I had a headache. And it wasn't because I was knocked out a couple times and had brain damage. It was from pure annoyance. After Kanieta left, there was a brief, rushed conversation between everyone, and the two who weren't already awake were woken up.

Most wanted to bust out of the cage right now. It was still hours before dawn, and they didn't want to waste any time if we could break out and make a run for it in the dark. No one trusted the shadow, but if a fraction of what it said was true, we all would experience a fate worse than death if we stayed.

Our discussion was brought to a crashing halt when one of the guards we had been ignoring because they never noticed us speaking suddenly came over and disrupted our mental energy. After that, any discussion was moot, as the guards hung around our cage until morning, and if we so much as glared at each other, the fucking bastards would knock us out again, smiling and laughing the whole time.

More accurately, it knocked me out. Everyone else was made uncomfortable and dizzy for a few moments. Ten minutes after the sun rose over the wall, someone attempted to send a mental tendril to connect our minds, and the beastkin somehow detected it and knocked me out… Again! Needless to say, I was done with this whole thing, and currently, I was lying on the ground, trying to ignore everyone while waiting for it all to be over.

Not that the scouts stopped communicating. They were attempting to fill the cage with mouthed words, whispers, and hand signs. Some of the other cages even got involved, though we couldn't hear anything from them. Not all of which was going unnoticed. The other fucking scouts just could not accept that no matter what we would have preferred, we had to wait!

As the morning passed, everyone finally settled down, and the clamor of thousands of people moving outside the walls lessened until it became eerily quiet. Like they were no longer there… Shit. The battle will start today. I glumly thought to myself. And we are out of the fight…

The noise never returned, and the hair on my neck rose in nervous energy as more time passed. We were in danger, yet there was nothing to do but wait. When the noonday sun had climbed high into the sky, I could feel the others bracing themselves. Quick hang signs flashed to those in the other cages, signaling them to ready themselves for action, causing the tension in the entire square to further build.

Our eyes flicked to each other as the tension peaked, and everyone readied themselves for the first person to burst into action. Then, the fortress's gates crashed open, and everyone was thrown off balance as they turned to look.

A group resembling a comet strode through the center of the gates. Every person was covered in necklaces, bracelets, and strips of colored cloth bands, hanging off their bodies and the hooded cloaks the beastkins wore. A low murmur of words hung in the air around the group while others' voices lashed out in a harsh, striking undercurrent. I did not understand their words, but I could make out a pattern and cadence as they marched forward one step after another.

Shaking my head in bewilderment, I started to turn my eyes and head away from the group and found that it was more challenging than it should be. Like I was fighting against some unseen force. Even once I had managed to turn my head to the side, I had to resist a constant compulsion to look back at the group and gaze at them in fascination.

While I was fighting my own internal struggle, I could tell those near me were also opposing the mental attraction to various degrees of success. Sadly, most of those in the cage with me had their eyes entirely locked on the beastkins, but there were a few who had turned their heads away. To my annoyance and pleasure, I saw Celeste and Sathera were counted among that number, though it was taking all their focus to do so if the sweat beading on their brows was any indication.

Stilling the ripples filling my mind due to the procession's enthralling influence, I carefully turned my head back toward them. I wanted to inspect the edges of the group to see if I could discover anything I hadn't noticed before. I knew I could not fully gaze upon them without losing myself again, but I should be able to look around the edges.

Immediately, I noticed a haze hanging in the air around the group. It looked like steam radiating from the ground, and like steam, it was concentrated. The farther I looked from the mass of beastkins, the less distinct the haze became. Once my gaze had moved more than seven feet to the side, I could no longer see any sign of the phenomenon…

Has to be a spell, right? Their mana? What else could it be? I continued to search around the group and tried to spot anything that could help us. A take I failed in, but my eyes locked on a group of three trailing behind the procession.

The leading figure was already watching me, and as our eyes met, I saw Kanieta's eyes light up in amusement and mouth the word 'wait' to me before breaking off from the rear of the procession and heading to the side of the courtyard. I gave no sign of reacting to her action and kept my eyes gliding around the spectacle as they slowly walked further into the square. Their slow pace gave me plenty of time to adapt to the constant pull of their spell, and I was able to inspect them closer. It didn't accomplish anything, but learning to resist the mental pull was probably good to learn.

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Kanieta and her group stopped at the courtyard's southeastern corner with their backs to the stone wall while the procession marched to the center of the stone disk with all its intricate patterned lines. When they finally reached the center, their chant reached a crescendo before cutting off all at once.

