To Fly the Soaring Tides

Nanri shuddered, her blood ran cold. She thought she had found a state of peace in her mind no matter how things went once she ended up a prisoner, but she didn’t expect an enemy who could go toe to toe with one of the strongest witches to show up like this and threaten her life. She would have been better off going with Cira. Even if only for an instant, she was incapacitated with fear.

A metallic cracking sounded across the room and directly beside Nanri in the same moment, followed by her mother’s nearby voice. “Reveal yourself.” Shimmering silver dust blanketed the hall and a silhouette of light appeared. No sooner was that silhouette dodging blade after blade that appeared from nothing in every direction.

“Eliza, you hag.” The silver blades only picked up in pace and refused to disperse when they stuck in the walls. “What do you want with my daughter?”

What does she care? Who even is this woman? To be such a strong enemy my mother knows from the past, yet still lives… Eliza must be trouble. She wouldn’t be here for me though… This doesn’t feel like something Cira got me wrapped up in.

“So, your prisoner is the Titan Witch after all,” the young woman only smirked as silver blades started to bend around her effortlessly. Her eyes narrowed on the girl.

“I no longer go by that title,” She responded without backing down. Although I worked really hard on it… “I am the Sorcerer Nanri.”

“You—what?!” The Silver Witch exploded in befuddled rage. “What is wrong with you, Nanri?! This is no time for your nonsense—”

The sorcerer brushed her off, keeping her pale blue eyes steadily on the immeasurable threat, “What do you want, mage?”

Lamplight reflected off her silken red hair as it gently swayed. The mage threw her head back and laughed joyously while the Silver Witch’s expression rapidly soured with each missed blade. Anywhere the silver dust touched dissolved, but the mage just brushed it off like dirt, leaving small holes in her robes.

“Relax, little girl.” Eliza didn’t acknowledge the Silver Witch either during this exchange, and it infuriated her to no end, “As it turns out, I am actually only here for your mother.”

The strange woman’s eyes stilled as she turned a wide grin to the Silver Witch. “Or more specifically… I have come to reclaim lost property. I’m sure you know what I’m referring to, isn’t that right Nimara?”

“You…” metal cracked and screeched as the Silver Witch disappeared. The room was assailed with so much mana it became difficult for Nanri to stay on her feet, let alone breathe. It had been many years since she saw her mother get serious, but today felt even worse. She suddenly found herself worrying about what would happen if her and Cira should cross paths one day. The Silver Witch’s voice was far more commanding than even Cira in her rare moments of severity, “Would you dare take that which is rightfully mine? Your Order shouldn’t have dragged their feet if you intended to claim stake.”

“Same as ever…” Eliza shook her head with a tsk tsk, completely undaunted by the ocean of mana the witch flooded the ship with. Nanri could only imagine the servants and apprentices upstairs were struggling if even conscious at this point. “You seem to have forgotten who expended their time and resources to remove the curse upon that place… How shameful of you to swoop in and claim our treasure, to take advantage of our efforts.”

That does sound like Mother, but as shady as it sounds, I can’t entirely discount pragmatism—or were they not enemies before?

“Mother,” she couldn’t help but ask, but also needed more time to make preparations, “Just what is this artifact in question? I feel terribly left out.”

“Are you stupid? After what you did, you shouldn’t even be out of your cell! How did you remove my silver?! Don’t get me started on the rest.” She found it hard to argue with her daughter and stay on guard against Eliza, who seemed to be flashing lights here and there to keep her on edge. If Nanri wasn’t mistaken, Eliza also twisted space to disorient the witch’s aim. “Just keep your distance and shut up until I handle this!”

“Ohoho…?” Eliza put a hand on her chin in thought, glancing between the two as a resonance of her own mana pushed back against the encroaching silver dust. “When did you become such a prude, Nimara? Your daughter shows great talent, but you seem to hold only scorn… yet you still aim to protect her? Have you grown batty in your old age?”

