Fate - First Reply Another Test

[Edric]

A grunt if pain escaped the young Dreadlord as Noel bashed him in the stomach. His eyes widened and the air escaped from his lungs. Fingers laced over his stomach, lips thinning as she reached out and grabbed him.

As she spoke he only frowned.

Normally he would have thrown out some sort of witty retort, a bite back in Noel's face or something else. Instead he was just silent.

A hand covered the mark on his stomach where she had struck him, a breath painfully sucked into his lungs as she let him go. The click of her boots echoed out against the marble flooring as she went back to her separate room. Edric stared after her, lips thin, the pain in his gut radiating slightly as he pulled himself back to his full height.

For a long time he simply stood there, quietly, looking at the door.

Then he turned and went to his own room.

It was not long before he heard the crashing sounds of Talea and Fermin returning. What they thought of as whispers echoing through the suite as they drunkenly tried to return to their own rooms. Edric listened to them, laying on the most comfortable bed he'd ever laid on, unable to sleep.

Dawn came quicker than he would have thought, and with it came the shouts of the Ambassador. His voice broke the quiet of the Palace, panic clinging to it as he shouted at the Initiates.

"Get up! Get up quickly!"

Edric was the first to step out his door, having known this call would come. "What is it Ambassador?"

He asked, his tone flat. Normal.

"It's a disaster. The Doge has died, negotiations are all but dead with him."

 

[Noel]

Noel stared daggers into her ceiling for a few moments. Had she not been able to savor the moment of showing up Edric she would've been tossing and turning for hours. Instead it took only a small amount of time for her to decompress from the day's events. If she was going to be banished to Sene then, well, she didn't want to think about that. And as for Fermin? He could go to hell, she'd have to work on forgetting about him. At this point she just wanted to rest.

Sleep and dream of anything other than what happened today.

In a start Noel awoke to the sounds of commotion and ruckus in the common room. Murmured voices ringing through her door and the thin walls of their apartment suites. Noel bounded up, grabbing her nightgown and wrapping it around herself as she peeked out from her door. Her platinum hairband ready to fly in case there was a threat on the other side.

"What is-," she wasn't able to finish her thought as she heard the ambassador's words.

Gears turned in the midnight-haired girl's head as she processed what had happened. Surely she was just being paranoid, there was no chance that the thing her mind went to could be true. Edric was always up to schemes but there was no way he'd so something as reckless as...

We're all going home.

The Doge has died.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Noel exclaimed as her room's door fully swung open.

 

[Edric]

"I assure you young lady I am not kidding you."

The ambassador said as he turned towards Noel with a raised eyebrow. His head shook a second later, but before he could say anything else both Talea and Fermin managed to drag themselves out of bed and into the antechamber.

Talea looked surprisingly put together given what she had sounded like the night before, but Fermin appeared as though someone had hit him with a truck. Both of the other Initiates grumbled something under their breath, but seemed to snap into focus as they noticed the ambassador standing there.

Edric stared at the two for a moment, then spoke. "What does this mean for us? The delegation, I mean."

The ambassador stared at Fermin for a few seconds, his eyes narrowing, then slowly he looked back towards Edric.

"It means we're leaving. Negotiations have broken down as I said. Without the Doge's voice factions which are against Vel Anir have gotten more bold. It might take months to salvage this."

A small smile touched Edric's lips.

"That's terrible, Ambassador." The Initiate said. "We'll prepare to leave as soon as you give the word."

"Yes, of course of course. Haste ma-"

Before the man could finish his sentence there was a shout from outside the door. A frown touched his face, and he quickly turned on his heel.

"Prepare to leave. I'll see what this new chaos is."

 

[Noel]

Noel saw Fermin arrive first, he looked like a wreck. Briefly a thought trickled through her mind wondering if perhaps Fermin and Talea had... but no, a single look at Talea revealed that she was far less intoxicated when the pair had arrived back late last night. Or perhaps she was more of a morning person.

Then Edric spoke up, asking the ambassador for the status of the negotiations and learning they were over. Which meant, they were all going home.

By the time the ambassador left them to get a situation update Noel had already taken several strides across the lobby. Her nose was scrunched, her cheeks beginning to turn a shade of pink and threatening to turn redder by the second.

"What did you do?" her words soft enough not to carry outside of their suite.

