[Severed Divinity] 63. Fate Has No Master

Isen finished with Julra at half past seventh bell, as promised.

He was exhausted. His arms and shoulder ached the worst, though his neck and core also protested as he returned to the path with his bow and quiver strapped to his back, his hand resting lightly on the Shard of Erasmus’s hilt.

His tempered body didn’t sweat, and the muscle tears would repair quickly, but damn. He felt like sleeping.

Still, he had an appointment to keep—the most important one since coming to Clan Femera.

Dusk had descended, painting the world in purple umber and vestiges of rosy pink. The path wound through trees and grass, which became increasingly thick until Isen lost sight of the clan’s walls. All he could see over the trees was the vast rim of the canyon in which Eldrassin City sat, its pale rock reflecting the sky.

For a fleeting, dissonant moment, Isen saw those walls and felt trapped, like all of Eldrassin City was stuck in a beautiful white cage.

He eventually came to a large open field bereft of trees. At its center was a large pond. Behind that was a mansion built from solid shadows—or at least it looked that way to Isen’s special perception. Isen didn’t actually know what he was supposed to be seeing, but it was clear that the entire building was slathered in shadow energy.

Of course, the energy this time didn’t come from a cultivator, but a mage.

As Isen took in the sparkling moonlit water and the dark mansion, the quarter bell rang. He had fifteen minutes to kill.

So he sat by the water and cycled. He counted the seconds as he breathed until he’d estimated ten minutes had transpired. He stood, patted his black trousers, and went around the lake. Soon, he stood before the building.

It wasn’t any clearer close up, just a big black smear. He closed his gold-ringed eye, but still struggled to make out any of the mansion’s details between the darkness and the shadow energy. He couldn’t even locate the front door.

I’m probably supposed to use shadow sight, aren’t I? Isen thought, inwardly groaning. Maybe he shouldn’t have wasted the last ten minutes cultivating. At this rate, he’d need to find the door by touch.

Nevertheless, he had arrived at Welco’s mansion, and Isen was willing to bet the mage could see him outside. He could just wait until Welco fetched him.

With that resolution, he returned to cultivating.

A few minutes later, the door creaked open. Bright light washed out, backlighting a tall, robed figure. Red eyes glowed in a shadowed face, and a hand pressed against the square door frame.

“Allezin’s welp,” Welco said. “Come in.”

***

Welco studied the anomaly as he sat on one of the plush chairs by the fireplace, absorbed by the magical flames.

“It’s not even hot,” the boy murmured.

“The fire changes to maintain a comfortable room temperature,” Welco explained offhandedly. He rested an elbow on the arm of his seat and ran his fingers on the brass studs lining the fabric. “Isen, you studied with a tier three—was that Allezin?”

The anomaly’s gaze remained on the flames. “What do you think?”

There was no fear, no obsequiousness. It was how Welco’s personal mage apprentices treated him, and even then, it had taken years for them to grow so familiar with their patriarch. Welco wasn’t even so far removed from most of them in age, not like some of the older clans, with tier three mages or cultivators over a thousand years old.

“You are no student of Allezin’s,” Welco stated.

“What makes you so sure?”

Welco’s lip curled. The boy was fishing for information. Cute. “Allezin is a stubborn, straightforward person who likes to remain unburdened by anything meaningful. He doesn’t take apprentices, especially not ones like you. Cunning, mysterious children with uncanny abilities... No, that’s not his type.” Welco tapped his foot. “So, Isen—did you learn from a tier three, or did you lie?”

“My master is a cultivator in the core consolidation stage, just a step from divine core,” Isen said. “Master is in a forbidden region, and sent me away to wait.”

“You’ve done a bit more than just wait,” Welco said. “Show me your shadow cloak.”

The boy blinked, then breathed in. Cycling so obviously was one of the clearest indicators of a new cultivator. As he exhaled, the shadow cloak technique manifested.

It was a common misconception that mages could only cast spells of their primary aspect. Mages could cast any spell, but they needed the knowledge to do so, and the fortitude to bear the consequences of the cast. Knowledge was the largest impediment.

All mages in Clan Femera wielded shadow aspected spells, but the majority of mages were not shadow mages, like Welco was. Shadow was an aspect that was kind to non shadow mages, in that most of its spells were utility focused and could be cast by stretching out the spell, reducing the immediate cost, or cast by multiple elves together, distributing the burden.

