Shadowborn

Chapter Thirty-Six: The Cursed Blade

Chapter Thirty-Six: The Cursed Blade

The battlefield fell away, and then I was falling. Falling for what felt like an eternity and only a few seconds all at once. Then I wasn’t falling anymore. The pain was gone, along with any weight. I was floating. Peaceful.

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I noticed was how different things looked from the last time I’d been here. I knew that the space around me wasn’t real, but rather a manifestation of my mind to try and make sense of the magics affecting me. Whatever semblance of a realm existed in the sword.

When I’d been here before—under the influence of [Cursed Existence]—the little pocket realm had seemed to be out of focus. Like I was viewing everything through a distorted window. A sea of darkness with a pool of raw power in the center that I’d dipped my hands into. It had filled me with enough power to kill Valethar Karn, even if it had taken me months to fully recover.

But things were different this time. The darkness was there, but it was sharper. An inky void that stretched on further than the eye could see, yet pressed in on me and made me feel like I was about to be crushed by its magnitude. Though my eyes could make nothing out, I felt like there was something lurking there, waiting to strike. And in the center was a sphere. It was a deep, glowing green that slowly spun. Something tethered me to it. A line that went from the sphere to a spot at my side. The connection between me and the blade.

When I approached the sphere it wasn’t solid at all. It was made up of hundreds of green ribbons of varying lengths and shades, each of them torn and frayed at the ends. When I reached out towards it, I realized my body was gone. Replaced by an outline made from the very same material as the sphere.

“Not energy or magic,” I mused, my voice devoured by infinity, “but souls.” Pieces of them. Scraps that had been torn away every time someone had used it. Some were larger than others by a significant margin. Big enough that I instinctively knew their owners hadn’t survived. Others were smaller, and from the pull I felt from the majority of them I knew a number of the strips were pieces of my soul. Shards ripped away and sucked into the blade.

I brushed my hand through the mass of ribbons and felt flashes of every soul I touched. The soul was a fluid thing, ever changing and in constant flux. A representation of its owner. These scraps were forever locked into the state when they’d been ripped away from the whole. Mine were drawn to me, but when I touched them they recoiled. I was familiar to them, but I wasn’t the same person as when they’d been taken from me.

I also knew that the fragment that had saved me from the spiders when I was hallucinating had been one of those very ribbons. A shred of me that was similar enough to the Zaren I’d been during the time I was in those catacombs that—thanks to the hallucinations—I’d been similar enough for the soul to mesh for me, even for a while.

I looked down at my body and started to understand. Tears and cuts and rips covered me in head to toe. My body carried the scars I could bare, but my soul was covered in the ones I couldn’t. I could see the places where it had been severed and healed back over and over, every time I’d lost someone I’d loved. Just looking at them my brain filled in the gaps. Hannah. Ina. Eliya. The ones I might have loved given the chance, but were taken from me too soon. The sisters Siri and Sora. Eve and Maris. Louis and Jon. A soldier teaching me to fight because she couldn’t bear the thought of me going to war with so little training. An artificer willing to give me somewhere I felt safe, even if only for a short time.

As long as the will to live remained, a soul could heal. Mine healed faster than others. I’d been told that once, but I hadn’t really understood until I was looking at my own. I lifted the tether that connected me to the sphere. It was linked to a patch that I knew would rip away the moment I tried to pull out of the sword. It would hurt, and it would take time to recover, but I’d survive. It wasn’t just my class that made it possible for me to wield the sword, it was my tattered soul that was so used to being abused and recovering from the damage that getting ripped apart by some ancient sword was just another day.

But my soul was dull. Dim. The tether had sucked out too much of the energy in me. I was out of mana and out of time. There were strips in the sphere that still burned bright, though. That was where the power had come from last time, when I’d given myself to the blade before. I hadn’t understood it then because my skill had protected me, but there was no buffer now. No veil to hide behind. Nothing to obscure my understanding.

I reached towards one of the brightest strips. One that called to me. It would never slot back into the soul I now carried, but it could be converted into raw power. I hoped it could, at least. My fingers closed around it and fire raced through my veins, but when I tried to pull it away something shot out of the sphere and grabbed my wrist.