She'd have time to suit up and pack her bags before the Anirian diplomat returned but in the moment she just wanted to know what was going on. What had that demented boy done? An accusatory finger pressed against Edric's chest whilst she stared at him, awaiting his answer.

 

[Edric]

Edric stared at Noel.

He still had the bruise where she had struck him. He could have healed it, but...it just didn't seem right. A frown touched his face as she closed the distance between the two of them and made her demand. For a few seconds he let silence reign within the room.

Fermin and Talea both looked to Edric, confusion plastered on their face. Neither of them had any idea what was going on, but by Noel's tone of voice it seemed they had no incentive to voice that fact either. "What I had to."

Edric retorted.

There was no way in fuck he was going to tell her.

She might have suspected it. She might even have already guessed correctly, but that didn't matter. If she was put to the question Noel would be able to answer truthfully that she didn't know. All of them would have save for Edric.

He was going to keep it that way.

"Pack your things, guys." Edric said, his voice stern. No sign of the jovial jests he normally would have offered. "We're going home."

He glanced over towards Fermin, Talea, then turned to pack.

 

[Noel]

There was a part of her that wanted to scream. This had been, from a practical standpoint, the easiest mission they had ever undergone. Sure, there were some glaring emotional issues associated with this particular task but all they had to do was show up, follow orders, and then go home. Even that had proven to be too difficult for Edric.

But, no matter how much she wanted to stay angry, no matter how bad she was ready to scream at the other trainee before her, she couldn't help but relent now.

It had become obvious why Edric had done it even if she thought it was a short-sighted solution. He could've been caught or the Doge might have had a ready replacement just underneath him. Either way his action benefitted not only himself but Fermin, Talea, and Noel.

Her lips pressed together, fingers tightened, before she eventually acquiesced fully, "right, we'll go pack." With that she turned on her heel and made her way back towards her room. Noel got dressed in a hurry, packed her sack, and bumbled back out into the shared common room.

Talea was alread there waiting. It wasn't a surprise, the girl was a perfectionist in all things. No sooner had Noel exited her room though than the two boys joined them. All four were huddled into the small room awaiting the ambassador's return. For a second nothing but silence permeated the room until footsteps outside the hall came ringing through.

In a flash the doors flew open and the ambassador rushed in, panting and struggling for breath. "Its, we're, everything is terrible!" His face was pale and sweat was accumulating on his face as Noel's heart rate began to quicken.

 

[Edric]

Talea stared at Edric as all of them returned to the room. Clearly she had more than picked up on Noel's suspicion, though likely had less of a clue as to just what he'd done. Fermin, at least, appeared ambivalent. He picked at his fingers as they waited for the ambassador to return.

Edric only stared at the floor, a his pack besides him as he leaned up against the wall.

In his mind there was nothing to say, no convincing to do. Not a hint of regret flickered through him. He knew that he had done the right thing. Sene was a nice city, but it wasn't Vel Anir. It wasn't home. Fuck, it was barely worth protecting.

"Its, we're, everything is terrible!"​

As the Ambassador crashed into the room and made his declaration Edric's heart skipped a beat.

Instantly fingers reached for the knife strapped to the small of his back, reaching quickly, just in case.

"The Radiant Church is coming! A full battalion from Verel! They're going to take the city."​

Edric's eyebrows rose slowly. "How?"

"News must have traveled fast. There are spies everywhere in Cortos, the cities despis-We don't have time for a lesson in Geopolitics. We have to get out."​

 

[Noel]

It was entirely possible that Edric's actions had not only just cost Vel Anir a vital ally in Cortos but could even spur a small-scale war between Sene, rival city-states, and the Radiant Church. That was all just speculation on Noel's part, she wasn't an expert on the political machinations of Arethil, but the panic in the ambassador's voice shone through.

"We need to move fast then," she replied and stared at the Anirian emissary, "with all due respect, you should let us handle this. We can keep you safe but this is our area of expertise now."

The ambassador nodded, "of course but we must move immediately. If we dawdle we'll all be sitting on pikes by sunrise tomorrow." There was a sense of hysteria to his shrill voice which was all the confirmation that Noel Schwarz needed to understand how dire their situation had become.

