Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!
Toren Daen
My exhaustion was soul-deep.
The following days were spent interned in the Divot trying to recover my strength, as per Seris’ orders. My heartbeat brought quiet agonies with every pulse, my overuse of Resonant Flow making itself known. Though my heartfire had regenerated and my body was in near-perfect health, it was my very spirit itself that felt worn.
The Brand of the Banished was to bla. Every ti Chul’s fist had smashed into my face or driven into my chest, the Brand had seared my very soul, burning away my primordial essence. I had spent many days simply ditating in the silent Sea of my Soul, pulling scattered pieces of my soul back into alignnt. mories I hadn’t known I’d lost realigned themselves. Foundations for emotions I’d lost drifted back to .
So it was as I sat, cross-legged, in that endless, black expanse. The Sea beneath was no longer freshwater kissed by the sunrise. No, now it was an ocean of crimson. My very soul was akin to the aftermath of a battlefield. The scent of copper and tal infused my lungs every ti I breathed.
It was hard to see into the Abyss beyond, now. Normally, Aurora’s light had cast everything in the healthy glow of a sunrise, but she was… dim, now. I couldn’t bear to look at the scarred reflection of her soul as it pulsed weak light across my bloody spirit. It made think too much of dusk instead of dawn.
Lady Dawn had been injured just as deeply as I during the Breaking of Burim. I knew she was trying to pull herself back, on so subconscious level. I could feel it in how she gravitated toward , using as an anchor to try and heal over the parts that had been burned.
Without her light… it was hard to see into the far darkness beyond. No guiding star lit my way at every step as I stared blankly into the soul space, searching for familiarity.
I thought I could see Seris’ soul. That pale moon, covered in shadows. But that darkness of epheral silk seed darker sohow. What I would have normally been able to pierce was impossible without Aurora’s light.
Cylrit’s tower shield of black tal still orbited my Scythe. I could sense flashes of him as it ever-so-slightly caught the light, but they were indistinct. Shadowed and unclear from my weakness.
I felt the temptation to pull on that abyss, to rotate it and show Arthur, Sylvie, and Tessia’s souls. I could do it here and now. Perhaps I could gain more insight into what had led Arthur to… making himself King. I still didn’t know how to process that. I didn’t know if I could ever process that.
So instead, I just laid back in the gloomy shadows of my dusk-touched soul, my hair sinking into the blood below. I could feel the strands as mories and ideals grasped them like drowned sinners, pulling it—and —deeper into their depths.
If I lay here too long, I thought staring blankly up at the empty darkness, I’ll drown.
I brushed my hands across the bloody surface, like a child treading water or splashing in a shallow stream. I watched without much care as the waves rippled and changed, sensing the contents of each droplet of blood.
The soul was a strange, nebulous thing. Each drop of red that brushed across my palms told a little bit more about myself. Here was an old mory, one that tied to a dozen others. Each splash of scarlet was another knot in an ever-expanding tapestry of my existence, sohow compressed into liquid form.
It was peaceful, in a way. Not the normal peace I experienced in this place. This was the peace of the calm before the storm. It was the sort of stillness that served as a prelude to a fight in a ring, or a duel for your life.
The Brand wasn’t innately cruel. It burned my soul, true, but each searing contact with Chul had been a slight warning, starting small. Don’t hold your loved ones, it said, pushing one away like a hand lurching from a hot stove. It will get worse if you hold on.
That was what had hurt Aurora so much. Despite the heat, when Chul had been endangered, she’d held on, letting herself break apart.
I pulled myself from the shallows before the ghosts of the dead could pull under. I sat cross-legged again, closing my eyes as I found the willpower to push back to the real world.
When I opened them again, I was in Seris’ room once more, the dark candlelight making feel like I was still staring into that endless abyss of distant stars.
I was alone. That was normal now. Seris visited sotis, but she never stayed long. She pressed on my wounds. Checked on my health. Ensured I was still here. And then she’d leave, swiftly as she’d co.
Even as I’d been confined to her bed, I felt a sort of distance between us that had never been there before that ached as much as any of the wounds I’d taken in my battle with Chul. But why wouldn’t she distance herself from ? I’d promised her hope. I’d promised her a way forward.
And I’d broken those hopes along with Burim.
