by Matt Russell
Who are you?
Cassian blinked at the scrap of paper, and he felt a swell of anger. This was how his sister had been forced to communicate! Still, there was no time to dwell on such things. He looked her in the eyes and said:
Livia's eyes went so wide that they looked as though they would burst from her skull. He gave her a moment to imbibe this information before continuing in a gentle voice: he held up his translucent hands,
She just gaped at him, her shoulders rising and falling as she drew in deep breaths of shock. Cassian felt the long tether from his body to his projection pull harder, and he strained against it.
Livia stared at him. He perceived that she was still too overwhelmed to wrap her mind around this revelation, but some part of her was following his words, and so he went on:
She jolted at the name, and her eyebrows knitted together. Arkas already had significance to her. This was a mystery Cassian would have liked to unravel, but his time with Livia was growing shorter and shorter, so he rushed forward with his words:
His sister blinked at him several times. He could only imagine what she was thinking—what she was feeling as the tremendous magic of a starborn crackled inside her. Very timidly, Livia raised her hand at the cot that whoever had imprisoned her had furnished. She made a nervous flick of her wrist, and her magic flared out. The small bed rose up instantly, launched forward, and crashed into the wall.
"HEY!" a gruff, male voice shouted from outside, "KEEP QUIET IN THERE!"
Cassian turned and glared at the wooden door to the room, instantly sensing the fairly simple mind of a guard walking the hall outside. He did not know the specific circumstances of Livia's imprisonment but had at least caught that she was being wrongfully held. He wanted to break her free, but... there was no need now.
The tether of Cassian’s physical body became too difficult to fight, and he began to be pulled up and away from his sister. Her face filled with worry at his departure, but he smiled at her.
Livia stood and reached out to him as if begging him to stay. He cast her the same fierce grin he had used to inspire his soldiers to fight many times before and said:
His will gave out then, and he reeled backward and up through the stone ceiling. His psychic projection traveled back even faster it had come, whipping over hundreds of miles of towns and cities and wilderness. He soared to the capital and was yanked into the senate building where he crashed into his body in a violent, yet surprisingly painless collision.
Cassian found himself standing over Arkas, who was lying on the floor, hissing and drooling. All magic was gone from the cruel young man, and, it seemed, his mind had been somewhat shattered by the amputation. Cassian turned to the nearest of the senate guard, a broad-shouldered red-head in bronze armor whose face had gone quite pale, and said: "Prince Arkas will need to be taken to the palace infirmary. Go and fetch a gurney." The large man swallowed, then turned and stepped nervously away with several of his compatriots.
Cassian turned around and saw a room full of senators still gaping at him. "My apologies to you all for that ugly business," he said aloud, turning and meeting many of their eyes, letting them see he felt no shame at all for what he had done. Most glanced down or away. "Still, we have important work to do, gentlemen. Shall we begin the day's agenda? I do not mind dispensing with my inaugural ceremony, as I have already consumed several minutes of the senate's time in my little duel."
Cassian felt rage emanate from his ruler, but no further words came. There would be hell to pay, surely, but he knew he would make the same decision again a thousand times over, so it did not matter. He stepped over Arkas's still twitching body, moved in front of his princely seat, and then whirled on the crowd. Livia had put him in an excellent mood!
"Now then,” he said aloud, “let us discuss freedom of religion in the Empire."
Chapter 41:
The End of Submission
Livia expected that at any moment she would wake up and find this had all been a dream. As she wiggled her fingers, invisible tendrils of power whipped pieces of wood through the air from the table she had broken earlier. She was a starborn! It seemed far too impossible to believe—nothing so fantastic could ever happen to her. And yet... she could feel the strange energy in every part of her body. It was intoxicating. She was powerful!
Livia could still recall the glowing face of Cassian Asango with perfect clarity. The fact that it had been him surely meant this was a fantasy. There had been such sincerity in his translucent expression, in his fiercely honest eyes. 'I will do anything in the world for you,' he had said. Her heart gave a little flutter at the memory, which must have caused her concentration to lapse, for the pieces of wood dropped to the floor.
Livia sensed something outside her wall then, though she could not immediately understand the impression. It was not sound but more the sort of sense she sometimes received when looking into someone's eyes—only far stronger. Her mind seemed to flash to a different pair of eyes and... a different body. For an instant, she was a large man walking along the hall to bring breakfast to the lovely prisoner. The food smelled good. She, or he, had not yet eaten this day. He was excited to open the cell door. Maybe he could catch the girl changing... that would be a delightful accident!
Livia was back within herself again, staring at the door to her room as the bar slid across, and then a man in ring mail armor poked his head in and looked at her. He had a grin on his face, which faltered and then shifted to a frown as he looked around.
