Leal longed to return to the times before her life collapsed. Back to when her mother had been there to hug her, and her father to play and joke. She’d welcome the isolation she’d felt if it meant she could go back before the war.
Life had been nothing but misery since Solvei killed her mother.
Her mother, along with so many of her neighbours, had died as Morne burned. They could not escape the spreading fire before burning alive.
So many murdered by her — former — best friend.
Leal flinched as the needle pricked her skin. The first was always the worst. Collecting herself, she pressed into her arm again, watching as her own variation on a water hyle medium bled into her skin. The removal of her previous markings had been a painful experience, but she now had a clean canvas to paint her own designs into her arm. She’d already had the head mage mark up her back.
Along with thousands of others left homeless and isolated, Leal had struggled to emigrate into a city that could not support them. She’d thought she knew what loneliness was, but that hadn’t been true. She’d still had her parents. It hadn’t been until she had nobody but herself to rely on, that she knew true loneliness.
Leal grabbed a wet cloth and wiped off the excess medium from her trimmed fur. Any mistake now could undo hours of effort. She’d been working on this marking for months now, one that would allow almost free control over the shape of water while retaining enough speed for it to be useful in battle.
The hyle consumption would be exponential rather than linear, as per most markings, but for her purposes, it would be fine. By the time she would be tasked with anything too difficult, she expected to have replaced it once more.
She, along with many other ursu, had been left with no other option but to join the military. They’d begun identification checks at the Bratchinas. Things had gotten desperate; you couldn’t eat if you were unaccounted for.
But before they could send her to battle, her luck seemed to flip. The war ended. They’d won! She’d considered the likelihood of her father remaining alive to be almost nil, but her superiors sent her to an infirmary camp where he was being taken care of.
That’s when she realised her misfortune hadn’t disappeared. It simply took a new face.
Her father wasn’t injured. He was sickly, tired and thin. Their reunion was joined by a looming pair of guards that refused to give them space even as she squeezed her dad’s chest. He wasn’t happy to see her. No, he seemed sad and terrified that she was there.
She didn’t truly understand it at the time, but as the nation changed around her, it became clear. He was a hostage. If she didn’t do her best to support their reforming army, they would have him killed within the day.
Leal wasn’t the only victim to this extortion. Every mage she knew spoke in hushed discontent. they were each leashed by their relatives trapped within the gulags.
With the collapse of the previous council and the chairman, a military commissar had acted immediately. He placed himself in position as chairman, and replaced all other commissars with trusted members from his military.
The catastrophic invasion had opened the nation’s eyes to their inadequacies. Within weeks, New Vetus’ doctrine shifted. No longer were they content with how things stood. Mages, along with many other disciplines, were no longer given the freedom of academic advancement. Now, they were integrated within the military. Any and all creations had to support the rapid advancement of New Vetus’ military growth.
Leal switched out her needle for a razor-sharp scalpel. The last part of her markings required immense precision that just couldn’t be achieved without cutting open her hand.
She was proud of this marking. Even the mages of her unit couldn’t make heads or tails of it, despite some being decades older. Leal couldn’t understand their lack of enthusiasm for creation. They settled for the standardised markings taught to all, but those were so limiting.
No matter how many times Leal tried to show them that the alternatives were so much better as long as you put in the tiniest of effort to understanding them, they never listen.
When the only escape Leal has from this horrid world is the creations she makes, it is disheartening to have nobody to share that enthusiasm.
She made the last few cuts on her thick fingers before submerging her hand in the hyle medium. Hopefully this time, it wouldn’t become infected. Sometimes, no matter how careful you were, material other than the pure mixture gets inside your body. By wiping at the wounds with a cloth soaked in a special substance, the risk can be mitigated, but the chance is still there.
Leal would have to wait a few hours before she could fill her reserves with hyle and try the markings out. She was both excited to try them out, and concerned for the circumstances she would be required to use them.
Two months ago, the newly totalitarian council considered the buildup of forces enough to begin their conquest. The Zadok Kingdom had fallen almost without a fight. Despite the ease, it still took time for the land to be ripped from the hands of the albanics. Rebellion forces were aplenty. Disgustingly good for the accumulation of her fighting experience.
Leal hated fighting. Hated her creation being used to spread death. She’d seen other water mages with a focus on creating blades. The sheer efficiency with which they cut through their enemies horrified her. It directed her marking creation in the completely opposite direction, much to the irritation of her superiors.
