“Give it back! It’s not yours!” Cried out a girl when the other children took away her pendant. It was a present from her best friend and seeing it in the hands of other children playing with it made her furious.

“Get it back if you can,” she heard the voice of Hessian overlapping, seeing suddenly a grown and scary man before her with a wide grin and cold eyes. She was frightened, afraid of the children and the man but what she felt the most was bottomless anger

“Give it back to me!” she and Kiur yelled, demanding the brooch to be returned.

Hessian and his group jumped back from the sudden outburst of magic. Earth convulsing and shifting, levelling wagons and throwing back anyone standing in Kiur’s proximity.

It came crashing down on them like a violent wave.

Forming inside Kiur’s core and travelling through his channels to summon the hidden consciousness of the magic around them. He was like a conductor where everything connected with him and resulted in an eruption from his emotions.

“Why are you running? Why are you running!” shouted Kiur and pushed more magical energy through the channels of his arms. Like a current it would release a barrage of earth-based attacks, uncaring of the people around it.

Existing only on the whims of their master and target what he ordered it to.

“Ergh, what happened-” before the dazed soldier could get his head on the situation, he was hit unconscious by Cylia. She took his keys and threw them over to Xander who was crawling out from the toppled wagon.

“Didn’t he say he can’t use his magic?”

“That’s what I remember too,” Xander undid the magic restraining handcuffs, feeling his cold mana slowly travelling through his body. The touch of his hand gently placed on the metal bar of the carriage broke off the rod, making him smile in satisfaction. “I finally feel like myself, time to crack some skulls.”

Having heard the nearby commotion ensuing the soldiers rushed to the location to surround and point their weapons at the escapees. Demanding their surrender, the reiszer were at a clear numeral advantage and Xander quickly put up his hands.

“Me and my big mouth, hey girl, do you have an idea what to do next?” Looking next to him Xander realised too late that Cylia was already gone, abandoning Xander who cursed her name for everyone to hear.

At the same time there was Hessian, angry for being taken off guard and stuck dodging attacks.

The ground became too hazardous for him to move around and even jumping on the wagons would provide little coverage. Kiur’s magic ability to rapidly change the environment and using it as a weapon took Hessian everything to keep up.

His body was too weak and so malnourished that he was constantly at the verge of passing out. Driving on mana to provide for the lack of energy taxed him too much. He needed to strike at Kiur’s core. He needed to take him down.

“No distraction, focus on this one strike,” Hessian enveloped the blade of his sword with magic.

Magic that would make sure to take down Kiur and cut through any of his defences.

“Hessian, let us help you-”

Hessian turned to the source of the voice, Nertha and the rest were running up to him for support. He cursed, “Shut up and stay back!” he barked at them, but the abstraction let Hessian get hit in the process. Were it not for his muscles and reflexes to react in time and deflect most of the blow he would have left with far more than a broken rib.

“You grew some guts, good for you!” taking a quick breath Hessian quickstepped around Kiur’s magic, guessing correctly where the spikes would shoot out from. Closing the distance further Kiur convulsed the earth and threw an entire wagon at Hessian.

At the right timing Hessian cut a whole inside and leaped through it towards Kiur to deliver a hit with his sword but noticed something was off.

First his flesh crawled then his eyes registered a flicker of magic particles in the air. They were flocking around Kiur and protecting him by conjuring a refined stone wall between them.

The sword shattered upon contact and Hessian intercepted a counterattack to jump back to safety.

It wasn’t Kiur’s doing, it couldn’t be, that’s what Hessian thought. He felt like the surrounding area tried to protect Kiur as he had already lost his consciousness, tears rolling down his empty eyes and repeating the same words.

“Give it back, it’s not yours,” Kiur reached out with his magic channels flaring up for another attack. The amount of self defence Kiur’s will showed took Hessian aback, how was he supposed to get past it?

“I need an advantage, how can he attack with that girl still nearby-” Hessian then noticed that Ninda, the little girl, was nowhere to be found. As if she had disappeared from the face of the earth.

