Discordant Note | The Beginning After the End SI

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Toren Daen

I stepped out of the bathroom, feeling cold despite the fire mana clinging to my body. Thoughts of my oath—an oath I wasn’t sure I could keep—stung my skin like needles, each syringe sinking deep into my veins and injecting liquid uncertainty there.

At my side, Aurora was silent. I’d closed off our bond for a time, unable to process all I felt in regard to Chul in her presence.

Instead, I allowed myself to listen and hear, using the neverending tumult of the war camps and rushing servants within this castle as a grounding beacon.

The entire upper floor—where Seris had stationed herself—was mostly empty of people. I could sense the mana signatures and heartbeats of a few familiar people as I strode with hunched shoulders through the cramped tunnels.

Lusul is here, I thought with surprise, sensing the young son of Named Blood Hercross further down below. Most of Seris’ captains were here, too. Dromorth, Alyx, and a few others spoke in a room a ways away.

As I improved with my use of Sonar Pulse, it was getting easier and easier to craft full, three-dimensional images in my head of my surroundings. Each pulse of my heart sent out subtle weaves of sound magic that wouldn’t even disturb a blade of grass, before the particles rebounded back to me.

Combined with my sense of heartfire and intent, it painted this entire castle—which was otherwise dark and decrepit from disuse—in a wash of mental color and life.

But there was a blank spot, somewhere far below. In the deepest reaches of this castle, before the stretching tunnels of Darv that wove like burrows in every direction, there was a place where my sound mana went and did not return. There, a perpetual blank spot welcomed my senses.

Powerful wards covered that place. The dungeons.

I was certain that if I tried, I could punch through those wards. I could tear them apart and know what was kept deep in those dark reaches.

But I didn’t. I wouldn’t.

When I returned to Seris, Cylrit was already waiting for me. In the time it had taken me to wash up and put on fresh clothes, he’d found himself another suit of black plate armor.

I almost chuckled in amusement upon seeing him in the familiar, inky black plate. It had no adornment or visible runes across the outside, unlike many of the gaudier attires I knew. It was strict, utilitarian, and denied anything that was not its purpose.

“Do you just have spare sets of the exact same armor lying around in storage?” I asked, amused despite myself.

Cylrit’s eye twitched. “Do you have spare limbs to regrow in storage?”

I smiled sardonically. “I just might.”

I slowly loped to the side, leaning against the far wall. I could sense Seris within her office, moving about and arranging papers and writing reports. She was a master of organization and bureaucracy in a way I could hardly fathom. Cylrit had given her his report barely a minute ago, and already my Scythe was sending out orders and restructuring her spies in response.

I allowed my eyes to close, my earlier exhaustion returning slightly. I dozed lightly as I leaned against the stones, waiting for what I knew was to come.

Seris finally opened the doors of her rooms. She strode out with perfect poise, her intent finally more even and controlled.

“I received a mission report from Cylrit that told me much of what transpired,” Seris said, staring up at me. “But it seems something else takes the most precedent for you right now, outside of what else you need to tell me.”

I exhaled weakly. “Sylvie Indrath and Rinia Darcassan both spoke with me,” I said tiredly. “It’s important. But you’re right. Aurora is awake again.”

As if to punctuate my point, the relic brooch—which had been pinned to my breast—slowly began to morph and change as my bond exerted her will.

The bronze, feathered relic morphed and changed as the Puppet Form emerged. I felt another stab of guilt as I stared down at the once beautiful craft.

When Aurora had first embodied this little puppet, I had been in awe of the detail and life that it seemed to hold. Each of the brassy feathers shifted and moved with little puffs of steamed dawnlight. It was like a painting made real, with each sweep of the brush another flap of her bronzed wings.

But just like the Vessel Form, what limped on my shoulder was a shell of its former self. The feathers of the steampunk sparrow drooped and wilted in the low light like candlewax. The legs seemed a bit too long now, the entire structure sitting disjointedly. Instead of a mourning dove, I saw a crippled crow.

“My son,” my bond said through her relic’s voice. “You will take us to him, Scythe.”

Seris’ brow twitched, and Cylrit frowned. In turn, I gnashed my teeth, feeling painfully caught in the middle of these two fronts.