“I can’t stay in here,” I said to myself in slow realization. Seris had commanded to stay put, presumably for my protection and recovery. But every inhale and every brush of… the city’s wound across my ears slowly drove closer and closer to the edge.
I felt like I was in a cage, denied the light. The darkness outside of Seris’ rooms had been enough to terrify into hiding, at least until the spreading madness of my very own soul finally overrode that fear.
I rose quickly from the bed, stumbling over to Seris’ door. I pushed my way outside, reining in my mana signature. The halls were dark as a crypt as my eyes darted about, searching for signs of any other presence.
Aurora, can you sense–
My thoughts cut off abruptly as I recognized what I’d been about to ask. Can you sense any traps or spies?
But she was silent. Gone for now.
That second presence in my mind had always been a source of comfort and warmth. A reassuring little light that affird my emotions and drive at every point of the way. Now, without that hand on my shoulder, I felt strangely like a lost child in a house far, far too big for in the depths of the night.
I exhaled a shuddering breath, then walked across the dreadfully empty halls. And as I walked, the sound I’d been hiding from for so long finally reached my ears. It was like a massive, pulsing wound. It felt as if Mother Earth herself wept from a dozen cuts.
Whenever soone bled, it carried a small trace of their excess heartfire that coasted along the top, glimring for a ti before dissipating into that atmosphere. But this… this was like that, except dark. Like a swath of pestilence that refused to leave the dead, warding away every family that ca to mourn. It brushed against my ears like the deepened calls of a mourning dove, making tremors rush along my arms.
I felt cold. Even with the heat of my blood and the warmth of my mana, I couldn’t stop the chilling wave that made gooseflesh rise along my skin.
I reached the exit of the Divot easily enough. Part of was still sure that Seris had tracked out. In fact, I was certain of it. Even if I didn’t know how, I doubted I could escape that cage without her figuring it out sohow.
The Divot was dreadfully silent as I floated above, one foot over the edge of the abyss.
If I float down, I’ll see it all, I thought, my fingers clenching at my side. If I look down, I can’t pretend it doesn’t exist anymore.
I could already hear the aftermath, like one gaping attack on the world itself. But seeing it…
I needed to face it. To see the consequences of my actions, to see them through. I’d promised myself that long ago.
I allowed myself to sink like a stone at the bottom of a river, casting my gaze about the decimated city.
Burim was unrecognizable. Where once lavaducts hung from thick chains in the Overcrofts, providing warm light and flowing life to the entire city, now they swung like disemboweled entrails instead. The hanging stalactites, instead of littering the ceiling in a thousand different places, were now only sparse spears poised to impale the earth even further. What chains were left swung like empty nooses, the corpses long since taken down.
I hovered there in the center of the cavern for a ti, utterly undetectable as I observed the devastation, felt the intent.
This is what war between asura is, I thought, feeling as if my flight were slower in the molten sap of lingering death. This is what it leaves behind.
In the aftermath of my battle with Mardeth, the people of East Fiachra had been devastated, feeling each lance of pain deep in their hearts. But there had been hope, too. A strange dichotomy toward the future pervaded their minds and ideals.
But there was none of that here. The intent of every mage just reeked of despair as they trudged across malford bridges and sifted through rubble far below. Dwarves used their tal, magma, and earth magic to part debris and carve through the tattered landslide that was once the Undercrofts. Streams of lava still flowed malevolently here and there, mocking the survivors.
I didn’t know what to feel. Despair? Regret? Anguish? I’d felt all of those already. They’d consud . Anger? So of that, yes. Hate, too. But right now, I just felt tired.
Mordain had warned and tested my resolve, asking if I was willing to take these chances. Soleil had shown a Bloodtie that stunk of the sa dread pain. I’d decried them both internally as cowards too afraid to take the steps necessary to save this world from the Vritra and Indraths.
But seeing this—feeling it deep within—I thought I finally understood them beyond an intellectual level.
How had I been so naive?
I drifted down to a nearby refugee station, silent as the empty wind. I swiped a cloak from a stall while the owner wasn’t looking, using it to cover my recognizable features.
And then I set to helping where I could. For hours, I used my telekinesis to clear rubble. I healed whoever I could find. I was a shadow in the crowds, little less than a ghost as I flitted about in half a haze.