She’d be concerned about them threatening her father again if she weren’t one of the few actually creating new designs for their arsenal. Instead, they’d thrown her into almost every battle they could. Obviously, they wanted to desensitise her to murder, but all it achieved was to amplify the hatred for her country.
“Leal,” a voice called after she’d finished cleaning her arms.
She turned to Hefkos — one of her unit members — as he dropped something heavy on her workbench.
“Here,” he says. “Weapons of the northern states are a step up from Zadok’s, so new armour is being distributed.”
Leal eyed the slab of leather and steel. The one she already used was heavy enough, she wasn’t looking forward to lugging around something even heavier. She would have to focus her next marking on a dedicated water barrier. Something that she could keep up for an extended time that didn’t weigh her down like these suits of armour.
Most of her kind didn’t have an issue with the weight, but Leal wasn’t exactly built as heavily as the rest of the ursu. Each ursu warrior had taken on the protective gear with enthusiasm. After the war with Henosis, the pride of the ursu in their bare-knuckled strength had been crushed. When one could fall from such measly little pebbles, arrogance quickly dissipated.
The body armour couldn’t block a direct shot, but it would slow the projectile enough for an ursu’s thick skin to take the blow.
“Should you be doing that now?” Hefkos points to Leal’s freshly cut markings. “We’ll be moving out tonight while they are celebrating, and I don’t want you having issues with an untested marking mid battle.”
Leal didn’t know what to say. Her markings would work, she was certain, but they didn’t seem to trust her ability regardless of the times she’d proven them wrong.
Before she could express her confidence in words, the older mage continued. “Word of warning: refrain from applying your markings yourself. The reksha were a suspicious bunch even before being given oversight of the military. If they find you applying unapproved markings without direct observation, who knows what they might think?”
“But the division’s head mage already gave me the go ahead.”
“Doesn’t matter. At the very least, make sure you have a partner to watch over you when you next apply them.”
Leal wanted to argue further, but she knew it would be a wasted effort.
Heavy thuds had both mages turn to the giant ursu walking away from the reksha command. The warrior left the encampment and sprinted south, his looming form snatching fearful gazes until it was gone beyond the horizon.
“Where do you think he’s off to?” Hefkos asked, leaning against Leal’s workbench. She wondered if he had nothing better to do than bother her.
Leal’s eyes lingered on the horizon. Tore Hund had always been a legend. More of a fairy-tale than a real person, until she’d laid eyes on him herself. The hero of New Vetus. The reason they’d broken free from slavery almost two centuries ago. It was unbelievable that he was still alive, and yet he looked no older than her father.
“Looks like we’ll be moving on without him for now,” he said. “Eh, we don’t need him. Our enemy’s strongest soldier is a fire mage.”
That caught Leal’s attention. “Fire mage?”
“Yeah, Armelle’s unit is tasked with taking them down. Even with the elemental advantage, it will not be easy for them. The mage apparently has enough hyle to set the entire battlefield alight.”
“A fire mage,” Leal mumbled under her breath. The image of a blazing city flashed across her mind. “This mage, are they an áed?”
“Uh, maybe?” her senior mage said. “I only know what the brief said.” His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t read it, did you?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she was up and striding toward the reksha. The ursu that enforce the will of the council.
Only an áed would have enough hyle to ignite a battlefield. Even as suicidal as fire mages tended to be, it was far harder for them to grow their capacity when their element naturally worked against their body. Either it was an áed, or an ancient fire mage.
Was it possible? Was Solvei so close after so long?
Leal hated her for the death of her mother. Everything had gone wrong since she’d shown up. If the girl had just stayed still in the library back then, like Leal told her, then everything would have turned out fine. She would have figured out a way to get her out of the city, and thousands wouldn’t be dead.
She didn’t realise what she’d done until it was too late. Leal had stormed in on a meeting amongst the reksha and officers. They all stared at her with either amused curiosity or blatant annoyance, but nobody had yet reprimanded her.
Well, she was already here. Might as well go through with it.
She snapped into a salute and made her request. “Please let me fight the fire mage, sirs.” The words struggled on her tongue, but she forced them out.
The reksha in charge of her mage division appeared surprised and pleased, which is far better than the wrath and irritation of the many others she’d interrupted.
“Junior Lieutenant Leal, you, are willing to rush into battle?” the reksha asked.
She nodded, unwilling to risk speaking once more.
