Unbound

White hands slipped through the bloody mess as corpses collapsed to the floor. Quick as lightning, they struck at the rest of them. Claws slashed through legs and bellies as personal shields were shattered and a riot of sound and motion ignited the air with tumultuous magics.

Felix thrust his own hand forward before the Nymean woman stepped in the way. “Hey! You gotta move—!”

Rinella spat a single shining word, and the claws met a cluster of crystalline shields around everyone in the chamber. They crashed into them, unable to pass.

“Impressive. As expected of a Grand Magus.”

The hair on Felix’s neck lifted as a creature poured through the whisper-thin cracks in the walls. More pale hands clambered out, flowing into a humanoid form that seemed made of them, interlocked and molded into lithe limbs and narrow shoulders. It looked most like a Sylphaen, complete with wings formed of interlocking claws, and a narrow, angular face set with sharp ears and too-large eyes. Most notable of all, however, was the familiar golden orb that deformed their chest, small hands holding it aloft in a cavity where their lungs and heart should have resided.

“Vessel of the Weaver,” Rinella said, her voice a low rumble that crackled at the edges. Frost gathered along her back in traceries of wings. “You cannot be here, traitor.”

“I walk wherever the light of my goddess shines,” they said, and Felix heard a sickly Harmony in their timbre. “Fortune smiles upon me this evening, for Her light has spied upon a darkling den of usurpers.”

I killed you already. Felix clenched his jaw. This is her Memory.

The Vessel didn’t move, but silver threads burst from its golden orb. They spread, faster and far stronger than their gross hands. Crystalline shields shattered. Magi and warriors fell back.