Chapter 19: Dragon Mama
Iskander
The vortex roared around me, a living tapestry of defiance I'd woven from stolen aether and desperate Creation. It pulsed with my heartbeat, a chaotic, screaming wound in the fabric of the Relictombs, pulling hungrily at the desecrated mountain zone.
I felt the Simulets activate—distinct pulses of spatial compliance tearing through the maelstrom. Yorick vanished first, a flicker of silver light swallowed by the golden-purple storm, his startled gasp lost in the roar. Good. Safe.
The vortex demanded constant feeding, a torrent of pale gold aether channeled from my core to sustain the impossible rupture. I had to hold the door open against the crushing weight of the Relictombs' own laws, buying them every precious fraction of a second.
"It works! Iskander, jump!" Delilah's voice, shrill with terror and fierce hope, cut through the din.
Her form blurred, wreathed in the activation light of her Simulet, then she was gone, swallowed by the swirling chaos. Another spark of safety in the consuming dark.
"Take my hand, Highblood!" Renhart's bellow was raw, close. His scarred hand shot out of the churning light, grasping not air, but my forearm with crushing force. "And fast, for Vritra's fucking sake!"
No reverence in the curse, just pure, desperate urgency. I locked my fingers around his wrist, his grip an anchor in the dissolving world. He heaved, dragging me bodily towards the vortex's heart, my boots skidding on the vaporizing stone.
Then came the agony.
A searing, cold-hot lance of pure violation punched through my right calf. Metal. Solid, unforgiving steel driven with impossible force.
"CHILD!" Sylvia's scream was a psychic detonation, mirroring the physical shock that jolted my spine.
I looked down, a detached part of my mind registering the impossible sight. Gawain Indrath's desecrated form stood anchored within the maelstrom, defying the tearing forces.
His greatsword, wreathed in struggling purple aether fighting my golden tide, was buried to the hilt through my leg, pinning me like a grotesque butterfly to the disintegrating ground. The vacant blue eyes stared past me, focused only on maintaining the anchor, preventing escape.
Panic warred with cold calculation. The vortex strained, demanding more aether I couldn't spare while pinned. Renhart strained, pulling, but the sword held me fast, rooted in stone and dead flesh.
"I need to cut off my leg!" The words ripped out, clinical, horrifying, yet utterly necessary.
Renhart flinched. A micro-expression of pure revulsion crossed his face before the hardened pragmatism slammed back down.
Without a word, without releasing my arm, he swung his mace off his shoulder, shoving the massive, blood-slicked haft into my free hand.
"Use it!" he roared, the sound almost lost in the vortex's shriek.
The weight of the mace was sickeningly familiar. My weapon of liberation was now an instrument of self-mutilation. I took one ragged breath, the air thick with the scent of blood and vaporized rock.
Pale gold aether surged down my left arm, reinforcing muscle, bone, and will. I raised the mace.
CRUNCH.
The first blow was inelegant, brutal. Not a cut, but a crushing impact just above the embedded blade. Bone shattered under the blunt force, a sickening vibration traveling up the haft into my arm.
White-hot agony exploded, momentarily blinding. Blood, shockingly bright against the grey skin, fountained, instantly whipped away by the maelstrom. The leg buckled, but the sword held it pinned.
AGAIN.
I brought the mace down, screaming against the pain, against the grotesque necessity. Tissue tore, ligaments snapped like rotten rope. More blood, a grisly spray painting Renhart's grim face. But the healing had already begun.
Pale gold light flared instinctively around the mangled wound, threads of aether desperately trying to knit shattered bone and torn flesh back together, to seal the very injury I was trying to inflict.
"No!" I snarled, not at Renhart, not at Gawain, but at my own treacherous body. At Agrona's cursed gift.
With a surge of will that felt like tearing my own soul, I wrenched control. I diverted the healing aether flooding from my core, forcing it away from the leg, pouring it instead into the screaming vortex, feeding the escape route for the others.
The pale gold light flickered away from the wound, leaving it raw, bleeding, agonizingly unhealed. The paradox was excruciating: using the power that defined my survival to actively prevent it in this one, horrific instance.
The third blow was the hardest. Not physically, but psychically. To look at your own limb, see the ruin, feel the agony, and consciously choose to finish the job. I angled the mace, using its brutal edge.
A final, wet THUD-SHUCK, a sensation of ultimate severance that bypassed nerves and went straight to the core of my being. My right leg, from the knee down, remained pinned to the dissolving stone by Gawain's sword, a grisly testament to the cost of defiance.