High above, the gaping wound in the ceiling where my failed assault on Chul had been deflected into the roof let the morning sun into the cavern, but it didn’t feel bright. Sand fell in a constant stream of fine particles along the edges like a waterfall into the dark cavern far below. It made think of the slow trickle of an hourglass running out of ti. I hid amidst the shadows of that lost ti as hundreds of feet of destroyed rock passed by.
The people were somber with loss, but they still talked as I drifted among them. A massive Alacryan fleet had arrived practically imdiately after the Breaking. They’d been striking north along the Sehz, making a true effort to punch through Sapin to Blackbend. Rumors said a Retainer led it. Maybe even a Scythe.
I half-listened as I worked. I was certain that so picked up on my identity, but not a word was said.
I just kept moving, going from one place that needed a helping hand to another. And as it all sank into my skin like cloying smoke, I felt my thoughts shift back again and again to that understanding of this tragedy. This… This was what happened when asura fought. This was what beca of the world when gods did battle.
And Mother Earth continued her work, careless of the lessers beneath her feet, I thought sardonically, stepping away from a small group of dwarven mages as I set down a massive boulder that had been giving them trouble. The Dragon battled her to protect them. But that was the dragon’s perspective, wasn’t it?
Barth had told that story, one spoken to all asuran youth. But I wondered, then. How many lessers did Arkanus destroy in his conquest of Geolus?
I was forced to interrupt my work, however, as a familiar pulling sensation brushed against my soul. Not my mind, no—the very sea of crimson that I’d recently left for the land of the living.
Circe? I thought with confusion, rembering the sensation from not long ago when I’d felt her plea. Circe Milview?
The last ti I’d answered such a call, I’d been interned deep in the Hearth. Seth had laid dying in Circe’s arms, and she’d… pleaded for soone to help. For to help. And I’d answered, granting her what I could.
And she’d channeled my heartfire healing, sohow. Maybe because of her latent djinni blood? Or perhaps from so insight of her own?
I hadn’t had ti to truly comprehend what this ant at the ti. I’d been too set on trying to win the favor of the Hearth in the Forum to focus on the intricacies of—
Again, that plea for help brushed against the boundaries of my soul. It was so earnest. So pure and trusting in its desire for help and assistance. Even in the depths of my own despair, I couldn’t deny it.
I closed my eyes, and I followed that call to the edges of my spirit. I reached Circe’s soul, and I sensed the effervescent lifeforce that connected it to her body.
And I followed it down.
So part of traveled beyond Burim. Beyond Dicathen and Alacrya, to a place not quite of this realm. Ti moved differently there, subject as it was to altered rules of reality. Clocks ticked slower. My heartbeat seed to take its leisurely ti.
Circe’s in the Relictombs, I realized as her emotions flowed through . Just like with how I reached out to Tessia and healed her, I can sense where she is in space.
And the person she was healing… Sevren?! Yes, Circe was channeling what heartfire I had to spare to a familiar man. I couldn’t see or truly understand the situation, but I knew this young girl—who had once been so faithful to the Vritra Doctrination—was sohow soothing wounds on Sevren’s left arm, which had been mangled to a pulp.
I wanted to learn more. I guided the young girl’s aetheric touch where I could, sensing the weaves of intent that reached her and using those to pull us both into alignnt with Sevren. But I still felt so weak. Even as my best friend’s arm finally pulled itself back together, I struggled to keep my focus on the young sentry.
Against my will, my weakened soul pulled away, wrenched back to the dark and wounded expanse of Burim. I exhaled a ragged breath, my heartbeat stuttering in my chest as I leaned forward.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
I’d felt a mote of Circe’s emotions as my weakened soul failed to anchor itself any more. What I sensed unnerved . There was an almost sunny, blinding glow of trust that seared my taphysical eyes.
Back when I’d healed Tessia Eralith during Bilal and Bivran’s attack on Zestier, I hadn’t been able to so easily trace her heartfire back to her soul. There was a resistance. I couldn’t get in without being allowed in. Thankfully, the elven princess had relented under my insistent, soul-deep request. Afterward, I’d been able to coast along the flow of the heartfire that tied her Soul to her Vessel in an inverse of how I reached my own soul.
But I’d needed to ask. With Tessia, I’d stood at the doorway, and I was granted permission. Sothing about how Circe was willing to open her very soul to made my fists clench at my sides.
Nobody should trust that openly, I thought, rembering Seris’ eyes in the wake of my broken promises. It only leads to pain.
