"Another one," Ithan said, his chest still heaving from the last drill. Sweat dripped into his eyes, but he didn't blink it away. His grip on the practice spear was tight, knuckles raw.
Helen lowered her blade, its edge still humming faintly from the last clash. "This time," she said, voice firm but measured, "we build on the battle style I taught you. That, combined with what comes next, will give you enough to keep up with the Blue Orcas."
Ithan straightened, eyes narrowing. "What comes next?"
"Mystery." Helen let the word hang in the air, sharp and heavy. She began to pace in a slow circle around him, the sword resting against her shoulder as if weightless. "You know what it is. You know the ways it can be gained—through bloodline, through knowledge, through rites, through echoes, and through relics. But do you know how Mysteries are expressed? How Mystiques truly utilize them?"
Ithan's brows furrowed. "Don't you just… call upon it?"
He turned his focus inward, the way he always did. The white-hot threads in his blood stirred, weaving into flame. He opened his palm, and a tongue of fire licked up from his skin, dancing against the morning air. Pain accompanied it—always pain—burning deep into his chest and ribs, as if his very marrow had to be reshaped to match the flame's truth. His jaw clenched as the ache spread, aligning him once more with the core of his Mystery.
"Yes," Helen said, her sword lowering until its tip kissed the stone. Her scarlet eyes never left the flame trembling in Ithan's palm. "What you just did was call upon your Mystery's aspect by aligning with the truth within it. That is called Theosis. One of the four expressions of Mysteries."
"Theosis…" Ithan echoed, tasting the word as though it were heavier than language.
"Divine alignment," Helen explained, pacing slowly around him. Her voice carried with it the cadence of instruction and something older, almost ritual. "Mysteries are fragments of divine truth—pieces of cosmic law and order once owned and guarded by the gods. To wield a Mystery is to wield a natural law of existence. Each time you summon flame, you are not just conjuring fire—you are aligning yourself with the law that fire is and embodying the authority they once wielded."
The flame flickered higher in his hand, as if it had heard her words and fed on them. Ithan's chest tightened against the old ache of scar tissue. "And that comes from… my bloodline?" he asked.
Helen stopped her pacing, the corner of her mouth curving faintly. "Most Titan-legacy Mysteries—the type you wield—are bloodline bound. They are called lineage aspects. Inherited truth, carried in the blood of gods and passed down through their descendants."
The flame shuddered in Ithan's palm, dimming as his focus faltered. "You think I'm descended from Prometheus," he said.
His mind shifted unbidden to Garrick's grave. He remembered kneeling there, fingers brushing against cold metal—the broken chain he had unearthed, the weight of it heavy and alien. The moment it touched him, something had surged awake inside, the first flicker of fire that had nearly consumed him. That chain had vanished the instant his Mystery awakened, disappearing as if it had never existed.
Relics didn't simply vanish. He knew that. He'd seen Kallus's trident—how the weapon shimmered with power, the way it had answered its wielder. Without the trident, Kallus could not reach his Mystery. The Relic was a bridge, not a disappearance.
Ithan's gaze dropped to his hand, to the thin flame coiling upward like smoke from an unseen pyre. So what if Helen is right? The thought bit into him. What if the Prometheus Mystery had always been in me, waiting, bound in my blood—and the chain only unlocked what was already there?
The idea sat in his chest like a second scar, heavy, unshakable.
Helen rested her sword across her shoulders, pacing slowly as she spoke, the morning sun catching in her braid. "Another way to express Mystery is through Mysterion. Revelation. By gaining insights from the Mystery woven into the world around us, one can express its truth through Mysterion. This allows a Mystique to reshape reality for a purpose drawn from that insight." She paused, her scarlet gaze flicking to Ithan. "It is the most common path. The way most Mystiques awaken. Your former captain, Larson—he was one of them. He likely gained his Mystery in the heat of battle, when insight carved itself into him, and he learned the truth of combat the hard way."
Ithan's grip on the spear shaft tightened. She was right. He could still see Larson's face from their first mission outside Ravenstone—the blood in the dirt, the moment he should have died but didn't. When they left the village, Larson had no Mystery. But on that day, when survival demanded more, something had answered him. The truth had burned into him, and after that, he fought as if battle itself had given him its law.
