Borrowed Breath

She took a breath, humming a tune as she walked through the city streets, people giving her a wide berth. Nothing loud enough to cast a spell, just enough to see the waves floating through the air and to feel normal. When she wasn’t humming or singing, the world was flat. Colorless. Void. Music…helped. When she sang…the world was vibrant. Beautiful. Unfortunately, she could only hold her voice for a few hours before her battered, strained vocal cords forced her to stop. More often than not, when she was done, she couldn’t so much as speak for days. Those days were the worst. Gliding away from the destruction her magic caused was torturous, because it meant that for the next few days, she would feel nothing. Like the feeling when you want to die, but don’t have the wherewithal to end it yourself. A kind of…passive longing - to feel. No emotions to it, just a wistfulness, like when you remember a beloved place and wish you could be there once more.

Returning her attention to the road in front of her, she realized she had automatically walked to the inn her squadron was staying at. She eased the door open, the well-used hinges creaking as it revealed the warmth and boisterousness inside. She took a breath, inhaling the scents of ale, bread, and sweat that she had come to associate with relaxation. Her humming didn’t stop on the inhale, as she had long since learned to hum with every breath. The ethereal green threads emanating from her mouth traveled lazily through the patrons, making a path to nowhere. A few people turned, noticing her sheer, flowing robes that marked her as a Thread Singer. The more drunk men stared at her chest, her barely covered breasts apparently drawing the eyes of a few of them. She furrowed her brows at them as she walked. Many quickly turned away. The drunkest men stared anyway. Not from desire - but from curiosity. The way the glow of a sword still hot from the forge begs you to touch it. None of them would try anything, of course. Even if she was bound and gagged, as long as she could make a noise with her vocal cords (audible or otherwise) she could kill any one of them before she had to take a breath. And she’d wager a guess more than a few of them had seen that from other mages firsthand.

Swaying through the inn, she made her way towards the bar where one of the Veiled mages was sitting. Even with his blindfold on, the man swiveled in his seat, his black eye covering swinging in her direction. How they could see without seeing was beyond her. It was unnerving how they noticed everything around them with their sensory deprivation. The other patrons were giving the man a wide berth, every seat within ten feet of him empty. She snorted. As if that would help if he decided to do anything. He could level half the city if he wanted. Fortunately, his Breathless counterpart wasn’t around. The Veiled weren’t known for starting anything without their partners. She sat down next to the man at the bar. Glancing over, he gestured to her chest, motioning at her new enchanted nipple rings. “New gear?” She brushed her chest, revealing one of her new rings. ‘Mana storage. The right one’ she covered her left side, revealing the rune-covered peircing on her other breast ‘a ward.’ She made eye contact - or where she assumed his eyes were behind the blindfold. ‘Because your Breathless don’t always pay attention to where their magic goes.’ The man grunted in ageeement. “Bad experience with one of the new teams?” ‘You could say that. The asshole cast a gravity area spell. Broke two of my ribs and my nose hitting the rock I was standing on.’ The blindfolded man grunted, turning back to his drink. “A shame. The Veiled are known as the most disciplined of mages. Likely it was a new team that was foaming at the mouth to make a splash.”

Sighing after taking a sip of his ale, the mage next to her wiped his lips before responding. “I’d wager that their battalion commander ripped them a new one when they got back.” ‘Mmm.’ She raised an eyebrow, moving a hand to motion the bartender her way. Seeing her, the flighty woman behind the bar waved, noting that she had seen the request and would be there to take her order soon.

She sighed, glancing around her to see if anyone from her squad was still here or if they’d retired to their rooms. Noting no-one besides the lone mage sitting next to her, she turned back to the barkeep, who had made her way over.

The thread she had been humming to keep aloft flickered, disappearing as her vision went black.

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Gasping for air, she sat up, looking around wildly to figure out where she was.

Oh. Right. Battlefield. The pub was a memory from last night. She’d been deployed today. Wiping her eyes, she winced as she felt a slight tinge in her throat. Rubbing the spot with her hands, she glanced down to see the glowing runes on each ring in her chest go out. They were dead. Something had used both her ward and her mana storage that she had tucked away to keep it running.

