Riff suggested that he rest and recuperate for a day or two, but Wren would hear nothing of it as he headed down the halls of the complex. Windows out to the world showed desert adobes and cloth awnings leading into a crowded market area. This was a mage-controlled area off one of the edges of the Sol deserts. Riff said it was Aurion territory now, but it used to belong to the Songs before their territory was split between the mages and the Sols. It was isolated but also populated, so their occupying the complex on the edge of the city wasn't seen as suspicious. The people just expected some rich, entrepreneurial mage was taking up residence in the battlegrounds for one reason or another.

That left them undisturbed as Riff led Wren into Blaze Cinder's quarters. As soon as the door opened, the old mage jumped to his feet. Like Wren, Blaze was nearing a hundred, and his hardened amber eyes showed each battle he'd fought. If a grand mage wasn't killed, they could make it to near four hundred years, but most perished within the first century. Calling to magic extended the human life span, but harboring it brought enemies down on them. It was always give and take.

"Wren Song," Blaze said, standing up from behind an ornate, wooden desk and stretching, his back clacking together unhealthily. Blaze noticed Wren's attention with a narrowing of his eyes. "Fighting with Talamayas to get you was no easy feat. I'll be back at my best in a day or so. Got rattled around the canyon walls with flame magic."

"You were part of the infiltration mission to rescue me?"

"Procure you, yes. It wasn't considered rescue unless we could fix you, though if you're here we finally succeeded in wiping out the decades of captivity."

Blaze ran a hand through long spikes of red hair, darker and more orange than the Song's natural color. It ran only to the back of his neck, tickling the white robes of the Cinders, flames embroidered at his collar and on the edge of his suit coats, but he wore no sleeves. Bare muscle ran the man thicker than Wren could ever build with his leaner form, and even Riff paled in comparison as the strongest physically of the Songs. If only muscle mass could triumph over soulless beasts, then they'd have won this war already.

"One would think you at last skeptical of my recovery if you were prudent," Wren replied, a smirk raising his lips as Blaze's expression pinched in.

Riff knew Wren, so it was no surprise that he could see a difference, but this man was an outsider. Assuming Wren was not an enemy without solid proof could be the death of them in the near future, and he wanted to make sure they hadn't allied with a fool. Songs, Wren trusted. They were a superior breed, but mages in general, not as much.

"If you had your memories, you would have already spit in my face over the use of your name, Wren Song. Couldn't get you to shut up about it when we brought you in." Blaze waved him off with a hand as they headed into a back room connected to his office.

"My name?" Wren asked as he walked through the door, not understanding how that had any bearing on his behavior. His eyes flicked to another chair with constraints and a new pile of horror meant for removing his brands. The distraction of conversation was welcome as Blaze and Riff circled the tables to prepare.

"Yes," Blaze growled the word as he ushered for Wren to sit. Wren did so, leaning back with a sigh of foreseen pain. "When you bent over and let that vampire fuck you, you took his name. Wren Sol. I image the shit made you say it on repeat as he pounded you with how quickly you spit it in our faces."

"Blaze!" Riff's grey eyes battled with Blaze's flames.

"It's fine, Riff. If Talamayas broke me, he broke me. Let's not linger on how offended I am at Blaze's disdain. It will fall away when I rip off Talamayas head and lay it at his feet." That had Blaze smiling, all of his white teeth shining from his glee at the man's death. Who wouldn't be excited to murder a torturer and mass murderer?

Riff secured the straps on the chair, likely sensing that Wren wanted to punch Blaze more than ally with him. The Cinder was callous, but he was what they had. Grand mages didn't fall off trees, and the Cinders had always been closest to their house as far as vampire sentiments, even if the Songs preferred to work amongst themselves. They'd need more than one grand mage to undo these magic bindings, and Wren thumped his head back as Riff closed the neck strap. Once they began to cut into him, he would struggle and flail, so securing his head was important if he wanted to live through it. Sedation would be better, but both Riff and he knew no Song would allow themselves to be helpless just to avoid a little pain.

Such agony would only fuel his thirst for revenge, for his people and for himself.

The blades used for the process were inscribed with glyphs that the user flooded their power into, and Blaze was about as brutal as they came when he slid it into the first layers of his skin. Wren screamed and bit down on the thick cloth wrapped around his head and into his mouth. If Blaze went slower it would hurt less, but it would take twice as long, and they didn't have time.

"Riff," Blaze called him over, and he leaned over the glyphs with just as much focus.

"Fuck. Wren, this is going to hurt worse than we thought. Just bear with it."

It took four blades, one in each hand of the grand mages to start the process, and Wren yanked against his constraints not because he thought it would free him, but because that's what his body wanted to do. Wren wanted to remain still and bear it, but his body was on fire, shocks of dark magic spiraling up his arm, into his chest, and trying to claw his heart out. Before it could, another dark magic clashed with the brands, pushing it back, and Wren had no idea what had been done to his body.

It felt so foreign.

Wren wept for part of the process, unable to stand the pain after the first hour, and light magic pressed to his face. Opening his eyes that he'd near sealed shut, he met with the grey eyes of his best friend, his comrade, and a man closer than a brother. Compassion and love lay in Riff's dark eyes as he pressed Wren's forehead to his face, giving up a hand to run over Wren's hair as the other held part of the spell that Blaze was ripping out like a butcher. Riff did not always have a free hand for him, but he kept his face close to Wren's, allowing him a source of Song magic to comfort him through this trial. Riff was the last of his people, his general and friend, and Wren would protect him with what was left of his life.

The process of removing the seals took eight hours, and Wren groaned with near pleasure as Blaze and Riff flooded their light energy into his hands. The spells had gone straight through them, wound into the bones, and removing them had left Wren in a mess of blood and pain. They'd already put him back together physically and were now reconnecting the small magic vessels that channeled his magic. Normal mages could not do this, nor could most grand mages raised in Society. Only the most skilled and veteran mages learned how to remove dark magic seals and restore magic channels.

Blaze was vital, even if Wren couldn't stand him.

Wren slept at some point, in a bed as hard as a brick, but something about the hard slab beneath him gave him a sense of comfort. In his dreams, strong fingers caressed his hair, trailing down his scalp and treading his ears before lips kissed the side of his face, his forehead, his lips. The last was so light that he barely felt it, and it all disappeared like a whisper before he woke to the morning. Light magic pressed along his body, and he realized Riff was on the bed next to him. Not sleeping, of course. The man lay on his side, his head up on a hand and the other flowing Song magic into Wren's body.

Expediting his recovery.

"How did you sleep?" Riff asked, sitting up.

Wren did so as well, feeling like a ball and chain had been removed from each of his wrists. It was amazing how he hadn't noticed the weight until it had been released, and he flexed his song magic with excitement.

"I need to see them, to feel them again, my chains," Wren said, renewed strength urging him forward toward the task he knew he must complete. To topple the tyrant who'd slaughtered his people, enslaved him, and continued to sit on his throne with impunity.

"Good," Riff's voice was near a growl, hungry for the work ahead. "I'm going to work you to the bone until you drop, we're going to rest, and then kill that piece of filth, Talamayas Sol."

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Word Count: 1598