"What happened to the table?" the soldier grunted, staring at the broken mass of wood on the floor.
Livia's magic whirred within her like a tempest. It seemed almost to want to fight. She hesitated though, feeling uncertain at her control.
"Bah!" the man grunted. "Can't talk, can ya?" He shook his head, and an impression leaped to Livia’s mind that the soldier was planning to tell Lord Simius just before he said: "I'm gonna tell Lord Simius. He can decide if you need to be punished or not." The gruff man shut her in once more.
Livia remained still for a long moment, staring at the wooden door to her cell. Kamis—the soldier's name came to her without conscious thought—would tell Simius, and of course, Simius would come. Her time was prob
ably up anyhow to produce a list of names of Cassianites, which she had not done. He had said he would hurt Hervin… Livia had almost forgotten that looming threat. As it returned to the forefront of her thoughts, she felt a ripple of anger, and, to her shock, there was a loud crack in the floor beneath her. She looked down and saw a deep fissure between her feet. Had she just split solid stone?
"Where is Lord Simius?" Livia said in the deep, almost guttural voice of Kamis. Speaking... for a split second it registered perfectly in her mind—the movement of the lips and tongue in effortless synergy with audible rumbles from the throat. The revelation was cut short when a soldier in front of Kamis stood up and said: "He’s in the east tower."
Livia shook her head and was suddenly herself again in the cell. Was this telepathy? Whatever it was, the urgency of the situation left little time to question the flash. Simius would be alerted soon. Could she fight him? She had possessed magic for a few hours while Simius had wielded his for decades. Sorcery required tremendous practice to master, did it not?
Livia swallowed and gazed again at the wooden door that blocked her escape route. It would be best to abscond before Simius came and avoid the confrontation altogether. There might be guards blocking her way at the keep's exit—that thought troubled her—but it seemed better not to allow herself to be cornered in her cell if at all possible. Yes, it was better to act...
Livia raised a trembling hand in the direction of the door. It was solid wood and held shut with a thick crossbar. She could not imagine producing the kind of physical force necessary to break through such a barrier with her body, but perhaps the power of a starborn could do such a thing. She drew her hand back, doing her best to focus the magic she barely understood, and then thrust her hand forward.
The entire wall ripped free of the floor and ceiling in a sudden cacophony of shattering thunder, and the debris exploded outward, crashing into the opposite wall and breaking through it in dozens of places. Livia flinched back in terror as her newly returned voice let out a shriek. She fell back onto her hands, gaping at what she had just done. There was a thick cloud of gray dust in the air, but she could see well into the room opposite her own—a small bedroom newly destroyed from the spray of rock-chunks. The ceiling above her was creaking. As she gazed up at the wooden rafters and heard them squeal, the realization came that she had destabilized the building.
"What the hell's going on?!" a voice Livia was sure belonged to Simius came from far to the left. She turned her head and found that, with the wall removed, she could see down the hall to where he emerged red-faced from a doorway with ten or eleven armed guards at his sides. Simius's eyes went wide as he surveyed the destruction, and then he spotted her through the dust.
"What the hell happened?" he screamed, the veins standing up around his eyes.
Livia felt afraid. She had never been in any real fight save a brief skirmish with the cow. Simius and his armed men were not something she felt ready to face, starborn or not.
"ANSWER ME!" he shouted with such ferocity that she flinched. The nobleman glared around as if searching for others. She could sense his fear—his uncertainty—They were as clear to her as the color of his hair. Simius had no idea what had happened, and his confusion was leading to rage. He charged toward her suddenly, shouting: "You're going to gods-damned answer me, you—" He froze suddenly, and an expression of complete shock came over his face. "Y-you—" he rasped, and Livia sensed a jolt of pure terror in him. "H-how did you get all that power?" He took several fear-stricken breaths, and then turned to his soldiers and hissed: "Fill her full of arrows! NOW!"
Four of the guards had crossbows, and, bewildered though they were, they scarcely gave a heartbeat's hesitation before raising their weapons. Again, Livia heard the shriek of her own voice as she shut her eyes and brought her hands up in an instinctive cringe. She then heard the mechanisms of the weapons snapping forth their bolts in quick succession, but... there was no accompanying sensation of arrowheads piercing her flesh. Instead, there was the sound of gasps.
Heart pounding in her chest, Livia dared to open one eye and gaze through the mesh of her fingers. Four arrows hung frozen in the air between herself and her attackers. They simply floated in place until she lowered her hands, and then they dropped and clattered on the stone debris below.
"How the hell can you do this?" Simius rasped, his face pale now.
