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Toren Daen
When I awoke, I didn't imdiately open my eyes.
Instead, I felt the mana around , using the ntal exercise to distract myself from the weight of all I'd discussed with Mordain. I could almost feel myself expanding, my intent stretching through the atmosphere. On and on and on it went, threading through the world like a heatwave.
And I could feel the strange wind attribute mana howling around us in a scream that was both loud and silent all at once. There was so, so much of it, like a fist clasped in rigor mortis around a dull gemstone. I could feel the long-dead, colossal fingers closing in around my semi-mortal fra. The great hand was miles wide just to my senses alone, grand and impossible in scale.
But I knew, deep in my heart, that what should have felt impossibly colossal and mighty was instead withered. The grip of that fist wasn't mighty and absolute, no: it was the grasp of a shriveled, mummified corpse, blocking out the sky as it slowly decayed.
I opened my eyes to a world almost entirely covered in darkness. Through the eye of a miles-wide, endless hurricane, I could glimpse a smattering of stars, twinkling their light down through their tiny window of opportunity.
My long, feather-red hair splayed about like an artist's brush as I laid on the cold stone, ward only by the subtle thump-thump-thump of my pierced heart and the crackling pops of a nearby fire. I laid within the hollowed-out remains of an empty tree, which must have once been profound in its beauty. I could imagine it coated in autumn-fire leaves and silver bark, long ago. Now, it slumped like an old man struggling to keep hold of his cane.
"Can you feel how dead this place is?" I asked, tracing the rim of the storm's eye so far above the opening of the hollow tree. Every now and then, distant boughs of withered silver bark would drift like tumbleweed through the skies, eddies of formless wind pushing them onward. "It's almost suffocating. The stench that pervades the mana for miles upon miles."
I'd spent relative hours inside my own soul working with the Phoenix Prince, working on ironing out my sense for mana and how my body now adjusted to being strengthened. Ti didn't flow in my soul the sa way it did outside, which felt like a mix of a blessing and a curse.
Mordain always left with questions. His lackadaisical, casual air of discussing philosophy and the world at large—interspersed into nearly every lesson he gave—made contemplative and introspective when I really didn't want to be. I left every conversation considering the world in a new light, and so part of was annoyed about that.
Thunder rumbled through the clouds like a low, pained moan, reminding of that death. Reminding that the only thing surrounding was a spiraling corpse, murdered millennia ago.
"There's nothing living except us for five and a three-quarters miles in every direction, and nothing has died here for approximately one thousand, three hundred and thirty-two years," a grating, unamused voice bit into the air. "Are your senses still malfunctioning, Spellsong? I don't know how Integration should have worked, but if you let take a look at your body—"
I sighed, deliberately interrupting Wren as I sat up slowly. The craftsman spied through his reedy hair, his eyes—which still had dark circles beneath them, appearing to have been stamped on with ink—gleaming almost greedily as he stared at the place where Inversion's hilt peeked from my chest. That desire for knowledge unnerved more than a little.
"I'm not going to let you inspect my body like it's so sort of machine," I said irritably. "Also, I can feel your earth mana trying to probe . It feels invasive."
The titan's intent radiated curiosity so intense in its contrast with the gyrating carcass around us. And deeper down, I thought I caught hints of those emotions he tried to keep suppressed. Woven like thread into the tapestry of—
I forcibly turned my mind away from the titan's intent, rembering the words that hadn't yet fully left the air. Invasive. If I let myself, I could follow that thread deep. Far, far deeper than before into soone's psyche, with so much casual ease, like a worm wriggling through soone's mind.
Wren's mana retreated reluctantly, the asura muttering about missed opportunities and a lack of vision. "You're touchy tonight. You didn't get enough sleep. A lesser's circadian rhythm should allow them an optimal eight hours, and you've gotten two since we arrived in this howling place. Go back to bed."
The titan's beady black eyes narrowed, contrasting strangely with the rumbling brown lines of his lifeforce as they pulsed visibly through his veins. There were scars there: marks all across his veins that reminded painfully of burns. He had been scarred inside deeply.
I groaned, massaging the bridge of my nose. I'd just spent a perceptual night talking with Mordain of all people, and I realized very quickly that if I had to be stuck with Wren as well, I would go insane.
"My body doesn't need as much sleep as most humans," I grumbled, feeling the strength of the lifeforce flowing from my heart. "I was tired after the prison, yeah. But I got what rest I needed. It's fine."
