Unbound-Chapter Nine Hundred And Eighty Five – 985

“Huh.” Felix read through the notification again. “Is this really your Path?”

“Yep. Gah!” Beef clutched onto Felix as Pit dove again, his wings beating against the dark air of the tunnel beneath Aeonis. “Do you have to fly so crazy? I feel like I’m gonna fall off!”

“We’re in a hurry,” Pit squawked.

“Hold on with your legs,” Gabby suggested from behind them. She was sat further on Pit’s back, her legs wrapped around one of the many seats built into his Companion’s barding. “Let your hips roll as Pit flies. You’ll waste less energy that way and it’ll be more secure. Here.”

She threw something, hitting Beef in the shoulder. Felix caught it as it ricocheted away. A rock?

“Really? Why’d—” Felix could feel Beef’s legs tense behind him, and immediately the big teenager felt more relaxed. “I just learned Mounted Combat.”

“And how’s your seat now?”

“I—” Beef folded his arms. “A lot better. Dang.”

Felix smiled to himself. Gabby seemed a lot more comfortable with the others now. He’d spent some time watching them before he’d interfered with their Skill displays. Seeing his sister talk normally with other people had been something Felix hadn’t known he’d needed.

Sprites flew around them, gathering once more around Pit’s four wings. Gabby watched them warily. “Where are we going again?”

“Giant’s Grove. I have some trees I need you to talk to.”

“That’s…nonsense.”

“Welcome to the Continent.”

Gabby huffed a laugh. “Where’s your girlfriend?”

“She stayed with the others. There are a lot of things that need doing, and I trust Vess to get them done.”

“Listen to you. ‘Lots of things that need doing,’” Gabby smirked around the words. “When’d you get so competent. Last I knew mom was still doing your taxes.”

“Psh, that was just training to delegate. Now I’m a pro at it.”

“Poor Vess.”

Felix nodded his good humor fading. “She has the hard job right now. Corral the Chancellors and get them moving. We won the fight against Amaranth, but the war is just beginning.”

Beef coughed. “Grim.”

“Realistic. The Hierophant is alive, and she took Noctis’ core. That means she’s got god powers, or will soon.”

“Not to mention the other Divine,” Gabby added, and Felix didn’t miss that her fists gleamed gold. “We planning on fighting them?”

“I don’t think we have much choice.”

“Good.” Gabby cleared her throat. “So…Trees?”

“Spirits. Bound to Primordial Stone and Spirit Trees.”

Beef lowed as Pit dove beneath another archway. “Bound—like an Eidolon?”

“Don’t say that near them,” Felix pointed. “Pit.”

“I see it.”

They dropped, Pit’s wings tucking in and rocketing them into the spiraling recesses of the tunnel. Beef shouted and Gabby whooped, but both were caught in a lurching groan as the Chimera’s wings snapped back open.

“They’re the ancestor spirits of the Gigas.” Felix adjusted the reins. “I need you to talk to them.”

“Why? I don’t know anything about the Gigas.”

“Aren’t you one?” Beef asked.

His sister rolled her eyes. “Tell me about the Minotaurs.”

“I mean…they’re bull-like, super strong, and were from somewhere in the south? The plains, I think.”

“I know even less than that about my Race.”

They entered the outside edge of the Giant’s Grove, the vast cavern opening up before them as the Sprites ran away from them just as before.

“I didn’t know anything about the Nym until I started digging,” Felix said as they soared above the glowing fields of wildflowers. “I’ve learned what I could from reviving their old secrets and talking to everyone I could. Talking to the Elders isn’t gonna hurt—I plan for it to help, actually. If nothing else, there’s power in knowledge.”

Gabby grunted. “You said something about the Shadowgates?”

“They’re blocking my connection to my Heart of Darkness.”

Beef wrinkled his snout. “So we can’t go home?”

“Not without skimming through the Dark Passages and taking another gate.”

“—Which would take forever.”

“It would. Plus, these Elders are opposing my Authority over this place, and that doesn’t sit right with me. Like someone’s got a boot on my neck.” Felix tensed his legs, nudging Pit to loop above the Grove. “I just need you to talk, and see if they can’t relax their grip on Aeonis, at least so we can get most of our people back to Elderthrone.”

Gabby frowned, looking over Pit’s side to where the pale trunks formed a wide circle. “Why bother? Let’s just fly off on the ship.”