Helen stopped pacing, her expression sharpening. "The third expression is Eidolon." The word fell like a warning. "I don't usually advise Mystiques to tread that path. It requires you to give your Mystery shape, to draw it into constructs and forms. Chains, shields, avatars. But doing so risks drawing the attention of shadow echoes—vestiges of the gods who once held the Mystery. If they notice you…" Her eyes narrowed. "Possession is not an impossible outcome."
Ithan's stomach tightened. He thought of the chains he had woven in flame, the way they had wrapped around his enemies in the fight against the Orcas. They had felt natural to him, like the flame itself had wanted to take that shape. Yet never once had he felt a presence pressing into him, no shadow whispering from Prometheus's vestige. Still, her words planted unease. He flexed his fingers unconsciously, as if expecting the chains to rise again.
Helen let the silence linger a beat before continuing. "The last expression," she said, lowering her sword, "is Logoi. Verbalized truth. Spells, incantations—words that embody the Mystery itself. To speak Logoi is to call truth into the world with your own voice." Her gaze locked on him, sharp and unyielding. "And this… this is the expression I believe will suit you best."
Ithan swallowed, his chest tight. The thought of giving voice to the fire inside him, of shaping truth with words, sent a shiver down his spine.
"That sounds like magic to me," Ithan muttered, his eyes narrowing as he studied Helen.
"It kind of is," Helen admitted, though her tone carried a sharp edge. "But don't confuse Mysterion's arts with the craft practiced by Magi or Witches." She shifted the sword from shoulder to hip, her voice lowering into something almost instructive. "We Mystiques, by virtue of possessing Mysteries, are natural wielders of magic. We don't crawl through tomes like the Magi. We don't chant for hours or bleed ourselves in ritual like the Witches. With us, the truth of the Mystery itself does the work. It comes to us because we are already bound to it."
Ithan's jaw tightened. "Larson always said magic was the weapon of cowards."
Helen's eyes flashed, her scarlet gaze holding him like a nail. "And are you going to throw away a weapon that might keep you alive?" Her question struck sharper than her blade.
Ithan looked down at his hands, at the faint blackened scars where fire had crawled along his palms. His mind tugged back, unbidden, to Volos—to the moment he had been cornered, trying to escape with Lyra and Doran, the Orca mercenary bearing down on him. He had whispered words through clenched teeth, words he hadn't even thought about. His voice had shaped the flame, strengthening it. For a breath, it had carried him, given him the strength to knock the man unconscious. And yet, even then, it hadn't been enough.
The memory gnawed at him. He had drawn upon more than just flame that day. Chains of fire, words of command, even the sheer will to stay alive had erupted out of him. He realized, with a cold shiver, that he had touched all four expressions of Mystery in that desperate fight without ever knowing their names.
Now, standing before Helen, the thought of denying himself knowledge felt hollow. His old instincts—the stubbornness drilled into him by Larson—wrestled against the quiet hunger in his chest. The hunger to know, to understand what had happened to him, and to master it.
He raised his eyes to Helen. "Maybe… maybe he was wrong," he admitted, the words tasting strange on his tongue. "Maybe there's nothing cowardly in learning what I already carry."
Helen's smirk flickered, sharp and fleeting. "Good," she said simply. "Curiosity is no sin, Ashborn. It's the fire that tempers the steel. Now let's see if you can give your truth a voice."
****
Steel rang out as Ithan's spear met the sweep of Kallus's trident. The impact cracked like thunder, flame and frost erupting in the same breath. White fire hissed up the length of Ithan's weapon, sparks scattering across the stone, while blue ice laced along Kallus's trident, a chill that bit into the air. The two forces shuddered against each other, repelling with a burst that stung Ithan's skin and numbed his arms.
Pain burned through his ribs where the scar lay, the old reminder of Anastomus's decay, but he forced himself forward. He let the agony sharpen him, pushing his body deeper into the strike. The shaft of the spear hummed in his grip as he turned the clash aside and flowed into another thrust.
This time, his movements weren't wild or desperate. The Amazonian spear art Helen had drilled into him—step by step, breath by breath—had stripped him of wasted motion. His strikes came tight, measured, precise, each one flowing from the last as if the spear were an extension of his pulse. And the flames obeyed. They didn't lash uncontrolled as before but bent along the lines of his movements, the spearhead trailing fire in controlled arcs.
