Fifty years ago, when Talamayas Sol had dragged him down into that dungeon, Wren had thought that would be the last time he ever fought against vampires with the mage order. Yet, here he stood on the frontlines, with his dark hood down to hide his identity and a grand mage on either side of him. On his right, Luna Aurion was a vision of moonlight hair and eyes so light a mage couldn't see their original blue unless they were kissing her. Form fitting black mage attire shrouded everything else about her, speckled with the star emblem of the Aurions.
To his left Kopje Cinder, the heir to the infiltrator class legacy, stood tall with a crew cut of greying chocolate hair despite having his eye gouged out by a vampire not a few weeks past. For those weeks, Kopje had trained tirelessly among Talamayas' men and alongside the Copses and Cascades until he was of use. Wren couldn't even remember when he'd been that dedicated to the mage order.
But he had been.
Once upon a time.
What was he now? That was the question of the year as he just barely met the eyes of the vampires who'd arrived to fight Neil and his allies, to eradicate the mages and dominate what was left of humanity.
Hel Valk was at the head of the two house heads visible so far, with rings pierced through his lip and his blond hair cut off in a crude half buzz that made him look deranged. The man was. Hel preferred to melt his enemies with lightning until their corpses were so charred they couldn't be identified by their loved ones. It was quite the level of Tala searing flesh so that they suffered longest, but they both boiled their enemies' insides.
Essence Fuse was the second here, a flamboyant show of his physique and attractive side. The man's silver hair fluttered through the wind,tied in a loose ponytail over his royal purple attire, wearing a smug smile as his generals flanked him and Hel from behind. No head was confident enough to go it alone against such a prominent mage complex like Levisca's. Essence's forte was blowing people to pieces, or injecting his magic into them and blowing off pieces. The Northern houses were all brutal.
"Hel Valk, and Essence Fuse," Kopje said, taking a step forward despite the perception issues he now had with only having one eye. The man balanced like a tightrope walker even though he'd had such a short time to master his new senses.
Wren was envious of such ability to adapt. Kopje and he didn't differ much in age, but he'd spent his life in the dungeons of Tala's castle while Kopje had fought for his life on the battlegrounds every day since his birth. Such was the life of the infiltrator class, the superior class born one or two to a generation.
"Kopje Cinder," Hel acknowledged him, flicking his lip ring with his tongue. "You've seen better days." The man laughed with is men, but Kopje remained resolute.
That sound heralded the arrival of the rest of the two men's houses, and they crept in one by one, filling the empty marble mural on the ground as well as the forest behind. All Wren had was a handful of mages and they weren't all grand mages. It made these men confident because they did not know they were concealing their forces, or if they did, they were underestimating their number.
"Not much of a fight this will be with half of yours shaking in their boots." Essence laughed with a few of his men, and Wren didn't need to look to know who he was talking about.
Meredith Aurion, Luna Aurion's niece who bore both light and dark magic stood not a few steps from Kopje, and she'd never been in a battle in her life. Here among the infiltrators and grand mages was the safest for her though. This plaza was about to explode into violence, and near the door would be the most fortified.
"If we shake, we only do so in anticipation for your demise, Essence," Kopje growled encouraging words, and the girl took stock of Wren and Kopje's calm to strengthen her resolve.
Even if she was not yet battle hardened, she was strong, which was good because she was Remus Shade's mate. Tala found the Shade vampire house head deplorable because he'd refused to openly support Neil until the last moment possible, but he liked Meredith. Unlike her mate, Meredith had argued for Neil from the start and was his friend despite them not exactly getting along like normal people. How normal was a mage and a vampire being friends anyway?
"Tell me, Hel Valk, do you like to dance?" Wren asked to draw attention to himself, the time of their allies' arrival now approaching. It was his turn to show that he had it in him to protect his people, to protect this uncanny alliance of vampires and mages.
"Have you lost your mind, mage?" Hel spat, turning on him with rage as any vampire did when confused. They hated not knowing what someone was talking about. Superior beings didn't like not having full control.