Disappeared was the right word for the current situation. That’s how Xander felt like when he still was surrounded by soldiers ready to puncture him.

“Don’t make a move!” they yelled at Xander, not daring to make a move as he tensed up and tried to calculate a plan. A sweat drop rolled down his cheek and his hands were still in the air with two reiszer approaching him.

Could he take them on? Yes, he could, but should he? That’s not something easy to get an answer for because there were way more soldiers coming than he could possibly fight.

A quick glance to Kiur showed how reckless it could be to interfere. He was fighting one single reiszer and pushing back anyone else trying to approach him.

Making a run towards Kiur could put Xander in danger too. There were too many factors to consider, complicating his decision making further.

“Dang it, I will just do it!” Snapping at the soldiers, Xander willed his magic into his hands and into the air, drawing in the nearby moisture to cast a spell. He would risk it all and help out Kiur so they could escape with better odds.

“Cold Repel!” A cold swirl of magic scourged around Xander, driving back the soldiers and gain distance to prepare for another spell. Xander concentrated his magic in the centre of his palm by congregating surrounding magical energy and freeze them. “Crystal Shot!”

Shooting the soldier right at her chest Xander disabled her core, forcing it to discharge and form an icy shockwave to knockback those behind her.

“Anyone else, huh!?” yelled Xander but shut up when the white smoke cleared, revealing twice the number of soldiers approaching him than the amount he just defeated. “Just my luck, come at me!”

Before Xander could do anything, the newcomers were knocked out clean. A man wearing a light robe and a child under his arm appeared, taking out an additional soldier creeping up on Xander from behind.

“Go and take shelter somewhere,” he let Ninda go, and she ran towards Cylia and a scout who were hiding nearby.

“Dang you, hiding on me and not helping!” Xander yelled at Cylia who didn’t bat an eye on his anger at her but stopped when the stranger grabbed him by the shoulder. It made Xander tense up even more than the soldiers did, as if he stood next to an animal.

“Take Kiur and head for a nearby wagon, he won’t hold on any longer.”

“What are you talking about? He’s doing perfectly-” Taking a closer look Xander examined Kiur’s technique, noticing an anomaly. While Kiur summoned the earth around him Xander could see two different coloured particles clashing during the fight.

Orange and Red lights violently colliding with one another all around Kiur and extinguishing themselves. It influenced the conjured earth of Kiur, turning it to ash. It was visibly affecting his performance and wouldn’t take long until all he could produce was ash.

“The escape plan will be put into action,” said the stranger in a calm yet serious tone, amplifying his words with explosions and fireworks erupting throughout the vast camp. “It’s now or never.”

---✧---

Kiur couldn’t remember the last time he had lost control of his magic and emotions.

In their first lessons about magic children were taught that emotions and magic go hand in hand and can either become helpful assets or detrimental tools.

Moulding their state of mind to take in account what nature wants. What their hearts and minds perceive and now to bring everything together. It became a connection the children build with their surroundings, bonding with the magical particles they always lived with.

However, in Kiur’s case it became a chronic state.

Whenever he showed strong emotions like fear, anger or sadness his magic would go rampant and whenever his magic went rampant, he became even more emotional. A cycle he didn’t know how to break.

At first his magic was calm, benign like Kiur was as a child.

From the moment he had awakened his second element it was nothing but violent.

The earth he conjured would turn to ash. His teary eyes saw fire everywhere. Anyone he looked at were burning like iridescent blue flames, emotions fuelling the intensity of his magic until his mana burned away.

It was wearing him out, making him dizzy until he would fall unconscious and return to the drab ashen fields of a desert.

Panting heavily Kiur turned his head left and right to check his surroundings. It looked like where he was when he had his delusions but couldn’t see a single person around nor the sky.

He saw a nebula above his head forming a starry blanket of this cavern-like structure he found himself in.

“Where am I?” wondered Kiur. The place constantly faded out of his mind, so every return tended to feel different but also filled him with a sense of deja-vu.