Words weren't really needed here. All four students understood that the safety of the ambassador was paramount, all four knew how to navigate urban environments, and all four knew how to avoid unnecessary danger. Silently they moved in unison, keeping the ambassador in the center of their group as Noel and Edric led the way with Talea and Fermin walking just behind the ambassador.

There was something on her mind though that made it difficult to focus exclusively on the task at hand. Edric had royally fucked this entire mission, risking his own life (and now all of theirs), and expressly gone against the orders they had received at the academy. If Noel wished she could've reported him, the academy likely to expel him or possibly even turn him over to the Guard... causing such a terrible diplomatic crises was probably enough to warrant an execution for treason.

Yet, he'd done all of it not just to protect himself but to save Fermin. And Talea. And her.

It didn't seem to be in his character and Noel decided right there, as they zigged through the hallways of the labyrinthian palace of the Doge, that they'd need to discuss his decisions after they'd gotten to safety. If they got to safety.

 

[Edric]

Edric didn't show any sign of concern, any sign of...anything.

It was as though someone had flipped a switch in his head. His decision had been final, and now he would deal with the consequences. Whatever they were.

As the five Anirians moved through the Doge's palace there was an utter panic around them. Men and women rushed everywhere. Servant's clutched gold and silver that they had plundered, soldiers rushed out into the courtyard, nobles headed towards what they perceived as their secure manners.

Panic had gripped the city.

"We need to head to the stab-"​

Talea was the one who spoke, her words cut off as the ground beneath them suddenly shook. Edric's head twisted to the side, his jaw dropping as he watched a fireball descend from the sky, three more of them quickly coming after it.

"Get down!" Edric called out as the Catapult Missiles struck the Palace grounds.

Explosions burst against marble fixtures, fire splashing over the grand gardens and catching on those unlucky enough to have been nearby. Screams began to fill the city as the Siege of Sene began.

 

[Noel]

Noel had never been in a full scale siege before. She hoped she never would have to again.

Everything around them felt like it was falling apart at the seams. Cries of panic and despair resonated throughout the halls which were only exacerbated when the first strikes from the enemy trebuchets pelted through the building. They'd just managed to get outside the palace itself when the large doors they had previously admired collapsed from the assault.

She rose from her prone position after the first volley ended. "We have to keep moving!"

Damn, these stupid ceremonial leathers didn't provide her with enough platinum to encase the entire group. Not that she was even sure it would've held up if flames or a strike landed close enough. Instead she simply formed what metal she had into a lance and broad shield. As they reached the edge of the city it was likely they'd encounter some sort of ground force and she wanted to be ready.

With her shield hand she gestured the ambassador, who at this point was a sniveling mess, to proceed forward. After a delay he and the other initiates kept heading outwards. Towards the stables where they would hopefully find enough horses to get riding. Though, knowing their luck, a few of them would likely have to double up on the same steed.

 

[Edric]

More of the fireballs rained from the sky, some landing close, others crashing into the city afar.

He'd always known that he would end up in a situation like this. They were Dreadlords. A siege was only inevitable, yet there was something different about the reality of it. Unlike Noel he couldn't protect himself form a fireball which rained from the sky, he didn't even know if his magic could help him survive something like that.

It felt...random.

For the first time in a long time Edric could sense his confidence sway. It was not gone, but it shook, if only slightly.

"There!" It was Fermin who spoke up, hand quickly pointing towards the Stables in the corner of the Courtyard. Edric grimaced as all of them rushed over, a quick glance spotting that there were only three horses left within.

"The Ambassador takes one." Edric's voice was firm. "Noel and Me in front, Fer, Talea in the back."

Noel and himself would be able to clear the way. Their magic was best suited for the task.

Without waiting for the others to respond Edric walked over to the tallest of the three beasts, his hand sliding along the creatures neck before he quickly pulled himself up into the saddle. His hand then jutted out towards Noel.

 

[Noel]

There wasn't time to argue, which was a shame because had their lives not been in jeopardy she would've objected to sharing a horse with the man who caused all of this.

Noel set her objections aside, her shield attaching itself to her back as she grasped hold of Edric and they began to gallop forward. What started as a deliberate trot quickly turned into a full blown sprint for all three horses. The onyx-haired trainee kept her lance closed in tight and ready in case any threats came too close. Fragments of her shield spun off, sharpening to a tip and floating around the duo to eliminate potential archers as they reached the edge of the city.