"Not at all. I just really like dancing. It's not fair for me to choose though, so I'll flip a coin. That makes it's much more fun." Wren pulled out a silver dollar, and all eyes fixed on him as he tossed it up and caught it before settling it on his thumb. "Heads you dance, Hel, tails it's Essence."
Either house head would be enough to keep the other at bay in a fight, and it just wasn't fair of him to choose which man died at his hands, so he left it up to fate. Fate had chosen much about his life's course, and he thought it apt to keep the trend going. Wren intentionally flicked the coin toward Hel, taking everyone's gazes with it, and it fell with clink onto the tiles. The vampire picked it up and examined the piece of human currency. Even if it was foreign to him, it had a clear indicator of side.
"Heads, it seems. But I'm not dancing," Hel hissed.
That was all Wren needed as he pulled his hood back to reveal himself. The vampires immediately cowered, as expected, backing away and whispering his name in a chorus that showed just how well he'd been known. No one forgot the leader of the puppet masters who danced the vampires' friends and family to kill them while they were powerless to fight back. It was truly a deranged form of fighting.
Just like Talamayas.
Perhaps they were made for each other.
"Wren Song," Hel rasped, his throat tight in fear and anger, but it was too late.
The spell had already started the moment he'd touched his hood. Pitch swallowed Wren's grey eyes as he set his sights on his target, and no vampire could outrun the puppet master's sound. Who could escape something that was so quick that it swept a room in an instant? It was a true tune of death.
Wren lowered his hands and his chains crawled up his body, wrapping around his wrists to give him control as they snaked out from his legs to search for their prey. Thanks to Tala, Wren knew the weight of Hel's soul as his spell latched on. Holding steady, he sank his power in, and Hel screamed. Just as Tala had, the man shrieked as Wren's power snaked up his legs and wrapped his center in a hold he couldn't break. Before, in the Sol dungeons, Wren had been horrified by the sound Tala had made, but Hel's sounded like triumph and power for this fight. Why he felt differently for one brutal man over the other was something he could no longer figure out.
It wasn't like Tala was nice. At least he hadn't been burning his flesh off and slaughtering his people, but Wren didn't know anymore. Those were hard things to look past even if the Songs had been wrong. Children had still been killed, and not all of Wren's people had been guilty of the crimes Tala had laid on them in judgment.
Wren's power completed its run up Hel and delved into his eyes to take what little free will was left of the man. All that remained was one last desperate attempt that had Hel raking the flesh from his face, but Wren's chains took his arms last and stopped the self-destructive behavior. Wren smirked, and it mirrored on Hel's face as he prepared for the words that would start a blood bath.
"It looks like we're dancing, boys," Wren said using Hel's lips, and they laughed together in something truly deranged before chains burst from Hel's legs and grabbed every Valk vampire within reach. With the master controlled, finding his blood and linking to it was easier, and in that way Wren turned the men against each other before their allies even set foot on the dais.
An explosion rocked the ground as Essence Fuse cast two spells and the air burst into flames that claimed the entire area in smoke and magic. Kopje protected them with his own wall of flames, and with his other hand, blew away the smoke with a gust of wind. It was truly amazing an infiltrator's ability to wield so many magics, as long as none of them were tangible. Wren was an infiltrator himself but had always favored his people's magic, as he was now.
Wren used Hel Valk and his army to push back the Fuses. Some of the lesser Valks didn't last even minutes as their forms burst with light magic and broke down into a mass of flesh that had the Fuses backing up in horror. They knew they were next if Hel gave out under Wren's control, but the man was strong, so Wren would use him until he was downed by his enemies. It was much more likely that he'd be killed by them before he crumbled.
Gasps and shrieks filled the battlefield, some from the men who couldn't fight their own, others in agony as they slit their friend's throats, and the last as Wren's puppets died and the chains hissed away to catch another. It all led attention back to him, and the Fuses turned to focus on the frontline.
"Kill the Song!" Essence screeched, and with his echo of power, more vampires emerged from all around them.
