Chapter 768: You’re Like Me

Darkness and the roar of the river assaulted Stryg and Titania’s senses. The underground river carried them through the tunnels in an unpredictable path. Stryg held Titania close, shielding her from the rocks as they smashed into his body. The cold seeped into his open wounds, sapping what little strength remained.

Titania shivered against him, faring no better against the cold. Stryg tucked his head in and channeled Blue and Yellow. He commanded the water to form a bubble around their heads and filled it with air.

Minutes passed by as his body crashed against the rugged edges of the tunnel. Despite the utter darkness, Stryg could see as if it were bright as day, a gift of his titan lineage. He glanced around, desperately searching for a way out. There had to be some sort of escape from the underground rivers.

His chromatic mana reserves were fading with the loss of his blood and he could feel his spells falling apart. He was running out of time. Without hesitation, he forced the bubble to shrink until it only wrapped around Titania. His magic would last longer this way, if only for a few moments. The breath in his lungs would have to hold him until he found some escape.

  There.

He spotted a small opening up ahead, a jagged crack in the tunnel ceiling. With one hand, he held the child close, and with the other, he threw his arm out like a net, hoping to catch something. His fingers grasped the opening, but slipped on the wet surface until his claws dug into the rock.

His body jerked forward, the river refusing to let go. Pain shot up his shoulder, but he held on, even as his arm went numb. With an inner groan, he clenched his teeth and slowly pulled himself up. He stuck his head through the opening and sucked in a breath of delicious, fresh air. A sliver of strength returned to him, but it was enough. He roared in defiance of the river and hauled himself up, Titania still hugged closely to his chest.

With a final gasp, Stryg collapsed on the ground, and panted in exhaustion. Titania opened her eyes with a wince and looked around, but she was met with only darkness. She quickly sat up and channeled Orange. The panic and fear from earlier were still in her blood, but the monster was gone, and it gave her some semblance of calm. She focused on the simple spell weaves and gave it life with her will. A fire flickered to life above her palm, illuminating the area. She glanced around, taking in her surroundings.

They were in a cave, too small to stand, and not much wider. The river rushed below the jagged crack at their feet, the firelight refracting in the water, scattering a reflection across the small cave.

“Kid…” Stryg groaned.

“Noct!” Titania sat next to him and looked him over, taking in all the wounds across his body. Dark ichor mixed with the river water, dyeing his clothes a deep purple. “No, no, no,” she cried. “You can’t die, please. Don’t leave me alone.”

“I promised you… didn’t I…?” He forced himself to wink, though it clearly pained him. “I’m not leaving you in the dark.”

She broke into a small chuckle and wiped the tears from her face. “You’re okay?”

“Not really,” he admitted. “But I’m not dead yet. I just—need to rest.”

“I’m sorry.” She clenched the hem of her skirt in frustration. “I should have studied those healing books my tutors gave me. If I had, I could have helped you. It’s my fault.” She lowered her head in shame. “...All of this is my fault.”

Though his muscles ached and burned, Stryg raised his arm and placed a hand on her head, his fingers brushing her wet hair. “This isn’t your fault.”

She sniffled quietly and leaned into his touch. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, kid. Everything is going to be okay.”

Though she did not know how any of this could be okay, his words brought her a sense of comfort. “What do we do?”

Stryg closed his eyes and exhaled a deep, long breath. “I need some time to rest. Once I’ve recovered, I should be able to get us out of here.”

“...I wish I could heal you,” she mumbled.

“Healing magic is complicated. It requires extensive study of the patient’s anatomy. And my anatomy is different from anyone else’s. You wouldn’t be able to heal me even if you had read those books, trust me, I know.”

Titania leaned back and looked at him. “How?”

“Hm?”

“How do you know?”

“I’m a chromatic white.”

“You’re like me.” She beamed.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Wait.” Titania furrowed her brow. “I thought rulus were elementals. How can you be a chromatic?”

“I’m not a rulus, kid.”

“Oh… right.” She had almost forgotten what the monster had said. Even the rulus huntress, Adina, had said it. “You’re… not Noct, are you?”

He sighed. “I told you when we met, I don’t know who that is.”

“Then why lie? Why pretend to be someone you’re not?” Her lips twisted in a frown.

“I already told you, don’t use your real name when talking to strangers.”

“So you just adopted the name Noct?”

“It seemed the simplest option at the time. Had I realized how problematic it would become, I would have chosen another.”

“Then who are you? Really?” Titania demanded with a pout.

He opened his eyes and tilted his head ever so slightly to look at her. “Call me Stryg.”

“Stryg…?” She slowly repeated the name and carefully looked over his true appearance for the first time.

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His eyes glowed softly in the darkness of the cave, the firelight reflecting within the lilac irises like those of a cat. His pupils were vertical slits. He really was like a cat. In many ways he looked so similar to the monster that had attacked them. Yet there were minute differences. The monster had pointed ears, but they were small and pointed upwards at a slight tilt. Whereas Stryg’s ears were long, extending out vertically, their points drooping. Though she wasn’t certain under the firelight, his blue complexion seemed slightly darker than the monster’s, maybe even with a tinge of seagreen to it.

It was Stryg’s eyes that stood out the most to her. Where Stryg’s eyes were warm, the monster’s had been cold, devoid of any true warmth and his smile had been nothing more than a mockery of a real person. Titania couldn’t recall Noct, or rather, Stryg, ever smiling, but she knew it wouldn’t be like that.

“Mister Stryg?”

“Just Stryg is fine, kid.”

“Um, Stryg, is what that monster said true?”

“What do you mean?”

“He called you brother.”

“Oh, that. …Yes, I suppose he is.”

“You suppose?”