“Beef already said it. It’d take too long. Like you said, the gods are on the move and we can’t waste time.”

“...Fine. I suppose I owe you enough to talk to some rocks and roots.” She pointed a finger at him. “But if they ask me questions about the Gigas, I’m not lying.”

“That’s all I can ask.”

Pit, Felix sent along their Bond.

On it. Pit tightened their circle, heading for the gaps between the enormous Spirit Trees.

"Uh, and why am I here?” Beef asked. “You never really said."

They passed the pale trunks, thick as skyscrapers, while above them the golden canopy rippled, shaking with an unseen wind. Sprites of a dozen different elements, elemental flavors, zipped by, stirring the blue motes that hung weightless in the sky.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Felix patted the Minotaur on the arm. "You, my friend, are back up."

Pit descended rapidly, navigating toward the dark rent that split the luminous meadow below. It had healed itself a bit, new dirt and grass patching much of the hole, but a large gap remained there at the base of the roots. Pit landed with a graceful hop.

"Back up," Beef said incredulously. "To fight?"

Before Felix could answer, the ground rumbled. The entire Grove shook, setting the luminous flowers at their feet to quake. A crimson glow emanated from the ruptured earth, and a deep voice boomed.

"You return, Emperor, and with more strangers in tow. They lack even your Authority to speak here. You—”

“Lost Races," another voice said, different from the first two he'd heard. "A bull of the southern wilds. Strong of Body and Spirit, a deep magic lies in him. Around him is…death.”

Beef puffed out his chest. “You’ve got a good eye…do trees have eyes?”

“Another,” a third voice intoned, cutting off the second. It was the same feminine, no-nonsense voice Felix had heard before. “Kin and blood. We sense Gigas.”

The Grove shook, the trees set to swaying so hard that Felix felt a tremor of fear at the base of his spine. He wasn't sure what the Elders could do, but there was little doubt that here, at the center of their power, they were dangerous. Felix wasn't about to let his people get hurt, let alone his sister.

"Elders,” he said, letting his voice roll out through all the Authority he could muster. “I have brought you one of the Gigas."

"How." Less a question than an accusation, the Elders spoke with an ancient rasp. "The Gigas are Lost—”

“And so are the Minotaur,” Felix said, pointing to Beef. “So are the Nym, and yet here we stand."

The Elders rumbled amongst themselves, a chorus of voices that ground like shifting stone and creaking boughs. Felix couldn’t understand it, and the emotions they were feeling were too odd—like listening to a conversation through ten feet of water. Abruptly, roots split through the soil, questing gently upward toward Gabby. She stepped back in alarm, and Felix's gut clenched, his core spinning up, ready to do something, anything, if things went sideways.

"Stay your wrath, emperor. We seek only assurance.” The root twitched. “Do you consent to our presence, child of the Gigas?"

Gabby leaned further back. "What do you mean by presence, exactly?”

"We seek to read your Mind, Spirit, and Body.”

“Like a Skill?”

"Fah," the voices laughed, a dozen of them in loose concert. "Skills are but parlor tricks foisted on children. True power lies in Will, Intent, Authority, and in consent. Do you acquiesce, child of the Gigas?"

"I do."

The root reached out, quick as a snake, and tapped her on the forehead. Gabby barely had time to gasp before her body went rigid. Felix stepped forward, not sure what he could do, but he was uneasy nonetheless. Yet it was over almost before it began, and Gabby’s body relaxed.

She blinked rapidly. "That wasn't painful at all."

"Of course not," the voices rumbled. "Such a thing would only be painful if we lacked the requisite Authority. You, child, are one of our own. Charges we were forged to care for, to guide. You are a Gigas," another voice said in open wonder, "returned from the mists of Ages. The last descendant."

"I am a Gigas," Gabby said. "But I wasn't always. My Race was changed." 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

A rumble spread beneath her feet as her words continued. "I’m Unbound."

“We know.” Felix put his hand to his waist, but the Elders weren’t done. “That root has touched upon your gathered truths. Your Aspects laid before us, unvarnished by fear.”

“You’ve seen—everything?” his sister asked, voice uneven.

“Much, though a golden light obscures you. You are Unbound. Once this was celebrated, and we see no cause to change that.”

“But I wasn’t born a Gigas—”

“Unimportant. To choose to be Gigas is enough. There is no difference.”