"COME ON!" Renhart's roar was primal. He didn't hesitate. He hauled with all his strength, dragging my now one-legged form bodily into the heart of the vortex.
The last thing I saw was the desecrated face of Gawain Indrath, his empty eyes fixed on the leg he'd claimed, as the golden-purple maelstrom swallowed us whole. The pain was a universe of white noise.
The only thought, a desperate prayer echoing Sylvia's silent horror: let the next Zone just be empty. Please. No more gods turned into puppets. The vortex snapped shut behind us, leaving only blood, echoes, and a forgotten limb in the mountain's corpse.
———
The blue stone beneath me felt unnervingly cool against my palms, slick with the blood still weeping from the ragged stump where my leg had been moments before.
The dim tunnel stretched in both directions, illuminated only by the ghostly, unwavering glow of aether burning within ancient sconces.
It cast long, dancing shadows that seemed to writhe on the walls, mirroring the turmoil inside me. Yorick's frantic question—"Are you fine?!"—hung in the damp air, sharp with the aftertaste of terror.
"I am," Renhart grunted, pushing himself up, his movements stiff but controlled. He wiped a smear of my blood from his jaw with the back of his hand, his gaze, when it landed on me, was a complex mix of disgust, respect, and profound unease.
"But this guy..." He gestured roughly at me, "...he maimed his own leg to escape."
Dizziness washed over me, a thick, nauseating wave threatening to pull me under. The phantom agony of the mace blows, the sickening crunch-snap of my own bone, the visceral horror of severing my own limb—it all echoed in the marrow-deep ache that remained, even as the physical wound was sealed.
I focused inward, a desperate command to the pale gold furnace within.
The bleeding slowed, then stopped, leaving the stump a livid, puckered scar against my grey skin. From the corner of my awareness, Sylvia murmured something, a soft, distressed sound lost in the ringing silence of my own shock.
"This looks more like the normal Relictombs," Renhart observed, his voice low as he scanned the tunnel. His gaze lingered on the aether sconces, then dropped back to my leg. "Can you heal even from... that?"
"I can..." The words felt thick, alien. I pushed myself into a sitting position, gritting my teeth against the residual throb.
Creation stirred, responding not just to need, but to the profound wrongness of incompleteness.
I envisioned the limb—muscle, bone, sinew, nerve—not as it was, but as it should be. Pale gold aether, drawn from the core and the ambient currents humming faintly in the tunnel walls, coalesced around the stump.
Strands of solidified light wove together with impossible speed and precision, forming bone, layering muscle, sheathing it in grey skin identical to the rest of me. Tendons snapped into place, nerves sparked to life.
Within moments, a perfect replica of my right leg laid attached, whole and unblemished. I flexed the toes experimentally. It felt... natural. Seamless.
Delilah gasped, stumbling back a step. Her wide green eyes held not just awe this time, but a dawning, visceral fear.
"How... how can you do something like that?" Her voice trembled. "It's not mana. What is it, if not mana?"
The question hung heavy, demanding an answer I could no longer avoid, not after the horror they'd witnessed, not after the sacrifice I'd forced upon myself for their sake.
Guilt, cold and leaden, settled deep in my gut, heavier than the missing limb had been. It wasn't just guilt for the danger; it was guilt for the deception, for treating their lives, their world, like a storybook adventure while I played the protagonist with god-like powers.
Seris's warnings echoed—anonymity was safety, for them and for me. I ignored it.
"Aether," I confessed, the word tasting like ash. Sylvia's immediate, panicked protest flared in my mind, but I silenced it with my own wave of remorse. "I can use aether."
"I am sorry. I shouldn't have asked you to accompany me... I shouldn't have listened to Seris..." The admission was a raw scrape against my throat. This wasn't a comic book plot anymore.
I wasn't a superhero... Aetherman? Just a delusion.
These were real people, with real fears, real dreams, and I'd nearly gotten them obliterated by a puppet-god because I'd treated their reality like my personal fantasy playground.
"S-seris?" Delilah echoed, the name jolting her out of her fear, replaced by pure, starstruck ecstasy. "Of course! Scythe Seris Vritra! She is the Scythe of Sehz-Clar! Are you... are you training to become her Retainer?!"
"You are a Vritra Blood! And you wield the Relictombs' own power! It makes perfect sense now!" Her ambition, her entire worldview, latched onto this explanation with desperate hope. To her, it wasn't horror; it was destiny manifest.
