A Soulblade?

"That's impossible," Kara said, begging silently for the man to agree.

A sharp pain in her wrist drew her attention, but it was familiar enough that she didn’t have to look down to see what it was. She didn’t remember exactly when she had taken a hold of her chain bracelet, but with how deep it was digging into her skin, she wouldn’t have been surprised if she was bleeding.

She didn’t look down to check. She simply couldn’t tear her eyes away from the alleged Treaty-breaker who stood casually in front of her.

"Impossible?” Cassian asked, his voice holding a genuine hint of confusion as he gestured down at the slightly raised platform of earth he was standing on. “How else would you explain this?"

"That's not magic," Kara said. "Magic can't be controlled like that."

Though he still seemed confused, Cassian still smiled as he shook his head slowly.

"I am living proof that magic can be controlled." Casually, he raised a hand, and in response the world seemed to tremble.

Kara opened her mouth. No words came out.

"But we should not hold the same fate as our tools!" Cassian shouted, his voice suddenly rising in volume. "Soulblades! Look upon me and witness the lies that we have been fed. That we are a danger to the world, uncontrolled, wild sources of magic."

His eyes were no longer locked onto hers, his gaze directed being over her head instead.

"My name is Cassian," he shouted, splaying his arms out as he spoke. "I am the first son of the late King Andreas of Astranta, older brother to the current King Darian. None of you have heard of my existence, for I was kept secret at birth. I was born a Soulblade and was hidden away from the Mediators out of fear for my safety, for you see, the King himself could not bear to subject me to the will of the Grand Treaty."

Kara felt her grip around her chain tighten.

"He could not bear to surrender me to the treaty. He could not bear to do it, knowing that he would be subjecting me to my death. For what is the treaty, but a slow but crushing grip on our very lives?”

Cassian's eyes briefly glanced towards Kara's hunched form as she huffed out a shaky breath, willing herself to calm down. When his eyes darted back up, she realized he was not just talking to her.

"Perhaps the Grand Treaty was created with noble intentions, but it has evolved into something ugly, something designed to keep us hidden away in our cages, only to be taken out when we are needed. I see you, my people, being transported like dangerous beasts, hidden away from the very people who depend on you for their survival. They feed you, clothe you, shelter you, but do they give you freedom?"

Kara frantically looked around herself. All around her, the Soulblades stared up at Cassian in a combination of confusion and fear.

No. It was unclear, but it was possible that they were staring at her.

"I like to believe that my father was a noble man, for protecting me, for risking his own execution by breaking the Treaty."

Kara twitched. The chains that held her bracelet together were thin and wiry, and she knew that gold was soft in its purest form, but she didn't know if the chain would snap before cutting deeper into her skin.

"But while he may have been a good man, as a King, I believe my father failed. For what is a King if not a father to all of his people? What right did he have to save me while so many Soulblades die under his rule? Perhaps if he was simply blinded by the promises of the Grand Treaty, his crimes would have been that of ignorance. But he saved me. It was proof that he knew of the horrors of the Grand Treaty and yet he chose to subject his people to it."

Kara's hand jerked upwards and for a moment she did not understand why.

It was only after she looked at what she held in her hands that she realized she was holding the golden chain that she had kept safe over the years in the Armoury.

It was the one memory she allowed herself to have of home. She stared at it, noting how the chain was still in one piece, with only the clasp having bent out of shape, unable to hold the loop closed any longer.

Kara closed her eyes and took a shaky breath.

"Third Clause," she yelled out in desperation. Exactly what she was desperate for, she was uncertain. "Any use of magic that is not directly involved in the elimination of Umbra beasts is forbidden."

Kara opened her eyes when she heard the shuffling of feet, not just one pair, but many. Looking around, she suddenly remembered that she was surrounded by a small crowd of her fellow Soulblades. With all of their faces pointed in her direction, it was possible that the only person not staring directly at her was Cassian.

That quickly changed, as he looked down at her with a confused frown.

"Huh," he said. "Was my speech not moving enough? I think I hit all the emotional and logical beats."

Kara didn't know if he was searching for a response, but she knew she didn't care for anything other than a response to a question she hadn't yet asked.

"Cassian," she yelled. "You claim to be a Soulblade. You claim that your ability to manipulate the earth is a facet of magic. Your alleged use of magic in an unauthorized setting is in direct violation of the third clause of the Grand Treaty. "

With how badly her hands were shaking in front of her, she was shocked that she hadn't stammered any of her words. The Soulblades around her looked at her with varying degrees of shock, fear, and betrayal on their faces.

There was a soft clinking sound and as Kara's eyes followed it, she noticed that her chain bracelet had fallen out of her shaking hands, landing on the floor.

She kept her eyes on the chain, unwilling to look up again.

"How do you plead?" she whispered, a small part of her hoping that if nobody heard her question, there would never be an answer.

"How do I plead?" Cassian's voice asked back, confused. "Kara, you’re not making much sense."

“You are being accused of breaking Clause Three of the Grand Treaty,” she screamed. This time, her voice cracked more than once, pitching up of her words into an indecipherable shriek. “How do you plead?”