For now though they wound through streets and crumbling corridors, their horses whinnying every so often when a firestrike landed too close.

"If we survive this we need to have a long chat," she said into the back of Edric's thick skull.

Just ahead she could see one of the gates that led out of Sene, they could likely take the road north to the docks and hopefully the Anirian Navy would still have a vessel to load them out of there. But for now there was the issue of the road black just ahead and the Radiant Church justicars who were preventing their exit.

The Dreadlord initiate tightly grasped Edric's shoulder, urging him to slow for a second. "We fight our way through, yeah? No sense trying to negotiate." It'd just remove the element of surprise the three riders had. "Unless you think he can't keep up?"

The ambassador was practically drenched in sweat from how nervous he was.

 

[Edric]

Noel could make all the arguments she wanted.

She could treat him as less than a bag of dirt and Edric still would have done the same thing over and over again. It had been a simple choice, just as it was now.

They were Dreadlord's. They were soldiers.

Their entire lives they had trained for war, combat. This was what they were meant for, nothing less, nothing more. In Edric's mind he knew he had made the right decision, knew that even if he died here he would be proud of it.

He wasn't a lap dog to some foreign ruler. He wasn't a babysitter to some royal from a land that he had never heard of. He was a Dreadlord. He was a soldier. He carried the folly of pride, but he would carry it until his dying day. "We kill them all."

Edric's voice was low, just loud enough for her to hear.

"You and me." His hands tightened on the reins. "We kill them all."

There was no looking back, no waiting. "Tell the others to keep going. You follow after them."

Noel would feel his muscles tense, his magic pull just slightly at her life.

It was a split second, a moment, and then slowly he stood within the saddle. His fingers dropped the reins, and before she could answer the Initiate launched himself at the line of Justicars.

 

[Noel]

Overconfidence was a common weakness among most Dreadlords. Noel was no exception but Edric seemed to have an addiction to the stuff. Perhaps it was because he'd almost always been at the top of the class. He didn't have to work as hard as some of the others, it just seemed to come naturally to him. At least, that's how Noel always saw it.

"Alright but," it was too late. Ed was already heading into the fray.

Noel turned her head and shouted at the others, "get the ambassador out of here. We'll follow behind!" Fermin and Talea nodded and their two horses split off and sped up only as the attacking duo began to engage.

The light headedness that always emerged from the gentle tug of Edric's magic subsided quickly and Noel rushed forward atop the steed. She'd killed before. Enemies of Vel Anir when on missions, prisoners when ordered to by the Proctors, her best friend that one tragic day, and she knew herself well enough to know that she wasn't going to hesitate to kill the holy warriors that impeded their path.

Just outside of the range of the first few of them she hopped off the steed, her floating pieces of platinum spun before flinging themselves outwards. They impaled two of the men in areas she knew would prove lethal but was just off the mark of her third target. He simply screamed in agony before the teenager rushed forward and flung her lance into him, silencing his cries.

There were at least a dozen more as she wound her metallic fragments up for another round of fire.

 

[Edric]

Edric became a blur.

His magic was always strongest when it was not expected, and although the justicars of the Solar Choire were well trained, they did not know of him. Almost as soon as he bounded from the top of the horse their lives were forfeit.

The Initiate drew upon them like batteries, pulling away at their lives like loose strings hanging from a shirt. Every second that they stood, every moment that they remained there he grew more powerful.

Edric became blur among their ranks.

He moved through the enemy like slash of lightning. His hands broke arms, his blades slit throats. To him they were little more than lambs to be sacrificed.

Edric feasted upon the life around him.

His strength growing with every passing second. Arms wrapping around the throat of one of the larger Justicar's, fingers gripping his throat. "NOEL!"

He shouted, his words echoing through the square as the Ambassador and the other Initiates trampled through the open gate.

"Get on the Horse!" Edric shouted, a loud snap echoing as he ended another life. "Go!"

The demand echoed as another of the Radiant Church rushed towards him.

 

[Noel]

A thin piece of foil whistled through the air and sailed directly through another target. Noel's lance re-shaped itself as a curved blade as a Justicar approached, she side-stepped, and a larger fragment of metal collided with his knee knocking him off balance. In a fluid motion she swung her weapon, carving the man into two.

One more presented himself but this one was different. He wore a necklace made of platinum.