“Granted,” he said, as a few protests rose from his side. “Expect a court martial for your actions today. Prove your worth and your punishment might be lighter. You are dismissed.”
She hurried away, berating herself for her impatience.
She imagined he’d only been lenient as he had been trying to force her enthusiasm for war. But if this really was Solvei, then she finally could avenge her mother’s death. Leal had been practising what she would say to the áed if she were to meet her again.
First, she would trap the girl. Then she would tell her how much she’d been waiting for this and maybe gloat a little.
She couldn’t fight against New Vetus, but a girl younger than herself? The frustration, hate and despair that had built up in the past years could finally have a target.
She approached the mages’ supplies. Hyle storage devices were exorbitantly expensive, but the military had confiscated all within the mage academies for their own purposes. It also made transporting water easy.
Leal placed her freshly marked hands on the large barrel-shaped hunk of metal, and filled her reserves with water hyle. Her well was smaller than most of the other mages in the army, but she still surpassed many in terms of capabilities.
There were three things that mattered to a mage. Their hyle reserves, the markings they hold, and the understanding they have of those markings.
The first was how much hyle the mage could contain. A special array of markings held hyle, but the total maximum they could handle was determined mostly by how much exposure they’d had to the element. One could become a strong mage with minimal understanding, simply by continually flowing the hyle through their bodies for decades.
Markings were the most important aspect. They were the technology that guided the hyle to do what the mage wanted. The simplest markings had no variables and could be used even by those with a lacking understanding, but they would be limited in every aspect.
The more one understood the working of a mage’s markings, the more complicated ones they could apply. The more complex the marking, the more work the mage would have to do while operating to keep it functioning, but the effects that could be created were well worth it.
Leal grabbed one of the small backup hyle packs they had for ‘novice’ mages like herself. A heavy metal disc wider than her hand with a strap to bind it to her chest. These would be almost useless to any of the old mages, but it would double her capacity. It was just unfortunate it had to be so heavy. She was already going to struggle with the new armour.
Leal lifted her head to the half moon of early evening. Not long now. Not long until she’ll be able to get some closure on one part of her life. Once she’d gotten back at Solvei, everything would feel better.
Her first friend had died that night. It was time to murder the one that took her place.
Leal longed to return to the times before her life collapsed. Back to when her mother had been there to hug her, and her father to play and joke. She’d welcome the isolation she’d felt if it meant she could go back before the war.
Life had been nothing but misery since Solvei killed her mother.
Her mother, along with so many of her neighbours, had died as Morne burned. They could not escape the spreading fire before burning alive.
So many murdered by her — former — best friend.
Leal flinched as the needle pricked her skin. The first was always the worst. Collecting herself, she pressed into her arm again, watching as her own variation on a water hyle medium bled into her skin. The removal of her previous markings had been a painful experience, but she now had a clean canvas to paint her own designs into her arm. She’d already had the head mage mark up her back.
Along with thousands of others left homeless and isolated, Leal had struggled to emigrate into a city that could not support them. She’d thought she knew what loneliness was, but that hadn’t been true. She’d still had her parents. It hadn’t been until she had nobody but herself to rely on, that she knew true loneliness.
Leal grabbed a wet cloth and wiped off the excess medium from her trimmed fur. Any mistake now could undo hours of effort. She’d been working on this marking for months now, one that would allow almost free control over the shape of water while retaining enough speed for it to be useful in battle.
The hyle consumption would be exponential rather than linear, as per most markings, but for her purposes, it would be fine. By the time she would be tasked with anything too difficult, she expected to have replaced it once more.
She, along with many other ursu, had been left with no other option but to join the military. They’d begun identification checks at the Bratchinas. Things had gotten desperate; you couldn’t eat if you were unaccounted for.
But before they could send her to battle, her luck seemed to flip. The war ended. They’d won! She’d considered the likelihood of her father remaining alive to be almost nil, but her superiors sent her to an infirmary camp where he was being taken care of.
That’s when she realised her misfortune hadn’t disappeared. It simply took a new face.
Her father wasn’t injured. He was sickly, tired and thin. Their reunion was joined by a looming pair of guards that refused to give them space even as she squeezed her dad’s chest. He wasn’t happy to see her. No, he seemed sad and terrified that she was there.
She didn’t truly understand it at the time, but as the nation changed around her, it became clear. He was a hostage. If she didn’t do her best to support their reforming army, they would have him killed within the day.