If I’d had lungs, I’d have screamed. My brain told me a hand was grabbing my wrist, trying to pull me into the sphere, but whatever imitation of eyes I had struggled to make sense of it. I tried to break the grip at first, but then I paused. Intent was everything here, and I could feel the presence of whatever had grabbed me like its mind was pressing against my own.

It wasn’t malicious. It wasn’t trying to draw me in to kill me. From where me and the entity touched, I felt...fear. Sadness. A crippling loneliness that was deeper than I could ever fathom. And beneath all of that, the faintest spark of hope. A begrudging hope that refused to be stamped out. The grip was weak, and I knew I could break it if I wanted to, but did I want to?

“It’s you.” My voice was swallowed by the black again, but the entity shifted. A response that was more like a sensation than anything resembling words. “You’re the source of these emotions I’ve been feeling. The skills. The evolutions. You’re the sword.”

A pulse of emotion. Anger. Frustration. Indignation. I flinched, but I didn’t break the contact. “No, not the sword then. But you’re inside of it.”

It calmed. Confusion, but mixed with agreement. Relief. And fear, but fear directed towards the scrap of soul in my hand. “You’re lonely. Surrounding yourself with the scraps of the ones who wield you. Or, the sword you’re in, at least. The closest thing you’ve had to companionship for however long you’ve been trapped here.”

Sadness. Deep, unending despair that told me that I was right. It was why it tried to stop me from taking the scrap of soul. These ribbons of identity were all the entity had. It tried to pull on me again, but I resisted. “I’m sorry. I need this. I have to save my friends, and the only way I can do that is with the power these scraps will give me.”

Hesitation. Desire. Need. It was conflicted. It wanted to help, but it didn’t want to lose the scrap. It’s grip lessened, and the fear returned. It understood it couldn’t stop me. “I’ll figure you out,” I promised. “With Rhallani’s help, once we get to the capital, I’ll find a way to understand you. To help you if I can. But I need to survive today first. I need the people I care about to survive, too.”

Hope. Hesitating, burning hope. A question. “Yes, I promise. I give you my word.”

The hand squeezed me once, then let me go. I pulled the scrap out, but then I was bombarded with other scraps. They shot out of the sphere and latched onto me, each one sending burning power surging through me. They started pulling me back, away from the sphere. The hand reached for me one last time, then withdrew. The tether suddenly pulled taut and the darkness closed in all at once, attacking and shredding and refusing to allow me to leave.

Then the tether ripped away, taking a chunk of my soul with it. The darkness abandoned me, ripping into the chunk until it was just another frayed ribbon circling around whatever shape was hidden in the now-smaller sphere.

Then the void disappeared, and the pain returned.

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The good news was that I could feel my toes again. The bad news was that I could feel everything between my chest and my toes. Then the power surged out of the blade and the world exploded. Like [Dark Sense] multiplied by about a thousand, only it included my sight. A roar sounded and it wasn’t until Serena and the healer were holding me down that I realized it was coming from my throat. I checked my stats.

[Health: 77/220]

[Mana: 2/140]

[Soul Essence: 734/100]

What in the actual fuck?

It felt like there was a raging inferno in my chest. I’d never heard of Soul Essence before, and I had no idea how it functioned, but damn it if I wasn’t going to find out. I reached for the fire and found power that was overflowing. A cup spilling over violently. I watched it start to trickle down and knew I was very suddenly on a timer. Whatever the fuck it was, I needed to either use it or lose it.

Instinct took over. Instinct guided by something that I didn’t have time to think about. Whatever its uses, I knew the moment I drew upon the new resource that Soul Essence could at least be used as a substitute for mana. That’d have to do.

First things first, I cast three uses of [Shadow Stitching] on myself. A scream fought its way through clenched teeth, and Serena turned a shade of green before turning around and vomiting. Then I closed my eyes and reached out for my connection to Tiana. I conjured a dozen tendrils and took control of one, wrapping it around her body. It was warm still, but completely enclosed. Dirt and rock pressed in on her, but when I slithered up her body and reached her neck I felt a pulse.

