Discordant Note | TBATE

Toren Daen

My heart pounded in my skull as I slowly came to consciousness, jostled continuously by somebody moving. I squirmed in discomfort, which rewarded me with sharp pain coursing all over my body.

I groaned, feeling the bruises and wounds I had all over. My shin, shoulder, and ribs hurt especially. My hands were bound awkwardly behind my back, which stretched out my wounded shoulder in a very unpleasant way.

I watched the ground pass by beneath me. I was moving at a slow pace; my eyes taking a moment to adjust to the light.

"Ah, awake already, are we?" someone said. Recognizing the voice, my confusion vanished in the face of fear. It was the man who had shown up right after my fight with Kaelan Joan. I was slung haphazardly over his shoulder, and he was whistling a tune as he moved.

He hopped over a rock, causing my jaw to smack against his back.

"You came back faster than most people do!" he said cheerily. "Usually they only wake up when we're about to work on them. Shame, that. There's this buildup of tension that's entirely lost when they just sleep through their delivery."

The metal attached to my wrists was cold and sterile. I didn't know if I'd be able to break my shackles, but I knew my best chance of escape was before we actually reached our destination.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked, hoping my fear wasn't audible in my voice. I didn't want to show weakness to this man.

"Take a guess, my friend," the man said, turning. Trailing behind me was a feline beast made entirely of fire. Its eyes were unnervingly empty, staring back without intelligence. It left no scorch marks as it walked.

And I couldn't sense the fire mana within. Actually, I couldn't sense mana at all: my hearing, which was usually hyper-acute, was so dull as to be nonexistent. My body felt weaker than before, and each laborious breath sent undulled pain through my body.

I can't use my mana, I realized, panic flaring up. It was still there. I probably wouldn't have been able to even feel any mana if the phoenix feather in my core wasn't constantly outputting some. But even that I could only grasp a trickle of it before my sense of it cut off, vanishing like it was never there.

"My mana," I said aloud, real fear in my voice. I didn't think there was any point in trying to hide it anymore.

"Mana suppression shackles," my captor provided cheerily. "You won't be able to do anything with those on."

My heart began to thunder in my chest. I tried to think over my options: I couldn't fight this man. Could I escape? The light around me made me think I was inside some sort of building. He wanted me alive, but would he leave me unhurt?

I wriggled, trying to get a better view of where I'd passed through. I was able to make out the length of a hallway before a strike to my wounded shin made me cry out.

"No looking, little man," my captor said as if he was scolding a dog. "Can't have you doing that."

I was thinking as fast as I could, going over all I knew about the Joans. I was probably in some sort of hideout. Was I going to be tortured? Killed? I was drenched in sweat from my previous battle, but I was sure another wave of perspiration had broken out onto my skin. 

My captor stopped and then knocked on a door. I felt tempted to keep looking around to try to discern more information about where I'd been taken, by my captor must have somehow sensed my intent. He dug a thumb into my wounded shoulder, causing me to grunt in pain.

Without another moment to waste, my captor flung open the door. He strode in with a notable strut, each movement jostling me on his shoulder.

"You have him, Dornar?" I heard a crisp voice ask.

I felt a hand wrap around my throat, causing me to thrash weakly. It hoisted me up, then flung me down.

With my hands bound behind my back, I was unable to break my own fall. My nose hit the hardwood with a painful crunch, causing me to see stars. Blood pooled under my face from my broken nose, and I had to wriggle to get my knees under me. I groaned.

"That's him, brother! Though I'm afraid dear old Kael won't be joining us. She bit off more than she could chew."

"She's dead, then?" that sharp voice asked with rising anger.

"Unfortunately. I tried to get to her as she fought, but I was too far away to reach them in time. Truly a pity."

I finally got myself situated enough to try and raise my torso, but before I could I felt a hand grasping at my hair from the front. Then my face was slammed back into the wood, my forehead cracking against the floor.

My vision went white with the pain, and I gasped as everything blurred. What had just–

The same hand grasped my hair again, pulling my body up to face them. There was a long gash over my forehead now, leaking blood into my eyes. I had to blink through a curtain of red to see who was holding me captive, my vision hazy not just from the blood.

They had sandy-blonde hair, the same as my previous captor. But this man had a bit of weight to his face that came from excess. My brain was still muddled from being slammed into the wood twice, but I could make out the contempt on his face. "Do you know who I am, Daen?" they asked, pronouncing each syllable deliberately.

I recognized the sandy hair. A Joan.

I spat in his face. My saliva, red from blood, landed right between his eyes.

The man growled in anger, then punched me in the stomach. Unprotected by mana, my body was far from ready to take the blow. I wheezed out, toppling backward as the air was thrust from my body. Pain rang anew as my broken ribs creaked.

"I am Lawrent Joan, you rat," the paunchy man said from above me. "And you've dared to do so much to my family. You disgraced the lords of Fiachra by existing. "

Through the haze of my mind, I connected a few of the dots. Lawrent Joan, head of Blood Joan. That meant the person who had captured me was probably Dornar Joan. He was dressed in lavish yellows and reds, the colors of Blood Joan. Even to my untrained eye, I recognized the expensive cut.