“We need to speak to Chul,” I said, before Seris’ irritation and anger—which I sensed in the wake of Aurora’s heedless demand—could boil over. “He’s down below in the dungeons, yes? Could you take us to him? Please?”

The Scythe looked at me, no doubt sensing my attempt to maintain the fragile peace between us. “Cylrit, attend to your regular duties,” she said, not turning away from me as we shared a silent message. “I think this will take time.”

At my side, Cylrit bowed deeply. “As you command,” he said. With a single, respectful nod to me, he started to walk away, his armor clanking with every step.

Seris stared at the little clockwork bird on my shoulder. Her emotions were nearly as convoluted and angry as my own. “Do you know what your son did, Lady Dawn?”

The relic didn’t respond immediately. Aurora couldn’t, not in the face of such blunt brutality. At my side, the phoenix shade narrowed her eyes as she restrained her irritation.

“He made grave mistakes,” the phoenix said slowly. “He was led astray by subterfuge and betrayal. What occurred in Burim is not his fault. You know of the Wraiths sent to sabotage your meeting, Scythe.”

Seris turned. Slowly, like a well-oiled cog in a machine, she rounded not on the relic, but on the space where the phoenix shade stood.

Whenever the Vritra-blooded mage I called my own and my phoenix had their verbal spars, it had always felt like Aurora held some sort of abstract upper hand. Seris teased and probed at her barriers, looking for cracks or vulnerabilities so she could better understand her quarry. In turn, Aurora had always scoffed and dismissed Seris’ provocations with the air of an elder waving away the youth’s foolishness.

But for the first time, Seris seemed larger than even Lady Dawn as she stared her directly in the eyes. I knew not what tells I’d given or subtle body language conveyed where the phoenix shade stood, but it allowed the silver-haired woman to lock eyes directly with the unnerved Aurora.

Seris’ horns glinted in the firelight.

“An interesting perspective of events, Lady Dawn,” Seris said, the final words barely restraining respect. “Your son’s actions caused the death of thousands. Cylrit nearly died. Toren nearly died. And Burim broke. And that city did not need to break.”

Seris stepped forward so that she was barely a foot away from the once-imposing Aurora. Lady Dawn restrained her fists at her side, unable to do anything but listen. “At any moment, your son could have listened to reason. At any moment, he could have taken a chance. At any moment, this could have been averted. The onus was on him for the entirety of his fight, and only him.

“So, asura, I want you to understand something,” she said, each syllable announced with carefully masked anger. “Any action I might take regarding Chul Asclepius is a privilege, including allowing you to visit your son. It is not a right, and you have no grounds for making any sort of demands of me at all. Are we clear?”

“And you suppose that you bear the right to restrain one of the Asclepius?” Aurora said, dawnlight steam of repressed anger rising from her skin. “You suppose you can cage a phoenix?”

Seris’ eyes narrowed further, her aura shifting about her like dark scales. Her mouth turned down into a frown. “I did not break Chul’s wings. He did it unto himself.”

Then she turned on her heel, and began to march angrily down the hallway, her mana pulsing. “With me, Toren,” she ordered. “We’ll see this brother of yours.”

I shared a look with Aurora, whose eyes were barely rimmed with tears. I ground my teeth, feeling as if my mouth was rimmed with ash.

Then I followed after Seris, the Unseen World misting away alongside Aurora’s control of her relic. I felt her withdraw and retreat again, unable to bear the darkness.

“You didn’t need to be so harsh,” I whispered as I fell into lockstep beside Seris. “You got your point across.”

The Scythe huffed. She kept her eyes forward as we trailed through the hallways of the dwarven fortress. “Will you defend his actions, too, Toren?” she asked, looping her arm through mine and keeping us close. “Will you ignore his sins for petty sentiment?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, interlocking my hand with Seris’ dainty one. It felt good to feel her pulse again, beneath my own.

“No, Seris,” I said honestly. “No. I hate him. I hate him so much.”

Visions of that hellfire in Burim returned in horrid flashes. Of Seris, bleeding out as Inversion blackened her chest, Chul looming over her with a raised mace and a malevolent snarl. Of Barth, falling to his pointless, empty death alongside thousands of others. Of those I couldn’t save from the lavatides.

