Unbound

Chapter Eight Hundred And Sixty Nine – 869

Evie landed at the end of a frozen plain, and a tumultuous ocean roared at her back. Not half a league distant, the ocean's waves spat white foam onto the ice, thickening it, growing it a fingerspan by the day. Above her, the sky was black, bereft of any clouds that might hold in some semblance of heat. There was only the cold light of distant stars…and not so distant ones.

Ahead, of course, was her city.

The sky brightened for a single moment. Blue-white and red-gold starlight smeared across the ice, casting reflective glory onto itself before it congealed around ice and chain. In mere moments, all of it turned to flesh and dark clothing. Trousers and a black jacket emblazoned with a blue eye surmounted by a golden crown.

Felix stood next to her, taller by a full stride. He put his hands on his hips and surveyed her core space. "Not bad at all, Evie.”

She poked him. "Hey, why is your visualized form made from my core space?"

"You noticed. Alister didn't. It's a benefit of the Link. I'm co-opting parts of your core instead of stretching myself through our bond." He dropped his arms from his hips. "It's less of a strain. Every bit helps."

Evie narrowed her eyes. "What's that mean?"

"It means I'm about to use Fiendforge on seven different people, Evie. All at the same time."

"Oh, Noctis’ tits. That's a lot.”

She considered giving him a bit of grief for a moment, but she didn’t want to waste the time. "Nah, I'm close to Master, but not that close."

"Great! Nothing to worry about then." He extended his arm. "Shall we?"

Evie looped hers through the crook of his elbow before she unceremoniously launched herself forward. Instead of being yanked off his feet, however, Felix followed smoothly, rising into the air with less than a whisper. The bastard.

"You could at least pretend to be surprised!" she shouted over the wind.

"Where's the fun in that?" He asked, just as they landed atop the first and closest tower of the enormous palace that spread out around them.

"Welcome to my core space," Evie said, untangling herself from him. She spread her arms wide as if to display the sprawling buildings all around, built out of ice and chains and even flowing streams of water. It was less of a city than it was an enormous palace, built on a scale bigger than even giants could comfortably used.

"I love what you've done with the place." He looked up towards the center of her core space where the tallest tower was like a needle of ice and metal that extended upward into the sky. Even Evie didn't know where it ended, though she had her suspicions that were she to follow it, it would stretch straight out of her core space.

Her core ringed the spire. It spun around the needle, a massive chain interwoven with links of water and ice through its black metal length. Each rotation it made around the spire pulled on the Skills that clung to it with invisible bonds. Evie could feel them, though not even she could see how they were connected, only that they were.

Each rotation of her ring core forced the Skills to shift themselves. Like a ball of serpents constantly seeking the center, the chains pulled inward, never knotting but always moving as ice and water flowed through them like blood through the chambers of a heart. Bound to each Skill and set beneath them, the buildings slowly shifted up and down, changing elevation as Mana flowed through her passives.

Felix followed her gaze. "Your Skills. They’re tied to parts of the palace?”

"Yeah. They rise and fall depending on how much Mana they use. The defensive walls are tied to them too. Makes it hard for any invaders to get close."

"Interesting." Felix didn't mention that no one was really invading her core space. Evie had been worried that he would. Instead he pointed to the streets below. "Are those giants?"

"No. Why would I use those jerks? Those are Chain Golems," she said. "They kind of live here and just kind of ramble around."

“I see their shields and the chains they've wrapped around themselves. They look a lot like the ones in my Void Sanctuary. Copying me, now?"

"You got it backwards, thief. You stole them from me."

Felix gave a sheepish grin. "To be fair, it was unconscious theft."

"How's that better?"

Felix paused. "It's more innocent?"

"Come on, criminal," she said through a sharp laugh. "The place we're looking for is down here."

With a bit of Will and Affinity, they floated down toward the street level, passing throug the arches of several aquaducts carrying full rivers of dark water. There, beneath the central spire, the whole place opened up into a series of massive fifty-stride doorways, each open to the elements. Figures were carved into the supports on either side of the doorways, their features coated in thick layers of hoarfrost as they stared defiantly into the distance. Evie paused to look at them, as she always did.

"It’s nice to see her, even like this," Felix said.

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"Yeah. Magda looks good as a statue." Evie paused, chewing her lip. “It looks like her, right?”

“It does. I’ve got a really good memory, but even if I didn’t, I’d never forget her face.”

"I'm jealous," Evie admitted. "I was thinking my memory wasn't quite so sharp. It's only been a bit over a year and I already can't quite remember her voice. I can hear it fine, but its outta tune and foggy. I put her here so I wouldn’t forget. As long as I got this... well, she's not going anywhere, right? Plus, who better to guard my Pillars than the Shieldwitch herself?"

"It's a good choice. So is the rest of this place," he said, looking further in.

She knew what he saw. The vaulted hollow within the center of the spire. It reached up hundreds of strides into the air, so high that the gathered gloom formed a thick shadow at its top. Each step they took echoed like the cracking of deep ice. Around the room were massive anchor blocks forged of metal and ice, set deep into the frozen earth. They were ten strides across and equipped with a massive black iron hook.

Felix whistled, clearly impressed. "Simple and efficient. I like it."