This time the intruder disappeared, leaving a strangely quiet hallway save for the wind blowing in the gaping hole in the wall. Down the hall, there were groans of prisoners not used to such deluges of mana, but where Nanri’s melted cell used to be, the scene grew eerily still in a single moment. It’s like Lyren does, isn’t it? But this woman is far more skilled.

There wasn’t a trace of residual mana, but the tremble she felt in the ambient aether was familiar. She was dancing around the Silver Witch between pockets in space.

“Get back here, you coward!” The Silver Witch stomped toward the hole in the side of the ship as if she had fled. “Today is the day you die.”

The sky outside burned with a silver glow like the brightest night, though it was hardly past noon. The overwhelming presence of silver mana was not unlike Nanri’s friend’s dominion over that salty rock.

“Nanri, dear…” a sweet voice rang in her ears, but the young sorcerer knew she wouldn’t see anything if she turned around. Even her mother didn’t seem to notice the sound as she thrust pillars of silver into cracks in space outside like she were poking around in the dark. “Why stay imprisoned here? You should come with me. Freedom, knowledge, power… Whatever you want… I promise to guide you to it. Perhaps what you seek will even come your way.”

The former witch’s bones turned to glass upon the chilling declaration. Nanri was frozen solid and felt that if she moved, everything could fall apart. One eventuality led to great torment for herself, but it saved a great many people from potential suffering and strife. The other choice before her could offer freedom, and the chance to forget those people, for what it’s worth.

Nanri wouldn’t have to deal with her stifling mother unless she wanted to. She could practice her sorcery with plenty of resources to support her progress. It was tempting. That much was impossible to deny after imagining what awaited her once she faced trial in Porta Bora.

Still, the sorcerer only laughed, “I appreciate the offer… but if I was going with anyone, it wouldn’t have been you.” Nanri’s resolve wasn’t so weak. Or in another sense, there’s no way she would run off with some random mage that appeared to fight her mother for some mysterious treasure after already deciding against travelling with Cira. The Silver Witch whipped around at her words with a panicked expression on her face.

Eliza chuckled as multiple images of her grinned, looking in at Nanri and her mother seperately. A few faded away in silver light as the rest shuffled around throughout the mage’s reply, “I expected as much… but that sure is a shame.”

A strange feeling like when Cira activated the void chamber trembled through the room, and Nanri watched her mother disappear, only to reappear clutching her gut as blood poured from a wide slash.

No way… Mom—Mother couldn’t really be defeated…. Can she?

Despite her wounds, she kept disappearing and reappearing while her opponent did the same, narrowly dodging blades aimed for her throat or heart. During this time, Nanri funneled all the mana she could into her efforts outside. She was far too weak to join in as she was now, but she hatched a few ways to make up for that after watching Cira.

The second volume of the Sorcerer’s Compendium, ‘The Incipient Sorcerer’s Guide’, taught Nanri that even if she didn’t feel an affinity to take space as a secondary element, it was important to have base comprehension of its laws. To neglect space itself was to deny the reality of danger facing any sorcerer striving for great heights.

Space of course existed within all. While it was known in witchcraft as the rarest and most difficult of reality-driven elements, sorcery placed it as a primary element. Nowhere in the real world possessed a lack of space, unless done personally to atomize mushrooms or some other similar task. In a sense, its nature made it the most primary of all elements.

A sorcerer did not need command over space to be aware of it. Conjurations were of course derivative of aether at the end of the day. With proper comprehension and practice, one’s sorcery could take shape entirely outside of the spatial realm, thus making it impossible for a spatial mage to detect it unless specifically looking for such a phenomenon.

There was no mention of the aethereal realm being something a caster could utilize directly in school back on Porta Bora, and Nanri had never heard a word about it on Nightwing Isles or from her mother. So, she gambled on this being a trick that perhaps even this imposing mage couldn’t pick up on immediately.

“Eliza, you fight dirty…” The Silver Witch’s wound had recovered in a matter of seconds in a swath of her trademark radiance. “Do you think I’ve lived this long allowing people to run away from me?”