Ithan's lips moved, the words low, sharp, carried by his breath.
"Mystery of Prometheus: Logos Pyros — "Truth of Flame"
A fragment of Logoi, one of the truths Helen had pressed into him. The white flame hardened along the shaft, sheathing it in fire without consuming it. His grip steadied, the weapon alive but not wild.
Kallus's eyes narrowed. He pivoted, driving the trident low to hook Ithan's spear aside. Frost spilled along the ground, slicking the stone beneath their feet. His every movement carried the discipline of one who had long trained under Helen's hand, and the cold weight of his Mystery pressed like a storm tide.
The clash was more than steel and will—it was flame against ice, survival against control. Ithan knew Kallus was no mere opponent; they stood at the same stage, both Protos, yet the trident-bearer's mastery of Mysterion arts and his own battle style made him a hill that had to be climbed, a wall to be broken.
Each strike was a test. Each word Ithan spoke to his fire, each step aligned with the Amazonian spear forms, was a measure of how far he had come—and how much further he had to go.
Ithan steadied his breath, his spear braced against the pressure of Kallus's trident. Frost hissed along the steel, biting into the wood, but Ithan's voice cut through the clash.
"Mystery of Prometheus: Logos Pyros — Truth of Flame."
The words weren't loud, but they burned, carried from the marrow of his bones. The white fire in his veins surged, racing down the length of the spear until the shaft blazed as though it had been forged in a furnace. The flames didn't lash wildly; they bent, shaped by the truth of his Logoi, flowing into precise lines that wrapped the weapon like a living brand.
The next strike came different. When his spear met the trident, the fire didn't just resist the frost—it devoured it, the ice cracking and dripping away in steaming rivulets. Heat rolled off the collision, forcing Kallus to shift back a step, his expression tightening.
Ithan advanced, movements threaded with the Amazonian spear art. Each thrust came sharper, his body aligning with the rhythm Helen had drilled into him, but now the flames answered in kind, moving with him instead of against him. A downward cut seared the air, white fire trailing like a comet's tail, the heat driving into Kallus's guard.
Kallus gritted his teeth, cold surging up the trident to meet the assault. Shards of ice spun out from the clash, glittering and hissing as they evaporated in the heat. Yet Ithan pressed, each repetition of the Logos Pyros layering more certainty into the flame, as if the fire itself sought to prove its truth over the frost.
Helen's voice rang from the sidelines, sharp and cutting. "Good! You've stopped dragging the flame like a chain. Now you're wielding it as truth!"
The spear spun, white fire dancing in arcs, and for the first time in the duel, it was Kallus who yielded ground.
Ithan's spear blazed, the white fire answering his words. "Mystery of Prometheus: Logos Pyros — Truth of Flame." Each strike seared through Kallus's guard, heat breaking apart the ice that tried to cling to him. For the first time, he saw the trident-bearer falter, forced back a step, then another.
But Kallus's grin spread sharp through the steam. "Not bad, Ashborn. But fire burns bright—then dies."
He shifted his stance, one hand sliding along the trident's shaft. Frost coiled outward, not as a crude glaze but as deliberate, curling patterns that crawled up the weapon like runes. His lips moved, steady and strong:
"Mystery of Aegaeon: Logos Kryos — Truth of the Sea's Frost."
The trident pulsed, and the ground itself shuddered under the sudden weight of cold. A burst of icy air shot out, steam hissing as the heat of Ithan's flames collided with it. Frost webbed across the stones at their feet, encasing cracks in jagged white veins.
When the weapons met again, it was no longer fire against simple ice. It was flame as truth against frost as law. The clash thundered, white fire flaring against blue frost, neither giving ground, both pushing at the edges of reality itself.
Ithan's ribs screamed, the scar aching as his Mystery pulled at him, but he bit down and drove forward, the Logoi of flame ringing in his head like a mantra. Kallus pushed back, every movement of his trident carrying the weight of the sea's crushing depths, each thrust a tide that sought to smother fire.
Around them, steam and shards of ice spun into the air, the duel becoming a storm of opposing truths.
From the edge of the yard, Helen's laughter cut through the chaos—sharp, approving. "Yes! That's it! Let your truths devour each other. Show me which of you bends first!"