The third house of vampires had been lying in wait, and the Silvers surrounded them. It was too late though, and Wren calmed to the burst of light magic as transportation spells formed all around their frontline. Mages and vampires appeared in their defense, and Lorenzo de Fleur and his men took up position ahead of the grand mages. The man was a vision with long blue hair flowing to his shoulder blades and a known human sympathizer, but that did not mean he didn't start when he saw Wren in their lines.
Some things they'd kept for their allies. Among them, Wren's existence and Talamayas' position as their ally. Lorenzo and Tala didn't much care for each other, and no amount of human sympathizing made Wren chaining Lorenzo's race with his power acceptable.
"The fuck is a Song doing here?" Lorenzo growled, turning their own allies on them.
Damien Arc intercepted the Fleurs before it got out of hand. The man was Neil's second in command, Meredith Aurion's father, and a personal friend of Wren's from back when he was a grand mage. That had been so long ago, before Damien's dark magic had driven him insane enough that only becoming a creature of the dark had stabilized him. Even after his change, Damien wore his mage attire, a smooth oriental suit of black and grey that hung between his legs.
"Keeping people alive," Damien said, forming his scythe as he defended Wren. The mage weapon Damien had forged himself to cater to his unique dark magic. "I didn't know about it until recently either, but you can't switch sides now."
"You'll not hear the end of this after, mages." Lorenzo growled, sparking dark energy around him and ushering his men into the fight.
If Wren lived through this, every vampire alive would be calling for his head. Part of him wondered what Tala would do then. If the man couldn't kill him, would he really protect his enemy if it sewed contempt between him and other vampire houses? From what Wren had seen, Tala loved his family more than anything, and Wren doubted Tala would endanger his people to keep him alive over a grudge that he didn't even seem to remember anymore.
Thank god there was a battle ahead of them.
That way he couldn't think too hard on it.
Only yards from the complex, the Fleurs met the Silvers and pushed them back with a powerful gust of Lorenzo's ice magic. A chill flowed back on the streams of magic, but Wren barely felt the brush against his face because his body was aflame with his magic. It burned through him like a fever, making him dizzy, but he'd been trained to handle the negative effects for decades prior to Tala taking him prisoner. This was second nature, controlling a mass of vampires stemming from the source of their power.
If there was one weakness to the Song magic, though, it was numbers and time. It was something more easily noticeable as the fighting dragged on. Most of his people could handle two maybe three vampires at best, while the generals might be able to reach near ten. Wren himself was currently juggling nearly two dozen vampires that circled Hel protectively, and they fell every second. Each snap of his chains to grab another life took a little more out of him, and there seemed to be no end.
At his sides, Kopje Cinder and Luna Aurion handled any vampires who made it through the Fleurs, Kopje forming with flames and wind while Luna fought by the light of the moon. Both were the most impressive mages in their territories and yet they still weren't able to keep up with the sheer number. A few times a vampire made it close enough that Kopje had to take it down with a mage short-blade in hand and a shield of flames. The man was grazed here and there, and Luna had exhausted too much of her magic by the time Wren started to feel the failings of his power.
No song was sung with one note, and more and more, Wren felt the absence of his people. Sure, by himself he could be the background beat of a fight, but in order for him to climb to the heights of his people's grace and glory, he need others. Alone, his song was drowned out, and the amount of vampires he could hold had dropped by near half in the last hour or so of fighting. Now, Wren was exhausting Hel's magic taking out more vampires with lighting while he used his underlings as body shields for the Fuses' attacks and magic. It wasn't in Wren to puppet them with precision anymore.
Wherever Wren's magic passed, it left grotesque corpses that bubbled like their bodies had been boiled into the very primordial goo that life had sprung from. Putrid decaying remains and charred flesh filled the air so pungently that Wren could barely breathe. Or perhaps that was the exhaustion.
Something wet dripped down his face like tears, and he grit his teeth as he realized he was at his limits. The dark energy was starting to leak into his own body, and if he didn't let Hel go, it would overpower him and melt him away like all those he'd controlled. But if he let Hel go, the fight would turn.
Just a few more minutes.
A few more.
Just one more.
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