Before my apotheosis, there had been a definite difference between my heartfire reserves and my actual lifespan. Now, though… Now, no such limitation existed. And the sheer amount of lifeforce coasting through my veins, taken from Vajrakor in a vampiric draw, saw constantly refreshed and rested. It was hard to feel exhausted with the constant effect of a dozen coffees flowing through my veins in an orange-purple flow.
I guess that says sothing about my exhaustion after waking from the literal dead, I thought sardonically, clenching my hands slowly. The fact that I was able to sleep at all.
"And how do you know how long a human should sleep?" I asked slowly, emphasizing the word human. "When Arthur trained with you, you didn't even know how we interacted with tiscales at all. You threatened to cut off a finger of his for being a bit late, didn't you?"
Wren scoffed. He'd traded his blood-stained prisoner's rags for a set of loose yoga pants, sandals, and a tight-fitting, sleeveless tunic. A simple purple coat draped loosely from his shoulders, making shiver in jealousy. "You think I can't learn? I asked questions about humans when I was off in Alacrya. Looking for you."
I let out a breath, resisting the urge to wince. The firelight cast strange shadows in front of Wren's features, making him appear thin and gaunt. I'd been able to gather a bit from context while I'd been imprisoned alongside Chul. Wren had ventured to Alacrya himself, alone, searching for Aurora… and he'd found her. What was left of her.
"Who are you, by the way?" the titan asked. His face darkened. "I heard a lot about you over there, but didn't put it together until it was too late. Asclepius Retainer, Spellsong, Morningstar. I heard many, many rumors about Alacrya and Agrona's experints with… humans. Didn't believe a lot of them. Believed so. And it looks like… you're her son."
Wren's eyes lingered, haunted, on my feather-red hair. Aurora's color.
"Agrona is cruel," I replied with a quiet whisper. "But if there is any rcy in this world, it's that what you're guessing is wrong. I was a boy in the slums of Fiachra, and of another world. And when she decided she had had enough of her tornt, she sang to Fate."
I looked at my arms, covered in burn scars, reflecting the wounds in my soul. "She bonded . Adopted , Sculpted . Made who I am. Even if not by purest blood, I am her son."
Wren snorted, and I thought he seed—if marginally—relieved. "I found her there, in the pits. Hair like ash. And so very cold. I didn't want to leave, then. Didn't think it was worth it."
My eyes drifted to the titan's lifeforce, burned in a way I'd never seen before. The asura had been captured, then tortured, the lingering scars still simring long after. "I am sorry," I said quietly, pressing my palms atop my knees. Visions of the past simred through my mind, when I'd gotten a glimpse at the horrors Aurora had known beneath Agrona's hands. "I can't imagine what Taegrin Caelum was like—"
"No, you can't," Wren interrupted bitterly, his eyes sharpening. "Keep your senses to yourself, Spellsong. It feels invasive."
I let out a breath, sensing how I'd struck a nerve with the titan. Then I pressed inward on my heartfire sight, muting the rumbling tump-tump-tump of his lifeforce to my ears and making my vision of it flicker away. An awkward silence stretched between us, punctuated only by the crackling fire as it fought desperately against the encroaching dark.
"What matters is that I found her," Wren continued, sounding as if he were trying more to convince himself than . "And I brought her here. And you reincarnated yourself, sohow. Which ans you will do the sa for her."
I turned my gaze upward, through the crooked hollow of graying bark to the stars on high. The false constellations glimred down, unaware that they were rely illusions sculpted by Epheotus' magics. Millions of light years away, there were no stars to grasp, no suns to radiate warmth. It was a facade.
We lingered in the Starbrand Sanctum, ancestral ho of the Asclepius Clan. Where once this place had been a bustling nest of joy and love, now it was abandoned and cold, left to wither and waste away. The corpse of the great Catastrophe, Astranorum, rotted around us, a ballet dancer still twirling even as the skin fell from their bones and their muscles evaporated. It was that gyre of mana that hid us, disrupting any of the Indrath Clan's attempts to try and follow.
At least for now.
But as I felt, for the very first ti, that mana itself could be dead, I rembered how Aurora slept within my dinsion ring. The glimring band of spatial magic—barely retrieved by Wren from a pedestal before our fight with the dragons escalated—was as much a coffin as the swirling winds around us. And in turn, my mother's Vessel was like this tree we rested in… so hollow. So devoid of life.