Some part of Livia's mind experienced a tiny thrill of confidence. Four armed men had tried to kill her and failed. Still, there was more confusion about her power than anything else. Nervously, she rose to her feet and looked at Simius. He was hesitating, unsure what to do. She turned in the opposite direction and saw an open door down the hallway leading to a set of stairs going down. Livia swallowed and then broke into a sprint toward the escape route, darting around chunks of stone and wood.
"STOP!" Simius’s voice shouted from behind. Livia ignored him and charged for the doorway, making it to the steps. Her fingers scraped over the rough stone banister as she ran down to the floor below. The patter of boots clamored from above her as she stumbled down the last step into the keep's entry hall. There were eight hulking men in ring mail with swords and shields in their hands standing shoulder to shoulder waiting for her, blocking the path to the outside world.
Livia stared at the guards and then glanced back to see Simius coming down the steps behind her. He met her eyes, and his pace slowed as he hissed: "Don't try to run! I’m going to figure out what the HELL you’re doing!"
Livia edged back from him, yet she was keenly aware of the soldiers moving in on her from behind. One of them dashed ahead of his comrades. She could see into his thoughts: he had not seen her use magic and still thought of her as a slender, defenseless girl. Thus, he tossed away his shield, slid his sword back into its scabbard, and moved to grab her.
Livia glanced back at the soldier, and something invisible lashed out from her mind. His outstretched forearm snapped and bent unnaturally, and he let loose a scream. As the man stumbled back and clutched at his broken appendage, the men behind him seemed to lose some of their confidence, for they ceased advancing, and Livia felt waves of fear come off them.
"Did you take a potion, slave girl?” Simius shouted, glaring at her. He had stopped just short of the foot of the stairs. " Maybe some kind of elven charm? Whatever it is, there's no way in the world someone like you can hold on to that much power for long!"
More guards poured in behind Simius from the stairway, and even Lord Baradon appeared at the back. His eyes immediately fixed on Livia, and he shouted: "What in the name of the GODS is going on here?"
"She's throwing around magic!" Simius said without turning to face his father. "It's insane how much—like she's a damned starborn!"
Baradon narrowed his eyes. "The little slave has to die!" he snapped. "If she makes it back to Asango, she could bring him here!"
"I know," Simius said in a grim voice. He held out his right hand and began to whisper words.
Livia perceived something extraordinary begin to happen. It was as if doorways to other worlds opened around the young man. Two invisible creatures—if they were even alive—emerged from these small holes in the fabric of the universe and congealed together, taking some of Simius's magical energy with them. Despite the danger she was in, a small part of Livia’s mind was locked in fascination at the way these unseen forces manipulated the world. One created a sphere the size of a human head that she somehow understood would filter the gasses in the air, drawing in only the elements of it that were most flammable. Another of the creatures heated and ignited within the sphere. The result was a crackling orb of flame that Simius held above his palm. He drew his arm back, seeming to take aim at her, and then flung i
t.
Livia should have been terrified, but... the spell was so weak. Her new array of senses analyzed the attack almost faster than she could think. The magical construct was simple, the energy within it minuscule, and the mental will behind it inferior to her own. Almost by instinct, she raised her hand and sent tendrils of her power out. They whipped instantly to the orb and brought it to a halt in the air, just like the arrows.
"What?!" Simius screamed, and he lurched forward, sending a new wave of focused will into his spell, which Livia found to be... pathetic. He was straining desperately, his face red. She could almost see the tenuous strands of his mental will focused on the spell. Hers were stronger.
Experimentally, Livia wrapped her own power around the fireball, severing Simius’s connection to it yet holding its construction together.
"Gods!" he shrieked, stumbling back.
Livia felt unseen entities that made up its construction begin reaching out to her for energy. They belonged to her now. She fed them a fraction of her power, and the flaming orb tripled in size in the blink of an eye, expanding into a crackling inferno that caused everyone in the room to draw back. This was spellcraft, and already, without any training at all, her starborn talent was making itself known.
'There is little in this world you need ever fear again,' Cassian Asango had said to her.
Another arrow flew at her from a frightened soldier who was shaking too hard to aim accurately. Its trajectory was to the left of Livia’s shoulder, yet her aura still stopped the projectile in the air. Was this a reflex? Was she doing this, or was her aura acting on its own? There was so much she did not know, yet it was evident as her eyes swept the room and watched the armored men drawing back from her in fear, that she was more powerful than the people who wanted to hurt her.
"W-we have men outside!" Simius shouted. "I can send them to cut Hervin's throat with a thought, so don't even think of—"
Words formed in Livia's mind and leaped forth with deafening volume:
