Chapter 37

“There is no crime higher than the summoning of an eidolon. Even when it has been achieved by accident, it is punishable by death in most cultures.”

—How To Be Ardent, Fal’Dulse

It was a bloodbath, but it was brief.

With everything over, a numb silence spread across the arena. At the periphery of his senses, the massive shapes that he now knew to be eidolons began to fade back down into the sands. Some of his friends began clustering around, usually Kaya would have wrapped his knees in a hug by now, but even she seemed to be a little reluctant to approach. A band of green flame leapt up between him and the others, and from their midst, Vaelith strode forth. “Stand down.”

Sylvas was unarmed and unmoving, but tension, fear even, still seemed to strum through her. Sylvas gave her a weak smile and instinctively tried to defuse it. “Should I just cut out the middle man and report directly to the brig?”

She stopped at a good distance away from him with a blade still manifested in her hands. Her reply came out weak, soft, compared to what he used to hearing from her. “This isn’t a brig situation, Sylvas. This…this is…”

He was used to overreactions from the Ardent. He was even used to being punished for no good reason, but this was something new. He could feel a cold fear spreading through his stomach, as if one of Malachai’s ghosts had laid a hand on him. Giving up all attempts at joviality, he asked. “What kind of a situation is it?”

“The kind that’s too big for me to help with.” She kept the blade in hand and her stare focused upon him, but the tension, the trembling in her hands and shoulders, that went beyond anything he’d seen before. Not even in the heat of battle, had he ever seen her look so distressed. “The kind I don’t even know how to protect you from.”

It was an ominous a statement as any Sylvas had ever heard before, and one that soon had him marching towards a shuttle with Vaelith by his side that had practically crash landed upon the arena floor for the speed that it arrived it. His arms had been shackled behind his back with some device made from that same slick white that the Ardent seemed to use for all their technology. Vaelith said nothing as they journeyed towards the ship, quickly joined by other Ardent instructors that fell into step with them, forming a protective circle around him. But even so, none of them said anything, their faces frozen in the same pale image of what Sylvas had seen upon Vaelith.

It’s fear, darling. They’re all terrified of you and what you’ve just done. You not only tore up a horde of eidolons from the ground, but you transmuted them into raw Etherium. You shredded the very essence of what they were and transformed it into power. More power than any of them have ever held. And they know that. Mira’s voice told him as they walked. Now they’re all in danger of staining their fancy white uniform trousers every time that you so much as twitch. The two on the outside have kill spells at the ready, the two to either side of your beloved instructor are channeling some sort of suppressing spell into your bonds. The only one who isn’t casting, or ready to cast is the elf herself, and that’s because she’s so worked up that she’s debating to either stop everyone from hurting you, or preparing herself to hack you to pieces herself.

Sylvas decided that talking wasn’t likely going to reassure any of them that he was any safer to be around, so he kept any response to that to himself, even as Mira fed the images of the spell forms being prepared into his vision. They were indeed as deadly as she’d promised they were. As they reached the shuttle, all of the instructors barring Vaelith took a careful step back while she barked out orders, first for them to form a protective guard around the craft, then second for what Sylvas needed to do. “Proceed onto the shuttle, Sylvas, and then seat yourself. Your restraints will remain on for the flight.”

He glanced back to the crowd of instructors who surrounded either side of the shuttle’s ramp. “Is everyone coming, or just you?”

“It will be…just us,” the woman answered softly as the two of them ascended the ramp. “And that is because once we are in space, any attempt to cast will result in your immediate spacing, along with that of everyone else outside the pilot’s cabin. Your restraints are synchronized to the systems of the shuttle, and the moment that it detects any attempt to channel mana, we will be both voided into space. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Sylvas replied in an equally soft tone. “No casting.”

They marched up the ramp, and he did exactly what he was told, seating himself, and then holding extremely still as Vaelith locked him in place, her sword finally dissipating so that she could use both hands to do so. In spite of himself, Sylvas still found that he couldn’t stay quiet. The silence that had followed him everywhere was oppressive. “What is going to happen to me?”