Silver dust had formed clouds across the room and trailed into the sky outside. Sparks flashed throughout it as if following a specific sequence and pattern. All of a sudden, Nanri’s aura trembled. The sense of will she held over it felt dulled, and the ambient aether which touched her skin felt further and further away by the second. As if it was inhibiting her entire ability to realize, notice, or understand mana. Like the will-break imposed by indemnite but painfully heavy.

She watched her mother float out past the hole in the wall as metallic twangs echoed on the breeze. Nanri’s array of ramshackle indemnite spears nearly fell to the ground like a paper mâché kite when the wind supporting it dies down. For a moment, she almost lost control over the potential array she was crafting outside.

Nanri clenched her fists and maintained focus. She had gathered a great deal of earth mana within the aethereal plane just beneath her feet and all around her. It wasn’t like conjuring mana to use later—she was simply increasing the density of earth in the surrounding aether—marginally, given the scale of the aethereal realm, but significant to little Nanri.

Arranging it in different concentrations at different points would allow her to realize and activate it all in one fell swoop—that was the idea anyway. This would soon become a domain where her specialization could thrive.

The weight of the mana lessened as her mother flew around outside chasing the invisible woman, but Nanri didn’t feel right accepting the relief. She shouldn’t tremble beneath her own mother, former master. Even if she never became a sorcerer, how could she ever fight beside—or against—someone whose presence made her shiver in instinctual fear?

It took her back to the spring chamber. Cira had protected her from its oppressive resonance from the moment she got anywhere close. She couldn’t let something so paltry as a silver domain incapacitate her so.

“The seventh tablet of the forgotten age,” Eliza’s voice faded in and out like it had raced by behind her head from one side to the other. “Ancient magics and much… much more is hidden within—”

The Silver Witch appeared inside the hallway again a flash of light and held a freshly materialized Eliza by the throat, pressing her against the wall.

“I’m starting to think I should remove your tongue first,” mana burned off Nimara like silver flames. Sharp pins appeared across Eliza’s flesh and pierced every joint in unison. Light sparked around her body but faded as her eyes widened in shock. “Do you think I’ve simply been toying with you this whole time?”

Nanri watched knots form in space where Eliza tried to do something she couldn’t discern. As if there were runic formations woven into space and failing at one point or the other. The countless silver blades from earlier shined in resistance with each attempt.

No way… Like the field blocking the forbidden archive. This whole time, has Mother been severing Eliza’s passive sorceries with each missed silver blade? Only a piece at a time, whittling away just enough so it fails when she needs it, or disconnecting her from whatever path she intended to escape through. Even her robes are mended and free of blood stains… there hasn’t been any noticeable decrease in her aura despite turning the sky silver… I sure wouldn’t want to fight my mother.

“Damn you, Nimara,” Eliza choked out words and spit up blood, her dark eyes burning with indignant fury. Nanri heard the distinct sound of splintering wood around her. “Do you think I’ve been ready to face you for any less than a hundred years?!”

As a hurricane of blades wore down on Eliza’s barrier, countless lacerations built up to soak her entirely in her own blood. Her limbs seemed to shrivel up as the light behind her eyes dimmed, the Silver Witch’s grip tightened around her neck. The last of the air in her lungs escaped in a primal growl as the blood coating her body almost seemed to shine.

In the blink of an eye, the blood disappeared. Eliza was pale as a ghost, but her grin grew despite her lifeless eyes. A brief spark of mana burst from the Silver Witch’s finger as all the rings on her fingers shattered. The surrounding blades crumbled and even some of the silver dust turned to light.

Countless weapons and trinkets materialized in mid-air, only to clatter to the ground. The look on her mother’s face was shock the likes of which she had never even seen before. This mage was on the verge of death and somehow pulled one over on her.

