Kael pressed his arm down against a pile of mindstones, absorbing over forty in a single sweep.
His face was deathly pale, and his eyes dim. From his chest down his coat was soaked dark red, and his hair had long since turned from white to nearly black. The chain hadn't passed through him cleanly. An arm's length of intestine had been dragged out with it.
He took stock of his surroundings.
Syleena sat in front of him with her eyes closed, fully focused on searching his inner realm and holding her ground in against Will. Aven stood frozen like a statue, staring up into the darkness, still pulling at his hair.
It was clear Kael was the most practiced at splitting his consciousness.
Ever since the fight club, where he had learned to keep part of his attention on his inner realm at all times, it had proven to be an unexpected teacher. Both for managing pain and keeping a dulled mind functional.
He glanced down at the refinement orb and a gurgle escaped his lips.
Guiding the final law was already time consuming under normal circumstances. But with his consciousness divided three ways his mind was running at a third of its usual capacity, and it showed directly in the refinement. What normally would have taken two hours might now take three.
Inside Kael's inner realm Aven's Will moved like a tsunami of bad intent, crashing through the space in every direction. He was completely lost in it, searching frantically like a rabid dog.
'Curse you, Aven.'
Kael flicked his wrist and forced his Will onto Syleena. He wanted to stop Aven, but ever since splitting his consciousness he had been forced to put all focus on her. Finding a mote in his inner realm was more luck than skill anyway, and he was fairly certain Syleena wouldn't let Aven destroy another even if he found one. So he kept his focus where it mattered.
It was a strange thing to witness. Both Syleena and Kael stood almost shoulder to shoulder, moving their Wills in careful, deliberate patterns. The clashes produced no sound, making it look less like a fight and more like two people silently conducting something neither of them fully controlled.
Inside Syleena's inner realm neither of them stood still. Left, right, up, down, Kael's entire body moved as he guided his Will with something close to Aven's desperation, just better aimed. Syleena moved the same, flinging her arm, cutting to wherever his went.
And through all of it Kael's mind kept working.
'What would happen if I completely replaced her Will with mine?'
If he managed it, would she die? Would he gain full control of her Thoughts? He wasn't certain, but he was confident of one thing: if he pulled it off, every mote resting in her inner realm would be laid bare to him.
Theoretically possible. Practically, close to impossible.
The difference between attacking and defending an inner realm came down to one thing. Whoever's inner realm you stood in, their soul was constantly producing fresh Will of its own. Which meant that no matter how oppressive Kael's crimson was in here, it still couldn't match hers on her own ground. Her Will replenished itself in a way his never could from the outside. It was one of the few places where home ground was an unambiguous advantage, a natural defence built into the realm itself.
'I only need a moment. But I need to fully cleanse her Will.'
A gamble. That was what it came down to.
His eyes sharpened.
He retracted his consciousness from his own inner realm entirely, leaving Syleena and Aven free to search it without resistance.
A clap rang through Syleena's realm as Kael brought his hands together.
Instantly his Will struck with several times more precision. Like a red sun erupting at the center of her inner realm, crimson exploded outward and swallowed her River of Will whole. It moved in rolling waves, like a tide washing over a mountain, until everything in her inner realm became as clear to him as his own. Not a single mote escaped his notice.
He swept past thirty before he found what he was looking for.
Kael reached towards the river and clenched his fist. The entire crimson mass surged toward it at once. A tendril rose from it carrying something small between its coils, a glass ball no larger than a grape.
He lifted it gently between his index finger and thumb, then turned to face Syleena.
She was gasping, but the air didn't seem to reach her.
The moment Kael eased his focus her River began pushing back, snow white bleeding through the crimson with each passing second. But it didn't matter anymore.
"This is it, Syleena." Kael said.
Syleena met his eyes with barely contained spite.
"I'll kill you." she said.
Kael's eyes narrowed.
"The moment you move I'll destroy this mote."
Syleena's fingers twitched but she stayed still.
She knew it too. She could kill him right now, but not fast enough to stop him from reacting first.
Kael held her gaze.
This had been a two stage gamble. First, abandoning his inner realm entirely. And second, counting on her valuing her Soulbound mote enough that she would have no choice but to treat him as an equal, not someone at her mercy.
"I underestimated you…" she started. "I've been underestimating you since the day we met."
Syleena's Will stilled in both inner realms. She took a deep breath and turned to face him.
Under normal circumstances she wouldn't have been too worried about him holding her mote. Refining a Soulbound mote meant cleansing it completely of the owner's Will and replacing it with your own, then tearing it free from the soul it was bound to. From her experience that took hours. But at this point she couldn't place a limit on what Kael's Will was capable of. From everything she had seen, it was a genuine concern that he could strip her Will from the mote in an instant.
"I'll retract from your inner realm if you drop it."
Kael shook his head.
He had decided before he ever reached it that he wasn't giving it back. Not in his current state. He was running low on everything, and he wouldn't get an opening like this again. The moment he released it, Syleena would start searching his inner realm again. He didn't know exactly what he would do with it yet, but he knew two things clearly.
He wasn't letting go. And that… he wanted it.
Kael turned the glass pearl over in his fingers. He had no logical explanation beyond gut instinct. If he were to cleanse her Will from the mote it wouldn't take him more than ten minutes.
His mind churned.
Was it even reasonable?
What did it mean to take someone's Soulbound mote? Could he place it in his own soul instantly, or did it require something more? Were Soulbound motes compatible with any soul, or only certain ones? If he actually managed it would his soul take more damage, or begin to heal?
Drowning in his own ignorance, Kael extended the mote toward the remnants of his Will.
Syleena's eyes widened.
No matter how he looked at it, death was smiling at him from every direction. He might as well spend what was left testing a theory.
Crimson tendrils surged toward the mote. Just as they were about to make contact, Kael's pupils dilated.
Completely against his own Will, as though instinct had seized control, his consciousness tore itself from Syleena's inner realm, passed through his own, and slammed back into his physical body in the hollow mountain.
A black javelin descended from the sky like the wrath of a forgotten god. It drove straight through his chest and pinned him to the ground. Sharp cracks rang out as his spine strained against the pressure, threatening to snap.
Kael was staked to the earth mid motion, the refinement orb thrust outward in a trembling arm, held away from the ground as if by pure reflex.
His eyelids grew heavy.
Torin floated above, eight black marble javelins orbiting him as he reached for another. With an effortless motion he hurled it down.
Another javelin came.
It drove straight through the refinement orb and into Kael's palm, then kept going. Bone shattered, flesh ripped, and it punched through his arm and out through his shoulder blade before pinning him to the ground a second time.
Kael's mind was blank as he watched the refinement orb shatter.
With what little remained of his senses he managed one last dismissal.
A familiar mote appeared in his lap.
Then stones began falling from the ceiling as a thunderous roar tore through the cave.
Torin turned.
Before anything could register a massive shadow struck him. A tree, dozens of times larger than Torin, slammed into him and sent him flying like a bullet. A second explosion rang out somewhere in the distance as he hit a wall.
That was the last thing Kael saw before everything went dark.