Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 72: Beaten

Toren Daen

I came to slowly, a horrible headache pounding against my skull. Besides that, my body ached in a dozen different places, sharp and dull all over. It took me a moment to figure out what had happened.

I was cold. Deathly cold. The chill ate at my flesh, sinking through my skin and biting my bones. The stars mocked me from on high, their warmth light years away.

I was outside in the winter cold, clad in my thin dark clothes. The mana that usually coursed through my body to reinforce me against the weather wasn't there to protect me.

I instinctually tried to draw mana from my core, the act second nature after so long. Instead, I felt the familiar pain of a close brush with backlash coursing from my nexus of power. The mana flowed, but it carried pain with it.

I groaned in agony, trying to remember why I was beaten and broken under the sky.

"I told you you couldn't fight him on your own," a voice said from nearby.

I recognized it. And as soon as I recognized that voice, the reason for my pain crashed back through my head.

The Doctrination's abduction of people. The infiltration. Finding the map of blithe routes.

Mardeth.

I had used my full power, then been swatted around like a fly. I was beaten once, twice, a dozen times into the stone. I was shown my weakness in full force.

And the blithe.

I snarled, moving my limbs. They ached with every shift as I hauled myself to my feet.

My knees buckled as I stood, making me stumble into a nearby wall. Instead of despair, I felt a growing fury rising in my chest.

"You shouldn't move," the voice said. "You took quite a beating. Mardeth dumped your body out here a while back."

I turned lethargically toward the speaker. I recognized him immediately from his drooping mossy hair. I felt my anger redouble, my lips pulling into a snarl.

"I told you not," I said, taking a breath through the sharp pain in my ribs. God, I hated feeling so weak. "To follow me."

"I wasn't following you," he said, his eyes glinting slightly. "Your body was dumped right in my path."

"How many fucking times are you going to use that excuse?" I hissed, trying to force my legs to support my weight. I brutally flooded them with the trace amounts of mana left in my core, the warmth of my power clashing with the pain coursing through my everything.

The mage furrowed his brows, slightly taken aback by my anger. I couldn't sense his team anywhere nearby, but I was broken right now. Who knew what I was missing?

"As many times as I need to," he said slowly. "You nearly got yourself killed."

"Well, I didn't. I hope your 'employer' is happy about that. Without her trapped weapons, she needs a lackey to follow in my footsteps."

The mage arched a brow, undeterred. "Try not to get yourself killed, Toren Daen. My 'employer' wants you alive."

Those words brought Mardeth's last words to the fore of my mind.

"Will you break, or be like the Sovereigns?" he'd asked. He left me alive in some twisted attempt to build me up.

Just like this Renea Shorn.

"Tell Renea Shorn that if she wants anything from me, she can start by actually doing something good," I hissed, taking a shaky step toward the mossy-haired mage. "There are over a hundred people being held by that psychotic vicar. You want me to be safe? Actually do something with your power."