"I can't see into the Beyond. Not yet," I muttered, clenching my fist, turning away from the stars. "I don't have the insight. But I will learn, Wren, and I will bring her back. Death has no right to keep her from ."
My jaw flexed, the mana around warping with my intent. Agrona had taken too much from . Greahd, my first mother… And then Aurora, my second. He had no right. Death had no right. But Mordain would teach the deeper ways of the soul, whether he liked it or not, and I'd fix what Agrona broke.
"My flock has been captured by Kezess, and I'm going to free them, too. We're going to Klethra next," I said, staring at the titan asura through eyes that shone with a light infinitely more true than the lying dots of white high above. "There's soone there that can help us free the Asclepius, and then we're going to take the fight to Agrona."
I was going to give Seris' rebellion a chance. The chance I thought I'd lost in the Hearth, where a clan of warrior gods would stand between Agrona's gargantuan boot and the innocent beneath its shadow.
"But I can't do it alone. And you've already done so much for my mother," I said softly. This strange, wizened titan had taken more action to try and save Aurora from her prison than even her own brother. I'd seen how he'd rushed to defend Aurora's body from Vajrakor's desecration. "You don't owe anything after all of it, Wren. But I'd like your help in this."
Wren was quiet for a while, staring at the fire. "You're a sappy sort, aren't you, Spellsong?" he grumbled, pushing himself slowly to his feet. He stretched slowly, working out cracks in his joints that must have been building since a ti before humans ever knew fire. "I talked a bit with that Milview girl. And the Spider. Denoir, or whatever he was called. He tried tooth and nail to protect you, even when he realized what I was. I didn't think you would be this emotional."
Circe Milview? I thought, blinking in montary surprise. And Sevren?
Abruptly, I rembered the ti Circe had called on my powers not long ago, using them to heal my best friend's broken arm. In the aftermath of Burim's Breaking, allowing the young djinn-blooded mage to use my gifts for good reminded that I could still do good.
God, I hoped they were okay. I hoped all of them were okay, managing wherever they were. I hoped that Circe's brother, Seth, was still fighting the good fight. I hoped that Naereni was still gallivanting across Fiachra, doing good for her people. And I hoped that Sevren wouldn't fall back into his reclusive ways, shutting himself away from everyone because I wasn't there.
But I saw Caera's soul, I reassured myself. I saw how she kept him moving.
"I guess I am a sappy, emotional sort," I admitted, realizing how the simple utterance of nas I missed had caused such spiraling introspection. "But you defied Kezess Indrath for a burning blade."
Wren paused, his brow wrinkling with annoyance. His lips twitched. "Has anyone ever taught you to respect your elders?"
I was quickly realizing what sort of prude this titan was. The kind that liked to pretend they were insurmountably rational, but at their core, were governed by their hearts, refusing to admit it all the while.
But I wasn't about to let this asura win our verbal spar. Especially with all my pent-up annoyance from losing every philosophical debate I'd had with Mordain. "Has anyone told you not to throw stones in a glass house?"
This asura had gone off to Alacrya in the hopes that my bond was alive, braving Agrona Vritra's sight because of love. That was quite emotional, in my opinion.
Wren deflated, realizing he'd lost this round. His intent misted through the air, radiating quiet annoyance. "You know, I'm a fugitive from Kezess anyway. And I started working on so solid cloaking technology when I was in that little boiling pot you called Alacrya. And beyond even that, you won't be able to leave Epheotus if I don't get my spare teleportation array. If you want to keep your little beak down, you'll need that."
The titan continued to mutter under his breath, listing off items and trics to himself that I couldn't fully understand, but the ssage was clear. I think we both knew he was going to agree from the mont he called emotional. But we were still stressed from our bare escape from a terrible prison, each looking to vent those emotional sides of ours in whatever small way we could.
Wren's head suddenly jerked upward, a light flashing in his eyes. He looked at with an intensity that reminded of that earlier, unnerving desire to understand. "And that spellform of yours… It's close in concept to a pantheon's use of force-type mana arts, is it not?"
I felt the warmth of my regalia, burning along my lower back. I wasn't entirely certain it was a regalia anymore, at least not in the conventional sense. "In appearance, it can be," I acknowledged, "but the principles are very different. What are you thinking?"
