The Fifth Star - Chapter 14 (1/1) - Repurposed

The sound of great, choking breaths alerted Darius the moment Elowyn awoke; he released his vice grip on the now-dead guard’s throat and moved toward her as she scrambled to sit herself up. One hand rested on her chest and it nearly vibrated with the strength of her uncontrolled shaking, the other clutched at her throat. She screeched horrendously once she noticed him, her eyes wild and absent. She leapt off the table and put herself into a corner, trying to put as much distance between them as quickly as she was able. The screaming only ceased when she paused for breath, which she inhaled with an enormous gasp.

“Elowyn!” he hissed urgently, “It’s only me, Darius. Please, calm down!”

She didn’t scream again but paused with her mouth still agape. He watched in perfect stillness as her eyes focused onto him, as she withdrew from whatever corner of her mind she’d retreated to. The breath she’d taken sighed out of her all at once as her stiffened posture relaxed somewhat. “I know who it is,” she spoke finally, “just… stay back, please.”

Darius picked his daggers up from the floor where he’d dropped them, sheathed his blades and approached her with all the care one approached a wounded and cornered animal, his hands held out passively as he took slow steps towards her. She cringed as he drew close and though it hurt, he tried not to let it show. He rested his hands on her shoulders once he was close enough, looked her in those typically-stunning eyes, now bloodshot and terrified. “Are you hurt?” he asked her in a quiet and soothing voice.

“No, I- I’m okay.” Her voice was hoarse now.

“Were you… Did they…?” he looked her up and down, took careful note of her torn clothing, her knotted hair, the strength of her reaction upon awakening, seeing underneath it all what he couldn’t bring himself to say aloud.

Elowyn’s eyes widened a few seconds later when she understood what he was asking yet not asking, reaching down to straighten her clothing with obvious discomfort. “No,” she denied when their eyes met again, “no, they didn’t manage to do much of anything to me before I… oh, gods.” Darius had to jump back as she doubled over and emptied her stomach onto the floor to avoid getting his shoes splattered.

“We need to move,” he urged, and though his curiosity ate at him there was no time to waste, “Quickly now, what happened?”

Elowyn buried her face in her hands, fingers digging into her scalp. “I can’t- I can’t explain it quickly,” she pulled her hands away, wiping residual tears from her eyes. “I’ll be fine. Let’s go.”

Darius wrapped his arm about her shoulder and guided her to the back door he’d seen before, stepping carefully over the congealing blood from the two corpses pooling on the uneven floors and turning around to lift Elowyn easily over it. He could feel her body shaking madly as if she were feverish and knew he had to get her out of here before she succumbed to shock. It was a testament to her strength of will that she hadn’t already.

They reached the alley and stepped out into the now-dim light, the sun having dipped past the height of the walls on its descent through the sky. Elowyn’s face appeared dangerously close to reentering her panic state, so he kept her focused with a question. “Have you got any aethris left after what happened in there?” he indicated the building they’d just left with a nod of his head in its direction.

She closed her eyes without wasting any time. “Too little,” she said when they reopened a second later, her tone worried again, “my aethris… it’s so pale.”

“Damn it all. I have only a small amount left myself,” His brain ran through ideas until he settled on one he felt had the highest chance of success, “I’m going to cast some very small illusions on our faces – not enough to drain me, but just enough that a quick glance from a guard shouldn’t immediately give us away. It’ll just have to suffice.”

She nodded, attentive to his words despite the shaking he could still feel within her body. If her aethris was pale, she was dangerously low, and he knew it was only a matter of time before she fell unconscious once more. “What do you need me to do?” she asked of him.

“I’ll need you to keep a close eye on any guards we pass on our way out of the city, without being too obvious; if any are clearly about to intercept us warn me quietly. Worst case… I’ll have to fight our way out of here. Okay?”

A fierce look in her eyes and a nod were all the confirmation he needed. He gathered what remaining magic he could spare and wiped a forgettable, plain face over his own, careful to alter as little as possible to preserve his dwindling stores. He turned to her and constructed a second illusion; tweaked her outstanding eye colour to a subtle hazel, made her eyebrows bushier, thinned her lips.

