Chapter 6: A Taste of Dominion

Chapter 6: A Taste of Dominion

The courtyard air was cool and crisp, a stark contrast to the thick, protective atmosphere of the receiving hall. Stone flags, weathered by time and magic, formed a wide circle, surrounded by Elara’s impossible gardens. It was a place of serene beauty, now repurposed as an arena.

Kael stood on one side of the circle, his heart a frantic bird trapped in his ribs. Opposite him, Lord Valerius radiated an aura of smug certainty. The Conclave mage held a slender, silver-inlaid wand, a tool Kael knew from his textbooks was designed to channel aether with rigid, intellectual precision. Kael had no such tool. He had only his own body, his own tumultuous emotions.

He was going to be humiliated. Or worse, dissected.

As Valerius took his stance, Elara glided to Kael’s side. She didn't look at the pompous lord. Her amethyst eyes were fixed on Kael, and in them, he saw none of the fear that was choking him. He saw a challenge.

“He believes your power is a flaw,” she murmured, her voice for his ears alone. “He thinks emotion is a weakness to be purged. He wants you to lose control, to erupt like a mindless beast. Prove him wrong.” She paused, her gaze intensifying. “Show him what control truly is.”

Her words were a strange comfort. She wasn't asking him to be the stone she’d commanded earlier. She was giving him permission to be the fire, but a fire with purpose. He remembered the feeling of Confluence, the sensation of her vast, ancient power cradling his own. He could still feel the phantom link between them, a silent, supportive presence at his back.

“Let the duel commence,” Valerius announced, his voice booming with self-importance.

Before the words had finished echoing, he flicked his wand. A bolt of pure white energy, sharp and geometric as a shard of glass, shot towards Kael.

Panic flared. Kael threw himself to the side, the bolt searing the air where his head had been. It struck the stone wall behind him, blasting a perfectly circular, cauterized hole in the ancient rock. This was Conclave magic: sterile, efficient, and lethal.

Kael scrambled back to his feet, breathing heavily. He had to defend. He remembered the lesson, the flow of aether. He drew a deep breath, reaching for the river inside him, trying to coax it into a shield.

Valerius sneered. “Dodging like a startled rabbit. Is that the extent of your ‘unorthodox’ training, Elara? Fleeing?”

Another bolt shot forth, faster this time. Kael raised his hands, pulling on his power. A shimmering, golden shield flickered into existence before him. It was warped, uneven, but it held. The white bolt shattered against it, showering the courtyard in harmless, glittering motes of light. The impact jarred him to the bone, but the shield didn't break.

A flicker of genuine surprise crossed Valerius’s face, quickly replaced by deeper contempt. “A crude but functional barrier. The stray has learned a single trick. How quaint.”

He began to press the attack. A volley of energy shards flew from his wand, each aimed with vicious precision. Kael was forced back, his shield groaning under the onslaught. It was all he could do to maintain it, pouring his energy into the simple act of survival. His control was tenuous, his power feeling clumsy and raw compared to the older mage’s refined assault.

“You see?” Valerius called out, his voice dripping with condescension as he advanced. “This is the flaw in vitalism! It is reactive, emotional, chaotic! It has no discipline, no artistry! It is the magic of the feral animal, not the scholar!”

Feral. Stray. Animal.

The words, the same ones used to condemn him his entire life, struck deeper than any energy bolt. The carefully constructed calm Kael had been fighting to maintain began to crack. The river of his aether began to boil.

And then, something new mingled with the heat of his anger. He looked at Valerius—at his sneering face, his arrogant posture, his utter disdain for everything Kael was, everything Elara was teaching him. The deep, protective desire he felt for Elara, the source of his greatest power, twisted. It was no longer a creative, life-affirming warmth. Focused through the lens of his rage, it became something else entirely.

It became a desire to see that sneer wiped from Valerius’s face. A desire to break his arrogant composure. A desire to make this man, this embodiment of the rigid, cruel world that had cast him out, submit.

It was a desire for dominion.

The golden light of his shield began to change. The warm, sun-like glow darkened, shifting to a deep, angry crimson. Veins of shadow, like black lightning, began to crawl across its surface.

Valerius faltered, his next attack dying on his lips as he stared at the transformation. “What is this foulness?” he hissed, unnerved for the first time.

Kael lowered the shield. He was no longer on the defensive. The raw, aggressive energy now coursing through him demanded release. He felt it flow down the channels Elara had mapped on his skin, no longer a gentle stream but a hungry, predatory tide.

He extended a hand, not to project a simple bolt, but to grasp.

From his palm, five tendrils of the crimson-and-shadow energy erupted. They were not solid light but something semi-corporeal, writhing through the air like living whips. They moved with a terrifying, predatory intelligence.

Valerius hastily conjured a gleaming silver shield. But Kael’s tendrils did not slam into it. They flowed around it, wrapping it, constricting it. The silver shield groaned, fractured, and then imploded into dust.

A strangled gasp escaped Valerius’s lips. He took an involuntary step back.

Kael advanced. The fear was gone, burned away by this new, intoxicating power. He felt a ruthless clarity he had never known. He was the predator now. Valerius was the prey.

“Crude, you called it?” Kael’s voice was a low growl, unrecognizable to his own ears. “Reactive?”

He snapped his hand forward. The tendrils shot past Valerius, striking the stone floor around him. They didn’t blast it; they sank into it like roots, then erupted upwards, forming a cage of writhing, shadowy energy that trapped the Conclave mage.

Valerius fired a desperate blast from his wand, but the shadowy bars absorbed it without a shimmer. He was powerless. The arrogant lord, the high-ranking inspector, was caught in a cage woven from the very "feral" magic he despised.

Kael walked forward until he stood just outside the bars, looking at the trapped man. Valerius’s face was pale, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and disbelief. Kael raised his hand again, and one of the tendrils detached from the cage, hovering before Valerius's throat like a striking serpent.

He could feel the man's terror. He could feel the thrumming, ecstatic power in his own veins, urging him to finish it, to show this man the true meaning of dominion. The taste of it was intoxicating, a dark wine of absolute control.

And it horrified him.

The image of Valerius, throat scorched, collapsing to the floor, flashed in his mind. And it was his own hand, his own power, that would do it. The ruthlessness that had felt so pure a moment ago suddenly felt like a poison.

With a choked gasp, Kael dropped his hand.

The cage of shadow dissolved. The tendrils of crimson energy evaporated into nothingness. The courtyard was silent, save for Valerius's ragged breathing.

Kael stared at his own hands, which were trembling violently. He had won. He had dominated his opponent utterly. But the victory felt foul in his mouth. He had not just channeled his desire; he had channeled his rage, his cruelty. He had looked into the abyss of his own capabilities and seen a monster staring back, a monster that had enjoyed the fear in another man’s eyes. The feeling of that dark, ruthless power unnerved him to his very soul.