It was a large part of why Clan Femera’s mages were so numerous. They turned fewer qualified mages away, especially those born into the clan. Most were still expected to use an investiture to take shadow as a supplemental aspect, but that came later down the line.

Cultivators, like mages, tended to be better at certain aspected spells than others. It wasn’t as absolute as with mages, where everyone had a single primary aspect. Welco had met cultivators who claimed to be talented with almost all magical aspects, not that he’d seen evidence to back up such boasts.

In both mages and cultivators, affinity for aspects could often be discerned by the quality of energy the practitioner produced.

Welco almost hadn’t believed it when Jorin came to him the day before with pressing information regarding the most recent addition to Clan Femera. Only Welco knew that Isen would leave after the storm encroaching on Eldrassin blew over—Welco hadn’t thought that detail to be of consequence—so Jorin had come to him with a gaze full of anticipation, like he’d unearthed a rare treasure.

Welco could do many things with his shadow puppets, but ascertaining the potency of other people’s shadow energy wasn’t one of them. So he’d tasked Kelsina with verifying Jorin’s claims.

And now, here they were.

Isen’s cloak technique wasn’t perfect. Welco could tell Isen was new to it, inexperienced with the cast, much like a mage after learning a new spell. Experience and time were balms for poor casting.

Affinity for an aspect was difficult to influence, even if the clan’s cultivation art, the Femera sequences, did its best. Technically, to progress as a cultivator, one didn’t need to have high aspect affinity—and indeed Welco had always wondered if Allezin lacked a single strong aspect affinity, given his lack of techniques and focus on equipment and physicality.

It was one more reason why Welco had doubted that Allezin was Isen’s teacher, aside from the obvious point that Allezin had handed Isen over as a hostage without much protest.

Isen was a poor match for Allezin’s path to eternity.

Welco got up from his seat and came in close, flaring energy to his eyes to see through the technique, at the energy that composed it. Energy that was deep and cold, but not too dark, not the absolute darkness that was reserved for the void aspect, or for true darkness, which only existed in legends.

It was beautiful shadow energy.

The likelihood that a cultivation prodigy with a peak talent for the shadow aspect had landed in his clan was so, so low, so unbelievably low that Welco knew it couldn’t be a coincidence. But he also didn’t think this was part of some grand plan of Allezin’s.

Could it be some convoluted plan of the boy’s absent master? Welco didn’t think so, not unless the master had predicted the precipitous events of the past month, including Isen being picked up by Allezin and delivered to Eldrassin City.

There was no way.

For now, Welco would have to take it at face value, for what it was. Dumb luck. The boy’s master was gone, and if the tier three had sent Isen away before entering a forbidden zone... odds were they weren’t confident in coming back.

Isen was technically a hostage, but it was possible he could become much more.

Clan Femera had existed too long not to have a second tier three.

“That’s enough,” Welco said. Isen halted the technique and panted, taking rapid sips of air.

Welco suddenly felt a bit sheepish. He’d overtaxed the boy, hadn’t he?

“Are all the clan’s mages really gone?” Isen asked. His gold-rimmed eye shone like a jewel before the fire. Reflective, like Welco’s own.

The mage returned to his seat and pondered the question. “Most of them, yes.”

Isen just stared at him, gaze full of unasked questions. Welco rolled his eyes. “Most mages are elves and have enhanced physiques, but aren’t nearly as fast or resilient as tier two cultivators. Am I wrong to send them away first?”

“You haven’t sent away the tier one cultivators,” Isen stated.

“If I evacuated every child from my sect, others would take notice. As for mages being gone... There are countless reasons to explain it. Some are flimsy, but still plausible. In this sect, only children or very young adults are tier one. Everyone reaches tier two eventually. Children aren’t allowed to leave the sect on their own. Not without a sect pin. Tell me, then, how could they all disappear, if not for the clan deliberately moving them?”

“Who would take notice?” Isen wondered, voice quiet.

“The other sects, of course,” Welco replied. “Someone betrayed Lumina Eldrassin. I have very strong reason to believe Dray was not behind it. Considering how quickly Devon Aran knew of Eldrassin’s death—and her legacy—my best guess is that the traitor is in cahoots with the Aran Empire.”

“And you think that the traitor is involved with one of the sects,” Isen guessed.

Welco shrugged. “Regardless, everyone is on edge. If it’s discovered that I’m quietly evacuating my sect, I’ll become an easy scapegoat.”