My damning introspection drifted away as a familiar presence approached along charred streets. The Undercrofts weren’t as dark as they used to be, at least not this section. The holes seared in the ceiling let in too much sunlight for that.
Still, Lusul Hercross blended in well with what shadow was left. There was a darkness to his intent and a subtle rigidity to his emotions I’d never felt before as he strode through the rubble of the Undercrofts towards .
Dwarven refugees scuttled away from him as if he were a bright light and they were rats. It made the reality of the situation burn even more as he approached.
Lusul had entered this war as a boy. He had been beaten into being a man.
“Sir,” he said sharply, standing at attention near . Even with my cloak, he knew precisely who to address. “I’ve been sent to talk with you.”
His nearly pink eyes shifted around the darkness, almost seeming to glow in contrast with his dark skin. I saw how the edges of his eyes trembled as he took in the shattered stone and lted rock all around us.
The lavatides, strangely, didn’t settle down or leave much behind but rubble. They passed over almost supernaturally, pumping their vile fire into the ocean. I would’ve expected them to cool and solidify as the heat of the lava lessened, but they felt like a hit-and-run driver who didn’t care about who they hurt, only fled the scene and left the victims in horrified shock.
Lusul had empathized with these people not long ago. He’d finally been able to dissect the intent of mages as it pressed around him, deciphering it all. He had wept.
He didn’t weep now.
“Seris sent you?” I asked, my shoulders slumping. It wasn’t a question, not really. We both knew the answer.
Lusul looked away in subtle guilt, unable to bear staring at the refugees. His intent radiated a kindred sha.
How many other Alacryans feel sha at their conquest? I wondered, dusting my hands against my trousers. How many see the truth?
I slowly stood from where I’d been kneeling, mindful of a slight stream of molten rock nearby. The dwarves shuffled away with muttered apologies, their eyes empty.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to avoid Seris’ notice for long, if I ever had avoided it at all. But still, as I loped up to Lusul, I wondered what he had to say.
“Scythe Seris Vritra has orders for you, Toren,” the second son of Nad Blood Hercross said lowly. “I don’t see why I’m delivering them to you, but…”
I knew why. There was a distance between Seris and that I couldn’t quite grasp or understand. But it appeared that extended to how I now received her orders—through a proxy, instead of directly.
Ironic. Once upon a ti, I’d received a letter from Lusul claiming to be orders from Scythe Seris and imdiately known it to be a fake. But now, what could I say?
“What does Seris need of , Captain?” I asked tiredly, noting the badge pinned to the young man’s lapel. He’d been promoted again.
Lusul was walking behind , but his steps slowed enough that I had to stop and turn to look at him. “She’s ordered you to be seen,” he said after a mont. “She decrees that you will act as you did in the wake of the Plaguefire Incursion.”
I observed the young Captain for a mont in somber contemplation. I could see where this was leading, after all. I could pick apart Seris’ sche the mont Lusul said the words.
She wanted to make a symbol again. So sort of beacon of hope in the wake of this devastation.
Seris had agreed to only do that once. I’d only agreed to be that once. But now, she’d found in an impossible position. Because what else could I do? Could I hide forever in her rooms, looking away from all the people that needed my help?
Was this her plan all along? I suddenly wondered, feeling slightly sick. Was she always intending to drive to help others in this city and beco so sort of symbol against my will?
Long ago, Seris had promised that she would always tell when she moved across her political board, but it appeared that she was breaking that promise.
I stared off with Lusul, the young man unable to et my glowing orange gaze. I wasn’t projecting anything through my intent. My control was too iron-clad for that. But he was versed enough in Alacryan politics to know instantly that whatever ssage he carried had extraordinary weight, even if he didn’t understand why.
Can I bla Seris for breaking a promise? I asked myself. Does she think I broke my promises to her? When she looks at , is she seeing scattered hope?
I exhaled a long, weary sigh. The cavern of Burim seed to sigh with , groaning as all the tainted heartfire brushed against my ears in tune.
I turned back around, then began to walk. I didn’t have any particular destination, I didn’t think. At least not yet.
With every step we took, though, I saw sothing in my fellow musician’s posture crumble more and more. Sothing that had been bending for a long ti was nearing a breaking point. It bled from his intent as he struggled not to ask sothing.