Keep her alive, I commanded. They all flexed outward, pushing against the tons of rock above her and the ground beneath, buying her just enough room to not be crushed. That was all I had time for. I wrapped my body in more tendrils, conjuring more than I ever had before. I lurched forward and I heard voices cry out.

“I’ve got this now,” I told Serena. She just looked at me blankly and shook her head, but I didn’t hang around to chat.

I surged forward with more strength in my limbs than ever before. With how much strength surged in my legs, my run was closer to a series of controlled leaps. I hurtled to the side of the queen and blasted her with a Soul Essence powered [Umbral Barrage], which sent a veritable wall of crimson tinged spikes hurtling towards the queen. They were larger and more numerous than usual, which meant skills powered by Soul Essence must have a little extra kick.

Many of them bounced off her carapace harmlessly, but enough found purchase to get her attention. Most of the guards that had intercepted her were on the ground, unmoving, but not as many as I’d feared. Wherever I’d gone, time hadn’t moved the same there as it did here. They threw more spells, spears, and arrows at her, but I was up and moving. She had eyes only for me.

She shrieked gibberish and hurled magic at me, but I could see it coming. Ripples in the air so vibrant I knew exactly how they’d attack even before they began moving. I dodged the first few attacks and twisted half my tendrils together into a single mass to swat aside the final two. She charged me, and I raced to meet her. I hurled another [Umbral Barrage], and the dozens of impacts made her gait stutter.

I wrapped my legs in shadow and leapt. More magic, but I could see it coming in a way I never had before. I cut through it and lashed out with my super tendril. It hooked around her foreleg and pulled me in. She tried to swing at me, but it was as if she moved in slow motion. Tendrils attacked her claw, pushing me down just enough to slip below the strike without interrupting my momentum.

I wrapped the blade in shadows and cut right at the joint. It didn’t sever it, but it did enough damage to make the limb go limp. She howled and hurled me away, but my shadows struck the ground while I flew and righted me. I hit the ground sliding, then rushed her again. She backed away and two Valax ran to her. They got within a few feet, then they withered and keeled over.

Her patterns glowed and her limb started moving again. She was healing herself from their essence, so I’d have to damage her faster than she could regenerate. She sent out more attacks, but I was still thrumming with strength and Soul Essence. I dodged nimbly, my shadows projecting me forward without any input from me. She opened tears to try and summon more foot soldiers, but I could see where they were about to appear before they did. I cut through them before a single Valax could get between us and slid underneath her.

I struck up at her underbelly before she could drop and crush me. Deep gouges that spewed more bile-green blood opened up and I used my shadows to hook myself around her back leg and yank myself into the air behind her. She whirled, but not fast enough to avoid the shadows that out to grab a second leg, pulling me onto her. I tore into her with crimson tinged tendril and sword, then shot a point blank [Umbral Barrage] into the exposed flesh.

She howled and bucked, but I wrapped my shadows tighter. I slid off her now-bloodsoaked back, but I was still tethered to her. Her violent lurch just put me in range of the hole Tiana had made. She’d repaired the innards, but the carapace was something that would take time to grow back.

Like I had with the blightwolves, I wrapped the sword in whatever tendrils weren’t holding me in place. Then I slammed the blade into the hole and the tendrils all lurched outward in different directions, tearing into the weak flesh and organs around them. The pull on my soul lessened as the blade’s magic found a more potent source of energy to feed upon. The queen howled and tried to roll over me, but I just let go and pushed off. The tendrils pulled out chunks of something that looked important, and I narrowly managed getting crushed.

She roared more of what had to be obscenities, but the words made no sense to me. I checked the Soul Essence. Less than half of what I’d started with. I conjured more tendrils, and in the process found an additional purpose. I’d condensed and controlled the raw mana in my body, and the way the extra Essence moved in me made me try the same.

She bit her lip, but she nodded. I looked at Noelle. “Go up and tell Rhallani we’re all fine, please? We’ll be up right after.”