Leal wasn’t the only victim to this extortion. Every mage she knew spoke in hushed discontent. they were each leashed by their relatives trapped within the gulags.
With the collapse of the previous council and the chairman, a military commissar had acted immediately. He placed himself in position as chairman, and replaced all other commissars with trusted members from his military.
The catastrophic invasion had opened the nation’s eyes to their inadequacies. Within weeks, New Vetus’ doctrine shifted. No longer were they content with how things stood. Mages, along with many other disciplines, were no longer given the freedom of academic advancement. Now, they were integrated within the military. Any and all creations had to support the rapid advancement of New Vetus’ military growth.
Leal switched out her needle for a razor-sharp scalpel. The last part of her markings required immense precision that just couldn’t be achieved without cutting open her hand.
She was proud of this marking. Even the mages of her unit couldn’t make heads or tails of it, despite some being decades older. Leal couldn’t understand their lack of enthusiasm for creation. They settled for the standardised markings taught to all, but those were so limiting.
No matter how many times Leal tried to show them that the alternatives were so much better as long as you put in the tiniest of effort to understanding them, they never listen.
When the only escape Leal has from this horrid world is the creations she makes, it is disheartening to have nobody to share that enthusiasm.
She made the last few cuts on her thick fingers before submerging her hand in the hyle medium. Hopefully this time, it wouldn’t become infected. Sometimes, no matter how careful you were, material other than the pure mixture gets inside your body. By wiping at the wounds with a cloth soaked in a special substance, the risk can be mitigated, but the chance is still there.
Leal would have to wait a few hours before she could fill her reserves with hyle and try the markings out. She was both excited to try them out, and concerned for the circumstances she would be required to use them.
Two months ago, the newly totalitarian council considered the buildup of forces enough to begin their conquest. The Zadok Kingdom had fallen almost without a fight. Despite the ease, it still took time for the land to be ripped from the hands of the albanics. Rebellion forces were aplenty. Disgustingly good for the accumulation of her fighting experience.
Leal hated fighting. Hated her creation being used to spread death. She’d seen other water mages with a focus on creating blades. The sheer efficiency with which they cut through their enemies horrified her. It directed her marking creation in the completely opposite direction, much to the irritation of her superiors.
She’d be concerned about them threatening her father again if she weren’t one of the few actually creating new designs for their arsenal. Instead, they’d thrown her into almost every battle they could. Obviously, they wanted to desensitise her to murder, but all it achieved was to amplify the hatred for her country.
“Leal,” a voice called after she’d finished cleaning her arms.
She turned to Hefkos — one of her unit members — as he dropped something heavy on her workbench.
“Here,” he says. “Weapons of the northern states are a step up from Zadok’s, so new armour is being distributed.”
Leal eyed the slab of leather and steel. The one she already used was heavy enough, she wasn’t looking forward to lugging around something even heavier. She would have to focus her next marking on a dedicated water barrier. Something that she could keep up for an extended time that didn’t weigh her down like these suits of armour.
Most of her kind didn’t have an issue with the weight, but Leal wasn’t exactly built as heavily as the rest of the ursu. Each ursu warrior had taken on the protective gear with enthusiasm. After the war with Henosis, the pride of the ursu in their bare-knuckled strength had been crushed. When one could fall from such measly little pebbles, arrogance quickly dissipated.
The body armour couldn’t block a direct shot, but it would slow the projectile enough for an ursu’s thick skin to take the blow.
“Should you be doing that now?” Hefkos points to Leal’s freshly cut markings. “We’ll be moving out tonight while they are celebrating, and I don’t want you having issues with an untested marking mid battle.”
Leal didn’t know what to say. Her markings would work, she was certain, but they didn’t seem to trust her ability regardless of the times she’d proven them wrong.
Before she could express her confidence in words, the older mage continued. “Word of warning: refrain from applying your markings yourself. The reksha were a suspicious bunch even before being given oversight of the military. If they find you applying unapproved markings without direct observation, who knows what they might think?”
“But the division’s head mage already gave me the go ahead.”
“Doesn’t matter. At the very least, make sure you have a partner to watch over you when you next apply them.”
Leal wanted to argue further, but she knew it would be a wasted effort.
Heavy thuds had both mages turn to the giant ursu walking away from the reksha command. The warrior left the encampment and sprinted south, his looming form snatching fearful gazes until it was gone beyond the horizon.