Noel simply glanced at him, feeling the call of the object deep within her before the man was suddenly dragged upwards. He only got a few feet off the ground, choking and writhing, until the necklace snapped and the jewelry floated towards her and forged itself into her armor.

Swiftly she raced at him and ended his life with efficiency.

Her ears perked up and she jerked her head towards the source of the shout. For a fraction of a second concerned that her fellow classmate might have been injured. It was a silly concern, these soldiers were green and undisciplined. They offered almost no threat to the two Dreadlord initiates.

She didn't waste any further time, returning to the horse and mounting it, rushing over towards Edric and leaning an arm out so that he could grab ahold. It'd do them both some good to leave Sene and hopefully never return.

 

[Edric]

Edric watched as the Ambassador rode through the gate, watched as Fermin and Talea followed just inches behind his trail.

It was an elation that he would have found difficult to put into words. A revelation of joy. He knew that he had messed up. He understood that killing the Doge had caused problem. Yet seeing that escape was enough, was a stake that he could at least right himself with.

They had made it, they escaped.

That was all that mattered. That was his mistake corrected.

Then he heard Noel seemed to appear out of nowhere. His head twisted, eyes focusing upon her form as she drew near. Lips thinned as he spotted her figure leaning on the side of her horse, arm sticking out towards him in rescue.

Edric reached out, his hand clasping towards hers.

Then the catapult struck.

Like a shadow of the apocalypse itself the Fireball reached down into the square. It struck mere meters away from the two Dreadlord Initiates, exploding in a torrent of flame and destruction. Ripping through ally and foe as though they were little more then stationary.

 

[Noel]

Everything went black.

Then, everything hurt. "Ugghh," Noel groand as she tried to reach a hand to brace her aching head. She found that both of her hands were tightly bond in bracers with a strange sigil cut across their side.


Bleary eyes blinked open and she found herself in a dark room made constructed of sandstone. Light shone in through a barred window which was obstructed by a cloaked figure who clutched a leatherbound book tightly to his chest. A curved blade affixed to his waist belt.

He was muttering something, a religious chant of sorts, in a language that Noel couldn't recognize. Immediately she tried to fling flecks of metal at the man, impale him and then free herself. Only... she couldn't... her magic didn't seem to respond. Didn't seem to work.

She tried to take in the rest of her surroundings and saw various implements hanging from the walls. Based on their shape and design they were clearly intended for torture. Just beside her, also bond in the strange silver bindings was Edric.



"Edric? Are you alright?" her voice was hoarse and her chest burned as she tried to speak. This was not good. While she didn't know very much of the Radiant Church she knew that being their prisoner likely was not a pleasant experience. And the chanting man before them was incredibly unnerving, his strange language sounding like the curse of a maniac.

But there was another in the room too, sitting on a stool in the corner. He was larger, with wild curly brown hair that came down to his shoulders. He wore a white cloak with gleaming golden armor that had the crest of the Radiant Church emblazoned on the chest piece. After she spoke he arose and cleared his throat.

"Rise and shine buttercup," he grabbed a cat 'o nine tails from off the wall and drew nearer to the two Dreadlords, "I saw what you two did out there and I'd like to know what two battlemages were doing in Sene." Pulling the leather strips in one hand he stretched the whip before letting the leather strips settle. "But where are my manners? I'm Hospitaller Julius. This," he gestured a free hand to the cloaked figure, "is Inquisitor Gerard."

In a sudden blur he thwacked the whip against Noel's side and she recoiled from the sting. She'd been beaten enough times at the academy to avoid wincing, avoid letting him know it bothered her. But, truthfully, she was terrified no matter how well she hid it.

"Now... talk." The unsettling chanting continued to rattle from the stone walls.

 

[Edric]

It wasn't the voices that woke him.

It wasn't the taunting tone of the Hospitaller that stirred him from his slumber. It was the quiet groan from Noe's throat that yanked Edric from his deep slumber. Eyes snapped open, bright blue gaze falling on the two figures that stood before him.

A confused and wandering mind fixated on the two of them, head tilting to the side as he tried to read the two of them. Lips thinned as he saw the whip, heart quickened as he heard the odd chant echoing within his ears.

The sound seemed to echo within the ear, a disturbing incantation that rang through every lingering thought of concentration. Edric scowled, muscles flexing against the chains which held him in place. A loud rattle shaking the odd steel.

