Chapter 778: The Lies of a Parent

Titania awoke to an unfamiliar red ceiling. She immediately sat up and looked around. Her heart was beating loudly in her ears. Light bled from the narrow slit of the tent’s opening. Slowly, memories of the last few days began to return. Titania exhaled deeply and fell back on her bedroll. She was in Lady Wren’s camp. Everything was okay. Even though the bedroll next to her was empty…

When Lady Wren had offered two tents for their guests, Stryg was pleased, but Titania had vehemently refused. Though the ancient black mage did not appear to want to hurt them, there was no way Titania was going to sleep in a separate tent from Stryg. There was a certain sense of security she felt when he was nearby, one that she had never truly felt, even when she was home in Olduun. And she wasn’t about to let that go just for a private tent.

Yet the bedroll was empty. She had grown accustomed to his presence and finding him gone left an unsettled pit in her chest. He was probably just outside, she told herself. Repeatedly. Yet the voice of worry in her head didn’t leave, it only grew louder.

Titania groaned and kicked her feet in the air. She rolled out of her bedroll, put on her boots, and slipped outside the tent. The sun was setting on the horizon. Excluding the few guards patrolling the oasis, the camp was silent. It felt odd waking at dusk and going to sleep at dawn, but Titania was growing accustomed to it, to an extent. At least that’s what she told herself. The darkness of the night still bothered her more than she’d ever admit, but having Stryg nearby helped ease the fear.

A guard noticed her and stopped his patrol. “Lord Veres is over there.” The guard pointed over to the oasis.

Titania squinted. She could make out a small figure in the distance. “Thanks.” She ran off without looking back. “Whoa,” Titania stumbled to a halt at the edge of the water. Stryg sat cross-legged, hands clasped together, eyes closed. He was somehow floating over the water.

“S-Stryg…?” Titania called out. She glanced around nervously. There were no torches this far from the camp. The sun would soon be gone and the world would be bathed in darkness.

“Kid. What is it?” He cracked open one of his eyes and glanced at her. His lilac iris glowed in the fading light and not for the first time, Titania found herself staring at it. She swore there was some strange magic in his gaze, though he had never elaborated upon it when asked.

“Um, how did you get over there?” Titania asked.

“I walked.”

“On water?”

“On ice.”

“What’s that?”

He furrowed his brow. He had never really thought about it, but the Aurous Realm had no snowfall. It would stand to reason that the Aurum people had never seen ice before either. “It’s a form of water.”

“So you can walk on water! That’s so cool. Can you teach me?”

“Kind of.” He leaned forward and dipped his hand into the water. It froze around him and extended towards Titania, forming a path of ice.

Titania stiffened at the sight. Stryg frowned, immediately noticing her change in demeanour. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s like Sidus’ magic,” she mumbled, but Stryg heard it all the same.

“It’s not. Sidus wields white magic, specifically the true spellform.”

“Manifestation magic,” Titania recalled quietly.

“Correct. What you see before you is water that has grown hard because of a large drop in its temperature. Like when you feel cold, but much colder.”

“Can I touch it?” Titania asked but she was already squatting and running her hand across the ice. He was right, it was cold, very cold. It was also more translucent than Sidus’ magic had been, but it felt solid all the same. “And I can walk on this?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why don’t you try for yourself?”

Titania bit her lip and glanced back at the camp. She wondered to herself if it was better to simply head back and wait for Stryg to return. She looked at him, but he had already returned to his meditation, both eyes closed.

Titania took a deep breath, clenched her small fists tightly, and took a step onto the ice. It was solid like rock. She took another tentative step, but the ice did not move nor break.

“I’m walking on water!” She giggled to herself and ran towards Stryg. Her foot slipped and she squeaked as the world spun around her. Suddenly she was in the water, scrambling to reach out for something to grab.

“H-Help!” she gasped as water entered her mouth.

Then Stryg was there, reaching out and yanking her out of the oasis. He placed her back on the ice next to him and patted her back as she coughed.

“Hold on.” Stryg channeled blue and placed his hand over her neck before pulling the water out of her mouth and lungs. “Are you alright?”

“Uh-huh,” Titania said between coughs. She sat there on her hands and knees, gasping for breath for the next few moments. Stryg watched her in patient silence. He was reminded of a memory from long ago. He had tried to cross a small pool to reach Lunae, only to fall in. The goddess saved him from drowning and let him rest on her warm fur afterwards.

The memory should have been traumatizing, but Stryg found it to be one of the fondest from his childhood.

“How did you do that?” Titania asked after finally catching her breath.

“I pulled the water out of your lungs with a complex blue spell. It requires great precision and very close proximity. If one is not careful, they could injure the patient’s throat,” Stryg said.

“Could you teach it to me?”

“That depends. Are you an archmage?”

“No. Are you?” She stared at him with wide eyes.

“I would count myself an archmage with certain colors. Others, not so much, at least, not yet.”

“Can I be an archmage someday?” Before, the dream would have seemed far-fetched. But now Stryg had shown her what was possible and she dared to dream it be.

“If you want, you have it in you to be one of the greatest archmages alive.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You’ll teach me, right, master?”

There it was, that word. Master. The title landed uncomfortably around his shoulders. He knew the kid looked up to him, but he didn’t plan on staying. Soon they would be back in Olduun and all this would be over. Very soon.

Titania noticed the troubled look in his eyes and hurried to change the conversation. “How did you make this hard water? Is that blue magic, too?”

“No. Chromatic blue does not possess the ability to manipulate the state of water. Only elemental mana can do that.”

“Manipulate… state of… water…?” Titania mumbled to herself.

“Like this.” Stryg pulled a glob of water from the oasis and ran it across his fingers like a snake before pooling it together into a crystal-clear ball of ice.