"Old Kezess likely doesn't know you're alive," the titan muttered, pacing in front of the fire. "Doesn't know I'm alive, or the oaf is alive. We're easy enough to cover for when we reach Klethra… But if you start hurling plasma beams and sparking fires, you're going to attract attention, because you are not an asura. So we need a mask for you. Hopefully using that magic of yours."
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I slowly hovered upward, placing my feet below myself. I brushed at my scavenged martial robes—worn and dull from years laying about in the Starbrand Sanctum. My expression deepened as I found the thread of logic the titan was going for. "You want to… what, pretend to be a pantheon?" I asked, genuinely shocked by this avenue. "If I use my sound magic and my spellform, maybe I can mimic the appearance of a pantheon's invisible mana arts, but the mont I et an actual pantheon, they'll see through it imdiately. Or even a dragon with Realmheart. The instant they see my mana, they'll know. And it's not like I can even suppress my mana signature anymore."
I felt my mana flow around , the way my signature could no longer be contained. The way it pulsed like a star's nova. "The entire reason we're hiding at the center of this storm is because it masks my mana signature like a cloak, because I can't erase it anymore." Not unless I were to lobotomize myself. Stop myself from feeling at all.
"Then that would be my job to figure out," Wren said irritably, a slight frown tugging at the edge of his lips. "Old Kezzy can't understand the benefits of technology, or what it can do. He doubts its potential. Which is why nothing has changed for generations, even though I've offered a dozen tis to push things further. I can make sothing that suppresses your irritably bright mana signature."
Wren ran an annoyed hand through his hair, glaring at as if I were the rising sun prodding a man who hadn't yet had his coffee. "Whatever. We need to gather information. Need to get my teleportation pad. Need to get you to Klethra. Screw over Aggy. Screw over Kezzy. Bring back Aurora."
The titan's mana pulsed with the last word, his intent whispering of past despair. Unbidden, I heard a single, pained heartbeat.
"That's the plan, then," I muttered, still uncertain if I could fill the shoes placed in front of . If Aurora were here, she'd have the right words of advice. Her hand would be on my shoulder, guiding toward the right path. "I'll go get Chul. We should try and get going while it's dark, and capitalize on the confusion that the destroyed prison will make."
If the Indraths even remotely expected or Chul's survival, then the Starbrand Sanctum was the most logical place to check. Wren had only directed us here out of necessity when we'd recognized my mana signature simply could not disappear so long as I had mana in my body, betting on the churning winds of Astranorum to smother my light from the imdiate investigators.
But that ant we needed to move quickly and erase all traces that we'd been here.
I turned to the sky, preparing to lift off. Then I paused, a swelling darkness in my gut. There was a question I needed to ask. One that gnawed at the edges of my mind, but couldn't be ignored.
"Wren, do you still have your Beast Will?" I asked, rembering the feeling of being desecrated, deep in a dark, dood Cathedral. Rembering the feeling of being implanted with a soul-born parasite, set to detonate and devour when I was at my weakest. "Did you have it when you escaped Taegrin Caelum? I don't know everything, but I know that my Phoenix Will was what allowed Agrona to kill , in the end. From an infection."
I let the question simr in the air for a mont, preparing for the possibility of what might co next. I wasn't exactly being subtle.
"You think I'm bugged," Wren muttered disdainfully. "What, you think I couldn't escape from Taegrin Caelum on my own? Think it was sohow all part of Agrona's 'master plan?' "
I turned to look seriously back at the titan, rembering all I'd experienced in Alacrya. "Agrona planted a soul parasite when I was under his power in the Central Dominion. And then he let loose, all so he could track and steal from when the ti was right. And I was arrogant enough to assu myself safe. And you know what ca of that arrogance?"
My eyes brightened for a mont, flickering with contained emotion as I stared at the asura. "Aurora died."
Wren appeared genuinely offended by my insinuation, his brow wrinkling as his pride was wounded. But my words were a spike deep into the heart of any resistance.
"If you think I'm sloppy enough to let Agrona do whatever he wanted, then you don't know , Spellsong," Wren ground out. "You don't know what it took to get out of that pit, or what I had to sacrifice."
I didn't say anything, just stared at the titan, matching his glare with a softer look. "You're right, Wren. I don't know what you went through, and that's why I haven't pressed. But I need to know."