There was long pause as Vaelith finished her work in strapping him in before going on to do the same in a seat opposite of him.

“You will be taken off-world, to Onslaught Citadel, away from any possible contact with eidolons. After that…I imagine you will be tested, interrogated, scanned, and who knows what else until such time we understand what it is exactly you did, and how you did it.”

This time it was Sylvas’ turn to pause for a while before finally voicing a question he realized he needed the answer to. “And what is it that the Ardent thinks I did?”

“You called Eidolons,” Vaelith’s response was quick and harsh, anger clearly accompanying it. “You called them without using any spell, artifice or anything we could detect. You did so just will your Will alone. But more than that…you…you ate them. Devoured them whole. Turned them into raw Etherium. Something that based on everything we know, is supposed to be impossible.”

She fixed Sylvas with another stare, one once again filled with fear, though this time mixed in with awe.

“How did you do it?”

“I…I don’t know, I mean not exactly,” Sylvas replied as he replayed the whole battle in his mind. “I…just realized I could sense mana nearby and pulled on it. I never realized what it was until the first of them appeared right beside me.”

Vaelith didn’t even move as Sylvas spoke, her eyes watching him intently. “And, if you needed to, could you do it again?”

There was no reason for Sylvas to lie and he simply nodded. “Yes. Without a doubt.”

This time the reply caused Vaelith to exhale slowly, her eyes closing for a moment in thought before reopening.

“I’ve been informed that an inquisitor has been dispatched to assess you. A mind mage. You will give them full and unrestricted access to your mind and memories. Any sign of resistance during this process will be held against you in…whatever else yet to come.” She said to him, eyes once again sharp and focused. “If the Inquisitor can confirm what you have said to us, and give us evidence that you have come by this new… ability entirely by accident of birth, circumstance, or whatever else, then your future within the Empyrean will become more…certain.”

He was trying to take that particular bit of news for the lifeline it was, but still, it was a struggle. “What…what does that mean?”

Vaelith’s face showed no emotion as she replied. “What you have just done was considered impossible. And I mean, truly impossible in every sense of the word. I have no idea exactly what the powers that be might have in store for you, but I think it is safe to say that your formal commission with the Ardent ended down on Strife. Whatever your future might be…it will be in a very different role than as a potential fleet captain.”

And so the future that he’d spent a year of his life frantically fighting to win was snatched away from him in an instant, and the dread he’d felt back when he realized his true purpose back on his home world came back with a vengeance. When he spoke, it came out as little more than a whisper, “you mean they’ll weaponize me.”

She looked more than a little disgusted by the statement but nodded in agreement. “Eventually. Yes. I’m certain. They would be irresponsible not to. Until then it’s likely you’ll just a research subject until your… ability has been fully assessed.”

“And how long is that going to take? Months? Years?”

“As long as it takes.” The woman stated, giving him the faintest of shrugs. “I don’t even know where they’d even start.”

That means you’ll be a lab rat for the rest of your life, and then they’ll spend a few more lifetimes dissecting what is left of you.

They had hit the atmosphere somewhere in the middle of the conversation, but there was no fun projection on the walls of the steel can for them to look out at this time around. Eventually, Sylvas broke the silence again. “I’m guessing that my ‘ability’ is what let me destroy the core on Mournhold too?”

Vaelith gave him a look that told him she would have preferred to look away if it wasn’t her duty to keep close watch on his every movement. “That is one of the theories being tossed about, yes.”

I’d say it’s more than a theory. Mira’s voice echoed through his mind. The only thing other than you that can destroy a worldsoul is an eidolon, and look at that, you can tear them apart with a thought. What do you think that makes you?

Sylvas immediately fell silent at his other half’s thoughts the revelation suddenly making searching for more answers feel particularly unappealing. Not only did he not want to go down that road, but also because Mira was right.

What did his new power make him?