The dip in his stores was noticeable, but hopefully not too significant. “Let’s go,” he urged her, and together they took off down the darkened streets. Darius knew the route well enough, and it was a good thing too, for they reached the gate just as the guards were preparing to seal it for the night.

“Wait!” Darius called out ahead of them when the doors were in view, just starting to move together. “Please, let us pass first!”

The guards pushing each door shut stopped and, surprisingly enough, did wait for their approach. Clearly eager to be finishing his shift, one of them waved an arm in the circular ‘hurry up’ way, and allowed them to dash through the opening they’d left with barely a glance at either of them.

Ha, Darius thought gloatingly to himself, if only you knew who you just let slip through your fingers! The gate shut with a resounding thud behind them, and they were free. Elowyn’s knees wobbled. Darius switched to a tighter grip under her armpit to support a larger portion of her weight; she leaned gratefully on him as he led her away towards the wood.

When they arrived at the pool, the horses were still there. Elowyn sighed her relief and clambered weakly atop the nearest, requiring a push from Darius when she couldn’t quite get into the saddle. He made to mount the other, then thinking the better of leaving her on one alone so close to unconsciousness, he instead tied the one animal to the other, climbing up behind Elowyn and putting his arms around her waist. He took up the reins and they were off into the darkness.

“Rest now, Elowyn,” he told her softly, “You’ll be safe.”

“I can’t,” she muttered, teeth clattering noisily together, “Darius, it was terrible!”

“Well, if you can’t sleep, did you want to tell me what happened exactly? Why were you even in the city’s walls? I told you quite clearly to wait,” he couldn’t help the irritation that seeped into his tone despite trying to keep it gentle, knowing at least partially the horror she must have endured.

“I know. I’m sorry,” she said sadly. “It took a long time, I did wait. When you didn’t come back, I had to come looking. What if you’d died, or been taken captive?”

“Then you should have gone on without me.”

“I’d have been no better off than in the Empire’s hands - how long do you think I could manage alone out here?” she chuckled at her own expense. “Anyway, I came in, and I followed that green magic that connects us to find you. I was cornered in an alley by those two… two monsters.”

I tried to fight them off, but they were too much for me. They pinned me down, and very nearly had their way with me, until I remembered my talent. I started to cast on the one, Darius, and then…”

“Then what?” he prompted when she didn’t finish.

“I don’t know what happened, or how it did. I don’t know if compulsion is supposed to work this way.”

Darius held his tongue and waited.

“I wasn’t just controlling him, Darius. Somehow I was inside him, using his body like it was my own. I couldn’t get back.”

“You… what?” Darius had never heard of such a thing, but then again - she shouldn’t have been able to break his compulsions either, and their connection itself was certainly unheard of as well - being thrust into unknown magics seemed to be becoming a regular thing for the pair of them. “So those guards weren’t fighting over you when I arrived; you were-”

“Stuck inside the body of one of them, yes. I had no time to think, I killed the other, then you came in the window and…” Suddenly she began to sob.

“Oh, gods, Elowyn!” Darius registered with a shock of regret what that meant - why the guard had called him by name before he squeezed the life out of him, why she’d woken up acting like she’d been choking, why she had recoiled away from Darius’s touch. He’d brutally attacked her while she’d been trapped in someone else’s body. He released the reins and took a chance on more intimate contact to try to relax her; he stroked her arms comfortingly and then embraced her gently from where he sat behind. She twisted in her seat as much and curled into his chest as much as the awkward angle would allow, tears flowing freely and without inhibition.

The horse continued on and he relaxed in the closeness they shared, stroking her back. He rested his chin upon the top of her head. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that alone, El,” the nickname came easily to his lips, “If I could go back… you know I’d never intentionally hurt you.”

“I know,” she whispered, voice nasally with her crying, “I know you wouldn’t.”

Guilt cut him deeply. That had been no quick kill; he’d assumed the guard had raped her, had been so consumed with rage he tried his damndest to make it hurt. Unfortunately, he’d been hurting the one he had been trying to protect, had smashed her skull and choked her to death without knowing the suffering he’d forced on her. He couldn’t even fathom how completely horrendous it must have been.

“Can you remember how you did it?” he asked after several moments passed in which her trembling had reduced to a light shivering instead. “If this is a part of all compulsion magic, it must be a secret closely guarded, for I’ve never heard this to be possible.”

