Bereft: Foretold

25 | A Servant's Aspiration

Aurelius felt the heady warmth of his power burgeon in his chest, summoned from the realm of his creation, and he could almost taste the sweet air of Absolia and its interminable sunset. How those manifold colors of dying light had flavor was a mystery, but each shade of gold and red seemed to fill the Absolian's mouth with memories of his abandoned home.

As the river of kinetic force swept through him, so too did an unwelcomed voice.

<What are you doing, my son?>

Aurelius shoved the voice away, refusing it an answer.

He came at last upon this sorry band's leader. The short, shaved man was hunkered in a study with two of his lieutenants, and when Aurelius blasted the metal door out of his way, constructs burst into life with ugly, virulent colors. Electricity crackled along the Absolian's spine and he jolted when the wayward forks of lightning sunk through his heart.

Aurelius' lips parted in surprise as the taste of mage blood replaced the more savory flavor of home. The man wasn't as gormless as he seemed if he was willing and able to bring such a dark spell to fruition. Every nuance of the spell spinning in the Absolian's veins was laced with the mage's cloudy blood.

With two swift flicks of Aurelius' wrist, the mages on either side of the bald wizard were felled, heads rolling.

"S-shit!" was the only word to come stammering out of the man's mouth as he watched his compatriots crumple and the Absolian shook off the black spell's influence.

"You are the leader of this...?" Aurelius sought the right word, jaded gaze coming to rest upon the patch sewn to the mage's heaving chest. "Syndicate, yes?"

The man wished to deny it. The Absolian could see the lie crouching behind his scrunched, watery eyes, just waiting to leap past those chapped, trembling lips—but the wizard surprised Aurelius when he spoke truth.

"Yes. Yes, I am. I am Bekras Gray, leader of the Gray Arcanum!"

Aurelius hummed, unimpressed.

"I require a bigger man than you," the Absolian stated as he approached, unseen constructs snapping and breaking underfoot. "Speaking politically, of course. I need a bigger...syndicate, as this one—." He gestured at the short walls broken under his power, at the dark hallway and the blackened light, its energy sucked into his own. "Is much too small. The impact of its destruction would be limited."

"Limited—?!"

"Tell me the location of a larger syndicate," Aurelius commanded, his tone light but brooking no argument. "Tell me, and I shall spare the rest of your feckless brotherhood."

The man named Bekras ignited another construct, this one scratched into his inflamed palm, and though the bellow of the explosive spell hit Aurelius in the chest, the Absolian didn't waiver. What energy contained within the construct's roughly hewn definitions fizzled before it could make contact with Aurelius' lambent flesh.

White talons erupted from his fingertips and, before the spell's smoke could clear, they drove themselves into Bekras's shoulder.

The wizard let out a pained shout as he was slammed into the empty wall at his back. Aurelius held him there with one hand, his expression placid as he waited for the worm to speak.

"W-why are you doing this?!" Bekras choked as he fought to pull Aurelius' talons from his body. The Absolian applied more pressure, watching the red rivulets trickling along his golden skin. "This is not what you're supposed to do!"