-o-wisp darted closer to and dipped low.
“Behold, master. I, Regis, the mighty weapon gifted to you by the asuras so long ago, have finally manifested in all my glory!” The two bright sparks glinted as if they were blinking, and the wisp turned slowly around in a circle. “Wait, what the hell is going on?”
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