"And you hurt me!" another voice, young and scratchy, called out. "I'm going to make you pay for that!"

I saw the kick coming this time. I tried to turn slightly, attempting to roll with the blow. It hit me on my good shoulder, knocking me over and certainly causing a bruise. I grunted but didn't give them the satisfaction of a scream.

I hated Blood Joan so, so much. I would've thought that with the death of Kaelan Joan, my contempt would have sputtered out. I completed my vengeance; everyone who I wanted dead was dead. The debt had been paid.

But with each blow these men laid upon me, I felt that rage grow.

"Lawris, enough!" Lawrent snapped, a crackle of electricity punctuating his words. "He'll get what he deserves. I've waited too long for this, and you will not ruin this with your ineptitude!"

"But Father–"

"Quiet, you dolt!"

I coughed weakly, a bit of blood that had run down my throat being expelled. I really didn't see a good way out of this. Considering my face was having an intimate moment with the floorboards, I wasn't able to see much of anything period .

"Don't forget his ring, brother!" Dornar said from above. "There's not much inside, though. But it's your spoils."

And my blood ran cold. My dimension ring. Where I stored everything I owned.

Including my notebook on The Beginning After the End.

My breathing ratcheted up as I began to think over and over about the hell this world might face if that knowledge got out. It was ciphered, but would it hold up under the scrutiny of the Sovereigns?

Considering how my breath shuddered, I knew the answer. Each quickened inhale sent sharp, agonizing pain through my ribs. But the fear… the fear drowned it out.

"Oh?" I heard Dornar say from above me. "Brother, I think the Rat doesn't want you looking through his dimension ring," he chuckled.

I was hauled back to my knees. Lawrent Joan looked into my eyes once more, searching for something.

He must've found what he was looking for because he smiled nastily. "That ring has something, Dornar," he said fingering my dimension ring. When he saw how my eyes widened at the sight, he laughed horribly.

"Don't," I said weakly. These men were monsters. But the Vritra could do so much worse to the world. "Don't let them have it," I said through bloodied lips, feeling delirious from the combined weight of my exhaustion and multiple head blows. "They'll ruin this world!"

I took another blow to my side, causing me to fall backward with a painful cough. I was getting a layout of the room in the worst way possible: by having my view forcibly changed by punches and kicks.

Lawrent was wearing my dimension ring, and from the glazed look in his eyes, he was inspecting the contents. In a minute, he withdrew the notebook.

"Such a little thing, to cause you so much fear," the man mocked, watching my reactions.

"You don't know what that will do," I challenged. The fear was raw in my voice now. By any gods that existed in this world, that book couldn't stay in the hands of the Joans. I didn't want to believe I'd been brought to this world only to doom it all with my capture.

Lawrent tossed the book to the side, causing his son Lawris to haphazardly catch it. "I'm going to make you pay, Daen, as my father should have," he said. "Because of his incompetence, Blood Joan has lost more than it ever should have. A beaten dog doesn't bite back against its owners. But with your death, that will be set right. No more rabid mutts."

Lawrent walked back to his desk, which was made of furnished clarwood. A tall window stretched behind him, letting in faint rays of moonlight. He opened a drawer in his desk, retrieving a couple of items.

But my eyes were drawn to a quill that hovered over a piece of parchment on Lawrent Joan's desk as if held by an invisible hand. It shuddered sometimes, then bobbed in the air this way and that.

Staring at it caused an itch in my skull; like there was something on the tip of my tongue that I couldn't quite remember. I felt a bit of my current predicament fade into the background of my mind. Trying to figure this out was more difficult than trying to catch a receding dream; a grasp on the fading bits and pieces was not enough.

"But before you die, you will suffer," he said, hefting something in the air. It was a large syringe, filled with a light green substance that almost seemed to glow. The moonlight from behind the window streamed through it, casting mutated, writhing shadows. It looked familiar somehow. "Do you know what this is, Rat?"

I stared at the liquid, but whatever torture method these men had concocted paled in comparison to what might happen if my journal was released. I had trouble feeling greater dread in the face of that.

Lawrent flicked the tip of the needle, which sprayed a tiny droplet of liquid. "This is our best product," he said. "The most refined batch we've ever distilled. One drop of this, and you'll be in heaven."

I didn't know I could feel any more fear, but at his words, I went stiff as a board. That was blithe. The drug that ruined the lives of so many in East Fiachra.

"That's how it works for unads, at least. But when a mage takes a drop, it reacts with the mana inside of them, some of the drug mutating back into the prime ingredient."

I finally realized what made the drug look so familiar. It was the same vibrant green as the acidic liquid used by acidbeam hornets.

I felt myself grow sick at the realization, but there was no way for me to escape. I tried to wriggle backward as Lawrent Joan stalked forward, a predatory gleam in his eyes.

No, no, no, I thought as I stared at the needle. I tried to strengthen my body, but my mana was sealed, refusing to respond to my desperate pleas for help. I pushed and pushed and pushed, but my power failed me, refusing me like an uncaring parent.

