Page 57 of A Soul’s Awakening

“Peter, activate the array. Mandy, keep him in line. There’s been a change of plans.”

“What? Wait—” The runes beneath me ignited. Light surged upward, forming a barrier that sealed me inside. Silver chains erupted from the floor, coiling around my wrists and ankles, tightening until I could barely move. “Let me go!”

“Fighting will only drain your magic faster,” Mandy smirked. A sharp spike of pain pierced behind my eyes as her magic forced its way into my mind. This time I recognized it for what it was, and resisting only made it worse.

“Bring in another phantom.” Alistair demanded. No more than five minutes later, a rift warden dragged a confused, middle-aged male phantom into the room and bound him before me with chains. He looked like a feral beast, foaming at the mouth with milky white eyes as he violently fought against his restraints.

“Give the phantom something sharp.” Alistair asked calmly. “I want to test something.”

Peter felt around his monitoring station, hesitating before sliding a pair of scissors across the floor toward the phantom. He picked them up, the pointed edges facing my neck.

No one had to command the phantom to attack. With a vicious grunt, he lunged with the blade. I raised my arm to shield my face, reaching out with my magic in an attempt to stop the phantom from stabbing me.

The phantom pushed against my hold, his chubby fingers shaking against my magic pushing against him. In the end, I didn’t have the heart to hurt him and I lost the battle.

“Please,” I rasped, but no one showed me any pity. The blade dragged across my skin. White hot agony split my arm, but I endured the pain. Warm blood welled instantly as it dripped down my arm and pooled onto the floor.

“Resonance spike confirmed,” Peter said, staring at the monitors. His voice was focused, clinical. “Energy output increasing proportionally to trauma. Both of them!”

The air around me hummed as my own magic stirred inside me, rising to the threat of my survival. The floor beneath my feet shimmered as faint traces of dark magic sparked outward from my body.

“Fascinating.” Peter was examining my arm from outside the barrier. “He can do more than just send phantoms back to the Nether. He can actually control them … although not completely. He struggles to order them around. And this …” He pointed at my arm. “We knew his death magic could heal, but this … it’s reactive, like it has a mind of its own. He’s not even controlling it, but it’s still working to protect him. Similar to Alex before we broke him.”

Alistair smirked. “And Caspian.”

I said nothing as the scissors were ripped out of the phantom's hands and he was dragged away. My vision blurred at the edges. The world seemed farther away, like I was sinking backward inside my own body. The warmth beneath my sternum cooled to a faint ember. My thoughts slowed, dragged through mud.

“That magic of yours is troublesome, isn’t it? Hard to control?” I didn’t look up at Alistair but I could feel his stare. “Alex couldn’t control it, and Caspian pretended it didn’t exist. Let us help you. Let me remove it—”

“Fuck off!” I could feel my magic boiling inside me. It didn’t want to be given up, and I wasn’t about to let the Syndicate take it.

Alistair chuckled. “I didn’t think you’d let it go so easily. Very well. Magic objects are one thing, but implanting magic into someone is a risky procedure anyway, one we haven’t quite perfected yet. But perhaps we could with your cooperation. In the meantime, it makes more sense to force you into submission.”

“What …” I tried to steady my ragged breathing. “What the fuck do you want from me?”

“The three of you have been rather educational,” Alistair continued, pacing slowly. “Caspian could manipulate magic itself. We believed we could use him to temper unstable wielders, to force their power into obedience.”

He glanced toward Peter’s readings.

“Then we found Alex. A human born in the underworld. He shouldn’t have survived, yet he did. His magic stabilizes what should collapse.”

My vision blurred.

“And you, Theo …” He crouched at the edge of the array and pressed both palms against the glowing boundary. The sigils ignited under his touch. “You’re the heart of it all. You generate magic.”

Runes flared. The chains tightened, and the warmth beneath my ribs thinned. Something was very wrong. My strength drained first. My fingers numbed. My muscles trembled and failed. It felt like something had opened inside me and was siphoning everything out in a slow, merciless stream.

“The black rings you see people using? A diluted safeguard. This …” He pressed harder into the rune. “This is their true source. My magic doesn’t just restrain others, it can drain and absorb it, allowing us to much more easily study it. We’ve been cautiously using that bottle of magic Leon gave me. It’s time we took a bit more.”

The array pulsed brighter. I couldn’t hold myself up anymore. My body felt hollow, bones too heavy, limbs too distant.

“It’s all starting to make sense,” he continued. “You are not separate anomalies.” His eyes locked onto mine. “You are fragments. A broken force split three ways. Caspian shapes it. Alex anchors it. You build it. Individually, you’re all impressive.”

The chains constricted again, draining more of my strength and magic.

“Together?” He smiled faintly. “You are something else entirely. We would have never succeeded with just one of you, but imagine what the three of you combined would be capable of?”

My head swam. “There’s a flaw in your plan,” I rasped. “Caspian is dead, remember? I killed him myself. We might share magic, but it’s not the same. I can’t do the things he used to do. And you can’t recreate something that adapts.”