She still looks like she could die any second though—

As Nimara’s hand started to fill with mana to the tune of her enraged shouts, golden light surrounded Eliza. Her skin regained its color and the radiance coalesced to resist the silver flames around her neck.

She laughed easily like she wasn’t being strangled, then again disappeared into light.

“Bitch—” The Silver Witch had already conjured a spear, but there stood Eliza, protecting her heart by placing a strange stone plaque in front of it.

“Now, now… Don’t be too hasty.” Eliza smirked as the silver dissipated. She held the tablet out in front of her, “You can’t even read this, can you?”

The mage’s eyes squinted as Nimara’s face turned red with rage. “You give that back…” Her voice seemed to reach for the heavens. “Immediately.”

The world shook, but Eliza only kept reading with a faint smile. Nanri caught a glimpse of the runes atop the stone and her eyes went wide.

“Huh… restrictions…? Of what…?”

Both prolific casters in the room turned to Nanri with surprise. Her mother with abject shock and fear, but Eliza with pointed interest.

“N-Nanri…” Her mother had grown unnaturally pallid. “Why… Why do you recognize those runes?”

“Goodness,” Eliza’s gaze grew distant, pointed somewhere Nanri couldn’t see, “How fascinating.”

“You wretched woman.” The Silver Witch snarled, and Eliza’s limbs started to pull away. A silver glint in the Lamplight revealed threads wrapped tightly around them. Drops of blood fell from each of many points it sliced into her skin, ignoring any supposed barrier she may have had. “You will not steal from me.”

Red lines formed and Eliza’s legs fell into three pieces each while her arms disconnected in the same moment. The hand grasping the stone tablet was cut into cubes. Like bursts of gravity, each slice was accompanied by a pulse of silver light that threatened to make Nanri buckle at the knees.

The mage’s body dissipated into a cloud of bloody mist, while she reformed from a shining slice of skin touching the tablet. Her hand regrew with a firm grasp around it, and she wore a jeering smile waving it around in the air.

“You’re running out of time to stop me, Witch.”

Somehow the fact that she sounded at least a little winded was a relief to Nanri.

I’m seriously powerless against such a foe… Even Madam Estelle would be useless here. I need to get stronger. I doubt if even my array could harm her—and it’s taking so long to gather. Who knows if it will even work.

Ignoring the glittering treasures strewn about the floor, the Silver Witch exploded through the room straight into Eliza in a javelin of mana. She rammed right through her, piercing the hull again to let in a breeze from one side to the other.

Nanri was left bewildered and alone as the dust settled. Her cell had been destroyed by a combination of light and silver blades, so it’s not like she could just go sit back down. It was impossible for the novice sorcerer to determine who would win the fight between them. The Silver Witch would certainly end her fight in an execution, as she always did, and Nanri had no reason to believe this mage wasn’t the same.

This did indeed concern her. The mage stated she hadn’t come to bother Nanri, but if she could really overpower the Silver Witch… As irritating as it was, her mother was in trouble. It was outside her purview as a sorcerer, as someone far weaker than both combatants, but Nanri didn’t recall a direct philosophy which regarded strong opponents.

On one hand, the first volume of the ‘Sorcerer’s Compendium’ was full of Gazen fighting things he had no business messing with, and the absurd leaps in logic that lead to any given breakthrough he had in the heat of the moment. Even Cira had tackled a job that had no obvious solution. Eradicating plague, floods, and the rampage of a creature nobody understood. After spending some time with her, it was clear she was making it up as she went in regards to her methods.

So… prepare for the struggle, hope for leisure? That sounds about right. Yeah… I’ll just sneak that into my sorcerer’s code.

Nanri’s imprisoned leisure time was equivocal to progress on the sorcerer’s path, reinforced by the fact that she didn’t have much space to move around. Lazing about and manipulating nearby mana in trial and error was a good way to keep one’s mind occupied.

Let’s see. Turning aether into earth mana seemed simple at first, but the more it grows, it’s trying to escape my grasp. Just what is pulling on it?