“I’ve never met Sidus before, but my father has sired several children in the past. Sidus is definitely one of his sons, that much I could tell.”

She could relate to that. Her own mother had had several other children before Titania. And Titania had only ever met a few of them on occasion. They would indulge her questions of the outside world for a few minutes before going on about their business. They had treated her like a playful nuisance more than anything. She had hated that, but she supposed it was better than having an older brother who wanted to kill you.

“Hey, Noct—I mean, Stryg? The rulus huntress, Adina, she called you an Owl. Why?”

This time, it took Stryg a while to answer. “If you’re asking if I’m an Owl, I’m not. Not really.”

“What does that mean? Are you or are you not an Owl?” She leaned forward. She tried to hide her excitement and hope, but Stryg could see it clear as day on her face.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Aw, come on. You can’t just tell me something like that and pretend like it doesn’t matter.”

“Fine.” He gave her a wry look. “My father is known in this realm as the Eldest Death.”

“Your dad is the Pale Owl!?”

“He does go by that moniker, yes.”

“So you are an Owl!”

“No. There are only three beings worshipped as Owls in the Aurous Realm. The Pale, Silver, and Gold Owls. And I am none of those.”

“That means the Silver and Gold Owls are your brother and sister, right?”

“I suppose.”

“So you are an Owl.”

“Not really.”

“You. Are. A. Divine. Owl.” She enunciated each word with a poke to his arm, careful to avoid any wounds.

“I wouldn’t call myself that.”

But Titania wasn’t listening. “I can’t believe I’m sitting next to an actual Owl of Death. Mother and Father would never believe it.” She glanced at Stryg, “I guess you’re the Blue Owl.”

“We’re all blue.”

“Really? I thought one was gold and the other silver.”

“Their titles, not their actual complexion.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense. So not Blue Owl, hmm. I need to think about this.”

“Think about it some other time. Preferably when I’m not here.”

“So why are you called Owls? Can you transform into an owl? Do you have wings? Can you fly?”

“...”

“You can, can’t you?” Titania asked excitedly.

“Hey, kid. Why was Sidus looking for you?”

Titania’s smile fell and she subconsciously reached for her necklace. “I don’t know. My caravan was traveling through the desert when the Midnight Sun struck. The sandstorm destroyed my caravan. I got separated from my guardian and everyone else. I don’t know why that monster is after me,” she mumbled.

There was something Titania was leaving out, Stryg could tell, but a seed of guilt stopped him from pushing her. The Astral Light had not only destroyed his enemies, it had also created the sandstorm that had buried several towns and gods only knew how many caravans and travelers. Titania was in this situation because of him.

“Hey, Stryg, what’s the Astral Light?”

He stiffened, caught off guard at her question. It was almost as if she had read his mind. “Nothing important.”

“But Sidus said something about you igniting the Astral Light. Is that like some kind of chromatic white spell?”

“No and don’t ask me about it again,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“It’s fine,” he sighed, regretting his small outburst. “It’s just not important, okay?”

“Okay,” she said hesitantly.

Stryg recognized the look in her eye. It was the look of a child who knew she had done something wrong and was worried that she was about to be punished for it. He had seen the same look in the reflection of the water many times as a child.

“I’m not mad, kid. I’m just tired.”

“I’m sorry. This is all my fault,” she dropped her head and fidgeted with her fingers. “If it hadn’t been for me, then Lena and the others would have been—”

“I already told you, it’s not your fault.”

“You got hurt protecting me.”

“I got hurt because of my own choices. Not yours. The choices I make are my responsibility to bear and mine alone.”

“Okay,” she whispered, though she didn’t seem convinced.

“Hey, kid.” He tried his best to sound more upbeat.

“Yeah?”

“You said you didn’t know any healing spells. What about bright magic? Have you learned any of those yet?”

“Not really,” she admitted meekly. “I mostly focused on learning orange magic. But my mother forced me to learn some black magic, too. I also know a little bit about a few others.”

“Oh? Which ones?”

“Some yellow. A bit of green and blue, but I wasn’t very good with blue. And a few others, I think. I forgot.”

“You forgot?” Stryg wrinkled his brow. “How many colors do you have?”

“...em,” she mumbled abashedly.

“What?”

“...All of them,” she said somewhat more clearly, though no less embarrassed.

“You have all ten chromatic colors?” Stryg’s eyes widened.

Titania gave a small nod. “Mother says not to talk about it. I think it’s ‘cause I’m not very good with my colors. Prime mages never are, but Mother still demands excellence, and, well, I’m not very excellent, I guess…” she whispered the final few words, her gaze falling back to the ground.

Stryg knew it was true that most prime mages failed to master even a single color, mostly due to the sheer amount of chromatic mana colors flowing through their body. The prime mages struggled to single out a color to channel and cast spells with, leading to almost all prime mages never advancing past adepts. Only a few, the most talented among them, possessed the ability to rise to the rank of archmage. And with so few prime mages existing at all, a prime archmage was a very rare sight indeed.

Yet there was something Titania had clearly missed, that Stryg had not. Chromatic mages ordinarily awakened their abilities at the age of seventeen or eighteen. For a child to have awakened their powers at such a young age as ten and already be capable of casting even a single spell spoke immensely of their prodigious talent.

“You’re a prime mage,” Stryg said.

“Y-Yeah.” She looked at him, afraid that he might judge her and find her to be less for it.

“You’re like me.”

“You’re a prime mage, too?” Titania sat up a little straighter, eyes round.

“I am.”

“So we’re both bad at magic,” she said self-deprecatingly and gave a bitter chuckle.

“No. We are not.”

“Huh?” Titania blinked. “Really?” she asked, a sliver of hope creeping into her voice.

“Let me show you.”