NOVPUB31 – No Doubt
Grand Prince Troyssas watched as the ruination of House Kuria played out before his eyes. The Adjudicators were evacuating the arena, ushering the nobility to the portal rooms in the building, or, in the case of the tens of thousands of low-born iron rankers, out to the streets where they could make their own way home. It hadn’t taken long for Troyssas to realize it was fear that was stirring his guts. His very heart had begun to thud with an unseemly urgency at the creature’s shrieks, so he and his guardians had asserted their will, pressing their auras against the terror-filled Energy. Things were stable—for now.
Another shriek split the unnaturally dark air, and Troyssas gritted his teeth, more angered by the sound than fearful now. “He makes a mockery of us,” he growled.
“Us, highness?” Brinnit asked, her gleaming greatsword shining brightly against the unnatural dark.
“The great houses. Kuria is cousin to Khaliday! This should not be happening!” Troyssas dismissed her attention with a flick of his wrist and said, “Wesper, I know you listen. Come. Speak with me.”
The air shimmered beside him, and the veil walker appeared, frowning down her elegant nose, her arms folded over her silken gown, hiding the smooth curves of her cleavage from his probing eyes. Troyssas had always been enamored with her, and the fact that she’d shunned his touch for more than a century only made him more intrigued. While she scowled, he smiled, resolving to have several of his courtesans play-act as her when he returned to the palace. “You should not summon me so, Grand Prince. I’m not the only veil walker listening for your voice in the arena today.”
“Well? Are you going to do something?” Troyssas nodded his enormous head toward the railing that overlooked the arena and the battle being waged.
“What would you have me do?” The genuine puzzlement in her eyes only infuriated Troyssas further.
“You’ll allow Kuria to end like this?”
“Queen Livessa entered this arrangement of her own free will. She asked for it.”
“And yet you made certain guarant—” Troyssas continued to speak, but no words emerged from his lips. Fury brought the blood to his clean-shaven head, darkening the flesh like a deep red wine. Despite his fury, despite the deep wells of power in his Core, Wesper’s aura held him like a vise. She gripped everyone in the box that way—frozen, deaf and dumb. Then her words came to him, slinking into his ears without the hint of a sound, but rather the intent of her will to make them known to him.
“Shut your fat, stupid mouth, fool. I made no guarantees, only suggestions. I only shared what I knew. I made no promises. Even that would have me banished from this world if Lohanse caught wind, so be silent or you and your sister will lose what aid I can give.”
As the last of her words slithered into his ear, echoing strangely before sinking into his mind, the oppression of her aura disappeared like a bubble popping, and she was gone. The people in Troyssas’s box shifted uncomfortably, likely unaware of what had happened to make them suddenly nauseous. Brinnit confirmed as much when she muttered, “That damn fear—it wears on me.”
Troyssas cleared his throat, embarrassed and angry in equal measures, but impotent to act on his feelings—at least with Wesper. “Can you see them? The combatants? Does Drok have a hope of recovery?” As he asked the question, he scanned the arena seating, amazed at how quickly the veil walkers had cleared the audience. Only the two queens remained with their retinues, undoubtedly shielded by a veil walker’s aura.
Brinnit leaned over the rampart, her eyes blazing with Energy. “The nightmare yet squats atop him, talons piercing his flesh. Drok’s Core grows dim and he is listless. Barring some sort of intervention, he will be drained and dead shortly.”
“Then let us depart. The empress will need to prepare her strategies. Let us hope the champion she bought is worth his fee.” With that, Troyssas hoisted his great bulk from his throne-like chair and turned his back on the arena. He couldn’t help feeling he was turning his back on Livessa, too, and despite the hardness in his heart, he felt a twinge of something he hadn’t felt in a very long time—melancholy, perhaps. How long had it been since they were raised together in the capital? A thousand years? They’d grown apart, but she was still one of the few people left on Ruhn who could remember Grand Prince Troyssas, he of the Iron Yoke, as a child who begged fruit pies from the kitchen staff. n𝚘𝚟pub.𝚌o𝚖
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When the vast well of his prey’s Energy ran dry, Victor, terror incarnate, released his grip on Drok’s brittle body, spread his great, shadow-drenched wings, and tilted his razored beak to the sky, screeching his triumph. Scanning his surroundings, he was disappointed to see the throngs of bright spirits were gone. Only a few lingered and they were dim, shrouded by some sort of veil.