“That city is wounded,” I said quietly. “The aether itself lingers with mourning. I can taste the afterdeath of thousands scarring that place with their final torment. All that sudden, horrid violence warped it. And I could hear it like a pulsing scar.”

I tensed my fingers around Seris’ hand, savoring the closeness as she leaned slightly against my shoulder. The distance that had been between us before my daring assault on the flying castle evaporated like smoke as we clung to each other in small, subtle ways. “And I can still hear that pain in your heart. I can’t ever forgive him for hurting you like that.”

I wrapped us both in a sound barrier as we continued lower, reaching the more populated parts of the castle. Wherever we went, guards, servants, and soldiers bowed and knelt in subservience. Whispers of “Scythe,” “Spellsong,” and “Morningstar” seeped around us like spring fog.

And finally, at the very end of a long thoroughfare, we reached an empty wall. A dead end.

Seris looked up at me, her horns splitting the light. She considered me for a few seconds, her eyes tracing over my upper body, before centering on my chest.

“I’ve been… trying to make something of this ailment I have,” she said quietly. She chewed her pale, bottom lip, seeming slightly uncertain as her earlier rage cooled. “When you left, I decided to try and… use this detriment, instead of suppressing it.”

I briefly remembered the beakers and bottles of blood I’d seen in Seris’ office, where that white energy of Inverted Decay had somehow been concentrated.

“I discovered that if I concentrated mana in certain parts of my body, I could better direct the flow of that strange magic that afflicts me. It concentrates itself there, and in doing so, I can extract it. I have discovered in the short few days of experimentation that it is an entirely new deviation of Vritra magic, one that is keen to destroy Vritra magic. And maybe, one day, we can learn to use it.”

My eyes widened at the implications. If Seris could somehow make use of this magic that was anathema to everything of the Basilisks, it would be groundbreaking for every one of her goals. An entire deviation that was fundamentally poison to those who crafted the poisons? I could think of nothing more like her.

The Scythe opened her mouth to say something, but she cut off as I gave her a swift hug. I held her slim body close, my mind swirling with ideas. Weapons, elixirs, armor… If there was an entire deviation dedicated to the erasure of Vritra-blooded arts… “Seris, you’re a genius,” I whispered, my head swirling.

“I know,” she replied, her voice slightly muffled from how she pressed her face into the crook of my shoulder. She hugged me back lightly, savoring the closeness in her own small way. “You do not stress it enough.”

I chuckled as I separated from the demure woman, looking down at her as if I was seeing her for the first time. Even when I’d been delving into the Dicathian castle and taking risks to see if I could craft hope, my Scythe had been taking risks and crafting her own.

“Would you like me to compliment you more?” I asked, sensing the subtle contentedness that radiated from the woman, even as she felt pain from her inverted affliction. I would need to find a way to fix that, soon. “You seem to enjoy it.”

Seris narrowed her eyes a little, brushing past me and ignoring my subtle teasing. “I do not answer to empty flattery, my songbird,” she said. “I accept only honesty.”

The Scythe tapped a few places on the wall in front of us. The wall fell away at the mana input, dissolving into sand and revealing a dark, expansive passageway beyond.

My elevated mood settled again as my smile fell. The slight teasing with Seris had helped me settle my emotions. It helped us both settle ourselves for what was to come. I suspected that had been the Scythe’s intent.

Seris stepped in front of me as she walked, the passageway too slim for us to stroll side by side anymore. With a bare nudge at my core, little, tiny motes of fire danced around us, granting a little bit of light as we continued onward.

I could sense Aurora’s quiet anticipation and dread as we circled down and down and down through the earth. Around and around Seris and I went, as the stairs spiraled downward. I had to hunch so I wouldn’t scrape my head on the ceiling.

Sonar Pulse radiated from my heart in a constant, steady beat. Sound mana thrummed through the entirety of the castle in subtle weaves like silk nigh-invisible snow on a winter evening. And with each step and pulse of that nexus of aether, we inched closer and closer to the wards that blocked my sight.

