Story:Kings of Strife/Part 31

Part Thirty-One
Many miles to the west of Zeta Academy, the city of Empiria persists as a bustling city in the heart of the Inusian nation. It is not the most populous of cities, nor is it particularly powerful in politics or military usefulness, but it is very close to a the only large forest in Inusia and a reasonable distance away from the dead and blistering Inusian Desert that lies in the middle of the country. In Empiria, named so because it was the capital of nation hundreds of years ago, old-style architecture and conservatism are very popular. It still holds the spirit of a city prideful on its reputation and relatively peaceful way of life.

It was in Empiria that Vik awoke in chains.

Consciousness returned to him all at once, as did panic. He attempted to jump up and quickly assess his surroundings, but this effort was hampered by the fact that he could see nothing around him and also by the chains holding him to a rather uncomfortable bed. As soon as he realized that escape was impossible, as was a useful analysis of the place he was in, panic ran through him and threatened to send him back into unconsciousness.

“Be at ease, warrior.” The voice was feminine in origin, lightly delivered and impossible to discern accurately. It came from the darkness, exactly from where Vik could not tell. Startled at the sound, he looked around him even more frantically.

“Who’s there? Who are you?!”

“Do not be alarmed. We have met before.” The voice, upon further listening, came from not too far away on Vik’s right side. He was very tightly held onto the bed beneath him, but his head was free. Turning his neck to the voice’s direction, he squinted into the imperceptible void and attempted to catch a glimpse of what was awaiting him.

He was met with subtle, piercing red eyes staring from the darkness. For the second time in a very short amount of time, Vik had met a mysterious person with red eyes with his life in their hands. Suddenly the remembrance of what had recently occurred – his battle at Zeta; the Ouroboros warriors resisting him after failing to assassinate Vainia Sestrum; the deaths of all the students at the Academy; how his “benefactor” had helped him even though he tried to take his life days before; and the impossible way Vik witnessed the Haze Knight die.

The memories, harsh and sudden, blasted through Vik’s head and ignited within him a passion of frenzy. He shook and convulsed, all of his muscles burning and threatening to rip through his skin, and he let out a high squeal as his eyes clenched tightly. A headache emerged instantaneously, as if someone was smashing his head with a hammer from the inside his skull, and his eyes felt like they were going to burst from their sockets. Just when the pain reached its climax, merely a second or two into his writhing, Vik lost all his energy and fell back on the bed. His head tilted to the side as his neck went limp.

When his head landed on the bed, Vik’s eyes opened. The woman in green, the one with the same red eyes as the benefactor and savior, was standing much closer to him now, close enough that he could see her clearly even in the dark. The two of them made eye contact; Vik shook. He blinked.

As he opened his eyes again, the woman jumped and raised her arm over her face. An instant later, a wreath of darkness – blacker and more of a void than the lack of light around the two of them – engulfed her arm, silently and quickly creeping over her skin and the sleeve of the jacket she wore.

The woman, not wasting a moment in her haste, reached behind her with her unburnt left hand and retrieved a sword with a loud scraping of metal. The blade, thin and silver, sliced through the air in an arc and cut right through her bicep, severing the burning arm from her body in a quick flash of light. The appendage removed, she stepped to the side quickly and returned her weapon to its resting place as she disappeared into the darkness.

Vik was unable to move or do anything but stare at the scene in awe. The arm fell to the ground, and just like before, the flames flickered silently and with an amazing quality to bend light itself. By contrast to the complete darkness of the fire, the unlit room was brighter than the most vibrant sunrise. It took seconds for the dark fire to consume the limb, and when it was completed, there was no trace of the arm ever existing.

A shockwave passed through Vik’s body and he was overcome with sudden exhaustion. Closing his eyes with a cry of weakness, he suddenly began to pant for breath. It took a minute or two for him to compose himself; when he did so, he opened his eyes and stared straight up to the ceiling.

“Your Tyrant abilities are impressive, warrior. You should be proud,” stated the woman off to the side of him. Too tired to react as he usually would, Vik simply turned his head and looked to the direction of the girl’s voice. He couldn’t see her eyes this time.