The attraction I felt at this point wholly vanished, and the thirteen beastkin stood in place for long seconds, and the constant fluttering of the clothes finally stopped. Then, the gathered beastkin turned and walked toward different parts of the diagram.

An old conniving voice broke the silence that was now choking the square. "So, Faction Leader Kanieta, before our army finishes their march to an easy victory, are you ready to join us in our righteous cause? Will you strengthen the Kin, or will you watch our people suffer and weaken until we fade into the obscurity of time after a slow death?"

"What gives you the right, Jolten?" Rang out Kanieta's voice suddenly from my side of the square. I looked over in surprise to see her standing at the side of the bridge's mouth thirty feet from me. Wasn't she just in the other corner? "There has been no Conclave. No vote has been cast, and none of the other clans or factions have agreed to this escalation with the Olimpians. You are planning to rip out their souls to enhance our power! They will never let that slide!"

At the last bit, she was shouting, and everyone in the other cages snapped their heads around to look at her, faces filled with dread. Everyone in mine already knew, but I saw their eyes filled with resolve and fists clenched.

"Look!" Kanieta shouted, sweeping her arm at us, "They don't even understand what is happening or if my words are true, but they already look ready to fight. What you propose goes over the line, Jolten!" When she said the old beastkin's name, it was filled with disgust and hatred.

As she spoke, the look of arrogant confidence never shifted from the old beastkin's face. Then the elder said condescendingly, "You are young, Kanieta. You long for the idealistic world of unity and peace, the foolishness of the senile elders, and the dreams of the youth. The Olimpians are weak and divided. We will take advantage of their weakness to strike them down as any predator should. And with the strength we gain, we will finally be able to stand against our true enemy!"

My back stiffened in alarm as I felt something slip up my back and wrap around my throat, squeezing. I choked, gasping for air and clawing at the spongy surface, but I couldn't find any purchase. "I ask one more time, Elder, step back from your plan. Let me kill all of these prisoners, and we can walk away like none of this has happened."

"No," was the old man's succinct response, a mocking smile spreading over his face as the sound of steel filled the courtyard as guards drew their weapons. "I think we will harvest all of the power we can from these weaklings and show everyone the strength we can have if we dare to act."

At his words, a half dozen more beastkin walked into the courtyard from the gate and began walking around the diagram, eyeing those of us in the cages. Their lips were pulled back, showing off their sharp, yellowing fangs in grins filled with malicious pleasure. With every step they took, we stepped or shuffled back, bracing ourselves as close to the far walls of the cages as possible.

Kanieta sighed in resignation, then said, "So be it."

Without any warning, I was pulled off my feet and started tumbling head over foot before falling on my side and scraping over the ground. At some point during my rolling, I heard a loud clang of metal. But with the blur of motion, I could not tell what was happening.

When I came to a stop, I was lying on my stomach, looking down at the gray stone. Over the beating of my heart, I heard a whisper, almost too faint for me to make out, "You must last as long as you can. Be a distraction and fight for both our people. Prevent this catastrophe."

"If you are going to go against the Conclave's will — throwing us into a genocidal war — use the elf first. The Olimpians hate their kind for their weakness. He should be easy to overcome, and then maybe we will see all your power." Said a cold voice. I couldn't really focus as my energy was disrupted again, breaking my enhancement, but at least I wasn't in as much pain as when I first woke up.

A smug, rasping voice answered, "I'm glad you have come around. You will be begging to join the formation once you see the power of a Soul Gem. Now, let's… begin!"

With my constant usage of mental energy in my head and the practice I was getting, I had just reestablished my casting. I was getting pretty good at it, and I was reasonably sure my skull had healed slightly from my concussion, but I still wasn't fast enough.

As soon as the rasping voice finished speaking, the stone under me flashed a bright blue. The light speared into my eyes and seeped into my body from every direction and extremity. The farther the foreign energy progressed into me, the more I felt the visceral invasion. I was being defiled on a fundamental level.

I tried to fight against the invading energy, pushing my will against its progression, but as I confronted one area of my organism, another advanced. With my energy occupied in my mind, I could not send out the mental energy required to confront the invasion, leaving me to fight back against the attack with pure willpower, a task I could not hope to succeed in.

One person's willpower could not fight against the collective will of the union of a dozen for long. So when the invasive mana inevitably reached my head, the blue energy latched onto my mental energy and started ripping it from my grasp.

By this point, I knew I was screaming. That I had been screaming for a while. But I could not hear it as my world devolved into an agony so intense that I had never felt its like before.

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