“She has him caged,” Aurora thought, more to herself than to me. The Scythe’s horns absorbed the darkness. “My son is lashed to a dungeon wall.”

What else would you have her do? I countered, already feeling tired before this meeting even began. What else could Seris do? She was merciful in even allowing him to survive after what he did to Cylrit.

I immediately regretted my words, Lady Dawn recoiling from me as if slapped. I winced as I recalled the long years of the phoenix’s trauma as she, too, was kept chained to a wall by a cunning Vritra-blooded being.

I’m sorry, I thought back, exhaling forcefully through my nose. I’m sorry. I just…

I squeezed my eyes shut, welcoming the flickering flashes behind my eyelids.

Fuck. Fuck. I wished there was some sort of right answer or thing I could say that would fix everything wrong that had happened with Chul. Once upon a time, I might have thought there was. I was Spellsong, the connector of hearts. My words carried the weight of mana and intent themselves. I should have the words to make things right.

But these past few weeks, I’d realized that some things could never be set straight. Sometimes, things broke. People broke.

Seris abruptly froze in front of me. I sensed as her intent—which had been carefully controlled and leashed before—slipped towards worry and uncertainty.

“Seris, what’s wrong?” I asked, immediately calling on my mana. From the way she tilted her head and shifted, I could tell she was immediately on high alert. “Did he escape?”

The Scythe didn’t grace me with a response immediately. Her pace accelerated as she practically began to fly down the stairs, dark mana swirling around her hands. “The wards were breached,” she said, hissing to me through the sound barrier I still kept around us. “The tempus warp protections were torn aside!”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

My eyes widened as I flew after Seris, the implications of her words clear. My heartrate increased as fear rose in my mana core. But beyond even that, Aurora’s worries became nearly all-consuming within my head.

It didn’t take long for us to reach the bottom of the stairwell, and what we saw didn’t bode well.

An impenetrable vault door loomed high above us both, stretching twenty feet in the air. Made of dark, reflective black diamond—one of the strongest materials in this world—the barrier to the chamber within must have been imposing once upon a time. The studs and locking mechanisms would have kept anyone weaker than a Lance from daring to enter its bowels.

Except there was a simple rectangular gap at the very center. It looked so perfect, that improvised doorway. It looked almost as if it were carved out by the touch of my very own plasma blades.

Seris rushed to the doorway, pausing only momentarily to gather her mana to herself. A single, black blade of aspected pure mana settled into existence in her hand. She didn’t spare a glance over her shoulder back towards me, only rushed inside the vault.

I followed after, worries staining every inch of my thoughts with the yellow of fear. Aurora’s thoughts were starting to bleed over mine, her maternal instinct and worry for her other son all-consuming.

Seris gasped in horror, just as I entered the vault.

It took barely a fraction of a second for my eyes to adjust to the utter darkness of the cell. It was a surprisingly large place, considering the dwarven nature of everything else. A single chamber seemed to compound every inch of darkness within it. The walls, floor, ceiling—all of it was composed of black diamond. That reflective, black crystal held the shadows like a greedy lover, wrenching any and all hope of light from the captive within.

Chains stretched from every corner of the room, twisting like tendrils of some great sea monster as they held someone fast. They all surged toward the center of the great vault, each and every one of them. Those chains drew my eyes like a black hole to the figure bound by them.

Chul knelt on the ground, ensorcelled entirely in those constricting chains. His barrel chest was still. Unmoving. His short hair clung to his skin as he stared emptily up at the sky, those orange and blue eyes devoid of light.

And at the center of his chest—where his core should have been—was a gaping hole. Trace drops of blood still leaked from it in a slow waterfall of quiet despair.

He was dead.

I stood still, staring at the corpse of the phoenix half-blood. I forgot how to think as Seris rushed over to the body, inspecting it and looking it over.

But I was only partially aware of her. Inside my mind, Aurora’s rage was building. It rose and rose and rose like a crescendo as we both stared at the corpse. Chul’s mouth lay open in a silent, powerless scream for help.

Visions of Norgan dying replayed in my mind in a painful, reverberating loop. I remembered Kaelan Joan’s dagger sinking into his core in that exact spot that now marred Chul’s chest. And in turn with Aurora’s rage, mine rose, too. It was blistering and searing and furious.

