Choosing to say out of the Alliance, the Cinders are isolated in their own conflicts, and when Helia Cinder reaches to the void for answers, she inadvertently draws a creature out. Expecting to be eaten alive, she is instead left with a man with no...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Riff suggested that he rest and recuperate for a day or two, but Wren would hear nothing of it as he headed down the halls of the complex. Windows out to the world showed desert adobes and cloth awnings leading into a crowded market area. This was a mage-controlled area off one of the edges of the Sol deserts. Riff said it was Aurion territory now, but it used to belong to the Songs before their territory was split between the mages and the Sols. It was isolated but also populated, so their occupying the complex on the edge of the city wasn't seen as suspicious. The people just expected some rich, entrepreneurial mage was taking up residence in the battlegrounds for one reason or another.
That left them undisturbed as Riff led Wren into Blaze Cinder's quarters. As soon as the door opened, the old mage jumped to his feet. Like Wren, Blaze was nearing a hundred, and his hardened amber eyes showed each battle he'd fought. If a grand mage wasn't killed, they could make it to near four hundred years, but most perished within the first century. Calling to magic extended the human life span, but harboring it brought enemies down on them. It was always give and take.
"Wren Song," Blaze said, standing up from behind an ornate, wooden desk and stretching, his back clacking together unhealthily. Blaze noticed Wren's attention with a narrowing of his eyes. "Fighting with Talamayas to get you was no easy feat. I'll be back at my best in a day or so. Got rattled around the canyon walls with flame magic."
"You were part of the infiltration mission to rescue me?"
"Procure you, yes. It wasn't considered rescue unless we could fix you, though if you're here we finally succeeded in wiping out the decades of captivity."
Blaze ran a hand through long spikes of red hair, darker and more orange than the Song's natural color. It ran only to the back of his neck, tickling the white robes of the Cinders, flames embroidered at his collar and on the edge of his suit coats, but he wore no sleeves. Bare muscle ran the man thicker than Wren could ever build with his leaner form, and even Riff paled in comparison as the strongest physically of the Songs. If only muscle mass could triumph over soulless beasts, then they'd have won this war already.
"One would think you at last skeptical of my recovery if you were prudent," Wren replied, a smirk raising his lips as Blaze's expression pinched in.
Riff knew Wren, so it was no surprise that he could see a difference, but this man was an outsider. Assuming Wren was not an enemy without solid proof could be the death of them in the near future, and he wanted to make sure they hadn't allied with a fool. Songs, Wren trusted. They were a superior breed, but mages in general, not as much.
"If you had your memories, you would have already spit in my face over the use of your name, Wren Song. Couldn't get you to shut up about it when we brought you in." Blaze waved him off with a hand as they headed into a back room connected to his office.
"My name?" Wren asked as he walked through the door, not understanding how that had any bearing on his behavior. His eyes flicked to another chair with constraints and a new pile of horror meant for removing his brands. The distraction of conversation was welcome as Blaze and Riff circled the tables to prepare.