"Yeah, the Pillars are going to go there, all the way up, connecting to the tower framework," she said, pointing towards the darkness above them.

“Piercing the center of your ring core.” Felix nodded. "Makes perfect sense to me."

"Don't sound so surprised."

Felix turned to face her square. "Evie, you are incredibly hardworking, savagely talented, and exceptionally intelligent, despite what you'd rather others think." He bared his teeth, not a smile, but a challenge. "If you couldn't handle this, I'd have been utterly disappointed."

"Pssh, you're going to make me blush, pretty boy."

"You flirt when you’re nervous. Don’t be," he said, before nudging her with his elbow. "Besides, I know you've got eyes for someone else."

This time, Evie did flush, despite her visualized form. "Shut up," she snapped. "I’m not talking about that."

"All right, that's fair. If I could offer a bit of advice..."

"Advice? Is it to wait a year before making a move?" Felix grinned but before he could open his mouth, Evie raised a hand. “Nope. Don’t wanna hear it. Not from you.”

Felix laughed and lifted his hands in surrender. "Okay. That’s fair. But I am serious. This is good. You're ready."

"Well," she cracked her neck. "Visualization ain't my thing, but this was simple as gutting a Revenant. Is it supposed to get harder?"

Felix glanced back up at the vaulted ceiling and the deep shadow leading to the center of her power. "It will," he promised, "very soon."

Harn stood at the center of his armory and watched as a massive arcanite hammer smashed into the crystalline anvil before him. The anvil itself was bigger than his house with Palin, and each strike sent rivers of silver flame spreading throughout his core space.

To the untrained eye, Harn knew they looked random. Each flow changed and branched unexpectedly, honing in on the arms and armor assembled in discrete piles between the hewn stone columns. The fire filled them with silver light, heating them without melting, tempering their forms with every flow. The concentric rings around his core turned, a single space with each beat of his hammer, each ring moving in opposite directions as they spread wider and wider from his center.

Harn reached out, running his fingers through a river of silver flame as it passed him, letting its brilliance play over his rough hands. It felt cold to him, like steel stored in a winter-bound shed, and he smiled. It reminded him of hot porridge, the bustle of early morning conversation in a warm tavern, and the battered disrepair of his uncle's old forge. Work that he'd done half a lifetime ago.

A flash of blue and red-gold was all the warning he had—one of the rivers stopped flowing, pooling instead into a too-tall boy covered in black scales and dark clothing. Felix fully congealed next to him in less time than it took for the hammer to spark off of his anvil. He straightened his jacket.

"Taking your time, kid?" Harn asked.

“Evie had a lot of questions.” Felix shrugged. "Each of you has such unique core spaces that I also need to adjust my Fiendforge every time I set it."

"Set it?"

"Yeah. I have to set it to hold tight around your core space.”

“For all of us? Doesn't it tire you?"

"Not yet. But I’ll handle it."

Harn grunted. The kid knew better than to lie to him. He wasn't as good at deception as he liked to think. "All right. If you're sure.”

“I am. Besides, Grandmaster Tier has to count for something, right?"

Harn chuckled. "Suppose it does. No time to waste then. Sooner started, sooner finished."

He gestured, and the floor at the base of his crystal anvil split open, a concentric ring dropping into a set of stairs that led down into a dark passage. He led Felix down its steps, revealing an undercroft full of shadow, dust, and ancient bedrock. The stone had chips and pockmarks of wear in it, but Harn had made the place as sturdy as it was ancient. There were no cracks or fractures, no faults or stress lines.

“Follow me.”

Without another word, Harn stepped forward and fell nearly five hundred strides in an instant. He slammed feet first into the floor, raising a cloud of dust all around him. It didn't hurt, not even a little bit—after all, this was his core space. He could do anything within it.

Felix, however, floated down like a leaf on the wind. “I like the entrance.”

Harn shrugged. “It’s faster.”

From above, streamers of silver fire flowed down the walls, pouring in from the crystalline base of the anvil where it protruded from the ceiling. The fire caught along channels grooved beside that crystal, following them down similar troughs that formed labyrinthine paths toward the very bottom…where Harn stood. Light bloomed in their wake, the silver radiance more than enough to fill the vast space.

"Oh, shit," Felix said, floating lower. "You’ve been busy."

Harn beamed, more than willing to take pride in what he'd accomplished. Around him were huge pieces of armor, as if built for giants hundreds of feet tall. "Helmet, cuirass, pauldrons, rerebraces, vambraces, sabatons, greaves, tasses, and gauntlets," he said, pointing to each massive piece of armor. "Nine pieces of armor, each one part of a full set."

"This is extremely cool," Felix said, looking as giddy as Harn had hoped.

Harn grunted, though it was through a wide smile. "So long as it works, I'm happy."

The boy drifted closer to the sabatons. The enormous boots were made of folded metal gleaming in silver but cast reflections of gold and crimson. He reached out, tracing a dark hand against it, and silver fire leaped in the wake of his claws.

"I can sense your Skills here, tied into the shape, but it's hollow," he turned. "All of it is."

"It's just a framework," Harn agreed. “Ready to be filled.”

Felix flared Fiendforge, chest and throat burning with red-gold light as his hands crackled with lightning. "Then let's get started."