Unbroken

Chapter 1: Unrivalled

We bring you to the beginning - not where it all began, but where it all went wrong; where the lies grew, where the corruption gained sentience, where the foe was no longer clear and the friend was tainted...

It's a similar starting point. You'll be familiar with everything - the characters, the place, the setting. What you won't be familiar with is how it all ended. By then, it will all be beyond recognition as the Deathsinger notices something different about the Tidesinger that he first thought was good. How quickly he turned out to be wrong...

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Mt Velgrin.

Night.

No-one knew what time of day it was for the moon had been blanketed over with dark and stormy clouds, blinding the people to its luminescence – just as they had over the sun during the day – destroying any hope that anyone would once again see the light of the moon on the other side of war.

The power coursed through his veins like an unfettered vortex, swirling around his body and his mind, singing as it swam through his blood and numbing him to everything he had ever known. He had always wondered what power felt like when it was given freely. He had always wondered what pushed the Deathsinger to fight for power that he knew he shouldn't have – what possessed him to do all that he did? What possessed him to turn into the monster he had? He thought the same about Thalleous Sendaris for years – how he was the champion he was because of the power that was handed to him, how he became an unstoppable force because he embraced that power. How he wondered what possessed Thalleous to enter those tournaments time and time again for power that he could have, but felt he wanted more than anything...

Well, now he knew.

At first, he fought it. He panicked the immediate second following his connection with that power and tried to fight back against the corruption that promptly swamped his mind, erasing the faces of those that he loved, removing the memories that he cherished most and dampening his raw emotions down into nothingness – until he felt only power. He didn't want any of that. In that panic, it only made him question the Deathsinger more – is this what he feels when he used them? Is this what he yearned for all along?

What is this emptiness?

The hand of corruption gripped tightly around his throat as he fought for breath, his mind closing in around him – a battlefield of the unknown. He couldn't discern whether he was afraid of becoming something that he wasn't or whether he feared what was to come if he were to stop struggling. He reacted violently to this power for days. His emotions were erratic as he tried to maintain a hold on the feelings he longed for the most, occasionally breaking through. His sleep became non-existent as, every time he closed his eyes, he saw the unseeable – things that no-one should be subjected to, in dreams or in reality – yet, eventually, he did not feel them. He was numb to the horrors after a while.

He was numb to everything after a while.

Eventually, he just stopped fighting it. He let go of his grip on himself and allowed this power to explore the corners of his mind that he had blocked off in protection. That power stole from there, too, and before long, he couldn't remember ever being without it. The naked feeling that he had when that power was absent within his body was a worse feeling than the grip of corruption that he felt around his throat, squeezing every last part of him out, evicting his own soul from his own body, and he was glad to have found this new self within.

He would even argue that he was all the better for it. Naturally, most disagreed.

Of course, that was then.

This was now.

Achillean Nestoris channelled that pure Aggressium energy within him until he could feel nothing but the burning of his insides with power unhindered. He eyed Ingressus Voltaris in front of him as he stood knowing all too well that he had lost the Great War and the battle for the Prime Songs. He held all but one of them, thanks to the Tidesinger in his endeavour to keep the last, and most powerful, one safe, and, unless he could get to that last one, the Deathsinger would fail in his promise to his clan. That was when he made it apparent that, all along, he had a backup plan that would push him forward once again – and in a time where he would be unopposed. He had every faith that his new plan would work and that there was nothing that anyone could do to stop him – not even the Tidesinger.