“You should know by now that I don’t punish questions, Lusul,” I said into the dim silence. We were walking toward one of the eastern camps near the edges of Burim’s gaping maw. Vaguely, I planned to heal as many dwarves as I could. That was how I could perform the most good in the least amount of ti, but I could feel that pressure in the orchestral man’s intent as it built. It needed to burst before we finally parted.
We were close to the edge, now. The flickering lights of the tents and makeshift earthen hovels beckoned us.
“What’s it for, Toren?” he finally pushed out, stuttering to a stop. “This war, these battles? All that’s left behind?”
I stopped walking as the man voiced the single question that had raged inside my skull for so many days. It sank into the stones and the air around us like smoke. Not the black, overwhelming kind, but the sort that was insidiously subtle. This was the kind of smoke that built too fast and too quick for you to realize there was a fire until it was far, far too late.
And no matter how low I crouched, I was unable to avoid the fus.
Lusul's question wasn’t one that I could answer. I think we both knew that, even as he asked it. He just needed to say the words that had been hamring their way through his skull for so long.
Seris thinks I’m supposed to bring these people hope, I thought absently. That’s why she wants to go about and heal them and be visible and everything.
But how could I be the hope of others when I felt so little of it myself?
The mont of silent dread was shattered, however, as thirteen heartbeats brushed against my ears. They were all approaching at a quick pace. They didn’t march with a soldier’s gait, but certainly one of familiarity with the terrain and path.
I turned, surprised to see a dozen dwarves and humans making their way through the rubble paths. My eyes widened slightly as I took in their disheveled forms, noting their many cuts and exhausted bodies.
They stumbled to a halt as they noticed Lusul and I, many of them seeming nervous and uncertain at my appearance. I only recognized one person among them.
The lead dwarf—a thinner nonmage who was missing a couple fingers and whose eyes were slightly too far apart—took a hesitant, shaky knee as his heart beat with emotion. He took off his hat, clutching it in his hands and revealing a balding scalp.
“Lord Spellsong,” he ground out, his voice scratchy. It barely trembled. “If we knew you were here, we would have… Would have presented ourselves better.”
I couldn’t tell what the man was feeling from that heartbeat. Fear? Awe? Excitent? It unnerved , how little I could understand of nonmages due to their nonexistent intent. The discomfort from how he knelt at all rankled deep in my mana core.
My eyes scanned over the gathered crowd as Lusul slowly walked to my side, his eyes focusing for a mont on a single mber of the crowd. They stared back at him, a solemn smile crossing their face.
Anasia, I rembered. Lusul's Dicathian lover. Her curly hair was nearly flattened from dust, and her hands fidgeted, but the fondness that radiated between the two was blatantly obvious to .
And Anasia… there was sothing different about her. There were only twelve people here, but it felt like she had two heartbeats. Was it so sort of effect of the ambient distortions from all the death?
“I don’t want you kneeling in front of ,” I said honestly, moving towards the dwarven leader. “I’m not like the Alacryans that you might’ve t who would force you to bow.”
My words had the opposite of my intended effect as they rippled through the crowd. It was with discomfort that I noticed more than a few heads lower with respect and reverence in their features as I tried to decipher their emotions.
An uncertain dread churned in my stomach as the man raised his head. I almost recoiled at the light of hope I saw in his eyes.
“I don’t bow because of that,” he said. “My son… he almost died to that asuran monster, Spellsong. But you fought him off. If you hadn’t been here, he would’ve fallen to that deity. We never had much, but we—my family—we are in your debt. And dwarves of Darv never forget their debts, Morningstar.”
Strange, that they call that, I thought mutely, Only after I’ve been cast from Paradise.
His words bludgeoned any response I might have had into silence even deeper than before. My eyes road across the gathered dwarves. I didn’t know where they were going or what they’d been intending to do before they’d stumbled across , but I felt disturbingly like so sort of golden idol laid before worshippers.
Sensing my frozen indecision, Lusul thankfully cleared his throat. He stepped forward, speaking into the silence. “The refugee camps regularly send out scourers to find new places to rebuild after lavatides,” he explained, working to take my mind off what the naless dwarf had just said. “These few Dicathians are part of one such expedition.”
Lusul's interjection, thankfully, allowed to recover sowhat from my quiet shock. “Oh?” I replied, hoping my voice didn’t waver. “I read a little about the protocols in place after lavatides, but never really got the chance to learn more.”