How dare she.

My pulse pounded in my ears as I stared at the shackled, assassinated body. I couldn’t hear anything else other than the pounding of my heart. The mana in the atmosphere coiled and sizzled as my aura radiated out from me like the corona of a star.

Seris felt it, of course. She turned, trying not to tremble from the force of my power. Her eyes were wide with surprise and worry. “Toren, calm yourself,” she ordered, taking a hesitant step back. “This isn’t—”

I couldn’t hear her through the blood rushing past my head. I fell into Soulplume, Aurora’s mind melding and meshing with mine as we found perfect equilibrium in our rage. Equilibrium we had only ever experienced once, deep in the Hearth at the moment of our final plea. Our eyes focused on Seris’ black mana saber, then on the matching hole in Chul’s core. Then, in turn, we remembered the cut on the vault door.

She will pay for this, I thought, taking a single, burning step forward. The Scythe will burn.

We did not listen to Seris Vritra’s words as we stalked forward, our shrouded spirit enveloping us. The woman stumbled backward, holding out her hands as we conjured a shrouded saber in our grip.

And onward we still went, unrelenting. Because we would have vengeance for the supposed death of our brother-son. No other sound reached our ears. Seris Vritra’s mouth moved as we neared, but we heard not her pleas.

They didn’t matter. She could not stand under the weight of our aura, but it was inconsequential.

We reached our target, that damnable, accursed Scythe, before they had a chance to retreat away after daring to taunt us.

Seris’ eyes widened as we raised our blade. She thrust out her hands, conjuring a shield of black mana that shivered and warped from her weakness.

I brought my blade down, cutting through flesh. My shrouded saber parted skin, flesh, and bone in equal measure, reaping its due with every intersection of lifeforce. White fire seared the wound.

The world fractured as a scream tore through the air. As if the entire world was made of glass, cracks spread through the panels of reality all around us. One, two, three—they spread, and then they erupted.

The illusion broke.

Viessa Vritra’s arm fell from her wretched shoulder, severed at the root. Her purple hair flared about her like a nest of serpents as her blood sprayed through the darkness. The Scythe of Truacia’s eyes were open in surprise as her limb fell.

She had been dragging our brother-son with her, no doubt wishing to escape with him. His steady, weakened heartbeat echoed in our ears, unable to be quelled.

Seris stumbled away, shock overwriting her features again as the illusion that had tried to grip us both failed. Her eyes darted about the chamber, noting Viessa, Chul, the empty chains at the center of the room—

Viessa tried to speak. She opened her mouth to say something as her magic swelled in that dimly lit chamber, but speaking was the right of those who should be heard. It was the right of those with purpose and soul.

Our hand darted out, quick as a snapdragon wasp’s stinger. The talons of our shrouded spirit flared with white fire and dawnlight as they wrapped around the Vritra-blooded lessuran’s pale, unguarded throat. Her words cut off into a charred cough as we squeezed.

We felt her magic flaring as she struggled, her single free arm clawing at our crystalline armor. Blades of void wind raged and tried to rip apart our protections as she stared deep into our burning eyes. A howling tempest of fell energy tried to crater our defenses and wither our flesh.

They failed. The wind found no purchase on our gleaming, firewrought form. Our mana denied any and all attempts of hers to subvert her fate. We had grown exponentially since our last encounter, and we were one.

And then the witch tried to touch our mind again. She dared to try and layer more illusions over our sight. The figure in my grip shifted, rippling like liquid as another form overlaid her. Purple, writhing hair turned to brilliant silver. The teal and white battlerobes of our quarry melted into deepest black. Horns like an impala stretched from her head.

Suddenly, I wasn’t holding Viessa in my hand anymore. Clasped beneath the sharp talons of my shrouded spirit, Seris’ wide, terrified eyes stared at me. They begged me to stop, choked gurgles echoing from beneath my elongated, crystalline talons.

Toren would have hesitated. His grip would have relaxed, and he might have let go. The very image of what was happening rattled through his mindscape like an arrow from a godbow sinking into his mana core.

But we were not Toren alone.