The head of the Joans laid a meaty hand on my shoulder, pulling me up. The shackles dug painfully into my hands, and the blood dripping down my eyes made the moon behind Lawrent red as blood. I breathed in quick bursts, never taking my eyes off the needlepoint.

"You know something, Daen?" Lawrent said maliciously, his heavy hand on my shoulder. "They say that once the acid gets to the mana core, it causes pain enough to drive a man mad. I heard that this was a prime torture method the High Sovereign himself employed on the unwilling within Taegrin Caelum."

The needle slowly lowered toward my sternum. I struggled and thrashed, gnashing and spitting at the man, but he held me with an iron grip. "But I think I'll skip the waiting and inject it right into your core," he said with a terrible grin.

The needlepoint pressed against my sternum, the little bit of the drug that came in contact sizzling there. I braced for hell.

An explosion rocked the building, throwing me to the side and causing the furniture to rumble. The needle flew from Lawrent Joan's hands, crashing against the floor. The noble himself stumbled backward as the floor shook.

"What in the High Sovereign's name?!" Lawrent cried, looking about. He and Dornar moved to the door, peering out. Lawris looked petrified for a moment before his eyes landed on the needle.

The hovering quill had been knocked from the desk. No, that wasn't quite right: there was a small metal cube that had been pushed over, and whenever that cube bounced on the floor, the quill moved in sync with it, as if bound by invisible strings. But as Lawrent yelled, the quill began to move independently of the dark metal cube, drawing itself across the floor in an attempt to write something.

It was some sort of telekinetic artifact.

I stared at the quill, finally grasping what it was I had been missing. The feather was moved by the mana relative to the cube, the ambient mana simultaneously making way for the feather and supporting it along. There was a touch of gravity magic coursing through it all as well, carrying the feather rigidly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Lawris Joan scrambling for the syringe. Another explosion thundered through the building, sending the quill–and the syringe–tumbling.

But I understood now. I knew how it was held aloft, finally put together the pieces. It was as if lightning flashed in my mind, each stroke of electricity connecting the dots inside my skull. That feather was held aloft by true telekinesis rather than a constant push or pull. And then I wondered… could I do something like that?

I felt a warmth from my lower back pulsing inward, my telekinetic rune pushing mana to my core despite the shackles. It was overwhelming, scouring away remaining impurities and revealing the yellow beneath. The cracks that ran through the length of my light orange core shone, and then the outer shell flaked away like dry skin, the orange dissolving into motes of energy. My crest, now an emblem from greater understanding, was forcefully purifying my core in the process of changing.

My dark yellow core pulsed mana outward, the explosion of purification fighting against the suppression from the shackles. 

"Contractor!" a voice crashed through my head, powerful and sonorous. "Listen to me! You must press outward now! Force apart your bindings!"

Feeling drunk from the flare of power, I failed to recognize the voice. It was an intoxicating sensation, not dissimilar to an adrenaline high. My emblem filtered knowledge into my brain, telling me of its purpose. I could truly grasp things now, holding and shifting them through this world. What greater strength was that? To move the world with your mind?

But as soon as the power came, it began to fade, the mana suppression shackles I wore compressing my senses back into myself. The outburst of purified mana was losing, quickly being forced back into confinement.

"Toren Daen!" the voice called again, pulling at my thoughts with an almost physical force. "Act! Do not waste this opportunity!"

That voice in my head–not my own, but warm and familiar–pulled me back into the present. I felt my urgency renew, the fading motes of energy like salt in an ocean. I grasped mana from my core, using it to strengthen my body. It was purer and denser than it had been just an hour before, the change from orange to yellow both qualitative and quantitative. My body–weak and battered from a nighttime of fighting, lit up with superhuman strength once more.

I pressed outward with a roar, the metal around my wrists creaking. I thought of my previous life, of Norgan, and of the community I had found in this new world. I would not be held by mere metal!

The shackles binding me shattered, exploding in all directions with a spray of steel. Lawris, who had been crawling toward my body with the syringe in hand, no doubt planning to jam it into my chest, was hit by one of the stray metal shards in the leg, causing him to scream.

Dornar and Lawrent whirled on their feet, both preparing spells, but they froze in place as I slowly pulled myself to my feet.

My leg hurt like the devil, the place where the fire construct had bitten me earlier making it tender. My body was cut and bruised in a dozen different places and I had more than one broken bone.

But as the warm comfort of a second mind enveloped me, I let myself sink deeper into its embrace. I imagined this was what a child felt in the womb; enclosed by utter warmth and surety. I was home. The Phoenix Will in my core rose up in triumph, threading itself through my body.

I opened my eyes. The moon cast silver light over me through the window, though it was now shattered by the rocking force of the second explosion. The tattoo on my left arm began to glow with a powerful red aura, seeming to float above my skin. There was warmth burning on my cheeks, but it was the caress of a mother's touch. A promise that I was not alone. I felt a single tear streak through the blood that caked my face.

"You stand unbroken," Lady Dawn said to me in my mind, relief and reassurance flooding over our bond. It was pure emotion, like an untapped mountain spring. "Show them who we are, Toren Daen."

And as I stared at the three mages in the room, I knew my power. I saw the fire burning brightly in their chests, thumping erratically.

And I knew their fear.