“What… are you talking about?” Thinking back on the incident of the benefactor attacking him at Shorekeep, Vik remembered that pain appeared to be foreign to the man, and it wasn’t very alarming to find that this same odd characteristic was present in his gendered double. Despite the undoubtedly painful removing of an arm, the woman was still apparently going to interrogate him. Or was she going to help him like she did at Zeta? That was the most distressing part – he couldn’t predict anything from this person.

“That flame you summoned. I’m glad I got to confirm that they are indeed manifestations of your Tyrant abilities; despite being separated from the Fire Crystal for such a while, you’ve already managed to summon the Vision of the Tyrant in your right eye. It’s unprecedented.”

“The flame… that I summoned?” Vik’s head began to swim. He was glad that the chains holding him to the bed’s posts were tight on him and gave him acute pain, because without it he felt like he would have fainted at the duress he was feeling at the moment. “You can’t just… summon fire. I don’t know what happened, but… It wasn’t me. It couldn’t have been because of me.”

“Don’t be foolish,” the woman stated curtly. Vik could hear noises and rustling; her voice moved closer. He turned to look at her out of reflex, but in doing so, she jumped back into the darkness and out of sight.

“Don’t look over here,” she exclaimed. “An arm is expendable, but we cannot afford for your flames to destroy me. Not before I tell you the truth of what happened to you and the Crystal.”

Vik began to shake in fear. “What are you going on about? Listen… Just let me go, please! I don’t want to hear about your damn lies!”

“You would continue to deny that which your own eyes have brought into this world? Did you not see my arm burn to nothingness?” Vik had nothing to say to this. The woman continued on earnestly, but her voice stayed at the same calm staccato and betrayed her words by giving them no angry inflection. “Close your eyes. Close them!”

Vik complied with her request and let his eyes close. Relaxing all of his muscles as best he could, he allowed himself to retreat within his thoughts as he felt the woman’s shockingly cold hand on his face. There was no point in resisting anything she asked of him, especially at this point when he was unable to move and she was as skilled with a blade as she was. His current location and status was unknown; the best option available for him would be, in fact, to listen to what she had to say and obtain some information. If anything, it would buy him some time to think of another idea that might have a better chance of success.

“You may open your eyes now,” the woman said. Vik followed her instructions and looked at the girl standing over him. Only his left eye yielded any sensory images; the right was covered by what felt like a thin film of fabric that completely blocked his vision. It must have been an eyepatch, he reasoned, and it didn’t evade his notice that she placed it over his ‘Eye of the Tyrant’.

Now that he could get a good look at the girl holding him captive, he could confirm that she had the same light blond hair that the benefactor in Shorekeep had. She was built of a thinner stature than he was, but had the same pale skin and a similar bright color palette in her clothing. She also shared the male’s piercing red eyes that looked at him with unmoving blankness. Within that unchanging gaze swirled no emotions at all.

“Until you can control it, your Tyrant vision will be controlled behind that eyepatch. Remove it, and I cannot guarantee your safety, or that of anyone else around you.”

“Safety? It’s…” Vik paused, momentarily consumed in thought. “You make it sound like this vision, whatever it is, is what starts the fires. Like… I have control over it.”

“Think, warrior. Your body has become dependent on the Flame Crystal – does it not make sense that it would imbue flame-based abilities?” The woman made some sort of gesture with her arm and the stump of her other one, like she would be crossing her arms if both of them were still intact. Vik had nothing to say, but her words were logical despite their fantastic implications. Then again, after all he had been through, was it really possible for him to discount things as being impossible anymore?

The woman continued. “You don’t have control over the flames, but you will. As long as you moderate the power you draw from the Crystal, your body will be able to adapt and grow with it – to an extent. But do not worry. We will guide you through your trials, and you will emerge strong enough to oppose the Serpents.”

“This is too much,” Vik muttered. “This power… These… Serpents? Ouroboros… What does it all mean? Who are they? Who are you? And what does the Crystals have to do with any of it? Ohhh… My headache is coming back…” Vik let his eyes slide closed as he began to breathe slightly harder. He wasn’t sure if the migraine was returning because of this ‘Tyrant’ fiasco or from the stress of his situation, but it was coming back regardless.

The girl sat on the side of his bed and looked right at him with clearly focused eyes. “It is time, then. There can be no further advancement without education. Listen well, then, warrior, for you are about to learn the truth of the world and those who shaped it into what it is today.”

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