He cracked his wings, launching himself into the air, swooping, left and right, but as he dove toward a grouping of spirits—only a dozen or so—the air grew thick, and his passage slowed. He furiously beat his wings, but the more he approached his new prey, the slower he moved and the denser the air became. The spirits grew ever dimmer in his monochrome vision, and, frustrated, he banked left, pumping his wings to send him higher. If these spirits would elude him, he’d find other prey further afield.
To his great agitation, the air above him was similarly dense. No matter how he pumped his wings and screamed his fury and bottomless hunger, he made little progress. Eventually, he began to tire. The duality of his nature became lopsided and Victor began to assert himself more and more. Eventually, his human feelings returned, and he pushed his hunger aside. He was victorious, yet weary, and he could feel the pain in his chest once more as he glided to the sands and sent the Aspect of Terror away, back to the corners of his mind where it dwelled, unquiet and ill-tempered.
As he came back to himself, cloaked in shadows, screaming his agony as his bones snapped and his limbs rearranged themselves, Victor thought about his battle. He thought about how he’d feasted on Drok and how he’d yearned to feast on everyone. Despite those urges, he’d been in control for the most part. Only after gorging on Drok’s rich supply of terror-attuned Energy had the Aspect pushed him into the passenger seat. Even then, its control had been tenuous; it hadn’t taken much of an effort of will to get back in control.
When he was fully Victor again, he found Lifedrinker lying at his feet, massive, powerful, and quiet; she’d taken her share of Drok’s Energy during the battle. They’d been merged, with her impossibly dense metal forming his natural weapons, his talons and beak, perhaps more—hadn’t there been a scythe-like blade on his tail? “Tail!” Victor chuckled, his voice raw as he stooped to send his slumbering axe to her storage container.
Would he have been able to stop from feasting further, though, if the veil walkers hadn’t walled him in? He was assuming that was what had stopped him. What else could it be? He sighed, noting System messages waiting for him, though he knew he might have more after the System awarded him for slaying the steel seeker. With that thought, he ignored them, looking toward the stands, unsurprised to find them barren.
He looked to Kynna’s viewing box and saw her and Arona staring at him, wide-eyed, silent, and unmoving. The others were gone—Kynna’s courtesans and guards, even Bryn. Arona’s face was washed of color. Had his feasting been so disturbing? Was she not a century old former Death Caster? Had she not seen worse? Shifting, ignoring the raw, burning pain in his chest, he turned to look up at Livessa’s box. A dozen veil walkers stood there, enforcing the terms of the duel; Lohanse wasn’t taking any chances.
He moved toward Drok’s skeletal corpse. The Death Caster’s feathered robes lay in tatters, ripped apart by Victor in his feeding frenzy. His pale flesh was like paper over his bones and it smelled more like a graveyard than a corpse. Nevertheless, the System was ready to honor Victor’s triumph; bubbles of rich, shimmering, silvery Energy were gathering over the corpse. Victor sat down, folding his legs under him as he waited.
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He wasn’t sure how to feel. Shouldn’t he feel triumphant? Shouldn’t he want to lift Lifedrinker overhead and rail at the sky, announcing his might, reminding his ancestors that he was victorious once again? He could feel the swelling of his Core, but again, he resisted the urge to look at it. He’d wait until after the System fed him his due. That was his last thought before the Energy hit him.
After his six-month slumber, he was leery about losing himself, so he fought to remain present and cognizant. The struggle was monumental against the tide of Energy, though. Drok may have been a steel-seeker, but he’d had a well of Energy unlike anything Victor had yet encountered. How long had that man lived? How much terror had he spread on how many worlds? How many millions had he slain?
At last, with those thoughts, Victor felt a touch of pride. He’d done something good. He’d removed a stain on the universe when he’d vanquished Drok. As he fell back, his eyes closing at last, Victor had the disquieting thought that he had to be careful not to fill Drok’s void with his own darkness.
