Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 84: The Price of Unfettered Power

Toren Daen

As I stared at the Denoir heir in the flesh titan's misshapen grip, a dozen images flashed through my mind. I remembered the man who had died in the Clarwood Forest under my protection, whose name I would never know. I remembered my failure to protect Alun, his neck twisted at an odd angle. Mardeth's mocking smile as he told me the lives of the captured East Fiachrans were in my hands...

And Kaelan Joan sinking her blade into my brother's chest, the slick steel moving without a hint of resistance.

I didn't think twice. I grasped at the power slumbering in my core, drawing it to the surface as one draws water from a well. Familiar understanding rushed into the bare channels of my thoughts, my mind absorbing the knowledge like a greedy sponge.

But I could immediately recognize a glaring difference. Where before there was a fullness in using the Acquire Phase of my Will; the surety of a hand on the shoulder or the watching eye of a parent, now there was simply the primitive instincts of the Will itself.

I felt a tentative brush of Lady Dawn's mind across my own. There was a question there. A hope and fear for my well-being that could not be contained by our mental link.

When I let the Phoenix Will envelop my mind, my asuran bond was unable to mask her emotions from me any longer and vice versa. We meshed together deeper than sense. And so as I felt her regret; her desire to help, and her fear for my safety...

I knew those feelings to be true. They were real and deep, entrenched across our bond.

I shut it out. No, I thought. Not this. I can't think about this.

I broadened our connection, pushing away the mind of my bond. I felt a brief, sharp pang of hurt from her before it went dark.

But I had no time to contemplate my situation. I had embraced my Will for one purpose and one purpose alone.

I raised my left arm, noting the glowing chains that seemed to float above my skin. Then I exhaled, fire mana amped by sound erupted from my palm.

A beam of red plasma seared through the air, making a burning beeline for the rising flesh titan far above.

My spell burned straight through the arm holding Sevren Denoir, warping the air around it with heat as it soared into the sky.

The wretched arm began to fall as it was rent from the shoulder. I bent my knees, feeling the mana coursing through them. The cracks in my telekinetic shroud smoothed over, the increased mana flow simmering through my body filling in the gaps like putty.

I leapt. One moment I was a hundred feet below the building, looking up as the limb made of rotting corpses tumbled through the air. The next, I was right beside it.

Sevren didn't have time to react as my telekinetic emblem lashed out at him. I wrapped my control around him in that brief instance, pressing down with my will.

It only took a second for my empowered spell to smash through his innate defenses. The white outline seemed to fall inwards on the man's body, but I was already feeling the strain of using my Acquire Phase.

I made a brief eye contact with the Denoir heir. I wondered what he thought, seeing me like this. I thought I saw a hint of awe. There was shock, of course. And something else that wormed through my mind.

I flung him at the skyscraper Darrin and the other mages had gone into. Sevren's body smashed through the glass, disappearing into the halls beyond my sight.

I had used more force than intended to do that. My body felt twitchy; jumpy as if I had been dosed with a dozen cups of coffee. My movements were less precise than I was used to; like a beginner driver that lurches on the gas pedal when driving a car for the first time.