by David Burke
He took long, slow, deep breaths in and out. Rather than fight against the flow of his essence, he tried to immerse himself in it. As he did so, he felt his control begin to expand. He started to slow the essence down, but became distracted by the vast amounts of information flowing into his mind as he lost himself in the whirlwind of essence.
He became acutely aware of the construct that was his body. He saw how it was made to look like flesh but, in reality, was anything but flesh. It was actually a complex binding of war essence that held together tightly compressed raw essence. It was compressed so tightly, that its essence had become solid, though it still had a crystal-like matrix. This was a body that was made for one purpose. It was the perfect means to store and, even better, channel massive amounts of essence.
As he thought about storing essence, his mind drifted to the mage’s reservoir that he’d hidden in his room. Even without seeing it, he could sense every inch of its construction: the leather belt with its metal buckles, but more importantly the crystal in the middle that stored essence. It was so much cruder than the matrix of his body; more like yarn stretched between a child’s fingers to play cat’s cradle, compared to an intricately woven tapestry.
He realized that he could sense other sources of essence in the room. Hilde was the biggest. He could feel the raw essence that flowed through her as well as Justice, Air, Lust, and War essences. She pulsed with light from the inside out to his new senses. He could feel the vitality that flowed within her. Now though, there was another connection between him and her.
It was as though there was a cable that connected them. Energy flowed from him and beat in rhythm with a pulsing energy in her belly. But she wasn’t the only one. Marie had a similar source of energy in her hands. It beat to a different rhythm, but there was no mistaking that the source was the same. What was different was how the energy coursed from him to her but then didn’t echo back to him.
Two other threads of power poured out of him and his enhanced perception had no trouble tracing them to their destination. He could see Kierra. She had a similar energy that echoed and returned to him, but in her case, it was spread out all over her skin, rather than centering on her belly, like Hilde, or her hands, like Marie.
The final strand flowed to Nyda. It connected to a pulse of power in her head. It was locked down, but he could feel a pure core of War Essence within her. It was surrounded by Water and Earth Essence, in alternating bands.
As his awareness expanded, he could feel the mages around the city. Almost all were still asleep, the only ones who were up this early were lesser apprentices who had yet to notice him. There were two other presences that had detected him, but one was elusive, like a shadow, and one made him blush.
Just as he was getting used to seeing the world in this expanded way, he felt his new senses retracting. He could detect less and less and realized that his outer ring was spinning much more slowly now. It was down to a full minute per rotation and slowing still further.
He heard one of the women whisper, although he couldn’t tell which one it was because the voice sounded so very far away, “Good job, slow it down a bit more.”
Even more faintly he heard another purring, feminine voice reach out from the shadows, little more than whispered encouragement. “Good boy, pull your aura back.”
Chapter 10 - Decisions to Make
When he finished, Kyle opened his eyes slowly. He realized that he was breathing heavily, but wondered how much of that was because he needed oxygen and how much was simply reflexive. Either way, it had been a struggle to slow the cycling of his raw essence. His outer wheel was now turning at a rate of one rotation per hour. Sluggish, compared to before, but it was still moving.
He didn’t know why, but he felt it important that he keep it moving.
It must have taken him some time because Hilde had her regular attire back on. Not that it covered all that much, Kyle chuckled to himself. It wasn’t something he was going to complain about anytime soon. He wasn’t one of those guys who worried about other men seeing that he was with a hot girl. If anything, it only made him prouder.
Lash broke the silence. “Good, now someone needs to explain this to me. How was that possible?”
Before Kyle could answer, Hilde snapped, “What needs to happen now is you need to get on your knees, grovel for forgiveness and re-pledge yourself to your god.”
Kyle had never seen Lash so off her game. She was practically sputtering as she tried to speak. It was disconcerting to see the cool-headed warrior so flustered.
“I’ve felt hints, before,” she began, “but he most definitely is not Krig. But I don’t understand what that just was. It isn’t possible.”
“I’m not Krig, or at least I’m trying not to be him,” Kyle said.
“Krig is dead, but the mantle of the war god lives on,” Hilde added.
Lash looked from him to her before asking, “By the gods, what is that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what I said before. Krig fought the other gods but we don’t know all the details,” Hilde began. She looked at Kyle, “Well, maybe the answers are inside of him somewhere, but for now we know that Krig was betrayed by the other gods who ganged up on him. Five of the gods attacked him. Only Hav stayed apart, not for any love for Krig, but because she only cares about her precious oceans.”
Kyle watched the other woman’s eyes get larger.
“Even then, they couldn’t finish him off.” Hilde continued. “Krig wounded each of them so badly that the cataclysm happened. He escaped to another universe, but as he died, he passed on his power to Kyle. Kyle was a mortal from that universe who was dying. Their souls seem to have merged and, as accurately as I can describe it, Kyle is the reincarnated war god.”
“That is preposterous,” Lash protested. “Krig could never fall in battle.”
“Everything comes to an end, even the gods. But Krig was smart enough to come up with a way to wreak his vengeance on the others,” the celestial replied.
As Hilde spoke, Kyle heard passion rise in her voice. It was almost like she was excited by all of this.
“What do you mean another universe, Qua’ardet Flammaurorae?”
The celestial shook her head. “Krig never did do a good job of showing you or your sisters the truth of reality. He probably wanted you all to focus on him.”
She paused before continuing, “You know that there are other planes besides the material plane where Verden is, correct?”
“Yes, such as Dod’s hell, Lige’s heaven, and then others—like the fiery realm that your people come from,” Lash answered.
“Well just as there are different dimensions within this universe, there are different universes within the multi-verse. It isn’t that important now, but it is reality. Just know that there are places where our gods don’t rule, and which they had no part in making.”
The warrior shook her blonde head, “I don’t know what to believe about any of this.”
Kyle had stayed silent through all of this. When he opened his mouth to speak, Hilde placed her hand against the small of his back. He could feel her heat even through the blanket that he had wrapped around himself. It was obvious that she didn’t want him to speak, so he decided to trust her and let her keep running with this.
“It is really rather simple. You have to decide where your allegiance lies. If Kyle is the war god, then you owe him your fealty and more. If I'm not mistaken, you still carry one of his splinters within you, even if it is damaged. If you won’t serve him, you can follow after you whore goddess,” Hilde said. Her voice was cold and demanding.
“That is a lie. I have never served that bitch.”
“C’mon, even locked away from the world, I learned things. It was common knowledge even before Krig fell that Begaer was jealous of his shield maidens. You and your sisters were feared and desired throughout the realms. It must have chaffed Begaer so badly that these great beauties were warriors who serv
ed a being who had no appreciation for their softer side. To her mind, you could represent her much better,” Hilde said.
Lash was clearly angered by Hilde’s words. “That may be true, but it doesn’t mean I betrayed my lord. It is he who left me. He promised we would always be together. He put a piece of himself in me and I felt his love for me. Maybe it wasn’t the same kind of love the Lust Goddess represents, or love a man feels to a woman, but it was love—at least love such as Krig knew it.”
Lash bowed her head, squeezing her eyes shut. “Then he was gone. I couldn’t feel him any longer. Worse, I knew he wasn’t dead. I knew to the core of my being that he was out there somewhere, but I couldn’t tell where. He wouldn’t speak to me any longer. I was left alone. My sisters and I were orphaned. Then her servants came. We were captured in our despair. You have no idea the things that they did to us.”
Kyle watched the pain on the face of this proud woman as tears streamed down her cheeks and it cut him to the quick. He wasn’t normally this empathetic, but he couldn’t help but feel a connection to her.
“That’s enough, Hilde,” he growled. “We need to find common ground, not fight with one another.”
“You can’t trust her!” the celestial protested. “She even admits to having been with the whore of Begaer.”
He made a chopping motion with his hand. “I said that is enough.” There was a fury that rose within him, but he pushed it down—that wasn’t who he would be. But girlfriend or not, it wasn’t right for Hilde to talk about one of his own like that.
“Wait, why do you call her Hilde?” Lash asked.
“Yeah, at first she told me to call her Ild’engle, but that was a mouthful. Where I come from, we like to shorten names. And I doubt I could even pronounce her real name.”
The warrior stood there looking dumbfounded. Eyes wide, she stared at him. “Are you for real?”
Kyle laughed. “I’m a simple man. I speak my mind,” he said.
“No, I mean are you for real.” Then Lash returned her focus to Hilde. “I don’t know what you did, Qua’ardet Flammaurorae, but this can’t be Krig. He was always so formal, so rigid.”
“Little mortal, it most definitely is him,” Hilde snapped back. “You can feel it, but you don’t want to admit it, because then you’d have to admit you were unfaithful. Oh, and you were right about one thing... I can confirm that Kyle is rigid in all the right ways.”.
“Then how has he been reduced to this?” the blonde asked. “Don’t get me wrong, he is the most naturally gifted warrior I have ever trained. He learns things so fast, it is almost as though he is remembering rather than learning for the first time, even when it is clear that he didn’t know the thing before I introduced it to him.”
Lash shook her head. “And yes, I felt all that power coursing through him, but he can’t truly be Krig. If he was, he would never consent to being anyone’s slave.” She studied Kyle for a moment before returning her glare to the celestial. “He would never have done whatever it is you think he just did with you. Krig didn’t care about things like that,” Lash said.