Standing, she laid eyes on a small patrol of soldiers coming out of the brush several hundred yards ahead. Locking eyes with the lead soldier, she cleared her throat and began singing, threads reaching out to close the distance. As her threads came closer to the man, her throad started to burn. It felt like glass shards in her throat.

No matter. She’d sang through worse. Letting the soldiers catch her mid-song would hurt far more than pushing through. Adjusting her pitch, she closed her eyes to focus on her magic. She could see why the Veiled did this - it helped hone your attention during stressful castings.

Once her magic had started steadily unraveling from where she imagined her ‘core’ was, she opened her eyes to readjust to the scene in front of her. The soldiers had closed half the distance, having realized that her thread by itself wasn’t a threat.

Forcing air through the burning in her throat, she felt her airways twitch, tightening as if in rejection. Her threads were vibrating and flickering now - in response to her strained chords.

The soldiers were now less than thirty yards away. Far too close for comfort. She tried to push through the pain in her throat, feeling the air around her flicker as if being buffeted by wind coming straight down on top of her. Her threads flickered in between the shunts of air, as if in sequence with it.

Her lungs were burning. She couldn't let the soldiers get closer. The threads weren't responding - the were vibrating and flickering in between all of the soldiers, as if teasing her. Her vision faded as she continued trying to force her magic to bend to her will.

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Bodies were strewn everywhere. Some were still heaving their last breaths. Some choking on their own blood. Others were desperately crawling to an unknown destination, only to collapse.

The man looked back at his small patrol of soldiers filtering out of the brush toward the exhausted Thread Singer they'd spotted.

Most of the bodies they had to pick their way around were from their army. The enemy mages had made quick work of them, as usual. Fortunately, his patrol's job was to hunt down and kill mages who were too spent to fight back.

Like this one. He grinned as he picked up the pace, jogging towards the mage as she struggled to wrest her waning mana into something she could use.

The air around them flickered, the pressure changing slightly, as if they were jumping in and out of a lake. That was how they knew this particular mage was almost out of mana.

They were mere yards away from the mage now. Skewering her and ending one more plague on mankind. What all of those magic users did was unnatural. You weren't supposed to be able to simply bend reality to your whims - especially not by using something so sacred as your voice.

He was sprinting now, his spear ready to end this mage as viciously as she had his fellow soldiers. It would be a fitting death. He could see the whites of her wide eyes as she failed to get her voice under control. Just a few more steps.

A torn wail ripped through the air between them. “Aaauuuugh” - it was as if someone had torn a scream from the Thread Singer's mouth. And it was harrowing.

His team snapped their heads toward the mage. Had they miscalculated? Was this a Keener? No. It couldn't be. Only Thread Singers wore the sheer outfits. They used so much jewelry and piercings to enhance their magic that they had to wear sheer clothes to monitor the runes on their piercings.

The wail turned from a momentary lapse in vocal control into a deep, guttural roar.

An almost imperceptible slit formed between his patrol and the mage. It was as if someone had dumped the world on its side a shook it - he looked over his shoulder as he flew sideways in bewilderment.

Smashing into a nearby tree, he righted himself in time to get a good look at the mage.

She was crying. Tears were streaming down her face even as the struggled to stay standing.

Belting out the lyrics to a common Thread Singer's song meant to form a protective ward around the user, her song was twisted. The melancholic tune had turned into a guttural roar, a demand.

Her eyes were blue. Bright, striking blue. When did I get close enough to see the color of her eyes? He looked down, realizing that he was no longer by the tree he had crashed into.

He flailed, no longer making contact with the ground as this...woman...floated him through the air, close enough that the spittle from her distorted song landed on his face. It smelled of blood.

Looking to his side, desperately hoping for some backup, one of his squadmates floated by. Drops of weightless, coagulated blood were being squeezed from the man's pores. Panic took over as he tried, futilely attempting to escape whatever gravity spell she had cast.

He slammed into the ground face-first, breaking his nose before wriggling his face to the side to glare at the mage. Blood spilled through her teeth, staining her chin red as she tore the final chant from her throat.