There was a moment of hesitation on my part as I stared at this new entrant, this unknown man who confidently strode down the weak looking wooden ramp. His confident swagger, that wide grin, even the way he didn’t even have a visible weapon out was enough to immediately sound alarms in my mind.

Even the pirates who stood on the deck of the two ships had gone quiet, they did not cheer for this man but instead merely watched on as though expecting something monumental. The fact that he had chopped done one of the traitorous ex-legionnaires didn’t even cause a ripple, as though they had expected it.

“Pity that,” the man said in his loud voice again. “Could have made some good coin selling those idiots, people love to buy legionnaires.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have chopped him into pieces then,” Taryn retorted.

The strange man stopped his approach when he reached the bottom of the gangplank. With one finger he traced the scar on his face, while he studied me with an amused look on his face. “You may address me as Admiral Clay Yulis,” the man said as he blatantly ignored Taryn. “I think a lot of people would be interested in buying someone who can take down a soul armor wearer barehanded.”

Taryn charged toward Clay Yulis as anger once more welled up within him. Before he reached Clay I bent down and grabbed the knocked out body of the black-haired legionnaire in front of me. In one smooth motion I swung that body up and did a quick underhand toss right at the so-called admiral.

Clay knocked aside the thrown body with a swing of his right hand, a casual backhand that let loose a thundercrack. As the blow on the unconscious man landed the air around the pirate shifted, and every mental alarm started to ring out in my head. It was a sensation I had only felt a handful of times before in my past, and I took a step backward before I even realized it.

“It can’t be,” I whispered, unable to believe what my senses told me. “Taryn! Get away from him!”

Taryn didn’t listen and instead chose to punch at Clay, a strike that would easily have cracked his skull open if it landed. However before the fist could land the arm it was attached to flew in an arc away from Taryn. A trail of blood followed, a splattering that came from the fresh stump on Taryn’s body.

From behind us a few arrows whistled past my head, precise shots that had been aimed at Clay’s face. Each of the arrows was sliced in half before those halves were in turn sliced again, a near invisible trail of something arcing out constantly from Clay’s hands.

Taryn had managed to retreat back due to the distraction caused by Kaina. He held onto where his arm had been with his remaining hand, a grimace on his face. Through our link I could feel a touch of the pain he felt, and also the rage at himself. Once again he had let his hotheaded tendencies to put him into a bad position.

Clay Yulis stood there and did nothing more to us, he simply stroked at the scar on his face while he watched our reactions. His eyes went from across the three of us, before they settled on me. With one finger from that uplifted hand he beckoned. “I promise to save him if you surrender. Kneel, little girl.”

“What in the Gods was that!” Taryn bellowed as blood continued to flow out from his wound without pause, a dangerous amount that began to pool around his feet.

“Presence,” I said, though I wished I hadn't. “He’s a Presence user!”

To unlock your soul, to bare it and to use it as a weapon, such was the capacity of a Presence user. In all of the Empire there were most likely about twenty or thirty people out of millions who could utilize it, and yet here I was in the middle of nowhere face to face with one. As Alise had put it there was danger in using Presence, but I also knew there was immense power.

“That is nothing like Alise’s Presence!” Taryn growled, eyes narrowed as he glared at the pirate.

Once more arrows shot past, as Kaina tried valiantly to help us deal with what she could only view as a monster. A twitch of his fingers was all Clay needed in order to obliterate the arrows again, before he lifted his right hand up and aimed one finger in my direction.

A flash of light as something reflective was barely caught in my vision, and I heard a cry from behind. I turned quick and saw that Kaina’s bow had been severed, along with a laceration that ran along her right forearm.

I had no experience when it came to a fight against someone who had Presence, and there was only one possible solution I could think up. Clearly Taryn was out of the fight, if I didn’t respond soon he’d bleed to death. Kaina, bless her, was useless aside from a minor distraction.

A mental wrestling occurred in my head as I struggled to figure out a way to win, and finally there was only one solution. We would have to fight Clay’s Presence with one of our own. Taryn’s was too dangerous to use, his power uncontrollable and deadly, so that left us with only one option.

“Kaina stay back!” I warned her, as I began to focus inward.

Within I could feel that bit of me which held a sliver of Taryn, that source of energy which fueled my very being. With a great deal of concentration I focused entirely on it and tried to pull at it, to peel it open and let it be loosed.

“LILY! DON’T!” Taryn roared with a voice so loud my concentration immediately snapped. “You can’t!”

“What? We’re going to die if I don’t do something!”

“Lanius said you can’t do that!” Taryn turned his glare toward the sword at his waist, a few muttered words directed at the weapon.

The pirates on the ship heard that shout and they responded instantly. The entire time they had stood there, mostly silent as they eerily watched their leader face off against us. Yet at the mention of a God they began to shout, some of them waving almost desperately toward Clay’s back. Yet he didn’t respond and instead stood there all bemused by Taryn and I, as he knew at that moment he had the upper hand.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I responded to Taryn, while I wondered how long before Clay grew bored and chose to act.