He wandered in this desert aimlessly, following an invisible road in his mind he was supposed to follow every time he came back to this place. Whenever he turned his eyes, the dark dunes changed. He knew better not to rely on his sense of sight but rather his strange sense of familiarity here.

“Just go forward, trust my feet and heart,” repeated Kiur and he found himself before a structure. A ziggurat built from dark stone coloured in shades of red from the light around. “Ganzir,” said Kiur, instinctively knowing what the temple was called.

Ascending the large platforms step by step Kiur’s breath became haggard, exhausted from the never-ending levels. He needed a break. Just for a moment he wanted to close his eyes and rest.

“You’re almost there, climb higher,” he heard someone’s voice, but it vanished before Kiur could find its source. It was a man’s voice for sure but from no one he could immediately recognize. Except for the familiar sense of deja-vu.

“Alright, keep going,” Kiur winced in exhaustion but kept climbing the palace temple that had no end above and the bottom seemed to disappear. Hands bruised, feet blistered and out of breath Kiur reached the top of the palace from where the desert disappeared entirely, forming a wall of a starry mist.

Bringing his attention to the centre of the ziggurat Kiur found a pool of surprisingly crystal-clear water. Something he knew shouldn’t be here in this ashen wasteland.

Being the only place with clear water Kiur had seen in a long time he imagined it was calling him to take a sip.

His hands gently cupped the fresh-looking water, using it to drink from and wash his face. “Much better, I feel calmer,” his hands still on his face Kiur’s eyes connected with the reflection. One which copied his every move, but it wasn’t his image but that of a woman.

The same one from his delusions.

Kiur instinctively jumped back and so did his image in the water. “What was that? Why is she…” gathering his thoughts Kiur crawled up to the pool again and looked inside. She looked back at him but now she looked like a real person.

Tanned smooth skin, wavy midnight blue hair and silvery eyes filled with nothing but sorrow. Her clothes are a darkish drag of a brown robe, torn and worn out.

“Who are you?” asked Kiur, watching how her lips moved with his. Inspecting himself Kiur saw that his body was his but they both moved identically like reflections of a real mirror. “What are you?”

Then her image stopped moving and she placed her hands on the surface of the water. A gurgling sound came out of her mouth and the water became muddy as the woman drowned.

“Wait, come back!” Kiur jumped into the pool, but it was too shallow, leaving him drenched. “Come out and talk to me, you listen? Come out!” yelled Kiur and punched his fist into the water repeatedly until most of the water was out on the floor. “I have had enough of being so miserable! Every single day for the past three years! Why am I like this? I don’t understand. How much longer do I need to endure this?”

Violently Kiur tugged against his golden hair, almost ripping it out of his head when he cried and yelled at the pond, unable to understand anything about his emotions. Nor did he care where he was and what he was doing here.

From using his magic at one moment to losing it in the next and then getting stuck in his own head. He had enough of it.

“I want to know something,” Kiur raised his head, eyes red and dry from crying. All he felt now was anger and he needed to direct it somewhere. Vent his feelings. “Are you one of my delusions or real? If so, who are you?”

Kiur’s words were directed at the next figure his mind projected. One he felt like he knew very well.

The giantess with the twisted crown and downcast wings was now before Kiur and sitting comfortably with her owl-like legs to the side. With one large hand on her hip and the other on the ground. She was observing Kiur patiently with her eyes closed and wings flapping slowly, seemingly drying the wet floor.

“Let me guess, you won’t speak either or tell me your name?” Kiur pointed his finger at her, agitated to say the least.

When she began to sit up and bend forward towards him Kiur thought he insulted her and instinctively stepped back. Expecting to be crushed but was surprised to find her big hands drying his body with magic and awkwardly combing his hair with her fingers.

Caressing, soothing him, almost like a mother.

“Who are you?” repeated Kiur, his eyes drifting away to his other delusion being comforted by the giantess as well and in a much similar manner. “I guess I know who you are but not what you want,” mumbled Kiur, relaxing in the hand of the giantess for the moment of reprieve he had.