Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!
Toren Daen
Epheotus was a supercontinent, the land stretching nearly to infinity. Chul and I maintained a constant, easy speed over the next few days as we drifted through the Aborshan Wastes, our stamina inexhaustible by such an easy flight. Even Nerium—who was notably less elegant in the sky and much slower—could keep with a steady pace.
But Ulysseiah was not one for long, uninterrupted travel. We had to cut back our speed a bit to accommodate hers. She wasn't a warrior trained in endurance, and while flight was not taxing on an asura, the nonstop trek through the sky was wearing on her in different ways.
When I sighted a massive storm on the horizon—not of water and thunder, but of dust, earth, and mana—I knew that any chance of reaching the wayward phoenixes was impossible.
I slowed in the sky as I watched the approaching wall of whipping dust a few dozen miles wide, and a couple miles tall, like a mountain stumbling on unsteady feet, spilling her contents about as she went. The way it heaved the ambient mana into itself, swirling and tearing and perpetuating the dust bowl, was a process I had never felt before.
In Epheotus, even the storms are amplified by mana, I thought, staring at the oncoming natural disaster. It's insane, how the mana particles swirl and dance about it. It's almost alive, in a way.
At my side, Chul laughed in genuine wonder at the distant horizon, his eyes sparkling. He scratched haphazardly at his scruffy beard, turned brown and curly by his disguise. "Wonderful!" he boomed, clapping me on the back hard enough to crumple steel. "Look, Lord Yaksha! Have you ever witnessed anything so terribly mighty? This may be the greatest vision I have yet beheld!"
I suppressed a bit of a smile at Chul's words. I wondered how many storms he'd seen in his life at all. And to witness an Epheotan storm, with all the power and unyielding vastness of the sky?
"There aren't many things stronger than storms," I said with a wry twist of my lips. "Can you sense the mana raging within?"
The young phoenix's eyes suddenly flashed with a familiar determination. His grin became far, far more challenging as he stared at the oncoming tide, his body strangely tense. "Stronger?" he echoed happily.
Oh, no. I recognized that look. The exact same one he'd bore when he challenged Nerium to an arm wrestle. "Now, Arjuna," I said slowly, recognizing this could be incredibly dangerous. "A storm doesn't have arms. It cannot be arm wrestled."
"You lack vision, Lord Yaksha!" Chul countered, placing his hands on his hips as he sized up the storm. "A contest of might is not all in the strength of one's burly arm. What greater foe to best than nature itself?"
Before I had the chance to dissuade Chul from charging in, laughing as he tried to wrestle with a storm, Nerium pulled up the rear, his dark skin lined with a little sweat. The concentric oak-ring green of his tattoos shone faintly along his muscled body, flickering in tune with the flow of his lifeforce. He eyed the storm warily.
"Now that's a problem," he muttered, tracing it from horizon to horizon. "That makes things very, very complicated, doesn't it? Do you think we'll need to rest for a few days?"
I turned slightly, affecting the more neutral air of the pantheon race. I'd assumed this hamadryad had joined us to follow after the Avignis phoenixes, just as I was. Lady Naesia had fled exceptionally quickly after she'd failed to keep undercover after her altercation with Nerium. And if my guess was correct, he'd try to push us further. I could give him the bait for that, too.
"We can fly over the storm itself," I offered, squinting a few miles up. "The drafts and mana might try and pull us down, but we've got the strength to do so if you want to press onward, Lord Nerium."
The hamadryad appeared to consider my words, gauging the distance. His intent was hard to read without deliberate, obvious probing, and the flow of his lifeforce told me nothing, but he appeared to be considering it. After all, the Avignises would've most certainly crested this storm and continued on unperturbed, masters of the sky as they were.
You are trying to catch up to the phoenixes, aren't you? I thought, feeling as if I'd snagged on something. For the same reason as us, though?
Ulysseiah, who had been taking her time approaching in the face of the monstrous wall of a dust storm, reached us belatedly. She chewed on her lip as she traced its vastness, aquamarine brows pinched. Her heartbeat was a bit accelerated, her mana signature flickering like a candle in the wind. She nervously ran a hand through her hair, the other clenching instinctively on the bone lyre at her hip like an anchor.