“Are you concerned that Allezin will tell the other tier threes?” Isen asked. “He only promised not to inform Shor Mei.”

“It would run contrary to his goals if he truly wants to find out who killed the queen.”

Isen turned away and looked at the fire again. “What is the Aran Empire like?”

The human would be interested, wouldn’t he? It was easy to forget that Isen was human when he covered his ears. So much of what was coded human was tied up in the mundane. Slow, ugly, sweaty, short-lived—all adjectives that applied to non-cultivators or humans, but were mainly associated with the latter, at least in the Elven Lands.

As a tier two, Isen was none of those things. He was probably closer to elf than human in most people’s perceptions. And why wouldn’t he be? Cultivation made the body closer to perfection. Naturally, it made the crude human body more elven.

“The Aran Empire is far away, and I’ve never seen it,” Welco began. “There isn’t much contact between the Elven Lands and the Empire. Most trade goes through Shor Mei. A vast ocean stretches between the westernmost part of the Empire and Eldrassin—”

“Wait,” Isen interjected. “Aren’t they on opposite sides of the map?”

Welco blinked. How adorable. “We live on a planet, Isen. The world is a globe, a sphere.” Shadow materialized before him, forming a ball. “The edges of the map wrap around to touch. What most maps don’t bother to depict is the water that spans the gap—the Unbroken Ocean.”

“So if someone could fly, like Tsuna the Wise, they could just... fly all the way around the world, if they went in a straight line?”

Welco chuckled. The kid picked up on the concept quickly. “That’s right. As I was saying, the entire Unbroken Ocean is practically a forbidden zone, so it’s a strong natural barrier between the western and eastern sides of the map. Since I’ve spent most of my life here in Eldrassin Kingdom, I’ve seen very little of the Aran Empire’s influence.”

“Oh.” Isen’s disappointment was palpable.

“I can tell you a story, though,” Welco continued. “They say that when Devon Aran founded the Aran Kingdom, many years ago when he was only a tier three, he slew a tier four beast. An impressive achievement. Rather than hoarding the corpse for himself, he used it to attract powerful vassals, offering the divine flesh and blood as payment. The only stipulation was that those who answered the call must be fully human, for Devon Aran had dreams of empire even then—an empire of humanity.

“When he reached the divine core stage, he offered his own flesh and blood to his most ardent supporters. That was how he brought the strongest humans under his banner in those early years. But cultivators—and some exceptional, albeit short-lived, mages—do not an empire make.

“Citizens make an empire. And humans have ever been numerous, even as they wither and die faster than the rest of us. To protect his people and let them flourish, they say that Devon Aran built a wall without equal, a marvel erected not by thousands upon thousands of mages, but on the backs of a million or more people.

“The gates leading into the capital, Polaris, were the first to be built. Devon Aran himself wrote the inscription on the doors, and his followers added their own favorite sayings over on the wall’s rim.”

“What did the inscription say?” Isen asked, enraptured.

“Magic dies with its master, but math endures as long as we do. Behold, the spirit of endurance, the seat of humanity. Quite dramatic, isn’t it?”

Isen suddenly looked contemplative. “I wonder what they’ve accomplished since then.”

“I really can’t say since they’re so insular. Now, back to important business, since you’ve had a moment to recover. I’m going to manifest shadow puppets. I want you to point them all out.”

Puppets spawned as he spoke, small, roughly formed targets shaped like clay dolls. Before he told Isen to begin, the boy was already pointing.

“There’s one there, there, there...”

Welco frowned. How could he see them so easily? He’d expected Isen to at least take a few seconds to discern them, especially since the puppets lurked within natural shadows.

“Close your golden eye,” he said on a whim. He manifested more shadow puppets. This time, it took Isen a bit longer, but he still found them handily.

Did he have such a strong affinity for the shadow aspect that he could see shadow aspected energy?

There was no way... right?

Right?

Allezin, you’re such a fool to bring this child to me, Welco thought, unable to fully conceal a grin. From the ashes of Eldrassin’s collapse, Femera will rise.

His next thoughts wiped the smile from his face.

In the end, whether we survive the coming calamity will come down to fate. Fate’s hand has placed the boy here. It’s so easy to think that’s a sign of providence, that Femera’s star is bright. But to think so is delusion.

Fate has no master, no reason, no care for the past. And if we’re not careful, we’ll all be swept away by its storm.