The yard shook with every clash. Spear and trident struck, white fire roaring against blue frost, their Mysteries carving light and shadow into the morning air. Steam billowed in waves, shards of ice skittered across the stones, the heat and cold colliding in endless rhythm.
Ithan's scar screamed with each motion. Every time he invoked Logos Pyros, the flames tore at him, pain spreading like molten iron through his ribs and lungs. He forced it down, jaw clenched, sweat beading cold along his brow despite the heat rolling off his body.
Opposite him, Kallus bore his own cost. Frost coiled up his arms, clinging to his skin like shackles. His lips had turned pale, his breath misting with every exhale. The longer he held Logos Kryos, the more his movements stiffened, the weight of the sea's cold pressing against his bones. His trident swung with precision, but Ithan could see the creeping slowness at the edges of each strike.
Their weapons locked again, fire and frost screaming against each other.
Ithan bared his teeth, whispering through the pain: "Mystery of Prometheus: Logos Pyros — Truth of Flame." The words gave his spear strength, white fire flooding the shaft, bursting against the trident's icy guard.
Kallus growled, voice hoarse with cold. "Mystery of Aegaeon: Logos Kryos — Truth of the Sea's Frost." Ice cracked louder, frost exploding outward as he poured more of himself into the defense.
The ground between them split, steam and shards scattering. For a breath, neither gave way—then Ithan shoved through the agony burning in his chest, twisting his spear in a sudden upward thrust. His flames flared hot and pure, smashing past the trident's head, licking against Kallus's pauldron. The frost cracked, shattered, melted in an instant of white heat.
Kallus staggered back, breath ragged, ice breaking and falling from his arm. His trident scraped the stones, his hands trembling from the numbing cold that had seeped into his marrow.
Ithan nearly collapsed forward himself, clutching at his ribs as the pain of his Mystery gnawed at him, fire still burning along his scar like an open wound. His spearhead trembled, but he held it high, white fire still crackling along the steel.
Helen's voice rang sharp over the courtyard, laughter threaded with command. "Enough! That's the clash I wanted to see. Pain, cost, and truth! Both of you are bleeding for your Mysteries—and that's the only way they'll ever answer you."
Helen stepped into the yard, the sound of her boots cutting through the hiss of steam and the crunch of frost. Her sword hung loose in her hand, but her presence was heavier than steel.
She let her eyes sweep over them—Kallus with frost still clinging to his skin, lips pale from the chill, and Ithan hunched slightly, one hand pressed to his ribs where the scar pulsed with pain. Both still held their weapons, but both trembled, their Mysteries clawing at them for daring to wield truth.
"Look at you," Helen said, her voice steady, low, carrying. "Both of you. Wielders of truths so old they once belonged to gods. And yet—your bodies crack when you call on them. That, Ashborn, Kallus, is what we call price."
She paced between them, the mist curling around her boots. "Every Mystery extracts its toll. Flame scorches its bearer from the inside, marking you with pain each time you draw it forth." She gestured with her sword toward Ithan, her scarlet eyes narrowing. "That's why you stagger, why your scar screams at you. Your body is being forced to realign with the fire's law every time you speak its Logos."
Then she turned to Kallus, eyes sharp. "And you—your blood runs colder each time you reach for the abyss. Your trident channels the sea's frost, but your body pays for it. Numbness, slowness, breath fading like a man drowning under the waves."
Kallus straightened, though his shoulders still shivered faintly.
Helen stopped, letting the silence weigh before continuing. "This is the truth of Mystiques. No one wields a Mystery without paying. The greater the truth, the heavier the price. Some bleed, some wither, some go mad. Your only choice is whether you endure it and make it yours—or whether you break under it and let the Mystery consume you."
She lifted her sword and drove the tip into the stone floor with a sharp crack. "Never forget: the gods guard their truths jealously, even in death. They left their fragments behind with chains, and every time you touch them, you feel those chains pulling at you. That pull is the price. And only by enduring it will you ever bend a Mystery to your will."
Ithan's grip tightened on his spear, his jaw set despite the throbbing in his ribs. Kallus adjusted the trident in his hand, frost still steaming from the shaft. Both listened in silence, sweat and pain binding them more tightly to Helen's words than any oath.
Helen's eyes glinted with that wild, battlefield light. "Good. Now you've both felt the weight. Remember it. Learn it. Because only fools think they can wield truth without cost."