“I...what...here!” Taryn finally said after he struggled for what seemed an eternity with what he wanted to say. With his left hand he pulled his sword, sheath and all, out from his belt and tossed it at me.

I could feel my eyes widen in shock at that, it wasn’t often that Taryn relinquished the sword. In all my time with him I had only seen Alise hold it two times, and I had personally been granted it a mere once. So when he threw it I responded slowly, my hands barely able to catch it before it hit the ground.

The black grass beneath my feet bowed beneath my weight without protest, a gentle cushion that was quite surreal to look at. As I straightened my back and looked around I was greeted by a horizon of darkness along with a lone figure. He was a man with a familiar face, platinum hair and an unplayed violin in one hand.

“So once more I am burdened with you,” Lanius bemoaned. “Why do you endeavor to ignore my commands?”

“We’re going to die if I listen to you,” I argued as I waved the sword in my hand at him. “Your son will die! All because you don’t want me to use Presence! What sort of dad would let their own kid die?”

It was probably the first time in the history of our world that anyone had argued and chastised a God. Blasphemy, some of the more religious ones would have declared, but I didn’t care. If I was to be sacrificed or Taryn due to some silly whim by a man hiding in a sword why should I care?

“Your choice to throw your soul out there like some bauble would have caused harm to you,” Lanius replied in a calm tone. “Harm so foul and so lasting that you would grieve and never recover when you discovered the extent of it.”

“What are you talking about?” I retorted as I tried to wrestle mentally with what he’d said. “How would you even know something like that?”

“Child, I am a God. Your inability to comprehend my abilities only furthers to showcase how little you truly understand that fact.”

“We’re going to die then,” I collapsed to my knees, a feeling of defeat overwhelming me. “I can’t fight something like that without my Presence, and Taryn’s going to bleed to death.”

“Oh, Mother, why do you lay such tribulations at my feet?” the God asked of the heavens, before he pointed at me with one pale finger. “Would I demand such a sacrifice from my own child? Did you already forget who I am?”

“What?”

“What are my Totems, child?”

“The soul, life and...blood?” I paused at that, and then sharply looked at the God.

“And so you begin to grasp at a fact that should have been painfully obvious,” Lanius applauded me. “My son can not die from blood loss.”

“That won’t stop that pirate from cutting him into pieces, though.”

“Once more you gripe about a problem that I clearly have a solution for,” Lanius lifted his violin up to his chin, a violin bow materializing in his free hand. “To that end, though, you will need to make a choice.”

“What choice?”

“The first is the one I ordered you to throw aside, to ruin yourself forever both mentally and physically,” Lanius began to play the violin, that odd haunting tune he had played the first time I met him. “The second will be to work with me.”

“Obviously there’s more to it than that,” I glared at Lanius. He was playing a game with me, and I wasn’t very happy about that fact.

“Did you believe that you could borrow the power of a God without costs?” Lanius chuckled at that, his hand undisturbed as it continued to move the bow flawlessly across the violin. “Sadly Taryn has already refused, although he is wiser than he might seem in that he at least knows that I offer salvation.”

I stood up once more, my despair washed away as curiosity and a hint of rage pushed to the forefront. “What’s the price?”

“Oh, child, if I could tell you those consequences when even I do not know what they will be? You wish for a God to tread into the realm of another. No, you will simply need to know only that the ramifications for your surrender to me will arrive at a much later date.”

“You are making absolutely no sense.”

The violin came to a stop at that. “My totems do not deal with the future, but my price is one that will lay a curse within you which will blossom in due time. At that point will I fully understand what YOU have caused by asking me for help.”

“Is that why Taryn turned you down?”

“Taryn believes he can still win against that man with his current power,” Lanius informed me, before he looked up at the sky again. “My son refuses to work with the man who left his mother to die, so unless he knows for certain he can not win he will never turn to me for help.”

That was a bit of news which caused a bit of shock, but it also didn’t matter at that moment. “If I say yes you promise we’ll win?”

“You believe a God can lose to a mere fool playing make-believe?”

“I agree to your terms.”

It was a jarring transition when I returned back to the normal world, no longer lost within the hidden one inside the sword. I blinked, and then made certain that nothing had changed, once more amazed by how it seemed time within moved at a different rate than the time without.

“Have you finally come to realize you can not win?” Clay inquired, his finger once more on his scar.

Although I should’ve been intimidated by him there was no hint of fear me, but instead an understanding. Like the time with the tangleworm knowledge had flowed from the sword and into my mind, yet it felt like it had always been there in the first place.

Concentrate.

The voice resounded inside my head as Lanius spoke to me. I once more closed my eyes and focused inside, again on that central source of energy. Unlike the last time I did not try to expose it, but instead I put all of my focus on that sliver which belonged to Taryn.

Concentrate.

Next to me I could feel that pale man as he put one hand on my shoulder, his mouth whispering into my ear. If my link to Taryn was through his sliver, that sliver also served as a bridge to his dad. The focus I put onto that sliver shoved at it and tried to widen it, to not bare it but allow access within.

Concentrate.

