The Wordless Mage
Chapter 51: His Soul Still Burns

Chapter 51: His Soul Still Burns

The demon pulled the finger that stabbed into Rowan, watching as a thick trail of red followed in the space that it retracted.

Rowan gasped, his body begging for air to pass through his lungs.

Only fire followed.

A flame that caressed his stomach and squeezed his insides, squirming through the parts that hurt most to remind him of the immeasurable pain.

He hunched forward, arms dangling helplessly in the formless black void beneath them. The absence of gravity made the motion sluggish, as though even pain floated freely here. He tried to close his mouth, but the fire in his throat leaked into his breath. Each inhale brought searing agony, and each exhale tasted of rust and smoke.

Liora reached out with trembling hands, her voice a screech twisted by desperation. "Rowan! Rowan, please! Tell me you’re not dead!"

His body twisted unnaturally, floating sideways before crumpling downward, curling into himself as if trying to contain the raw hurt coursing through every nerve. Blood spilled from his lips, trailing in long red tendrils that drifted weightlessly across the mental realm like ribbons.

The demon towered above him, its form nebulous, held together only by malice. Its face bent into a smile too wide for any human expression, a grin so vast it looked more like a gash ripped across a void.

"So ends the Wordless Mage," it whispered, its tone soaked in mockery and glee. "You had power--oh, yes, real power. But you let it slip through your fingers for fleeting human emotion. It’s a shame, really, although I think it makes it all the more entertaining for me."

Liora backed away a single step in the emptiness, though she touched nothing. Her heart throbbed with the unbearable rhythm of guilt, the weight in her chest growing heavier the longer she watched Rowan tremble.

"He’s not dead," she whispered to herself, her words stolen immediately by the silence. "He can’t be."

The demon’s laugh rumbled through the infinite black, its guttural joy vibrating even the stardust that made up this realm. "Ah, but he’s close, isn’t he? I can feel it. His soul... it flickers. Dim. Like a candle about to be blown out."

Rowan’s eyes opened a crack, bloodshot and hazy. But they found Liora. Through the haze, through the floating ash and weightless blood, they found her.

She dropped to her knees--or where knees would land if anything here were solid--and crawled toward him, her fingers cutting through motes of energy suspended like dust in a sunbeam. "Rowan, look at me. You’re still here. Just--just stay here. I’m right here."

"L-Liora..."

The sound of his voice, barely more than a whisper, reached her ears like a thunderclap in silence.

She bent closer, pressing her hand against his cheek. It burned to touch him--his skin fevered and raw--but she didn’t flinch. "It’s okay. I--I’ll get you out. I think I’ve figured out how now."

"No," Rowan coughed, blood trailing from his lips and spinning into the ether. "You... get out."

A roar erupted from the demon, impatient and furious. "Enough of this nonsense. I grow tired of your sentiment. It sickens me."

It lifted a jagged, obsidian foot, aiming to crush the both of them. A shadow, deeper than the void, fell over the pair.

Rowan’s hand moved.

Not by will. Not by strength. But by purpose.

His fingers curled over Liora’s own, his lips peeling open despite the blood coating them.

"My grimoire..." he mouthed.

Liora blinked. "What?"

The pressure of the demon’s foot loomed closer, and she felt time tighten like a noose.

"My--grimoire," Rowan hissed, the veins in his face glowing faintly.

She looked around wildly. There, just feet away, half-floating amidst ruins of memory and broken thought represented through poems--a book. Tattered. Empty.

But humming.

She lunged for it, propelling herself through the nothing with a flick of her tail. The moment her fingers brushed the cover, a surge of aether rushed up her arms like a shot of ice through her bones.

It was cold.

No--not cold. Silent.

The grimoire pulsed, not with light, but with intention. It wanted its master.

She hurled it toward Rowan with her all might, and the book flew open midair, pages fluttering.

The demon paused.

Rowan’s body twitched.

Then, he moved.

With a scream that fractured the endless dark above, he forced himself upright. Blood streamed freely, but still--he stood.

The grimoire slammed into his palm.

And for the first time outside of the light arcana he’d learned the first night with Liora, it was no longer wordless.

Lines burned into the pages in violent black and violet, symbols etched by divine fury.

The demon hissed. "No."

Rowan’s body surged upward, aether bleeding from every pore, wrapping around him like ribbons of rage.

He raised the book, not to read it, but to command it.

And the world began to shake.

The void cracked, as if reality itself had been shattered like a mirror. Fragments of long-lost memories orbited Rowan in a cyclone.

From that spiral, a shape took form.

Writbane.

A jagged blade of obsidian forged from nightmare, glowing faintly with violet runes. A ring of black matter encased the hilt, molded to his hand as if it had always belonged there.

Aether poured into the blade, warping space with its presence. The demon’s form recoiled, sensing it.

Rowan stared at it, then grasped it.

The moment he touched the hilt, the realm roared.

A shockwave of power burst from him, hurling the demon and Liora backward. Even in weightless space, it sent eddies of force cascading through the void.

His feet never touched ground. There was none.

But he stood tall.

Eyes glowing.

Breath steady.

"This," he whispered, "is mine."

The demon gawked.

"No. You can’t... you can’t wield it again. I broke you."

Rowan raised Writbane.

Flames erupted around him in a twisting spiral of black and violet, each one a cry of battle.

"You said it yourself," he said, voice indignant with fury. "I’m no hero. I’m something worse."

He vanished.

And reappeared with Writbane cleaving down, space parting like water around the edge of his blade.