“Great,” she sighed, pulling away from his touch and reseating herself as normal in the saddle. “Just one more way I’m an impossible freak. No, I don’t know. You can’t understand how scared I was - when I sent the aethris through to his mind, I don’t know that I was thinking at all, much less giving the magic a purpose. It just… happened.”

Darius picked up the reins once more. “I suppose it’s just another thing we need to look into. For now I suppose, let’s restrict your casting to animals, hmm?”

Elowyn made a non-committal sound and said nothing else. She took some of the horse’s mane into her hands and played with the hairs, braiding them absentmindedly with nimble fingers even though she should have been well past the point of exhaustion.

“You need to rest,” he reminded her.

“There’s too much still whirling around in my head, Darius. I feel different, somehow.”

“You took a life, Elowyn. Struggling with that is perfectly understandable.”

Her voice took on more strength as she argued, “But I’m not struggling! It felt - dammit, Darius, it felt good, and it shouldn’t have! What’s wrong with me??”

Same as when she’d confessed that using her power felt good, Darius was hesitant. He fully knew the pleasure of killing, but he’d been made this way. He had no true inkling of how normal it was or wasn’t to enjoy the act. He saw so much potential in her if she wanted to go down the same sort of path as he, but was it right to make her any more like him, a glorified murderer for hire?

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he settled on lamely, “It was justified. Take consolation in that.” He didn’t add that, with the right words or context, almost any killing really could be called ‘justified.’ As he’d learned over the years, the concept of justice was subjective.

“I suppose you’re right,” she responded, but she didn’t sound convinced, “but I know how it feels to… to die now; there must be something broken inside me that I can do that to another person and not feel any worse for it.”

Darius couldn’t empathize, and he didn’t know what else he could say to possibly make her situation any easier, so he didn’t try. After a short while of silence, she did eventually settle into an uneasy rest, and he was much more at ease once she did.

How am I ever going to get her trained if she’s capable of something like that? Taking over another body… I’m sure if that were possible, even if incredibly secret, I would know about it. I’ve worked and trained with enough braggart Controllers, I’d think one of them would let that slip… It was more than just a little worrisome. He didn’t know how many magi the Fifth Star had the loyalties of, what abilities they were able to train. He knew he couldn’t help her himself, but he also had the sinking feeling that, if and when they gained admittance to the rebellion, it wasn’t going to be as easy as leaving her in their care. With these untrained and potentially catastrophic abilities she possessed - and that they were still discovering - it might be seen as more curse than blessing to simply hand her over.

Would that be so terrible though? What other pressing duties do you need to attend? he thought. Maybe joining the rebels wouldn’t be such a terrible idea. A life on the run was in no way glorious, and he wasn’t prepared to just abandon the entire realm and move on to greener pastures. Valteria was still his home, flawed as it may be.

He had never been one for bigger pictures, larger causes - that was the sort of false purpose fed to soldiers to give them ample reason to die on an enemy’s blade - but was it any better to be an aimless roamer, contributing nothing, a nomad of necessity simply for possessing magic and wanting to be a free man simultaneously? Darius didn’t think there was anything wrong with that desire, but if he wanted that right, he must help claim it.

He’d been in that room when Karne had reported to Harlemont; Elowyn’s gift was incredibly strong, the Seer had said, nearly as strong as Tibori’s. Maybe, one day, it would be strong enough to take on the Emperor himself, if Elowyn were willing and molded in such a way. The rebellion had been fighting for generations and never achieved their goal… maybe a new kind of weapon was exactly what they needed.

Darius rode for a couple hours, just long enough to put some distance between them and Reivic, and then he set the camp up alone while Elowyn continued to sleep in the saddle. When he was done, he lifted her from the seat and carried her into the tent, laid her gently in her new bedroll and secured it around her slender frame. She didn’t rouse through the entire process, until he laid down his roll beside her and stretched out for a few hours’ rest; only then she stirred, opened her eyes and saw where they were, then rolled to her side with a sleepy smile.

“Thanks, Dar,” she muttered.

“You’re welcome,” he said quietly as he reached out of his roll and tentatively patted her on her shoulder, “Get some sleep. I’ll be right here if you need me.”