His visions were strange and muted, unlike any he’d had before. He saw figures that might be his ancestors or might be anyone—blurry, colorful people seen through a haze that made them as watercolors. They laughed and ate, they slept and toiled, but always together, always with the heat of life and love at their cores. As the visions faded, Victor awakened to the familiar, constant, howling pain in his chest.
He grunted, sitting up from the hot sands, peering at the blazing sun in the pale blue sky. He’d been lying there for hours, at least. No one was nearby, not even Drok’s corpse. He touched his armor and sent it into storage, then peered at the void in his chest. If it was larger than before his fight, it wasn’t enough for him to measure with a glance. His vision was blurry, in any case, thanks to the System messages waiting for him to focus on them. At last, he acquiesced, reading through the bothersome words:
***Congratulations! Your Spirit Core has advanced: Epic 8.***
Victor stopped reading, blinking at the message. He remembered feeling a breakthrough as he drained Drok, but he’d thought he’d gained a single level for his Core. He’d gained five. No amount of cultivation could come close to such a gain. It was unheard of. Even Dar had cautioned him that ranks in the Epic tier would come slowly and painfully. How could draining one man increase his Core’s power so much? He continued reading:
***Congratulations! You have achieved level 89 Warlord and gained 48 intelligence and 34 vitality.***
Victor stopped again, his mouth opening in disbelief. A single opponent, a man he’d rather easily thrashed, had just given him two levels—in tier eight! Yet another message awaited him:
***Congratulations! Your spell, Aspect of Terror – Advanced, has evolved: Abyssal Tyrant – Epic.***
***Abyssal Tyrant – Epic: Prerequisite: Affinity – Fear or related affinity. You no longer wear the illusion of terror—you become it. Your form twists into a manifestation of primal fear, shifting between flesh and shadow, embodying nightmare itself. Those who gaze upon you tremble beneath the weight of true horror, their will eroded, their bodies failing under the presence of dread made real. Fear-attuned Energy no longer simply feeds you—it obeys you, flowing to your call, shaping itself into force, binding your enemies, or fueling your power. Your strikes carry the weight of fear realized, rending flesh and soul alike. Energy Cost: Minimum 5000 – scalable. Cooldown: Long.***
“Chingado!” Victor hissed. When he’d taken on the form of the Aspect of Terror, when he’d realized it wasn’t an illusion meant to evoke his enemy’s personal fears, had he made a discovery? Had he unwittingly evolved his spell? His eyes focused on a particular line of the description: Fear-attuned Energy no longer simply feeds you—it obeys you, flowing to your call, shaping itself into force, binding your enemies, or fueling your power.
Did that mean he’d have more control—that he had finally mastered the spell he had feared to cast almost as much as his enemies feared to behold it? He hoped so, because, after all, fear was his most potent affinity, even if he hated to acknowledge the fact. As he waved away the last message from the System, he realized Lohanse was standing on the sands before him, watching with arms folded.
As Victor grunted, pushing himself to his feet, Lohanse rumbled, “I see you yet live.”
“I do.” Victor pulled the hem of his undershirt, tugging it away from the hole in his chest so its self-repairing magic would begin to work.
“That doesn’t look pleasant.”
“It’s not.”
“Not feeling talkative, hmm? Even after that enormous Energy infusion? I’d think it would make you positively gregarious.”
“Well, I'm sure you saw the nature of my victory.” Victor sighed and shrugged. In his mind, Lohanse was smart enough to understand that channeling all that fear and terror took a toll on a man.
The veil walker didn’t disappoint. “I’ve seen many fights, Victor, and participated in even more. I’ve known my share of Spirit Casters, but I’ve never seen something like that manifestation of terror. Ancient Gods, but those poor fools chose the wrong champion to stake everything on, didn’t they?”
“Well, Drok was impressive in his way.” Victor shrugged again. “But yeah, he picked the wrong pendejo to try to terrorize.” Victor wasn’t sure why he spoke so openly with Lohanse. Perhaps it was the way the grand judicator had taken him aside in the past and given him words of advice. Whatever it was, Victor wasn’t in the mood to play coy, especially with the constant agony in his chest. He’d been hopeful that his victory and subsequent gains would have given him some relief, but the curse was there, persistent as ever.