The mangy titan let out an irritated sigh. "The Indraths made destroy my Beast Will when I began to work for them instead of my Clan. Couldn't let anyone else get the insight into mastering acclorite, or any of the secrets that the dragons would hoard. Thought they'd recognize my intelligence and how backward Clan Kain was with their defective idiosyncrasies."
Wren's intent snapped slightly as it brushed across a still-open wound, and I realized another reason why my question had agitated him so. For the Indraths to demand his service, they wouldn't let his secrets spread anywhere else. Ordering him to destroy his own Beast Will before it could be taken by his clan's Willforger effectively kept that insight contained.
But apparently, the titan craftsman didn't feel nearly as satisfied with whatever deal he'd taken as he'd initially expected. The bitterness radiated from him in such a way I wouldn't have needed my sense for intent to notice it.
But the titan had answered truthfully about his Beast Will, at the very least, and I wasn't willing to push any further.
"I'm sorry for whatever you experienced in that pit, Wren," I said honestly, rembering all the trauma that Aurora had fought through. Even to the end of her days. "I hope you can find a way forward."
I rose into the sky, ready to search for Lady Dawn's son.
As I did, I rembered the Hearth not so long ago. The way silver vines and autumn leaves traced across white marble, creating a hoy atmosphere encompassing autumn incarnate. The scent of cinnamon and chives and roasting apples and things I couldn't na but could feel sowhere in my soaring blood, all coalesced in that place of family.
The Starbrand Sanctum drifted through the sky, so much like Xyrus City, but so unlike it, too. As I cast my gaze about what was left of the Asclepius' ho, I could almost imagine what it used to look like. It was dark now, the world governed by a million false lanterns high in the sky. But during the day, the crumbling columns of marble would beco tall pillars, bearing wreaths of orange leaves. The husks of dead silver-barked trees would instead beco towering monoliths of nature, each one housing nests of roosting firebirds. During the day, the tumbling, gnarled weeds would instead be glimring sunsparks. During the day, I'd sll the scent of warm food with a full belly.
The Asclepius tried to recreate what they'd lost, I thought mournfully. Did they ever think they'd succeeded?
I forced my mind away from those thoughts as I honed in on Chul's mana signature, vibrant at the edge of the gales. The Starbrand Sanctum had the vague structure of a woven nest, and the son of Dawn had kept himself along one of its outermost branches.
As I flew, I used the ti to think about all I'd learned about my Integrated physique and the way it interacted with mana during my training with Mordain. My mana veins and channels had all shattered like unneeded ceramic as I'd hatched from the taphorical egg, and that ant that the old ways of directing mana across my body were no longer applicable.
Now, I simply needed to will it, and my mana would react at the speed of thought itself. No, faster than thought itself. There was no need to wait precious milliseconds for the energy to flow from my core to my muscles. It was already, always there. Always strengthening , guiding my movents forward.
It's far more efficient in how it strengthens my body, too, I thought, clenching my fists as I finally honed in on my target. If before mana strengthening was like injecting fire into my veins, forcing them to move faster, now it is akin to bathing in a sumr heat haze at all tis. Or a blanket wrapping around .
The question, though, was if that was enough to truly match an accomplished asura in a physical confrontation. I wasn't so certain.
I slowly settled down on an alabaster tree bough as thick around as three of put together, shoving my hands in my pockets. This husk didn't have lifeforce running through it any longer, and every step I took along its length made the wood creak.
At the far end of the branch, the remnants of Astranorum swirled: an unending curtain of stormy gray that no longer had the energy to lash with lightning. And right before it—his body a blur as he moved through familiar martial forms—was the man that Aurora wished to call brother.
The young phoenix moved on a precipice of silver wood. The deadened mace that was once Suncrusher emitted no light, even as it arced in precise counters and crushing blows. Chul moved between a dozen martial forms within the span of a single second. Rising Talon, Shrouding Wing, Lunging Whip. In and out and back again.
The young asura's eyes were focused, his mana burning with a singular intensity, so much more alive than the storm whirling around him. His heart thrumd as heartfire followed his command.
It's the sa color as mine, I mused, eying the way Chul's soultether flowed from his heart and across his veins. The sa dawnlit glow of phoenix and djinn.
I didn't interrupt the man as he continued to burn through his energy, exhausting his body as he always did. Always pushing, always moving. Never stopping.