It was split in four uneven directions as if there were things beyond the clouds which pulled on it as the moon would the tides. Unknown forces that subtly dragged on her refined mana, perhaps yearning to reassimilate it. Distant points of contention within the aethereal realm.

Nanri had no way of knowing one branch of her gathered mana in fact pointed toward Breeze Haven and the Shadow Spring, but she had fallen into a state of concentration to try and reel it in.

Refined or not, this mana is yet untamed. I need to finish my array.

Mana encased the Silver Witch’s ship like a wide net, arranged in geometric patterns like one of Cira’s barriers, as if a single plate could fall off and be replaced before any further damage was done. Nanri didn’t have control over space enough to see through it, but earth was another matter. One of her main areas of study lately had also been converting ambient aether or even other types of mana into her own.

Ripe for the plucking anywhere was water, of course. The air became dry as the world around her seemed to sparkle. The family’s servants were all hiding away in their quarters or wherever they happened to have been when the first explosion went off, save for Oliander who stood on the deck with a random sword she was too weak to wield, spinning around frantically with each fluctuation in mana.

Whatever did mother do to earn such a loyal servant? Oliander possesses no skill in combat, nor even an aura… She sure does deserve one though.

Outside, Nanri watched her mother and Eliza flicker in and out of her field of control. The woman’s red hair glinted in the sun each time she appeared, always surrounded by a barrier of many mana types molded around each other—interwoven would be a better word. She could damn near turn it into aether, but it seemed that wasn’t the point.

Mother isn’t even wounded… and Eliza is on the back foot, but she still has that plaque in her hand. Just what was that? It was the same language Cira carved into the ground of Uru’s cure workshop. Is the tablet cursed? I only recognized a single word… but I couldn’t say why or how after just looking at a few inscriptions.

The Silver Witch appeared from the ambient dust as blades of silver formed tendrils behind and around her. Eliza appeared suddenly with a strange look on her face like she had been caught off guard and the sound of countless blades sliding against each other like shears echoed through the sky. Blood poured from Eliza’s back as she yowled and tried to disappear into light, but each glimmer she dissolved into turned silver and faded away.

Eliza’s expression grew dire as she stopped the light entirely, leaving her with gaping holes in her side or shoulder, down her legs and in her hand.

I think I get it now… She’s turning herself into light bit by bit, but how does her consciousness remain? Perhaps I just need to trust my will… There’s no reason I can’t do that without light. I heard Cira even turned herself into lightning—at least that’s how it appeared to the journalists.

Well, here goes nothing.

Nanri’s domain was complete in full and active. She could see anywhere within it she set her mind to, and it felt as if she were thinking from the same omniscient perspective anyway. Following this train of thought, she condensed the air’s humidity into miniscule drops of titanium which slowly took shape.

To call it a control domain would be an exaggeration, but Nanri could control the amount of earth that existed nearby.

“Y-young mistress?!” Oliander shrieked as the blade in her hand almost fell out of her hands, ‘Is… is that really you?”

Well, that worked fabulously. Her shortrange transportation’s success only solidified the notion that it could be done. I wonder what happened to my body—oh…

A mess of hexagonal prisms of crystalized titanium lay scattered around the hallway where she just disappeared.

“It is I.” Nanri smiled at the woman who used to tuck her into bed at night. “You shouldn’t be out here, Oli. My mother’s debts are her own. There’s no reason you should come to harm to settle them.”

“Wha… Young Mistress, what are you talking about?” The sword’s tip hit the ground as the servant seemed to lose her strength. “You—you need to get inside! Quick, come with me!”

The woman grabbed her hand, but Nanri shook it off and placed a hand on her shoulder. Her usual smile didn’t quite assuage Oliander’s concerns.

“This attacker is an even match for Mother. I’ll simply jump in and help drive her away. Now, I need you to get inside—” Her words died in her throat.

Nanri watched on in horror as Oli’s eyes became placid and she choked up blood. There was a jagged sword protruding from her belly.