“Victor, Drok was a monster!” Lohanse chuckled. “That demon had a well of Energy as deep as many veil walkers. The work he must have done to cultivate his Core!” His chuckle became a laugh as he clapped Victor on the shoulder. “You’re the talk of the aerie. I hope you’ll survive to finish this drama; I’d love to see Kynna Dar raised up over House Khaliday. Already, she’s within rights to label House Dar as great.”
Victor smiled, surprised by the man’s candor. He said as much. “You’re being awfully open about your support.”
“Hah! My fellow veil walkers have departed. You’re the last one in the arena, and I’ve taken the time to mask our conversation—something I didn’t do before.”
“Well,” Victor said, looking around the sands, “I’m assuming he didn’t have anything worth claiming?”
“I’m afraid he was unadorned by artifacts—not a single ring or jewel. As for his organs, the devil’s heart was a pile of dust, so I didn’t think you’d mind me removing his corpse.”
Victor waved a hand, dismissively. “I don’t care. Listen, Lohanse, I’m sure Queen Kynna is curious about my state of being, and I wouldn’t mind a bit of rest. Thank you for staying with me while the Energy ran its course.”
“Of course. I have a small word of caution for you regarding your queen.” Victor had begun to walk toward the tunnel leading down to the ready room, but he stopped in his tracks, turning to hear the veil walker’s words. “Several of my fellow guardians escorted her to the portal room. There were words spoken about the dangers of a Fear Caster. Of course I scolded them, and voiced my dissenting opinion, but I fear they may have undermined the queen’s confidence in you. Perhaps not; I believe she’s quite fond of you, but the display you put on—the need for an evacuation—can’t be dismissed easily.”
“So, the veil walkers aren’t as neutral as they claim?” Victor arched an eyebrow, clicking his tongue as he turned to continue walking.
“We have favorites, but we mustn’t act on them!” Lohanse called after him, and Victor smiled at the implication; Lohanse had already said he hoped Victor won. He went down the tunnel, into the corridor beyond, and then to the portal room. Lohanse hadn’t been kidding when he said they’d cleared the arena out; not a soul crossed his path. When he came through the portal, though, it was a different story: Kynna, Bryn, Arona, and all of the Queensguard were in the chamber, awaiting his arrival.
“Victor!” the queen exclaimed, forcing everyone else to hold their greetings out of decorum. She stepped forward, reaching for Victor’s hand, and he gave it to her, trying to smile as she took it between hers. “We feared something nefarious; it’s been nearly two hours!”
“And yet you waited?” Victor looked around the room. “You all let the queen stand here? For hours?”
Bryn straightened, bristling. “Her Majesty stands where she wills, Your Grace.”
“Go easy, Victor.” Kynna squeezed his hand, staring into his eyes. “Are you well?”
Despite the pain in his chest, he tried to smile again and nodded. “I’m no worse, if that’s what you’re asking. I made some significant gains, thanks to Drok.” He shrugged, looking around the room again. “Would you mind sending your guards out, My Queen?”
Kynna didn’t look away from his face as she said, “Out.”
As soon as the armored figures filed out and the door closed, Kynna tapped her crown, summoning her dome of secrecy with a crystalline ping. “What is it, Victor?”
“Well, I need to catch up on my correspondence and make plans for my first attempt at conquering this curse. I’m very close to a new tier, though, so I might work with Arona to attain it. Will you be alright for a week or so?”
“Of course! The veil walker council will enforce peace while I take control of Kuria; it’s a massive undertaking—the first great house to fall in centuries. Meanwhile, now that Gloria will share a border with Khaliday, the empress will be forced to come to the table. This will be a lengthy process.” She paused, breathless, as she leaned closer. “Victor! Already, another of the great houses has sent me overtures. Khaliday’s support is fracturing.”
Victor squeezed her hand before letting go. “That’s good news, My Queen.” He looked at Arona. “Shall we?”
“Of course,” she rasped.
As he moved toward the door with Bryn and Arona in tow, he paused and looked back at Kynna. “Don’t worry about my fear affinity. I have others to balance it out.”
She nodded, her crystalline, fire-filled eyes gleaming with sudden, surprising moisture. “I have no room in my heart for doubt where you are concerned, Victor. I trust you.”