Renhart moved faster than thought. A sharp, open-handed thwack landed on the back of Delilah's neck, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to stun her into silence.
"Shut. Up." His voice was a low growl, dangerous. He turned his full attention back to me, his scarred face etched with a new kind of intensity. "I heard whispers. Rumors swirling like sewer rats in the lower levels. Scythe Seris Vritra herself, down on the second level."
"To think it was because of you." It wasn't a question. It was a chilling confirmation of the magnitude of the anomaly they'd stumbled into.
"I am sorry again," I repeated, the words feeling pathetically inadequate. How could mere words bridge the chasm between their understanding and the monstrous truth?
"Don't apologize!" Delilah yelped, rubbing her neck but instantly rekindled, her voice vibrating with excitement. "What trials did you endure? What battles did you fight under her gaze? Tell us! What must one do to become worthy of being her Retainer?"
"My sister..." Yorick interjected softly, pushing his cracked spectacles up his nose, his gaze flickering between me and Delilah with weary understanding, "...her deepest aspiration is to rise as a renowned Ascender. From there... to become a Retainer." He sighed, the sound heavy with the burden of her relentless ambition.
"Mentioning Scythes... it ignites her spirit."
"Me and Yorick hail from Etril!" Delilah declared, puffing out her chest. "That means... that means perhaps I could strive to become the Retainer of Scythe Melzri! Serve directly under the Scythe of our own Dominion! Can you imagine? The honor!"
"Vritra have mercy on my damned soul!" Renhart exploded, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Enough of this starry-eyed drivel! We are still in the belly of the Relictombs, you fools! That... thing could be clawing its way through the walls right now!"
"We just escaped certain death, sister," Yorick said, his voice thin but firm. He leaned against the cool blue stone wall, his face pale, hands trembling slightly despite his grip on his halberd. The analytical mind was clearly struggling to process the visceral trauma. "We... we need to rest. Just for a moment. To breathe."
"I agree." My voice cut through the tension, quieter than before, laced with bone-deep exhaustion and the weight of responsibility.
Three pairs of eyes snapped to me—Delilah's blazing with hero-worship now mixed with her Retainer dreams, Yorick's filled with wary respect bordering on reverence for the power that had saved them, and Renhart's... less overtly hostile, perhaps.
If they react like this to Seris... what if they knew about Agrona? About the weapon I was meant to be? The thought was a fresh wave of ice down my spine.
"I need to refuel my aether core," I explained, the admission grounding the surreal situation. "I poured nearly everything into that vortex." The pale gold sun within me felt distant, dimmed, a depleted reservoir. The act of recreating my leg had taken its toll.
Silence descended, thick and heavy, broken only by the faint hum of the aether sconces and our ragged breathing. The others nodded, the immediate need for respite overriding questions and ambitions.
Renhart grunted, settling himself against the opposite wall, his mace resting across his lap, eyes constantly scanning the tunnel's depths.
Yorick slid down beside his sister, pulling out a small water flask with trembling hands. Delilah, still vibrating with adrenaline and dreams, fidgeted, her gaze darting between me and the darkness.
"Child," Sylvia's voice, when it came, was a low thrum of anxiety in my mind, cutting through my exhaustion. "I cannot shake the dread. That presence... Sir Gawain... what force could bind an Indrath? Trap him here? Turn him into that... abomination? It predates Agrona. It speaks of an older, deeper darkness within the Relictombs. A darkness that might still hunger... for you."
Fantastic. The sarcastic thought was automatic, a defense mechanism against the chilling implication. My gaze swept over my makeshift team—Yorick sipping water, Delilah sketching imaginary Retainer sigils in the dust, Renhart's watchful eyes.
If I voiced Sylvia's fears, if I probed the secrets of the Indrath Clan and the horrors that could cage a dragon... it wouldn't just confuse them. It could paint an even larger target on their backs.
My thoughts drifted back to Sylvia's early lessons, in the quiet sanctuary of the Denoir library amidst cookie crumbs and texts. She'd explained the intricate tapestry of magic—mana arts... and Beast Wills.
The profound, sacred bond between a mage and a powerful mana beast, a merging of essence, a sharing of strength and legacy. She'd spoken of her own, given freely before her end... to someone worthy.
I wondered who that remarkable soul could be, blessed with a fragment of this beautiful, grieving goddess's spirit.
A spark ignited within my depleted core. Beast Will... but with Aether. Not a legacy given, but a bond forged.