"Ah, this isn't good. Is not," she stuttered out, eying the storm. In the distance, a flock of avian mana beasts dove for cover in the capillary-like ravines across the land. "This would delay everything. Everything!"
She can't do it, I realized half a heartbeat later. The leviathan—clad from head to toe in loose, breathable sailor's garb—was already flagging. Partially because of reasons I had observed earlier, but also because this dry, barren land was inherently inhospitable to her race. She's too weak right now to try and crest this storm.
I let out a microscopic sigh, irritated inside. I wanted to rush after the Avignises now, to demand what they knew about the capture of the Asclepius Clan. But I had agreed to travel with Ulysseiah, and her current inability was not her fault.
"I think it would be best for all of us to get a bit of a rest. Shelter from the whipping dust for a few days and regain our strength." I said, releasing a breath.
The hamadryad crossed his arms, staring down at the network of ravines. He at least seemed to agree with me. After around half a minute, he pointed at a particularly deep slash in the stones, a veritable Grand Canyon stretching off around us.
"We can carve out a place to shelter in the walls of that canyon," he said, looking at all of us in turn. "It should protect us for a few days as we let the storm pass over."
It was a haphazard, quickly-made plan anyway, trying to catch up with the Avignises, I internally lamented, nodding slowly. I still have leads toward my family, and this will still be faster than staying with the gigantes.
"That is acceptable," I said grimly, drifting closer to Chul. "Lead the way, Lord Nerium."
The hamadryad's eyes shifted slightly as he looked at me, and I knew he was measuring me inside as much as I measured him. His eyes flicked to 'Arjuna,' then back to the ground. "It should not be too difficult to make a shelter for a few days."
I exchanged a look with Chul, nodding my acquiescence, then drifted downward with him and Ulysseiah. My senses stretched outward, my ears listening for heartfire, my mind brushing against any mana signature I could as I scouted for threats on the ground.
"I'm sorry," Ulysseiah's whisper-soft voice reached my ears, nearly too quiet to be heard. "I am. I have been a burden on your journey. I mean not to hold you back."
Her intent washed over me, one of guilt and cracked pride. She knew that I'd wanted to crest the storm, knew that all of us had the strength to do so with ease—all but her.
Damn it, I thought, feeling suddenly callous for my one-track desire to chase after my targets. While part of my offering to crest the storm had been a trap for the hamadryad to confirm my suspicions, I'd let my own desires to chase the Avignises blind me.
I turned my head slightly to the side, noting the bluish woman at my side. I opened my mouth to reply, to say something that might ease her fears—might tell her that no, she wasn't a burden.
Before I could speak, however, she zipped downward, trailing after Nerium like a streamer from a branch. The traces her intent left were a low blue, the kind of color that coated many rainy days, blanketing any light.
Chul watched her go, his expression pulled into a deep frown. He'd evidently heard her words, and from the same blue I felt coating his intent… He saw something of himself in that distant leviathan. "It is no trouble, brother!" he said, doing his best to affect cheer. His eyes, though, told me what he was really feeling. "I am certain that she knows she is no burden! She is greatly welcome on our grand quest!"
"Of course she is," I said, understanding that this was not just about her. "I didn't mean to make her feel like she wasn't, or to make her feel unwanted. I'll… try and talk to her later."
Chul nodded sharply, his gloom evaporating like mist beneath a rising sun. By the skies above, he was so honest. He didn't spare me another look, only zipped off happily after the other two, reassured in his own worth. I watched him go with a weight in my heart that couldn't so easily be banished.
—
I had never heard anything like it.
The sound of the dust storm approaching overhead was like a swarm of locusts, buzzing and hissing and screaming—if each locust was actually a steam engine's howl, or a hammer slamming into stone, the sound of a million particles of dust peppering the ground like an unending sandblaster trailed long before the wall actually struck.
Ulysseiah stared up nervously at the slowly-darkening sky, clinging to the ravine wall. Far below us, a thousand mana beasts scrambled for cover: burrowing underneath rocks, ducking from the sky, scrambling to avoid the wrath of Mother Nature.