When I opened my eyes I could feel a difference, my sight tainted by a hint of red. Taryn drew in a hiss of air, while Clay’s own eyes showed his surprise. He began to mouth a word of confusion, but I could only hear one voice.

If you falter you will die, concentrate!

The hand on my shoulder tightened as Lanius poured his power through that connection I had with him. The air went still as a sound like a violin began to emerge, and the alabaster sword was drawn free from the sheath once again.

You know what you need, now name it!

What came next caused every pirate on the ship to scream in terror, to make Taryn stand up straight and back away in a hurry, to make Clay himself retreat a little up the gangplank in worry. All around the cave the ground changed color as from every dead body, every drip and every pool it came. It came and flowed up my body like a fresh skin, an armor no one would ever believe could exist.

“Blood,” we spoke the word on everyone's mind.

“Witchcraft!” Clay declared. “A monster!”

Our first step was a hesitant one, as we were unaccustomed to this. It was an odd sensation, a warmth that covered us, but we could also feel the force of life that had been inside the blood at one point. Now it floated around us in a cocoon, a reminder that men had died and not even death had saved them from this strange violation.

When we took another step it was far more confident, though our foot didn’t connect with the ground. Instead the blood blocked everything, the only points of our body exposed were our eyes and two holes for our nose. We motioned toward Taryn with our left hand, as the sword was still in our right. “Protect Kaina and the others.”

Taryn nodded, the look on his face mixed between sadness and anger. Our connection had not only remained open but felt even greater than normal, and we knew within he regretted his decision to say no to us. It was a regret that we felt was best to ignore, as in the end we would live and that was all that mattered.

Clay swung his hand out in our direction, once more that flicker of reflective light visible for a moment. We knew already what the source of it was, he had learned to use the water in his own body as a weapon. All in all we found that amusing, the idea of it equatable to a toy wielded by an infant.

With a dismissive wave of our left arm we knocked aside the water whip, the blood armor barely impacted upon. We chose to act before he could muster up some sort of trick, how would we have felt if we told Mathias later of our failure to deal with a bug?

A quick fluid movement forward as we hurtled across the cave toward Clay, and when he raised an arm in instinctive defense the sword swung out. It was a cut that chopped off his arm, and as the blood shot from the fresh wound it was sucked from the air and added to our armor. Within us we felt that singular child rejoice at the vengeance, an arm for an arm, but such a thought was beneath us at that moment.

“We know that she would grant you mercy if you asked for it,” we informed Clay. “We, however, do not care to do such a thing. You harmed ours, and in such an act we will grant you only one thing.”

The confused look on Clay’s face, intermixed with a grimace of pain, only worsened as we lifted our left hand up. The palm faced out toward his head, a seemingly pointless gesture. A moment later it became obvious to everyone why we had done it, as a spike made of blood shot forth and impaled his head.

While the garbage fell off of the gangplank and into the water our own attention was pointed toward the pirates on the ships. Our sword, devoid of blood, was aimed toward the morons. “Your transgressions are forgivable,” we informed those who remained. “If you discard your pointless weapons and kneel before your God we shall grant clemency.”

There response was understandable, as we were obviously their superior. Each of the pirates threw their pointless weapons into the waters or onto the deck and knelt down, some even placing their foreheads against the wood. If we cared for such a thing we might have even enjoyed that subservience, but that had never been what we wanted.

With a stagger I stepped back, the armor of blood left in front of me. I quietly sheathed Lanius’ sword and it was that action which triggered the collapse of the red liquid. Most of it fell into the water of the cove, a red wave which floated around the corpse of Clay.

There was a monumental feeling of weakness that had overcome me, but it was a feeling I could not show to the pirates. A single mistake here would put us back into a fight, and with Taryn’s injury even he might struggle against such numbers.

“Taryn,” I called out to him, as I shook away the need to feel his touch. There would be time for comfort and rest later. “Have Kaina help you tie those guys up, maybe some of the villagers can help too.”

Taryn walked up from behind, his hand gently wrapping around the sheathed sword. He took it back, the weapon placed once more on his waist, and I was quite happy to have it gone from my hand. My mind still struggled with what had happened, as I had been myself but at the same time not. It was as though I had been in a house, but not in the central room and instead off to the side, but at the same time a part of me had been in the main room.

“Are you going to be okay?” Taryn whispered to me, the worry obvious on his face.

“Of course, who do you think you’re talking to?” I responded. Even though I wasn’t there was no way I’d ever let anyone else present know how weak I felt.

Taryn took the response at face value, or so I hoped, and he walked up the gangplank. Once he reached the top he barked at the pirates and demanded some rope, while Kaina hesitatingly approached me. The fear on her face was blatant, but there was nothing I could do to stop that.

Instead I walked away from the two ships and took up a position near the center of the cave. I glared at the pirates, especially any that dared to move, and put on my best act to intimidate them. One would doubt that they’d ever do anything after what I’d just done, but there were a lot of crazy people out there.

In my mind, though, all I could think about was what Lanius had said. A curse of some sort, he had called it, one that would manifest at a later date. “I swear I’ll figure out a way to kill him if he hurts my family,” I promised the air.

I would never harm the family of my Disciple.