Could Creation, the power to shape reality from will and energy, craft an aetheric equivalent? Not a copy of Sylvia's lost Beast Will, but something new? A conduit? A vessel? A way for her consciousness to exist outside the confines of my mind, to move, to interact... perhaps even, one day, to hold a form of her own again?
Fueled by my aether, sustained by our connection? The sheer audacity of it was staggering. But so was the need. She was my anchor, my guide, the mother I'd never had in a life defined by absence and pain. She deserved more than echoes in my skull.
"Iskander?" Yorick's quiet voice pulled me from my intense reverie. He was watching me, his yellow eyes sharp behind his spectacles, noting the focused intensity on my face, the slight furrow of my brow. "What are you thinking about? You look... determined."
"Nothing consequential," I deflected, forcing a lightness I didn't feel. The question tumbled out, a probe disguised as curiosity. "Do you know something about... bonds?"
"Bond?" Delilah echoed, blinking, pulled from her Retainer fantasies. "Like... marriage contracts between Highbloods?"
"You mean that barbaric custom of the savages?" Renhart sneered, his lip curling in genuine disgust. "Binding yourself magically to a beast? Twisting your own mana with its wild essence? I've heard the savages across the ocean practice it. Disgusting perversion of magic."
"Savages?" The term jarred me. Sylvia had spoken of Dicathen with respect, even affection, describing its people, its struggles.
"Were you raised under a rock?" Renhart scoffed, though his eyes remained watchful on the tunnel. "Dicathen. The continent crawling with mana beasts and mages who think consorting with them is strength. Good for you if you never had to hear of their primitive ways."
"Child, pay him no mind," Sylvia's voice soothed, a warm counterpoint to Renhart's cold disdain. "The Dicathians are not savages. Their bonds are ancient, sacred. A different path, a different understanding. They are people, Iskander. Just like you. Just like these Alacryans, blinded by their own dogma."
"The High Sovereign is preparing a glorious campaign!" Delilah piped up, her eyes shining anew. "To liberate Dicathen from its backwardness! To bring the love and guidance of the Vritras to its people! If I hadn't passed my Ascender's exam..." She trailed off, a dangerous glint in her eye. "I might have joined the vanguard!"
Yorick groaned, burying his face in his hands. "Delilah, no. A war across the ocean? I would have locked you in the cellar."
While the siblings bickered and Renhart pointedly examined the ceiling, I tuned them out. The spark of inspiration had become a focused flame.
I closed my eyes, turning my focus inward, towards the pale gold core, still faint but steadily replenishing from the ambient currents. I needed to isolate a fragment of pure aetheric potential, not just energy, but intent—a seed of being.
I needed to create a proxy, a vessel for her consciousness. She was an Asura, a being of immense power whose very existence was intertwined with mana.
Aether was different, alien. To sustain her echo, her self, outside my mind... it would require a constant, shared flow from my core. A profound connection. And I would give it willingly. Gladly. For Sylvia.
I concentrated. Creation hummed in response, not as a tool, but as an extension of my will. I visualized it: not a complex form, but a simple, stable point of light.
A will-o'-wisp, forged out of pure, condensed aether. Pale gold, warm, humming with potential. I shaped it with my mind, with Creation's gentle guidance, stabilizing its form, defining its boundaries within the boundless energy.
"Child?" Sylvia's voice held a note of confusion, then dawning realization. "What... what are you doing? I feel... a pulling? A shaping... within your core?"
The connection was there! She could feel the aether responding to my intent focused on her.
"Just... trust me, Dragon Mama," I whispered, the words so soft they were lost beneath Delilah's enthusiastic ramblings about hypothetical battle formations.
With meticulous care, I guided the nascent will-o'-wisp—this tiny, concentrated point of aetheric possibility—through the intricate network of aether channels that laced my Asuran body.
To the stolen dragon bone, the basilisk sinew, the core of Creation—all irrevocably tied to Sylvia herself. Her body was my foundation; her echo would inhabit this vessel born from it.
As the tiny point of light traversed my pathways, I poured my intent into it: home. Voice. Presence. For Sylvia. I envisioned her not just as a voice, but as the radiant woman who sat beside me, whose spectral form offered comfort in darkness, whose sorrow was a constant ache in my own heart. I shaped the vessel for her.
"Sylvia," I breathed, the name a sacred invocation on my lips. "Try to... I don't know... 'step into' this? Focus your consciousness here."
It sounded absurd, impossible. But so was escaping a dragon golem b