Leybound Chapter Fifty-Two | Spellcraft

Moran stood and gestured for Riot to approach. “Take off your jacket, please, and roll up your sleeves.”

Riot took off the blue uniform. It looked like a rag now, and he had refused to let the infirmary take it away; he wouldn’t even let them try to wash it as the dirt and dried blood were likely the only things holding the threadbare fabric together. 

“In a moment, I will ask you to remove the barrier between yourself and the ley line. I will then bind this spell to you.”

Riot felt his heart skip a beat; removing the barrier had only ever felt like a death sentence to him. 

“You’ve done this before?” Riot asked. 

Moran coughed. “No, not as such, but I understand the principle well enough. This spell will grow with your power and is almost unlimited in its ability to do so. The only thing that will limit it is your own ambition and any resistance you might offer during this process. Is this clear?”

“I can’t fight it,” Riot summarized.

“More than that, you will have to surrender, long past the point where you think you might be consumed. I realize that capitulation is not in your nature, but you will have to place your pride to one side.”

“What’s the spell?”

“There is only one spell; the arcane ley lines are a pure force; the spell allows you to condense, shape, and release that force in a desired direction. With diligence, the ability might be turned to some other use, however, sadly for most, it remains a blunt instrument akin to an ogre using a mandolin for a club.” Moran took off his own fine jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, leaning over to peer at the paper. “The process is somewhat uncomfortable, and it is best if you do not move. Resistance will result in poor quality binding and leave a nasty scar.” 

Riot recalled the ugly scarring on the hands of some of the leybound and then the smooth, almost invisible runes on the backs of Natalia’s and Price's hands. 

“We should begin; please start to deconstruct the barrier.”

Riot hesitated; the barrier was leaking, and he could feel the light flow filling his system, but removing the barrier would mean facing the full force of the ley line. 

“If you cannot do this, sergeant, then I will have to assist you, but it would be better if you were willing.”

“Yes, bloody surrender, I know,” Riot snapped. 

Riot faced the wall—the heavy slabs he had hurled into place when he was deep in the forest on the verge of death. His anger had held the ley line at bay at that time, and he summoned it now. It came easily enough; he was still angry at Norton's death and Natalia’s betrayal and frustrated that the leybound were being shipped back as prisoners. 

With an internal growl, he pulled down the wall, the blocks tumbling away and evaporating in the flood that flowed in. He resisted for a split second, then gave up, trusting Moran and letting himself be carried away on the surge, feeling the ley line tear through his body, seeking out every available space. The gray light flared, and he was blinded, and Moran's voice came from far away. 

“I will begin.”

The moment the words left the arcanists lips Riot's skin caught fire, and he howled in pain. It felt like someone had taken a smashed glass bottle and was scoring lines down his forearms and onto the backs of his hands. He felt dampness on his skin and heard the steady flow of drops of blood hitting his ruined shoes, pattering onto the floor. There was a roaring sound in his ears that felt like he was caught in a raging river, and the temperature plummeted so fast that he gasped. He forced himself into stillness, turning gasping breaths into deep breaths in and out. 

His skin burned, but it was nothing compared to the pain he had felt in the forest when the ley line had almost burned him from the inside out, and it wasn’t as bad as when he had been bound and the ley line had surged through his raw system, splitting his joints and muscles apart. 

“Well done, sergeant; very good,” Moran said.

Riot’s vision cleared slightly, and he looked down at his arms, almost losing control. The dirty gray light of the ley line had sliced through his skin, almost down to the bone. Blood dripped from the open wounds even as the light leaked from them, turning to mist in the air and leaving filthy streaks of blackened soot on his skin. Wounds opened on the backs of his hands and his palms, forming dozens, then hundreds, of intricate runes that each glowed with the gray light. 

The torrent of the ley line was unbridled through him now, flowing in a constant stream through his body and out of the open wounds. 

“Excellent work, sergeant,” Moran said, his tone sounding genuinely full of approval. “Now you need to replace the barrier. You should take the time to construct some form of gateway.”

The granite towers of Helgan’s rest had failed, as had the high walls of Fallow-Neck. He had asked each of the ley bound in turn, and though some were embarrassed, they all shared with him their own ways of living with the bond to a ley line. Each was different and personal. 

So Riot imagined a new barrier. Before, the ley line was unknown, and he had built high walls to defend himself, but now he knew its nature better. He was an enemy like any other, testing his defenses, and he knew how to fight an enemy. 

In his mind, he conjured a monstrous regiment, ranks and ranks of infantry a hundred thousand strong, each of them faceless, with arcane power in the palms of their hands. As one, they screamed a deafening, rage-filled wordless defiance, and the ley line retreated. 

He bellowed a silent command, and the ranks stepped aside, letting the ley line make its cautious way between them, tricking into him, the sweetness and the sickness. 

With another command, the ranks closed, and the ley line was forced to retreat.

The light faded, and the horrific wounds in his arms were now bleeding freely onto the floor, forming a puddle of blood. Moran took Riots forearms in his hands, and there was a flash of heat, and the skin knit together. Riot raised his arms, seeing that the wounds and the runes on the backs of his hands were now little more than neat scars. The new skin is slightly shiny. 

"Congratulations, sergeant; you are truly leybound. I understand that you want to hurry back to be imprisoned with the rest of your men, but I have one final gift for you.” 

The valet was called, and Riot was presented with a new uniform. It was the deep blue of the Duke of Fallow regiment, with black corded rope and the white sigil of a sergeant on the shoulder.