Nerium was unperturbed. With a flex of his mana, he pressed his hand against the wall of the ravine. His concentric tattoos of green glowed, then vines thrust from his palms. They twined about like serpents, before sifting through the hardened stone like a knife through soft butter. In no time, he was tearing apart the rock, carving a hideaway for us in a whirling drill of green.
I stepped up after him, engaging my regalia. My ash-gray ponytail flowed behind me as I hauled on the tons of stone, ripping it away in a loose flare of white-gold. All in all, it took hardly any time at all to etch a safe space for our little traveling band.
"Part one completed," the hamadryad professed cheerily. "Now, to actually make this place worth living in!"
Nerium's cheer was infectious, and though it was terribly dark in the dingy cave, I could sense Ulysseiah's hesitant smile. He beckoned us in, and a strange plant with a glowing golden fruit dangling from its branches grew from the center of the cave. Strains of alluring ivy traced all across the place of dull stone, and moss grew in homey patches everywhere I looked.
In no time at all, the hamadryad had managed to turn this dull, dry cave into a lush place of relaxation and comfort. Those strange, glowing fruits hung from the ceiling, giving the place a luminous atmosphere that made me almost sleepy.
"Too many places in this world are not worth living in," Nerium mused, hands on his hips as he stared about at his work. "At least we can pretend we aren't hunkered in a cave with this. Makes it easier to bear, right?"
I trailed in after Chul, brushing my hands against the flowers and foliage covering every inch of the etched cavern. The mana here was just as strong as anywhere else, and there was something ethereally beautiful about the little hideaway, even as the sound of a million trains chugging on tracks gradually approached.
Chul happily plopped down on one of the provided cushions of moss, utterly content. "Much thanks to you, Worthy Foe," he said earnestly, adjusting himself to be more comfortable. Within his chiton, I knew that Wren was absolutely grumbling about the indignity. "Your hospitality is second to none!"
"I was once set to be a caretaker of the Kadamba trees," Nerium replied, lounging in a couch of soft moss. "That didn't exactly work out, but I still have all the skills for it. I'm traveling all across Epheotus, seeing all there is to see. I might as well be able to make myself comfortable."
Chul and Nerium continued to converse, their conversation shifting more toward something about their workout routines. But as I slowly settled down on a cushion of my own, I noticed Ulysseiah lingering at the edge of our group.
"You're welcome to join us here," I said amiably, painting a soft smile across my face. It was more honest than what I usually wore as a fake pantheon, fueled by my earlier guilt regarding my irritation. "Surely I am not yet so terrifying."
The leviathan coughed into her fist, standing awkwardly by the entrance of the cave. I belatedly realized that Nerium had been about to speak, too, but I'd beaten him to the punch. "It's my honor to join you. It is," she said awkwardly, before forcing herself to approach woodenly. She sat down slowly by my side, leaning strangely close. "I thank you greatly."
Nerium's expression softened a bit as he looked at the young woman, then he resumed his earlier talk with Chul. He had mentioned he'd known Laertes, this girl's father, hadn't he?
"You shouldn't keep me so close. Should not," the woman muttered, huddled like a willow tree stripped of its bristles. It was nearly inaudible under the approach of the storm. "I am dangerous to all. Even so far from the Boundary Sea, it grips me. I can't be trusted. Can not."
It was only my supremely sensitive ears that allowed me to catch the words—and I remembered that vision of her as her "Seeker's Madness" had taken over. Almost livid with rage, her body a conduit for something else. Her intent and heartfire, so terribly close to what I had sensed during the Second Dawn…
I crossed my legs, affecting a serene, meditative pose—something that projected my ease. "You are no threat to me, Lady Ulysseiah, and I am not burdened by your troubles." At least not in the way you suspect. "You are safe here."
The storm rumbled overhead, and I could feel how it slammed through the stones through Sonar Pulse. Like a million microscopic beads of sand, the stones high above were both worn away and strangely remade by the deluge of dust and earth mana. The storm itself reinforced and strengthened the terrain it passed over, before the supersonic particles slammed into the earth.
This storm is a living test, I thought, drifting halfways to a meditative state. It builds up the stone, only to try and break it down a moment later. Like a blacksmith crashing their swords together to ensure their durability.
"I see visions when I sleep," she whispered, so terribly vulnerable. "Blood and storms. Wings and fire. A second sun in the sky, a heart ripped in two. It is… terrible."