The dwarf with missing fingers finally rose from his uncomfortable kneeling position. “Aye, Spellsong,” he said with quiet gratitude. “Most lavatides co predictably. Not this ti, though. That asura… He made it appear. His mana n’ all made it all erupt.”
Our mana, I thought, but didn’t interrupt. Our mana.
“Our casualties… They are higher. Higher than they’ve been in living mory. But we carry on as always. It is our way,” the dwarf said gruffly. He nodded to and Lusul, putting his hat back on as he rolled his shoulders. “But we’ve gotta get back to salvaging and rebuilding. It’s the way.”
He sent one last shallow bow, before he began to walk around us. The other eleven followed, most of them sending simple nods or averting their eyes entirely. Anasia was the only exception. Her fond, loving eyes were reserved only for Lusul as they made a silent promise. Her hands fidgeted, as Lusul told they always did, but I imagined that they would be calm if the young Hercross but held them. So much passed between them in that single instant, three heartbeats that almost seed to be one.
They loved each other. So deeply.
And as I was stewing in the depths of my own self-pity and self-bla, it finally clicked. I finally understood what I’d been hearing.
Even as the twelve strode away deeper into the darkness, that strange, weak thirteenth lifeforce clinging to Anasia, I felt a sort of looseness grasp every bone and muscle in my body. I shook slightly, unsure if I should laugh or cry.
“Lusul,” I said, my voice low and quiet, “I need you to co with .”
—
Lusul didn’t enjoy being hauled behind with telekinesis as I floated outside of Burim, but he didn’t complain. The sun was high in the sky as I finally escaped the darkness for a bare mont. The sweet kiss of that blazing dot in the sky served to make relax in a way I never expected.
The sea was beautiful. Even with the many steamships that coasted through the Bay of Burim, they failed to banish the ethereal sea of reflective glass that stretched on into infinity before . I watched it for a short ti, finding a small spark of hope in how I could still see beauty in this world.
But this wasn’t about the sea. It wasn’t about Alacrya, or Dicathen, or any of my personal worries. Right now, none of those mattered. And that was sothing just as beautiful as the sun in the sky.
I brought us to the cliffside. It wasn’t hard to find a slight outcropping of stone that could support us both as it looked out into the distance. I tapped down easily enough, allowing Lusul to tap down a mont later.
The young man looked around warily, testing the ground beneath his feet. I could sense his anxiety, but it wasn’t the sort of fear that he’d felt the first ti I’d taken him aside. He swallowed, for a mont showing the boy he truly was, before he turned to look more at the view stretching out before us.
“It’s beautiful,” he said softly, his pink eyes taking on a hue of orange as the sunlight reflected off them. He squinted, still struggling to adjust to the light. “It’s been so long since I’ve been out in the sun. It almost feels strange on my skin.”
Indeed, most of those stationed in Burim had been placed here for months on end. I imagined the darkness beca a dread routine for them day in and day out.
Hell, just watching the distant sky and tasting the scent of saltwater and the ocean made unseen burdens disappear. The rustle of the sea breeze through my long hair drew an exhale of simple pleasure from my lips.
“You asked what it was all for,” I said, slowly lowering myself down and crossing my legs. I leaned backward on my hands as I stared down from above.
It was so much easier to see it all from the sky. The dark smokestacks of the Alacryan steamships were ugly, but they failed to rip away the majesty of the sea.
Lusul turned to look at with uncertainty, his hands clenching at his sides. Strangely, I felt his intent rise with a subtle sort of fear as I lounged casually, staring off into the distance.
But for the first ti since the Hearth, I managed to achieve sothing close to… peace. Even with the knowledge that so much loss and suffering brushed against the world itself, sitting here in the mid-afternoon sun and gazing at the sea provided a sort of clarity that had been gone for so long.
A deep breath in. A deep breath out.
My mind was empty of even Aurora’s reassurance. It had left feeling lost and directionless, but now…
What was it all for?
“I don’t have an answer for you, Lusul,” I said after a mont, my voice laced with suppressed sorrow. “I don’t have an answer for myself, either.”
That was the kind of question that could only be answered when it was all over. When every single action could be scanned and scrutinized in a maddening tirade of “Was it all worth it?”