Until, eventually, he finally did. Like a great, heaving engine as it slowly wound down, the chugging pistons of Chul's martial form gradually slowed, their fuel withheld for a ti. The blood from his unhealing cuts mixed with his sweat as he stared off into the storm, his intent still searching for sothing.
"Brother," he said quietly, his intent subdued in the wake of his exercise. "Shall we depart now on our quest?"
I slowly approached along the great bough of silvervine wood, feeling how it swayed in the tempest. "Soon, yeah," I considered. "Wren's going to be leading us to a cache where he's got so spare stuff stored. If we ever want to escape Epheotus, then we'll need the teleportation array. Then we'll go to Klethra and et up with Evascir."
The burly man's shoulders slumped, his intent burning with quiet sorrow. Chul raised his dead, fuming mace to his eyes, looking at it with deep intensity. Almost as if the sheer heat of his gaze would ignite the pyres within his bound weapon once more.
"The mightiest of asuran weapons all bear the hallmarks of life," he muttered, staring at the cracks that had once leaked light. "Such is how one reaches the apex of martial form: working in tune with one's weapon. An extension of one's wings, yet also separate and true."
It was strange, listening to the phoenix speak like this. I belatedly realized why—he was focused, coherent and clear in a way I hadn't seen. Chul was the sort to act before thinking, move based on the fire in his heart rather than listening to the sense in his head.
And ditation didn't change that at all, I realized. But when he works through his martial forms, that's far more centering for him than sitting still. He's not the chaotic jumble of idiocy he usually is.
"The great Evascir forged my partner for when I was still but a hatchling," he said, taking a few testing swings with what was once a fiery mace. "And she was a thing of greatest beauty, brother! The way she shone and guided every swing made my heart sing with joy. But she is silent now. The Indraths murdered her when they took her. They murder everything."
And though he did not say the words, I could read them beneath the mists of his intent. I murder everything.
Chul shook his head violently, clenching his teeth as his intent swelled. "I hate to think!" he bellowed abruptly, his muscles flexing as his emotions built beneath his skin. "For when I think, it hurts all the more! They say I must think first, but it only leads to more pain."
I swallowed as the flavor of Chul's emotions struck —so turbulent and chaotic, caught between two extres that felt like painful opposites. He was like a tendon stretched too far, the vise-like clamps of reality squeezing more and more than he could stretch.
When I struggled with who I was when I'd first co to this world, I thought, feeling the waves of the phoenix's emotions as they flowed like sumr sadness, it hurt so much. Earth or Alacrya… What helped , then?
My dinsion ring could fit hardly anything more than the resting Vessel of our mother. But as I withdrew two charred remnants of my past, my emotions fell to et those of Lady Dawn's son. The bow and body of my violin hung loosely in my hands.
Nearly a year ago, I'd been in Alacrya, holding this artifact of my family proudly before the adoring eyes of the Central Academy orchestra. "It's an original from Gorten and Sons," I'd professed proudly. "A 1645 Rosaere Clarwood."
"When I first ca to this world, Chul, I had a gift for music," I said somberly, holding what was left of my heart in my hands. "Like you, like Suncrusher… It was more than . But a part of , too."
This was a tiless, priceless piece. A hallmark of an older age. Not a better age, no… but an older one. It was a relic of the past brought with on nearly every adventure I'd experienced. When I'd trekked through the Relictombs, questioning my identity and what it ant to be human, I'd felt the smooth texture of my musical instrunt beneath my hardened fingers. When I'd traveled with Sevren through zone after zone, seeking the secrets of the Watchers, the aether-beast strings had still welcod the touch of my bow, creating music that soothed the soul. When I'd defied Mardeth in Fiachra, the lulling cadence of my concerts had shown thousands that there was a way to be better. When I'd first embarked on the warpath, fearful of losing what made human, the music of my past stayed with . And when I'd fought Arthur, when I'd found I loved Seris, when I journeyed with my mother to the Hearth, and every tragedy after…
It had been there, with . Cared for and kept close, as proof of my roots and that I was Spellsong.
But now it was a charred husk, burned by the dragons or my apotheosis or sothing else. A mory of what I loved. Just like Suncrusher.
Chul's eyes focused on my hands, looking at the burned remnants of my most prized possession. His brows were furrowed in an expression of such true, empathetic sorrow that I would have thought this violin were his, not mine. "No, Toren, this cannot be!" he muttered, hooking Suncrusher on his belt and stepping forward quickly. His intent radiated his concern and worry as his eyes darted over the corpse of my music. "Mother told of your great ballads! This is false sohow, or trickery of the Indraths! Your violin is surely not so…"
He reached out a hesitant hand, as if to touch it. Then he recoiled in slight sha, lowering his hands.