A second sun in the sky, a heart ripped in two, I thought, restraining the urge to ask more. My heartbeat rose in my chest, my need for more information warring with the desire to comfort this young woman. If there was anything that this woman's words referenced…
But as I turned my head, looking down at her as she wavered at my side, I knew that asking such questions was the wrong thing to do. She was exhausted from the past few days' struggles, flying through the sky and pushing herself in a foreign land.
"Why do you need to tell me this?" I asked, letting sound mana carry my words down to her. I thought I had a sense already of why.
The woman shuffled uncertainly. In her body language and heartbeat, I could sense her desire to pull herself closer to me. Not in a sexual or romantic way, far from it—merely as some sort of impulsive need for comfort.
"You are a rainshadow, Lord Yaksha," she said after a moment. "The voices are silent when you are near. I feel peace. They pass over you, leaving ground that is hallowed and quiet. The Sea always beckons, but not so with you."
Her words… calling me a rainshadow… It made me think of the way my intent wove through the ambient mana, hiding me and smothering any attempt at detection.
Ulysseiah said that bursts of mana were what triggered her episodes, didn't she? I thought, measuring my mana. But what if that isn't truly the cause? What if it is bursts of intent? She did say that music calmed her, after all…
If someone was attuned enough to intent, they'd be calmed by my own peace, wouldn't they? And on the inverse—if killing intent washed over them?
And she wants that peace when she sleeps, too, I understood. And she wants to know why.
"I travel to Ecclesiah to seek the counsel of those who have come before," she said, faster now. She looked up at me, her eyes clear and desperate. "The call has intensified as of late. More pain, more anger, all of the time, wanting me at the Boundary. But this has persisted for countless ages among the Navigators, and there must be more. I am certain. And you are proof of this, are you not?"
In that moment, I didn't see a living deity in this leviathan. I saw a scared young woman, out of options and unable to understand what afflicted her, but wanting peace.
I was supposed to be Spellsong, someone who could openly embrace those who needed hope. Those who needed a shoulder to lean on. But today, I was the Lord Yaksha, a weapon yet unforged, and I could not be all I wished to be. I could not fully be what she needed.
"I do not know what makes me a place of peace for you, Lady Ulysseiah," I said, cringing inwardly at my dishonesty. "But you may rest here, and I wish you peaceful sleep."
The young woman searched my face as I turned forward, closing my own eyes. I could sense her intent as it gradually evened out, moving back toward resigned acceptance. She'd never truly expected help in the first place.
"Thank you, Lord Yaksha," the young woman muttered, laying down nearby. "It's most appreciated. It is."
Despite the roaring bellows of the storm high above, making the ground shake and tremble, Ulysseiah found rest quickly. I paid close attention to her heartbeat as—over the next few minutes—she gradually found slumber. I felt a twisted sort of relief inside: understanding that whatever afflicted this woman, I had not been the cause. That it had been a pain for 'Navigators' for eons, rather than somehow brought on by my actions during the Second Dawn.
I'll find a way to tell her, I thought to myself, rolling the idea around in my mind. I'll find something that won't expose my identity.
I already had so, so much to do. So many goals, so many paths, so many people I needed to help. So many people needed some sort of anchoring grip, and there always seemed to be a lack of hands reaching out toward those desperate few. But I could spare more of myself, couldn't I? I had enough to go around. I could give Ulysseiah hope, too. Couldn't I?
Then I sensed his approach. I hadn't been able to before, not before he'd taught me about the intricacies of the soul. Now, though, it felt obvious as a nearing torch, casting light in the darkness.
Making sure that Chul was at least partially alert, even as he spoke amiably with Nerium, I closed my eyes, pushing away the waking world. I listened to the heartbeat of the vulnerable woman beside me, hoping she would remain safe for the time.
And when I opened them again, I stood amidst the burning Sea of my Soul, a golden-blood star of fire and runic insight.
Mordain was waiting for me, hands slotted in the belt of his cream robes. He looked tired, eyes heavy-lidded and back struggling not to hunch. His long, feather-red hair brushed against his leisurely attire, and he looked uniquely laden.
"Hello, Toren," he said amiably, the words resonating across my Sea. "It's been a little while."