"Don't bother." The man spoke up, peering at the young man pulled to the wall.

"That's Arc-stone." A bright grin flickered over his face. "It stops magics of life, healing. Anything else? Well my partner takes care of that."

Edric scowled down at the man, knowing his words were true.

His abilities seemed distant. Far. He could feel the ebb of the man's life. His partners abilities. That odd chanting seemed to ring in his hear, disrupting any thought of drawing upon the well of life that remained within both of them. "Noel."

Edric's voice echoed in the cell.

"I need you to ignore them." His voice was stern. Solid. It rang over the odd chanting cry.

"Don't SPEAK!" The Man's voice broke through Edric's words, the lash of his whip reaching out and striking across the Initiates flesh. "Answer me only when spoken to!"

Edric's voice broke, his whole body whincing as the whip lashed over his flesh. "Noel."

He cried, his teeth gnashing just as the man whipped him again. "SILENCE!"

"Under m-" Another lash. Another gash within his flesh. "U-nd-d"

Another hard lash. Another strike. The man shouting even as Edric screamed. "Under my skin! Kill him!"

His voice rang within the room, exploding in a scream of pain and desperation.

 

[Noel]

Ignore them? But why? He was getting lashed yet he kept crying out pleas to her.

Perhaps it was the stress of not having her magic or the thumping of her heart, the terror she felt in her chest, as Edric became more bloodied. As the leather tore deeper into his flesh.

Then he mentioned under his skin and she could feel it. Faintly. A vague hum that felt like it was an ocean away reaching out to her. She tried to reach back, within the same part of her brain that summoned her usual magic but this called out somewhere else. Far deeper within the recesses of her mind.

Ignore the incantation because it was what was drowning out her magic, not the arc-stone.

But that proved easier said than done as the murmuring kept worming itself into her ear canal. Edric’s whipping and shouts persisted. She had to keep reaching out to the faint feeling that was embedded underneath his skin. That far away place that she allowed her mind to dive into. Deeper and deeper until eventually there were no sounds, no sights, no smells. There was just her and a thin chunk of steel the healers hadn’t recovered within Edric’s flesh.

In an instant it ruptured outwards and cut a wicked slice through the Inquistor’s throat. His chants died in the air as blood rushes like a waterfall. Noel’s eyes remained closed as the thin piece of metal flung forwards and impaled the Hospitaller through his eye socket.

Within seconds one of their captors was dying on the cell floor whilst the other was already going cold.

”H-how,” Noel was gasping for breath as she felt a numbing tingle wash over her. Her magic still distant but slowly returning to her. She couldn’t explain how she was able to control the steel, she’d never managed to do that despite constant prodding from her instructors. ”Edric! Are you okay?”

She tried to pull herself nearer to assess his injuries.

 

[Edric]

Edric shivered as pain wracked his body.

His instinct was to draw on the life around him, to heal himself, but the cuffs around his wrists made that impossible. The Initiates entire body seemed to shake, as though the shock of not already being healed was something it simply wasn't used to.

"N-Need....FUCK." He swore as an angry lance of agony rushed over his spine.

He sucked in a breath between his teeth. "Need the c-cuffs o-ff."

Edric shifted slightly, trying his best to break through the silvery metal that was holding him in place. A scowl dragged at his lips, and he glanced over towards Noel with a pleading, pathetic stare.

The wounds on his side continued to bleed. The lashes having dug deep, seeping crimson onto his bare skin.

Where Noel had flung the piece of metal free a gash now sat, exposing the bone of one of his ribs. The wound sending spikes of agony through him with every labored breath.

 

[Noel]

She'd never seen Edric like this before. He looked vulnerable, desperate, and appeared more like Kristen Pirian than the powerful, never flinching, Edric that she'd come to know.

"Give me a second, I'll get them off you," she said softly, as cold as anything she'd ever said to the boy yet with a slight tinge of sympathy this time. Noel had presumed that some initiates might not deal with their magic being denied to them very well but she'd never expected someone like him to have such a visceral reaction.

With her hands still bound she scurried through the hooded man's waist belt until she found his keyring. The metalmancer fumbled through each and every key, trying and failing to insert one key after another until eventually she discovered the one that unlocked her own bracers.