“Where do you think he’s off to?” Hefkos asked, leaning against Leal’s workbench. She wondered if he had nothing better to do than bother her.
Leal’s eyes lingered on the horizon. Tore Hund had always been a legend. More of a fairy-tale than a real person, until she’d laid eyes on him herself. The hero of New Vetus. The reason they’d broken free from slavery almost two centuries ago. It was unbelievable that he was still alive, and yet he looked no older than her father.
“Looks like we’ll be moving on without him for now,” he said. “Eh, we don’t need him. Our enemy’s strongest soldier is a fire mage.”
That caught Leal’s attention. “Fire mage?”
“Yeah, Armelle’s unit is tasked with taking them down. Even with the elemental advantage, it will not be easy for them. The mage apparently has enough hyle to set the entire battlefield alight.”
“A fire mage,” Leal mumbled under her breath. The image of a blazing city flashed across her mind. “This mage, are they an áed?”
“Uh, maybe?” her senior mage said. “I only know what the brief said.” His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t read it, did you?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she was up and striding toward the reksha. The ursu that enforce the will of the council.
Only an áed would have enough hyle to ignite a battlefield. Even as suicidal as fire mages tended to be, it was far harder for them to grow their capacity when their element naturally worked against their body. Either it was an áed, or an ancient fire mage.
Was it possible? Was Solvei so close after so long?
Leal hated her for the death of her mother. Everything had gone wrong since she’d shown up. If the girl had just stayed still in the library back then, like Leal told her, then everything would have turned out fine. She would have figured out a way to get her out of the city, and thousands wouldn’t be dead.
She didn’t realise what she’d done until it was too late. Leal had stormed in on a meeting amongst the reksha and officers. They all stared at her with either amused curiosity or blatant annoyance, but nobody had yet reprimanded her.
Well, she was already here. Might as well go through with it.
She snapped into a salute and made her request. “Please let me fight the fire mage, sirs.” The words struggled on her tongue, but she forced them out.
The reksha in charge of her mage division appeared surprised and pleased, which is far better than the wrath and irritation of the many others she’d interrupted.
“Junior Lieutenant Leal, you, are willing to rush into battle?” the reksha asked.
She nodded, unwilling to risk speaking once more.
“Granted,” he said, as a few protests rose from his side. “Expect a court martial for your actions today. Prove your worth and your punishment might be lighter. You are dismissed.”
She hurried away, berating herself for her impatience.
She imagined he’d only been lenient as he had been trying to force her enthusiasm for war. But if this really was Solvei, then she finally could avenge her mother’s death. Leal had been practising what she would say to the áed if she were to meet her again.
First, she would trap the girl. Then she would tell her how much she’d been waiting for this and maybe gloat a little.
She couldn’t fight against New Vetus, but a girl younger than herself? The frustration, hate and despair that had built up in the past years could finally have a target.
She approached the mages’ supplies. Hyle storage devices were exorbitantly expensive, but the military had confiscated all within the mage academies for their own purposes. It also made transporting water easy.
Leal placed her freshly marked hands on the large barrel-shaped hunk of metal, and filled her reserves with water hyle. Her well was smaller than most of the other mages in the army, but she still surpassed many in terms of capabilities.
There were three things that mattered to a mage. Their hyle reserves, the markings they hold, and the understanding they have of those markings.
The first was how much hyle the mage could contain. A special array of markings held hyle, but the total maximum they could handle was determined mostly by how much exposure they’d had to the element. One could become a strong mage with minimal understanding, simply by continually flowing the hyle through their bodies for decades.
Markings were the most important aspect. They were the technology that guided the hyle to do what the mage wanted. The simplest markings had no variables and could be used even by those with a lacking understanding, but they would be limited in every aspect.
The more one understood the working of a mage’s markings, the more complicated ones they could apply. The more complex the marking, the more work the mage would have to do while operating to keep it functioning, but the effects that could be created were well worth it.
Leal grabbed one of the small backup hyle packs they had for ‘novice’ mages like herself. A heavy metal disc wider than her hand with a strap to bind it to her chest. These would be almost useless to any of the old mages, but it would double her capacity. It was just unfortunate it had to be so heavy. She was already going to struggle with the new armour.
Leal lifted her head to the half moon of early evening. Not long now. Not long until she’ll be able to get some closure on one part of her life. Once she’d gotten back at Solvei, everything would feel better.
Her first friend had died that night. It was time to murder the one that took her place.