Noelle’s grip tightened, and I was really starting to wish I had more than one working arm. There was no way for me to extract mine from where it was pinned under Tiana, so I pressed my temple into Noelle’s. “Hey, look at me.” She did. “I’m alive. So are you. Focus on that, and we can deal with the rest when we’re topside. Alright?”

She gave me a curt nod, then she tightened her arms around me one last time before she retreated and headed towards the rope. She started hauling herself up with ease, and I realized the other guards must have already done so.

I turned to Serena. “Help Tiana up, I’ll wait here for you.”

Tiana started pushing herself out of my lap. “I’m fine. I can get up by my—” she made it about halfway to her feet before she swayed and reached for the wall. Serena only barely kept her from careening to the ground. From the blood on her head, I figured she’d taken a knock. “Nope, never mind. Definitely going to need a hand.”

Serena glanced at me, her brows creased. I waved my good hand at her. “I’m fine, Serena. Well, maybe not fine, but I’m not in danger of keeling over. Go on, I’ll be here when you get back. Promise.” I couldn’t really feel my legs right now, so that was an easy enough deal to make.

She hesitated for a second longer, then half-helped-half-carried Tiana towards the rope. When they were out of earshot, I reached for the blade at my side. “Thank you,” I told it. “I’m going to keep my promise, but you’ll need to stay out of sight a little longer. I’ll figure you out if it’s the last thing I do.” I smiled at the sword.

“Luckily for you, I’ve got a cute little Arelim who’ll never let a mystery go unsolved once she’s sunk her teeth in it.”

I thought I felt a faint pulse of warmth from the blade, and I hoped that meant it understood. I could still feel the echoes of the loneliness I’d felt in that strange void, but at the end of the day someone was hunting this blade. The only safe place for it was my storage, and considering I still couldn’t so much as twitch the fingers in my dominant hand I needed to avoid conflict for a few days.

I banished the blade, then I looked at the golem. “You too. You’ve saved our asses a couple times now, so whatever your deal is, I’ll sic her on it once I’m done with the sword. Maybe sooner, depending on how things go. Who knows?” I lobbed a ball of shadow at the golem, banishing it as well, just as Serena’s boots touched back down to the ground. She walked over to me with an uncertain look.

She crouched down and threw my good arm over her shoulder without a word, then grunted a bit as she heaved me to my feet. Luckily, though I couldn’t feel them, my legs still worked. Mostly. Somewhat. They held me, at least.

It was slow going since she had to carry a good bit of my weight, but she brooked no complaint. She didn’t say anything at all, actually, which didn’t sit well with me. We were halfway to the rope when I decided the silence wouldn’t do.

“I didn’t make the same mistake this time,” I said softly.

She jumped, then looked at me with wide, red-rimmed eyes. “What?”

“I gave up before. I decided that dying was fine as long as I took my enemy with me. That didn’t happen this time.” She stopped, and I held her gaze to try and convey how serious I was. “I wasn’t sacrificing myself. Not at any point. I nearly did,” I admitted, “but every decision I made today was the one I thought would get all of us out alive. Myself included.”

Her eyes searched mine with a hint of desperation. “Do you mean that? You’re not just saying what you think I want to hear, are you?”

I stepped back, swaying slightly, and grabbed her hand so I could place it on my chest. “I give you my word. I fought to protect you all, but I fought to get back to you just as hard. I just—I just wanted to make sure you knew that.”

She stared me down for what felt like an eternity, then she leaned forward and pressed her lips into mine. “I know I’m your priestess,” she said softly, “but I would very much appreciate never seeing your insides again.”

I chuckled, then winced as my gut reminded me that it had not had a good day. “I’ll do my best. Would it make you feel better or worse if I told you that isn’t even in the top five worst injuries I’ve survived?”

She grimaced, then smacked me softly on the shoulder. “You ass.” But she smiled when she said it, then threw my arm back over her shoulder.

There were a million other things I wanted to say, but just walking took every bit of focus I had left. Serena tied the rope around my waist, then she climbed up ahead of me. I got an eyeful of everything under her skirt, and that made all the pain almost worth it. Then she got to the top and they started lifting me out.