As her wrists became free she inched closer to the other initiate, sweat pooling on his brow, blood covering the stone underneath him. Noel's face scrunched and a minor frown formed as she took him in. Had she been a lesser person, such as one of the hounds in Liliana's gang, she would've ended his life right there. That would've been what some of the old Proctor's would've advised. Edric had been ahead of her for most of their time at the academy and while she could, on occasion, win bouts against him more often than not it was Ed getting the better of her. Eliminating him would've propelled her closer to the apex of their class.

But she couldn't do that. If she had to resort to cheap tricks to get ahead she was merely weakening herself.

A swallow of saliva and Noel inserted the key into the azure eyed student's bracers. A turn of the object and a tumbling of mechanisms was all it took for the things to fall off. "Be careful when you... you know." She'd never seen him like this and the worry that he'd grasp too strongly at her own life force in order to recover weighed on her mind.

 

[Edric]

A deep, desperate, dragging breath filled Edric's lungs as he collapsed onto the floor with a solid thud.

It was the sort of wheezing gasp that drew upon life itself. His magic sparked into being more powerfully than it ever had before. He was like a magnet, drawing and pulling at every stand of essence that he could possibly grasp at.

A desperate, soul consuming need radiated from him. Noel would feel the tug of his power at the edge of her being, and yet strangely it did not rip the life from her.

Somehow, some way he did not wrench the life-force from his colleague. Yet the visceral display of his magic was more than apparent as the two corpses upon the floor seemed to rot almost instantly. What little life remained within the two servants of the Radiant church was torn away. Their bodies becoming less than ash as they lay upon the floor.

Beyond the door that kept them imprisoned, within the halls of the prison itself screams began to echo. Prisoners, kept either within the rules of justice or outside of them became little more than fuel for the young Dreadlord.

Slowly Edric drew himself together.

Muscles rippled back together, flesh was sown into itself. Piece by piece the Initiate became whole, a breathless scream escaping his lips as he finally managed to pick himself up off the floor.

As he stood a vibration seemed to run through him. His entire body pulsing with power unlike anything he'd held before. The strength of a dozen souls crawling beneath his skin.

 

[Noel]

In mere moments Noel had witnessed her occasional sparring partner go from being a husk that she barely recognized to the most confident she had ever seen him. Lids blinked in rapid staccatos as she tried to process the figure that now stood before her. Exactly how was anyone in their class supposed to stand before someone like this new version of Edric?

Noel rose to her feet, head still pounding from the adrenaline.

"I'm guessing you're fit enough to travel now?" her voice held a fragment of snark but she smiled when she said it. If anyone were to ask about their imprisonment the answer would've been that they bravely opposed their captors, killed them, and ran away.

Truthfully though, Noel had been frightened. She'd even been worried about Edric of all people. Seeing him shiver and shake, bloodied, with bone poking out of the hole she'd carved with his embedded steel. Suddenly seeing him stand on his own, seeing that confidence return, it was all she could do to keep from smiling.

Now the most dangerous part of the entire exercise presented itself, however. They'd need to escape from an occupied Sene. "My magic still feels... weakened," perhaps the incantations hadn't effected Edric but for Noel she still felt like her abilities had been stunted. "I can't feel my platinum like I usually can."

 

[Edric]

"I'm alright." Edric said with a brief nod, looking down at his hand. Fingers slowly balled into a fist, muscles in his arms tensing ever so slightly.

It had been a year since he'd truly been allowed to use his magic.

Even before the Revolution the Proctors had always been weary of what Edric could really do. They had told him to be cautious, had beaten him if he'd taken too many liberties. Now the strength of dozens ran through him, their power prickling beneath his skin.

He had never felt more alive. Never felt as strong as he did in that moment. It was utter elation. Pure ecstasy. Yet... disturbingly...in his very core...Edric knew that he wanted more.

It was all he could do not to reach out. To rend the soul from Noel's being and make it his own.

He took in a deep breath, drawing his focus away from that greed, that lust for more. His eyes closing for just a brief moment. "It'll be okay."

Edric said finally, eyes flicking open.

"It must be something they did, something about this place." He tried to reassure her, tried to calm himself. Slowly stepped forward. "Stay behind me."

He said, his voice a rasp.

"I'll make sure we get out of here, okay?" Edric stepped past Noel, hesitating as he stood besides her. "We'll make it home."

His eyes caught hers. "I promise."