"You can hold it, Chul," I said with a light chuckle. For a mont, I wondered how I had ever felt hatred in my heart for this pure-hearted soul. He feared breaking sothing again, turning what was left of my violin to ash. "It's fine."
The behemoth of a man moved slowly, gently picking up what was once the bow. The hairs had nearly all been seared away, leaving only charred ends and a creaking length that would sooner shatter. In his massive hand, it appeared closer to a toothpick than an instrunt, but he grasped it with such a ginger, gentle touch belying his massive fra.
"You have let hold sothing most precious," Chul mumbled as he observed the bow with reverence, "it is only just that I do the sa!"
I opened my mouth in confusion, but then I was forced to adjust my stance as the young asura firmly placed his massive mace into my hands. Were I not constantly strengthening my body with mana—sothing made possible by my new Integrated physique—I would have crumpled to my knees from the weight.
I forced out the visions this mace brought to my mind, giving the empty shell a few testing swings. The balance was suprely good, and I imagined no enemy surviving a head-on strike. Sotis, whenever I wished to deal a truly devastating blow, I'd shift my shrouded weapons to take on the form of a warhamr, but I'd never truly trained with the real thing.
Chul is right about this mace, I thought with a hint of sadness, feeling how wrongly cold as it was beneath my grip. It should be alive, but it's been neutered. Severed.
"You have granted this item much wondrous love," Chul muttered, cradling my violin with care. His eyes flickered slightly… with a flash of purple, infused with the orange of sunlight? "I feel it in my heart, the care that has infused every inch of this lovely instrunt of sound."
Chul's heartbeat pulsed rhythmically as he mid the act of drawing the bow across the strings. His heartfire flowed across his body in a naturally unnatural way, reacting to whatever he was currently feeling.
His path will be different from mine, I thought, stepping forward as I let Suncrusher hang limply in my hands. But his heartfire is already starting to react to his insight.
"Anyone can make music," I said, standing next to the large man. "You can, too. It takes practice, but I know you can."
"Mother did not grant the gift of her song," the young asura said, looking away from . "Music is not my domain, brother."
My eyes flicked to how Chul held my violin oh-so-gingerly, seeing how this was about sothing deeper than just music. Because, deep down, the bulky phoenix did not believe life was his domain. Creation was not his to command.
"You have to start learning the violin early in life," I mused, outlining the remnants of my most prized possession in my power. The ambient mana flickered white-gold, cradling it closer to . "If you don't, you won't develop the fine motor skills needed for the most complex pieces."
I held Suncrusher toward the young man. It was an olive branch of molded, warped tal, suddenly alive in spite of itself. "The dwarven people don't always have those sorts of skills. I studied their music and culture for a ti, trying to understand them better. And those who couldn't make their fingers do what they wished… well, the drums are so of the most popular instrunts to those underground people for a reason. There's always a way to make music."
Chul's eyes shone with wonder as he stared at , genuinely enraptured by my simple words. I felt my heart beat painfully at the sheer level of earnest, honest trust in his core. Despite how cruel I had been to him while I'd been tethered to him, taking out my anger and my rage upon him for not being Aurora, he still didn't shy away.
The young phoenix pushed aside the offered olive branch, tears brimming in his eyes. He laughed, the world rumbling in tune, before wrapping in a hug that could crush mountains.
"Aye, brother!" he bood happily. "There is always a way to make music, always! No matter the odds!"
The asura's heartbeat was a drumbeat in and of itself as it rose with passion, his bear hug all-encompassing. And slowly, hesitantly, I hugged him back. Unsure of why my arms felt like lead, or my thoughts slow and unsure and afraid.
Long ago, Norgan had told —on that precipice of the end—that life and death were just flimsy, mortal perspectives. There was a ti I believed him about that, before Aurora had left and I'd tasted the Void, but no longer.
But there was sothing I still did believe in. That our little minds couldn't see the greater picture, too stuck in the ideas of dusk and dawn. And as my mother's son let go at last, a smile wide enough to project all the joy in the world on his face, I thought that this place—that I'd once thought to be so very dead—might have a spark of life in it after all.
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