Once I got to the top, strong hands reached down and hauled me the rest of the way out. I was too grateful to see sunlight to complain, even when they let me go and I damn near toppled back into the hole. They pulled me away from the precipice and Serena slid back under me, then Rhallani was latched onto my other side.

I gave her as many reassurances as I could, though both her and Serena both looked very worried about both my blackened arm and the puckered scar that took up most of my midriff. Considering the odds we’d faced, I was still feeling pretty good about how things went.

“You!” a voice called out.

I turned wearily to see the leader of the guards stalking towards me. The same captain from when I’d killed Vald. “I don’t suppose we can do this sitting down, can we?” I asked her.

Her eyes flicked from my stomach to my arm, then she nodded. We went over to one of the mining sheds I hadn’t been thrown through and I ended up sitting down with Serena, Rhallani, and Noelle all fussing over me. Tiana looked like she would be if she had it in her. She was content to simply sink to the ground next to me and lean her head on my thigh.

“How many did you lose?” I asked the captain before she could so much as open her mouth.

She looked to where the short-haired healer was flitting between groaning men and women a ways away. There was another healer helping her, but I couldn’t help but notice his arm ended in a stump. I doubted he’d started the day that way.

“Four dead, eleven wounded. A minor fucking miracle all things considered.”

I let out a breath that turned into a hiss when Rhallani lifted my bad arm to slip it into a sling she’d tied around my neck. “I’m sorry you had to get involved.”

She gave me an odd look. “Sorry? You aren’t concussed, are you? If you hadn’t drawn that Valax out and killed her then we’d have lost ten times that many hunting her down.”

I inclined my head, ceding the point without pointing out that even that estimation was likely very conservative. “All the same. I’m sure a queen Valax will fetch a hefty sum, and I’d like a cut of that to go to the families of the fallen. The care of the injured, too.”

Her brows drew close and she slowly shook her head. “That’s not how this works. A monster like that is a threat to the city, we guard the city. Their families will be compensated, and we’ve got healers.”

“But the queen and that royal will net a fortune, and even a fraction of that dwarfs whatever they’ll get.” I knew from the way she averted her eyes that I was right. I sighed. “Look, if you and yours don’t show up, we die. If your healer didn’t get me back on my feet, we die. If your guys don’t jump down in the hole to help my friend here, she dies.” I rested my hand on Tiana’s head and I felt her clutch my pant leg. “I’d like to repay that, if you’ll let me.”

She seemed hesitant, but I knew from the way she looked at the injured that she’d cave. She cared about those under her. “It’s not the way things are done,” she protested weakly.

I chuckled. “I get the feeling that’s not the last time I’ll hear that. Tell you what, if it assuages your worries, then arrange some transport for the corpse and give us a ride into town.”

That seemed to relax her a fraction. “I can do that.”

I nodded. “Thank you. And you’ll want to get a party together soon. There’s a chance there are more captives down there, and I’m sure if you follow the trail of spider corpses and chalk marks from the mine you’ll be able to find your way to their nest.”

She scowled. “Yeah, I’ll definitely pass that along.” She looked out over the sea of spider corpses. “When I saw you in that tavern, I figured you for just another asshole. But you’re not just any asshole, are you?”

I smirked. “Nope. I’m the asshole.”

She shook her head again, this time in amusement. She pushed herself to her feet with a grunt. “Your fifth is over there,” she jerked her head towards where Elisa was helping tie bandages and splints. “I’ll go see about that transport. In the meantime, on the behalf of the city of Anford, you have my thanks.”

I watched her leave, then leaned my head back against the wooden wall. Tiana was already snoring softly against my leg. “Wake me when the carriage gets here. I’m fucking exhausted.”

Serena scooped up the stool the captain had been using and set it down next to me, then sat and leaned into my side. Everything not covering something important vanished and I felt her flesh against the parts of mine that could still feel. Her hand wrapped around my waist and she pulled Noelle into her lap. “Until I’m out of mana, you’re not going anywhere. Neither of you.”

I reached around her back and found Noelle’s hand, then Rhallani sat in my lap and leaned her head on my shoulder, being careful not to wake Tiana. “No arguments here,” I mumbled. Less than a minute later, I was out.