Our heart beat. And the frequency of Resonant Flow changed. The sound magic that rippled from the depths of our chest tore at the fabric of Viessa Vritra’s illusions, ripping them apart like the petty weaves of paper they were.

The world fractured again like glass, and we held the Scythe of Truacia in our grip once more.

The Scythe tried again to layer the world with illusions, blanketing our sight. But every time, our heart beat, ripping them apart with waves of sound magic. Fracture after fracture after kaleidoscopic fracture coated our vision with shards of reality as we stared deep into Viessa’s doomed eyes. The sound of the world breaking echoed in tune with our pulse.

“A petty little lessuran you are, Viessa Vritra,” we whispered, mist leaking from our mouth. Her throat sizzled beneath our grip. “Your paltry tricks have no hold on us.”

Viessa wheezed beneath our tightening hold, the entire world falling away as we held her life in our hands. But despite her looming demise and my talons around her throat, the Scythe smiled.

“I caught…” she pressed out, her once-melodic voice seared by the flames seeping into her throat, “caught a glimpse of you when we… fought. Caught what… drives you.”

Her empty eyes slowly lolled to the side, focusing on our brother-son. Seris had moved to kneel over his body, inspecting him for wounds. Despite Viessa’s position, her intent radiated confidence. She felt no fear. She felt no remorse. She felt no happiness. Her emotions were a broken, scrambled mess of things that should not be.

“Brotherhood,” she wheezed. “Such an… interesting thing. So broken you are, Spellso—”

We whirled, twisting with the rotational power of a nascent tornado. Our shrouded spirit augmented every step of our movements, the constant pulling force granting us the torque to level mountains.

We slammed the witch’s body into the ground. A sound like a thunderclap echoed out, breaking the demonic beast’s attempts at using her illusions. The black diamond floor shattered as the Scythe impacted, cracks running up along the walls and ceiling like faultlines in the earth. The castle high above rumbled from the exerted force.

No more did the lessuran wretch try and overlay visions onto our mind. As her broken body leaked blood through the crater beneath her, we thought of a bug that had felt the kiss of an unrelenting boot. She looked like a wasp that had been pressed between a forefinger and thumb.

We leaned over her, staring into her eyes as more and more of her blood flowed. “Broken…” we whispered, our eyes searing deep into the depths of Viessa’s soul.

She didn’t feel the things she should have at this moment. Even as she groaned in pain, her body broken from our casual strike, she did not feel fear. Physical pain was not a threat to her. It did not register that she should be afraid.

Because she’d experienced worse. Because her mind was scrambled and shredded by Sovereign Orlaeth’s experiments, leaving something wrong behind.

We leaned forward so that our lips were just beside the witch’s ears. The words we uttered were soft, melodic, and filled with vindictive hatred. “We can sense what’s broken in your mind, Scythe,” we whispered.

Viessa had the audacity to laugh. Blood gurgled in her throat as she mocked my words. “So pretentious, Spellsong,” she said through bloody lips. “Your anger only serves to make me right. It only serves the High Sovereign’s goals.”

We cut her off with another squeeze around her throat as our raw fury settled into something more contemplative. This witch didn’t fear death. She didn’t fear physical pain. She didn’t even truly fear us.

But we could make her feel fear. We just had to look.

“Orlaeth took much from you. He took your ability to feel as all others do. Your ability to sense and understand. But above all of it, you cannot feel…”

We closed our eyes, sensing and searching through the weaves of Viessa’s intent. Deeper and deeper we went, savoring the silence and growing tension as the woman began to clench in uncertainty.

Viessa was a master of mental magic, that much was true. But intent… Intent was something that needed conscious control. Sometimes, artifacts could hide it or mask it, but never truly eliminate it. And I had long since started to chase that trail like a predator catching the scent of their prey.

And then we found it. All the masks and protections were finally stripped away.

“Ahhh,” we whispered, feeling the thrill of having caught our prey. “We understand now.”

I opened my eyes, looking down at the mangled body of the Scythe. We had gazed into her soul. We had clawed our way up the soultether that kept her wretched spirit anchored to this broken Vessel, and we had gazed upon her Truth.

And we knew.

“Happiness. That’s what he took from you.”