“Whoa, that’s amazing.”

He placed her ball in her hands and she held it reverently as if it were some great treasure.

“It’s cold,” she giggled.

With a thought, he transformed into a cool mist that swept between them.

“Are you sure I can’t learn to do that?” Titania asked.

“It is not the magic of a chromatic mage.”

“Owl magic?”

“No. This came from somewhere else.” Stryg stared at the silvery scar on the palm of his hand. The Astral Light had torn apart his body from the inside. Until the last few days, he had been unable to draw upon chaos. Even his bond with Gale had gone silent.

Stryg closed his eyes and tried to focus on his connection with his Chosen. It was faint, but he could finally feel something. That was a good sign. It meant she was alive and well. It was more than he could say about his own health. Though his body had healed, his own chaos mana had hardly recovered. At this rate, it could take weeks before his second heart would fully heal.

The only silver lining was that his Sigte bond with Lunae was once more fully alive. He could draw upon her own chaos mana with little trouble, even if they were realms apart.

“Stryg?”

“Hm?” He lowered his hand and gave the little girl his attention.

She sat on the edge of the ice and let her legs sink into the water. “What was your dad like?”

“Absent.”

“Yeah… I don’t really see my dad a lot either. He’s usually busy working,” Titania mumbled. “I guess dads are a lot alike.”

He wasn’t sure about that. His father was an ancient immortal monster that had killed more people than probably anyone who had ever walked on the face of the world, but Stryg didn’t think it would be prudent to mention that.

“Parents can be difficult.” Stryg placed a hand on her head.

“You’re not difficult.”

Stryg cocked his head to the side. “I’m not a parent.”

“I know, it’s just… Sometimes I wish you were my dad,” she whispered.

Stryg blinked, confused. “What?”

“Nothing. Nevermind.” Titania scrambled to her hands and knees and crawled back to the shore.

Stryg watched her leave, still uncertain about what she meant. She did have a father, did she not? Why would she want him to be her…?

The sun finally set on the horizon and darkness enveloped the land. Stryg’s eyes adjusted to the dark and instinctively glanced around the perimeter for any threats. There were none. Yet the threat of Sidus still loomed over their heads. Stryg needed to get to Olduun and soon.

He glanced up at the stars and read their pattern as he had the last few days. They were closer to Olduun than he had originally thought when they had first arrived at the oasis. Two days walk at most. Back then, he wasn’t strong enough to confidently make the journey. But it was time now. He dispelled the ice and let the water take him. Instead of attempting to swim, he sank to the bottom and walked back to shore. The sound of the water was soothing and it always helped him think about his plans ahead. He found no solace in the water that evening.

~~~

A few hours later, Wren watched Stryg and Titania standing at the edge of camp with a pair of backpacks filled with supplies.

“You sure you wish to leave tonight? You could wait until tomorrow evening. Get a full night’s walk in then,” Wren said.

“No, we’ve already spent too long here.” Stryg bowed his head, “Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Wren.”

Titania emulated him and bowed. “Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Wren.”

“It was my pleasure, young ones.” Wren smiled. “Stryg, may I speak with you for a moment?”

He nodded and followed her a few paces away from the rest of the camp.

“What is it?” he asked.

Wren didn’t answer immediately. She glanced back at Titania, who was watching them with a mix of anxiety and curiosity. “The girl cares about you a lot.”

“Possibly.”

Wren cocked an eyebrow. “You doubt a child’s love for their family?”

“I’m not her family.”

“She sees you as one. A member of the pack, so to speak. If that is easier for you to understand.”

Stryg made a troubled expression. “She’s just a kid. She doesn’t know what a pack is.”

“Yes, she does. The question is, why do you insist on pretending the bond between you two isn’t there?”

“There is no bond,” Stryg growled.

“You care for her.”

“I never said that.”

“Yet you risked your life for her, on multiple occasions, from what Titania tells me. Why can’t you simply admit that you care about the child?”

Stryg looked away. “If she knew who I really was, she would run from me.”

“You mean because of what happened with the Astral Light?”

“When I ignited the Light, I ended up destroying not only my enemies, but countless others. The sandstorm left by my power decimated several villages and caravans. Titania’s caravan was among them. She ended up in that slave camp because of me. She lost the people she cared about because of me.” Stryg sighed, “It’s best if we simply reach Olduun and go our separate ways.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps you place too little faith in that child. Tell me, Stryg. Did your mothers’ lies ever help your relationship with either of them? Or did they simply make things worse for you?”

Stryg narrowed his eyes. “What did you want to speak to me about?”

Wren gave him a wry smile. “I wanted to warn you about your Astral Light. You were lucky this time. But if you ignite it again, you will not be so.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve heard that before from my sisters.” Stryg turned to leave.

Wren snatched his arm. “No, you don’t understand. The first time you ignited the light, you fainted from exhaustion, but your wounds recovered by the next day, yes?”

Stryg furrowed his brow. “Yeah, what of it?”

“The second time you used the Astral Light, your body was broken. Even now you haven’t fully recovered. The burden of that power grows with each use.” Wren looked him in the eye, “If you ignite the Astral Light one more time, you will die.”

“How did Sidus manage to use it then? You said he could control it.”

“Eh, partially. He never fully mastered it. No child of Death ever has.”

“Then how do I master it?”

“You can’t. You are not a Calamity. But the question you really should be asking yourself is, why would you want to in the first place? The Astral Light is best left alone. I thought your experience with Titania would have shown you that.” Wren let his forearm go and stepped back. “Take care of yourself, Stryg Veres.”

“Goodbye, Wren.” Stryg turned his back to her and made his way to Titania.

The child smiled at his arrival and grabbed his hand. “What did you talk about?”

“Death.”

“Oh… So you’re dad?”