Kara waited a few seconds, hoping that there would be a follow up, some sort of explanation that could absolve him from his break from the treaty. Kara mentally read through the treaty in her mind, over and over, looking for something that could somehow provide a loophole that would absolve her of her duties.

But no matter how much she searched, clause three was absolute. The only exception that directly related to Clause Three was Clause Twelve, which allowed Soulblades to test their environments in a designated Testing Grounds.

“I suppose I plead guilty.”

And with that, she closed her eyes, whispered an apology to the citizens of the Armoury.

And manifested.

An instantaneous silence enveloped her. Though she heard it once a year, when she was taken to the Grounds to test her range, she knew she would never learn to be comfortable with the sound of everything within sixteen hundred meters instantly dying.

All sound faded away. Of birds, of insects, even of the wind itself. While her Death magic never made any sound on its own, the bone-chilling silence as the world around her simply died was deafening.

Usually, in her Grounds tests, she would start singing to herself long before she actually manifested in order to mask out the lack of sound, but this time she could not bring herself to make light of the truth. It wasn't just small animals she'd killed this time. It was the entirety of the Armoury. Her friends.

"Terris, Glyn, Uriten, Llylwen," she muttered blankly, listing the names of the people she'd killed. "Delwyn, Eili."

No that was wrong, Eili was still alive. She was out on a mission. For some reason, the realization that she hadn't killed her best friend was what drew tears to her eyes.

But while the tears had taken a moment to flow, Kara could not stop herself from sobbing uncontrollably. With her eyes still closed, she pressed the back of her hands against her nose and eyes, accidentally tickling her chin with the leaves of the Soulblade in her right hand. Though it was an inky black construct formed from her magic, the leaves on the broken tree branch brushed against her face, reminding her of its existence.

Though most Soulblades manifested their souls in the shape of a weapon when they summoned their magic, the sharp broken tree branch in her hand scared her more than any sword.

She attempted to throw it onto the ground and dissipate it, but when she raised her hand to slam it down in a combination of disgust and rage, the back of her hand hit something solid.

Kara opened her eyes, and though she expected her vision to be blurred by a pool of tears, there was no mistaking the complete darkness she found herself in.

"What?" She hadn't consciously meant to say anything, but her confusion forced the word out of her mouth.

Kara cautiously lifted her hand again, gently pressing it against the ceiling above her, invisible in the darkness.

Aside from it being solid and smooth, there was nothing she could decipher about its nature, especially not why it was there in the first place.

"What?"

The word came out muffled, and she was suddenly aware of the snot, drool, and tears that covered her face entirely. She made to wipe off her face with the back of her hand again, but as the leaves of the Soulblade touched her face, she had the idea to blow her nose with one of its leaves.

Though she didn't know exactly how the magical tool worked, she knew that she hated it. If she could somehow disrespect it by using it as a rag, she would gladly take the chance.

The thin leaves didn't prove very useful for wiping away her tears, simply smearing them around rather than cleaning anything, but after she was finished with it, she dropped it onto the ground, letting it dissipate.

The instant she felt her magic disappear from the air around her, a tiny pinprick of light appeared.

A second later, she heard a voice.

"Kara?" Cassian asked. "You okay in there? Is everything alright?"

Kara froze.

"What?" she asked again, this time directed to a person who she knew should be dead.

"What was that?" Cassian asked. "Sorry, I don't know if I can hear you properly. I'm going to remove the dome, just don't do that again, okay? I don't know why you did it, but I think it scared everyone."

Kara didn't know how to react to that. Everyone? Was everyone alive?

She fell forward, though an invisible wall in front of her stopped her short. She crumpled onto the floor instead, all strength leaving her legs.

"I'll take that as acceptance," Cassian's voice said again.

The darkness split open and her vision was flooded with light.

Kara blinked at the suddenness of the light and sound. The sound of birds, and of insects, and of leaves being blown in the wind, blissfully living without any awareness of what should have been their deaths.

Around her, a small dome of solid dirt retreated back into the earth it rose from. Kara stared blankly at it, unable to understand it other than the vague knowledge that it was somehow a facet of Cassian's magical ability.

Instinctively, she reached for the bracelet on her wrist, only to remember it was already gone.

Panic filled her, overpowering even her instinctive impulse to reach for her magic and manifest again. As she scanned the ground for any signs of her chain, she ignored the gaze of the Soulblades around her.

She ignored them, crawling over the floor instead, trying to find her bracelet.

"Are you looking for this?"

Kara looked up at the source of the voice. Cassian reached out to her, a glint of gold in his hands.

Kara stared blankly at him for a moment.

"Did you stop me?" she asked. "You can do that?"

Cassian frowned.

"Is that not obvious?"

As Cassian's voice washed over her, she felt the sudden urge to bow to him. Or faint.

As Kara lurched forward, the world going dark once again around her, the Cassian's voice took on a dull ethereal quality as her mind started to shut down from shock.

The last thing she noticed was how nice and cool the ground felt, despite the warm summer sun.