“How did that turn out for him? I only get tiny glimpses of Krig’s memories at times. Truthfully, I’m afraid to let him influence me too much. But let me tell you a little bit about myself, about Kyle Hudson. I may not have been a warrior—that really wasn’t the way my world worked—but I was the best at what I did. Still, at the end of the day, I was left to die in an empty parking deck, unsure if anyone would care.”
He snorted. “Oh, I know there were people who would have cared. People who I made money for and people who were entertained by what I did, but that isn’t really missing me; that was missing what I did. Dying and being reborn has given me a new perspective—it isn’t enough just to win. Victory is meaningless if you stand alone.”
Kyle snorted. “I was simply getting by, before, now I want to be living—like a human being, not just a human… doing. Well, maybe I’m not human any longer, but the point stands. I want this existence to be more about who I am, who I am with, and only then what we do together,” Kyle crossed the space between he and Lash as he spoke, dropping the blanket to the ground.
“Here I am. If you think I’m an imposter, then strike me down. Otherwise, you have a decision to make, Marie.”
He stared her down. It wasn’t quite as easy to do in the buff, but he was sick of the cat fighting between the only two women who knew what he faced. He trusted Hilde, but his instincts told him that Lash could be trusted too. She looked like she was about to cry, but then her features grew cold.
“I haven’t decided yet what, or who, I think you are. Unless you restore my bond, you aren’t a true war god.” She paused. “And if you can, then you need to answer for the blood of my six sisters,” Lash said and then turned to leave.
Before she exited completely out of the room, she said over her shoulder, “Team practice for the mortals is in thirty minutes. Guess you have something to decide, as well—if you are going to be part of this team.”
The door slammed behind her. He had yet to see the full extent of Lash’s strength, but knew that she was far stronger than a human should be, especially for a woman who couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and twenty pounds. Still, it was a bit of a shock, to see how the door was nearly ripped off its hinges when she vented her anger on it.
Kyle turned and looked at Hilde, “Well, that could have gone better.”
“Maybe, but she is right. You do have some decisions to make. You have to decide who is really on your team and you have to decide where the best place for you to be is,” Hilde replied.
“You think that isn’t here any longer?”
“No. I think you have outgrown this place. It is partially my fault; I was distracted while in the mantle. All of your emotions affected me and I was feeling sorry for myself. Out here, I can protect you against most things—other than a demi-god or one of the gods, obviously. But I also need to push you out of the nest. Part of learning is realizing when it is time to graduate,” Hilde answered.
“If I don’t fight in the arena, then where do I get the experience that I need? I’m certainly not ready to take on any gods yet, but when I did start working with my power, you freaked out. If I don’t need to train here any longer, but I can’t practice using my essence, then how am I supposed to get stronger?” Kyle asked.
“You have learned what you can here. None of the threats you face are going to come from beings as limited as the fighters you will face in the arena. We need to get you free and then you can travel to one of the other nations. Thena is not the only city state to have created an empire. From this new place, you can operate as an adventurer. That will provide you some of the same cover that the arena did, and allow you to test yourself in dungeons and against monsters,” Hilde said.
“I don’t want to leave the team behind. I promised them if I escaped, that I would find a way to help them escape.”
“Well, you pretty much either have to bring Nyda and Kierra along. That, or kill them.”
“What? How could you even suggest such a thing?” Kyle demanded.
“I’m not saying you should, simply that if you can’t complete your bond with them and empower the splinters of divinity you deposited into them, then you will have to get rid of them in order to be able to form other bonds. Each god is only able to give out seven divine splinters; you will need to make good use of each of yours,” Hilde said.
“Lash and her six sisters were Krig’s splinters?” he asked.
“Yes. We discussed this before. They weren’t really sisters in fact, but sisters in purpose and power. It was odd that Krig only chose to elevate women, but the best guess I could make about his reasoning, was that he wanted to prove that anyone could be a powerful warrior.”
“Not all gods use all seven splinters at the same time—it is common for them to leave one or two free. Krig was more active than the other gods as he tried to provide a cruci
ble for the mortals to prove themselves—in war. At least that is what he told us. For that, he needed his seven,” Lash said.
“So, if Marie comes around, then three of my splinters are spent. Hmm… What happens to those that get a splinter?” Kyle asked.
“They gain a connection to you that is hard to quantify. I’m not sure I can explain it. I never got to experience it before, and it takes time to grow. The obvious answer though, is power. It pushes them beyond their normal limits. They gain extra abilities that are unique to them and their connection. As an example, Lash would normally be limited to mortal level stats, but when she had her full connection with Krig, she was close to my equal in raw power and I am well into the third tier.”
“Maybe that is why the splinter seems to be connected to Lash’s hands, but covers all of Kierra’s skin, and is inside Nyda’s head,” Kyle mused.