“Then why are we here, Toren?” Lusul asked, sounding almost desperate. He didn’t sit. I didn’t think he could. “Are you just going to tell that I need to keep doing what I’m doing? Be a good soldier?”
I didn’t respond, still looking out over the sea.
“Or are you going to say that all this will end in the High Sovereign’s favor? That’s it’s all so sort of master–”
“It’s about Anasia, Lusul,” I said quietly.
The young Hercross lurched backward, seeming surprised by my words. He blinked once in surprise, then in fear. The silence that stretched between us was as vast as the sea beyond us. “What about her, Toren?” he said after a mont. He ground his teeth. “Do we need to cut it off now? Now that this war is starting in earnest?”
I finally turned away from the sea, looking at the young Nad Blood. I sensed it deep over his intent: his fear, his worry, and his love.
A fool in love, I thought, a slight smile stretching over his face. He’d throw it all away for her. His position as Captain, his allegiance to Alacrya…
He was naive. Willing to thrust his hand into the fire, willing to be burned. Like I had been.
I hesitated for a mont, rembering how so many of the phoenixes of my once-flock had tried to snuff that fire. For my own good, they’d said. If I could stand among them now, with all I knew… Would I…?
Would I snuff that fire, too?
“She’s with child, Lusul,” I said into the wind. “She’s with child.”
Lusul didn’t seem to hear at first. His eyes were still challenging for a mont, but I could see the mont my words registered. The precise mont that each individual word ca together into a sentence that had aning.
“W… What?” he croaked, his intent crashing into the waves far below.
“She has two heartfires in her body. I sensed them when she saw us,” I said after a mont. “One is strong and sure. But the other… It’s like a little candlelight, slowly being fed the gift of life.”
Lusul fell to his knees. He tried to breathe inward, but all that he managed was a choking cough. His glass-like emotions shattered into a kaleidoscope of everything that made a person human. Wonder and terror and fear and hope and everything fought for supremacy in his mind as his breathing hitched.
He didn’t cry. He didn’t weep. I wasn’t even sure he would ever be able to through the deluge of emotions that assaulted his mind like a volcanic eruption.
It wasn’t a panic attack. No, it was an everything attack. There was too much crowding for space inside of Lusul’s skull that he had no ti to feel anything at all. His heartbeat beca so erratic that I feared he might have a heart attack then and there.
For a mont, I felt a hint of fear. I might have miscalculated in telling him so simply. I moved, about to offer a hand or so words to the overwheld mage, but he cut off.
His mana flexed, diving into his dinsion ring and withdrawing sothing familiar.
A violin.
My outstretched hand halted as the young man grasped his instrunt like the last bit of driftwood in a howling storm. His teeth were clenched so hard I feared they might shatter, but when he pressed his instrunt to his shoulder, sothing in him changed.
His darting, uncertain eyes t mine for a mont as he held his shaky bow to the strings. They searched my soul for sothing.
I retracted my hand, my body relaxing as I recognized the answer he’d found. His rapid breathing finally found a level of order as his body tensed, straining against the rigidity of the world and processing the equal wonder and fear coursing through him.
Then he turned to the sea and began to play.
And Lusul’s intent sang. It rose and fell and professed itself through every sheer, terrified chord that he echoed. His arm was like lightning as it played through every emotion deep in his soul as they found their escape. Awe. Terror. Love. Uncertainty.
It all flowed in a symphony fit to match any of my own. His intent radiated through the air, louder and more direct than it had been before. I found myself imrsed in everything this up-and-coming Alacryan Captain felt about his life and his love.
Lusul wasn’t as skilled in a lone show as I was. He was part of an orchestra; one cog in a massive machine. But each of the emotions he burned into the sky in this lone symphony carried the weight of those missing parts. Each was another twisting gear in a great masterpiece, working towards conclusion.
I thought I could see the path of his journey. The growth in his character as he shared his tentative love with Anasia. How he’d told himself it would never work. How it would only doom him and his Blood. Then to a quiet hope as I enabled him, and then back to terror as the Alacryan fleet tightened down on this continent.
And now, there wasn’t that sa hope as he’d first felt. It wasn’t a naive, ignorant hope. But I could feel the spark of sothing else deep within.
A resolve to make hope. A relentlessness, an unwillingness to leave things as they were. A drive: for himself, for his lover, and for his child.
Reviews
All reviews (0)