Gabby was clearly taken aback, but Felix let himself relax. Until his sister kept talking.

“No, I didn’t choose this.”

The rumbling—which had stopped at some point—started up again. “Explain.”

She did, and the Elder did not like it. Their voices lifted, a dozen different timbres all squabbling at once. Rhyming couplets met feminine assurance and raspy threat, tangling amid throats long clogged with ancient earth.

The Grove bucked.

“Felix, did I screw up?”

Felix spread his stance, but their slow Spirits weren’t aggressive, just confused. He shook his head. “No.”

From the fractious feel of her Spirit, his sister didn’t believe him. She stared around at the meadow as it trembled, the bobbing luminescent blossoms casting careening shadows across their ankles.

“Should I, uh, do something?” Beef stood near Pit, perhaps twenty feet away from Felix and his sister. His hand was wrapped around his hammer haft, and his forearms flexed.

“Definitely don’t do that,” Pit said, swiping at Beef’s head. His paw bounced off the Minotaur’s horns.

“But he said I was back up—”

“Not to fight!”

“Well, I asked! No one answered!” The earth shook, nearly knocking Beef off his hooves. “This is starting to feel like a fight! What’s stopping one of these rock-tree things from crushing us right now?”

“Not things. Spirits,” Felix explained in steady, calm words. “Beef, to answer your question: I brought you here because of your Skills and your Path.”

“Which Skills? They’re not dead—” Beef’s mouth opened up as realization dawned. “Spirits, you said. Bound to rock and tree. Like you said: Eidolon Exults.”

“We are no paltry Eidolon!” A gruff voice broke free of the chatter, rising from the broken earth like an explosion set miles below the surface. “Watch your tongue, or find it sliced clean!”

“Peace. Do you not feel it? The song of strife and those that heal it?”

“A Path of Rule, held by the Minotaur.”

“Exulted King.”

The last was a hoarse whisper, barely more than an errant breeze from the depths. Beef licked his lips. “Uh, yeah. That’s me. I chose the Path of the Exulted King. That makes me…uh, ruler? Of Exults?”

“False.” This time it was the no nonsense woman’s voice. “Your choice only gives you the Authority to speak with us. You stand too near the start of your Path.”

“So no tongue cutting,” Beef said. “Just being sure.”

“Pfah!” the gruffest voice shouted. Its slow Spirit was distinctly disappointed. “We do not bow to any king not of our people, no matter their Path or Title.”

The Elders had no eyes, but Felix could all but feel their attention on him after those last words. He smiled ruefully and held up his hands. “None of us are asking you to bow. Just connect the Shadowgate to my network and we’ll be on our way.”

Golden leaves fell, raining on them sideways from far above as the boughs twisted in an unfelt wind. “You raise us from Ages long gone and set before us impossible truths. For all our immensity, we are not a monolith. Some among the Elder do not trust your kin. Her Race was coerced, not chosen of her own Will.”

Gabby went still. Felix could almost see the gears turning behind her eyes, and no matter how tightly she held her Spirit, her face couldn’t hide the hurt.

“However, this was only witnessed because the light of gold has faded from our eyes. A feat that only occurred due to her willing admission.” The ground shook. “Truth holds weight.”

Felix put his hands on his hips. “So, that’s a yes? You’ll open the Shadowgate?”

"A Path of Rule and an unwilling child of the Gigas. They are signs we cannot ignore, Emperor Nevarre, though of what we cannot say.” The golden leaves ceased falling. “We will connect your Shadowgate…but we will not join our roots with your Grove. We are separate from your Territories, for Aeonis stands empty.”

“Not entirely,” Felix suggested, gesturing at Gabby.

“Perhaps. Whether that will change depends on fate itself.”

A thick silence followed the Elder’s proclamation, one that weighed on Felix. He knew in his bones that the Elder would benefit his empire a whole lot…but he was out of ideas.

He bowed. “I appreciate your willingness to listen. I suppose I’ll have to see what I can do to make up fate’s mind.”

“There is a power in you, Creature, one we cannot place. Yet even it cannot break the heavens.”

Felix bared his teeth. “Watch me.”

A sudden shriek broke the silence, buzzing with an atonal burr as a crimson notification flashed before everyone.

WARNING!

Southeastern Border Incursion!

Foreign Authority Detected!

Invasion Imminent!