The ten circles hung in the air, each trembling faintly as if rebelling against their sudden birth. The chamber was filled with the crackle of raw heat, a sound like coals shifting under a blacksmith's hammer. Ash fell from the air in streaks of red and gray, clinging to Alatar's skin like burning snow.
He knelt on one knee, his chest heaving, his arms trembling under an invisible weight. Every breath felt like swallowing embers. His temples throbbed, his skull squeezed tight as if the ten spheres pressed against the walls of his mind.
And yet—he smiled.
The smile was strained, bloodied, but real. "Ten," he whispered. His voice cracked with exhaustion but carried pride. "You will not scatter. You will not leave me."
The spheres wobbled again, pulling against one another, straining to collapse into chaos. He tightened his grip—not with his hands, but with his will. He imagined shackles of iron locking around each one, chains drawn tight, pulling them into his orbit.
Pain tore through his skull. His vision doubled. His lips peeled back in a grimace as he clung to the image, refusing to relent.
Barachas's voice came, steady and observing.
"Do you feel it now? The toll of command. Every breath you take is a price. Every command, a cost. This is the truth of wielding power: it consumes, always."
Alatar gritted his teeth, his jaw trembling. "Then let it consume," he spat. "I will not yield."
His fingers clawed against the stone floor as though trying to root himself there. The spheres flared, their light clashing, sparks scattering into the air.
The weight in his skull grew unbearable, as though his own thoughts were being squeezed out by the ash. The temptation came like a whisper: let go. Collapse. Five was enough. Five was safe.
His breath hitched. The thought wormed into him, sly, alluring. He could release them now and rest. Five had once felt like triumph. Why bleed for ten?
He closed his eyes, forcing the whisper away. No. No retreat.
The memory rose unbidden—of the chains, of the torment that had bound him when first he appeared in the Sanctum. The ash had poured into him then, not as friend or ally but as tormentor, searing his flesh, trying to devour him. He had survived, not by mercy, but by refusal to die.
If I endured that, he thought savagely, then I will endure this.
His head snapped up. The spheres shook, threatening to collapse. His voice cracked into the chamber like a whip:
"Yield!"
The spheres froze. Then, slowly, their trembling steadied.
Alatar's breath steadied with them. A rhythm formed—inhale, exhale, command, obey. His body still ached, his skull still throbbed, but he felt a shift. The chaos that had threatened to crush him now pressed against him like a weight he could bear, if only barely.
His lips twisted into another smile, wider this time. "You see?" he whispered to the spheres. "You can fight. But I will always win."
Barachas stepped closer, studying him with a gaze sharp as a blade. His voice rumbled. "You suffer, but you do not break. This is good. This is command."
Alatar didn't answer, his focus locked on the spheres. His pride swelled with each passing heartbeat. The ache in his skull remained, but it dulled. The trembling in his arms subsided. Where once the ten had been unstable, now they circled in a rough but steady orbit.
The longer he held them, the easier it became. The fire that had seemed foreign to him began to feel… natural. His thoughts no longer buckled beneath the weight but shaped themselves around it. Each sphere bent to his will a fraction more smoothly, as though his mind had grown claws and dug them deeper into the ash's essence.
A laugh escaped him, raw and unsteady but full of triumph. "I can feel it," he murmured. "The strain, the pain—it lessens. They are not fighting me now. They are mine."
Barachas nodded, though his eyes remained stern. "Do not mistake ease for mastery. You are only learning to carry the weight. To wield it, you must not only bear it—you must bend it. Crush it into forms of your choosing."
Alatar tilted his head back, eyes burning with fierce light. "Then I will. If I can shape five, I will shape ten. If I can hold ten, I will hold more. There is no limit."
His words echoed, sharp with conviction. The ten spheres glowed brighter, responding to his certainty, their hum deepening into a resonant chord that vibrated through the chamber.
The ache in his skull faded into a tolerable pressure, the fire in his veins no longer unbearable but exhilarating. His breathing steadied into a rhythm of control. The temptation to release them dwindled until it was nothing.
Barachas's lips curved, pride flickering across his features like dawn breaking over stone. "Yes," he said softly. "Now you begin to understand. The more the ash yields, the more you will grow. And the more you grow, the easier command will become. This is the path. This is power."
Alatar rose slowly to his feet, no longer trembling. The ten spheres circled him in tighter, more obedient arcs. He lifted his hand, and they followed, orbiting as though tethered by invisible chains.
He looked at them and felt no fear, no doubt. Only hunger.
"This is only the beginning," he said. His voice no longer cracked with strain. It rang with resolve. "I will not stop here. Not at ten. Not at twenty. I will command until there is nothing left to resist me."
Barachas inclined his head, the shadow of a smile on his lips. "Then you walk the path of those who rule, not those who serve. I see it now—you were never meant to bow."
Alatar met his gaze, eyes burning. "No chains," he whispered. "Not mine. Not yours. Not theirs. Only command."
The ten ashes burned brighter, circling him in radiant defiance, and for the first time, they no longer felt like tormentors or strangers. They felt like extensions of himself.
The weight remained, but it no longer crushed him. It strengthened him. And deep within, he knew: every chain could be broken. Every shackle, shattered.
The chamber was silent save for the slow hum of ash as it circled the air. Ten dark orbs swam through the stillness like planets around a hidden sun, glowing faintly with ember-light. They moved neither wildly nor in perfect synchrony but in a rhythm Alatar's will forced upon them—uneven, strained, yet unmistakably under his control.
Alatar stood in the center, arms spread, chest rising and falling in deliberate, steady breaths. Sweat glistened on his skin, dripping down his jaw. His lips moved with whispers that were not spells but mantras of command, words of anchoring he repeated to keep the circles tethered.
"Stay. Obey. Yield."
Each word was a nail driven into the spheres, pinning them in place. Each word cost him a fraction of himself.
Barachas watched from the edge of the chamber, arms folded across his broad chest. His expression was neither approving nor condemning—he observed, waiting for proof beyond words.
Alatar clenched his jaw, narrowing his eyes on the orbit of the spheres. "Tighter," he murmured.
The spheres hesitated, their light flickering as if mocking him. He forced his will upon them again, sharper this time. "Closer. Do not resist me."
The orbit shrank. Two of the spheres collided in a hiss of ash, scattering sparks. Alatar's breath caught—his grip wavered—but with a guttural growl he forced them apart again, corralling them back into the circle.
His knees nearly buckled. His vision swam. But he grinned through clenched teeth.
"Good," Barachas rumbled at last. "You begin to learn that command is not only to call, but to bind. Chaos will always test your grip. Only one truth matters: if you release, you lose."
Alatar's eyes blazed. "Then I will never release."
The strain grew heavier the longer he held them. His arms felt like lead, though they were not the ones doing the work. The exhaustion came not from muscle but from mind, the way a candle weakens not because the wick fails but because the flame eats everything around it.
But beneath the exhaustion came something else—subtle, surprising. A familiarity.