Viessa’s convulsing body froze as if caught in time.

The witch could never, ever feel happiness. That emotion that fulfilled every action, that made every step worthwhile? She could never feel it again. Her mind had been denied that critical emotion, like a crucial puzzle piece torn from the center, or a limb ripped from the socket.

That emotion was forever beyond her now. She could feel content, I was certain. Maybe some amusement. But the ultimate goal of every being was denied to her. Never would she look over her work and feel joy.

So she endeavored to strip joy from everyone else. Like a child who couldn’t play with her toys, she sought to break every toy around her.

“Orlaeth was never trying to hurt you, Scythe,” we said in a low, motherly tone. “He was simply… apathetic. Such is the way of the Vritra and their experiments. Your current suffering was never his goal.”

The difference between us and Orlaeth? To us, her suffering was our goal, not a mere side effect.

Viessa stared up at us with mute, empty eyes. Already, her soulfire healing was working to wash away the damage to her shattered physique—though the stump of her cauterized arm would never return. I let her do so. I was starting to taste a little bit of that delectable fear as she laid rigidly beneath my boot. It was slow to rise in her. Her mind was too broken to really recognize what prey such as her should feel as a predator peered into her soul.

But it rose in time. No mortal creature could survive as a Scythe without fear. And as goosebumps slowly trailed along Viessa’s pale flesh and her lips started to quiver, I savored her rising terror. Her eyes began to smoke as we looked deep into their empty depths, the burning star beneath far too bright.

One part of us remembered the deepest depths of a cell. We remembered how we felt as if there was a light far beyond that would grant us hope. We held onto that emotion, using it like an anchor.

The Scythe opened her mouth to say something, but that choked off into a scream as we called on our heartfire healing. We beckoned that far-distant reach of her soul, wrenching the knowledge of what and how to heal her mind.

We hadn’t been able to do this before. Our understanding of the mind and the soul were too vague and sparse. But now, I knew better how the two intertwined and danced in a constant waltz, the soul taking the lead.

Our heartfire washed through the Scythe’s skull, rearranging and fixing and mending. Every inch of Orlaeth’s work was slowly undone as the minutes stretched on and on. She screamed at first. But when the stress on her mind became too much, she fell silent, her eyes rolling back into her head.

Maybe she could have resisted such magic, once upon a time. Maybe she could have used her mana and mental mastery to protect herself from any influence—if our spell was mana-based in nature.

But the bonds of aether—the pull of Viessa’s soul? At this moment, it answered only to me. We were her gods. And one day, she would beg at our feet like a prostrate sinner for daring to infringe upon the divine. She would beg and weep, and we would not grant mercy.

We savored the work, knowing deep inside what this would eventually lead to. Even as our shatterpoint rage slowly simmered away into disgust at our plans, we did not relent. We did not cease.

When my work was done, I rose to my full height. Soulplume fell away as its searing effects retreated back into my core. Aurora’s mind drifted away from mine as the unifying effect vanished. And as I stared at my hands, and then back to the Scythe on the ground, my fingers trembled in quiet horror.

“What did you do to her?” a voice whispered from not far away.

Internally, Aurora turned away, feeling the same sense of quiet shame and horror as our impulsive anger cooled.

I closed my fists, then opened them again. The blood coating them slowly sizzled into red mist as I absorbed Viessa’s lifeforce.

“Viessa could never feel happiness. Orlaeth stripped it from her mind,” I said quietly, not turning to look at Seris from where she stood at the edge of the crater. “She can now.”

The Scythe hesitated, looking down at the body beneath my feet, then back to me. Embers of white fire still danced in the shattered black diamond vault. Distantly, I was aware that Seris had watched the entirety of what we—Aurora and I both, united in purpose—had done. Not far away, Chul’s unconscious body was laid against a wall. Intact. Unharmed. Alive.

Seris had no doubt put together the exact same picture I had. Viessa had intruded into this place via her tempus warp, intending to take Chul away. Likely under the command of Agrona himself. And in the process, she had laid illusions over both of us that painted a grim picture meant to frame the Scythe of Sehz-Clar for the son of Dawn’s supposed murder—and then draw my ire.

Viessa knew from our first bout part of what drove me. Those damnable mental magics of hers had pried my insecurities and need for brotherhood to the surface, and she’d used them to taunt and ridicule me.

So when she saw what she thought might be an opportunity to sew chaos and cause bloodshed, the witch had tried to use it to cover her escape. For no other reason than cruelty.

“Why?” the Scythe asked, her voice a quiet whisper. She stood like a disappointed, sorrowful angel at the edge of that crater, like my conscience made manifest and come to judge me.

I clenched my fists, the talons of my shrouded spirit creaking. I didn’t look at Seris, feeling shame for what I would still do. “Because one day, I will begin a hunt. And she will run and flee, because now she has something precious to lose. So when I find her and she begs for mercy, she will find none.”

My lover did not respond for a time. “That is cruel.”

I painfully remembered the vision I’d seen of Seris in the aftermath of Burim’s devastation. She had only been so hurt because she’d felt hope. Because she’d felt light.

That was how you broke someone. You gave them hope, then ripped it away.

“It is wrong,” Aurora thought to me. “It is wrong, what we have done. It is something drawn from the twisted mind of Agrona himself.”

And yet still, we both would not undo it.

“I can think of nothing more cruel,” I agreed.

I wondered, then. Would Viessa ever risk returning to her Sovereigns? Without an arm, I wondered how long she could even maintain her position as Scythe before Victoriad challenges would arise.

And if Viessa ever dared to reveal that she had been healed to Orlaeth…

Well, I knew enough to guess what would happen to her. The Sovereign of the Mind—as Seris had told me before—took interest in lesser affairs above all the other Vritra. He wouldn’t waste time in scooping up the errant Scythe to discover what exactly had changed in Viessa’s mind.

Would she risk that? Would she ever risk going to Taegrin Caelum again and potentially burning her new emotions away? Or would she let me hunt her like the dog she was, desperately clinging onto the hope that she could find joy in her life?

Seris didn’t say anything for a long time. Neither of us did. Distantly, I was aware that some mages were scrambling throughout the castle, trying to figure out what had made it shake and tremble so much.

Seris visibly considered her words for a few minutes, her features masked. I didn’t peer at her intent. Something inside me was too tired to do so. “Viessa came here with a mission, and she will need to report back. If I do anything to obstruct her, it will make my tasks difficult.”

I snorted emptily. “She has a tempus warp, probably. Just… send her body somewhere else. Or keep her caged. Tell whoever comes to interrogate you about Chul that I intervened and stopped you both from complying.”

Though the light was low, I could sense Seris’ brows furrowing. “That will implicate you, Toren,” she said softly, the walls absorbing her words. “Not even I can save you from obstructing the High Sovereign’s orders.”

I closed my eyes, feeling that earlier acknowledgment rise up from my core like bile. The knowledge that I could never return to Alacrya until I was strong enough to fight the asura coiled like rot, eating away at me from within. Until I was great enough to stand on my own against the Sovereigns and I could protect those I cared for, I could never let myself inch closer to Agrona’s hands.

“I know,” I replied, feeling loose. “But it was inevitable anyway.”

I contemplated my next word for a moment, wondering what I could say. No doubt Seris understood this. No doubt she could see what this was. But I… I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to say it aloud to her.

I was spared that worry, however, as a heartbeat—one slightly tired—began to slowly pulse with awareness not far away.

Aurora’s emotions shifted, a new emotion seeping in to mix with the hope. The Unseen World overlaid my vision as the asuran shade stepped past Viessa’s unconscious body, her hopeful eyes staring into the darkness. Even the utter evil we had planned and prepared for was muted by the surge of motherly warmth and care that soothed our rage.

Chul groaned, a meaty hand scratching at his head. The brute’s bulky body had been laid against the far wall, and the remnants of shackles adorned his wrists. He blinked blearily, his massive body heaving as the ambient mana churned about him. His head lolled weakly as he wrenched himself from unconsciousness. His feather-red hair floated away from his face, allowing me to see him clearly.

And then he lifted his chin, seeming to focus for the first time.

Two eyes looked at me in confusion. One, the pure-lake blue of the djinn. The other, the burning, orange-red of the phoenix.