I inspected the phoenix prince worriedly, suppressing the swell of annoyance I got from his devil-may-care attitude. We had agreed to try and meet in the domain of my Sea as often as possible, and though I had made a great deal of rapid progress from training here, he had not shown himself for several days.
"Are you okay, Mordain?" I asked, a bit worried. I knew he was being held captive in Mount Geolus, practically the only tether to the Asclepius still living. Something about his friendship with Kezess stayed the dragon tyrant's hand from murder, instead keeping the fate of our entire family in limbo. "You don't look too good."
Mordain smiled wearily, looking ever older. "The Path of Insight strains the soul, Spellsong," he said, his essence radiating exhaustion. "I have spent many a day holding knowledge at bay, while letting other parts through. It is uniquely tiring, pulling what veils I can manage over Kezess Indrath's eyes."
The Path of Insight: Kezess Indrath's strange, runic attempt at forcefully copying aetheric knowledge. Perhaps it worked, but Mordain had assured me it would not. Referencing what I knew from that otherworld novel, I further doubted Kezess would find anything to further his dominion of aether through it.
But that didn't matter if it tore the phoenix prince down in the process.
My brow wrinkled, and I had the urge to speak more. The lights of a hundred souls all around me told me—without anchors, or a point of respite—even the greatest minds would falter before a storm. Memories of my previous failure to offer answers to Ulysseiah burned in the back of my mind.
"Speak nothing more of your plans and ideas to me, Toren," the Lost Prince quietly chastised, as if sensing my thoughts. "Ask me as little as possible of this world. The fewer of your secrets I hold, the simpler it shall be to keep them away from Lord Indrath."
I worked my jaw, uncertain. Fewer of my secrets.
I wanted to ask the phoenix for advice regarding my recent decisions. Ask him if I'd been wise, if what I was doing was right. I wanted to ask him what a Navigator was, what the Seeker's Madness entailed. I wanted to ask so, so many things.
I could practically feel my soul trying to wrap itself around something there. A foreign emotion forced me to try and find echoes of what had been stolen from me—a bond in another phoenix, someone who might understand me. I snuffed that out with rigid discipline, my complicated emotions toward Mordain souring any wholehearted desire for closeness.
Sometimes, I struggled to suppress my distaste—still bordering on hatred—of this asura, especially after all I had suffered. But even through my hatred, compassion for a wearied soul took precedence; so I found my center.
Burning blood rose from my feet, a memory painting itself across the expanse. The Hearth's old training ground—ringed in marble and silver leaves—was honest and true. The calming scents of cinnamon, cardamom, and everything that the autumn brought wafted through the air, drawn directly from the past.
How much of this is my memory? I wondered, striding along the marble platform. How much of this is a true vision of the past, drawn from the aether itself? Aether remembers, after all… But so do minds. Where does that influence start? Where does it end?
At the very least, the light breath of a freshly baked apple pie drifting through the air served to settle the Lost Prince. His shoulders relaxed, and his eyes drifted closed in an expression of quiet bliss.
"I had nearly let myself forget what it was like, back in our little home," he said, striding across the platform opposite me. We absently circled each other—though calm and collected, we both knew what would happen next. "Far from paradise. Far from perfect. But a slice of what could be."
I hummed, the air warping from the cadence. The faux-mana—of memory, or of the true past, I didn't know—trembled in resonance with my emotions. "It's still unstable," I said honestly, pressing my boot into the ground. "Stability isn't something I've mastered yet. I need more practice before this can be a true, useful training ground."
What should have been solid stone instead warped, bending like putty under my foot. And after a second or two of resistance, it punched through, like a spiderweb suddenly breaking beneath the struggles of prey. My foot sank into bloody golden fire, a crack in the illusion that was slow to mend.
Mordain nodded slowly as he watched the crack mend. Though I was essentially able to mirror the capabilities of the Aether Orb within the confines of my soul, it was the difference between a sphere of iron and a sphere of glass.
"It is a good thing that your conjurations of the world are yet imperfect," the Lost Prince said, raising a hand. A single firelight from the sky drifted down like a feather, before resting over his finger. "It is too easy to get lost inside one's own mind, forgetting what goes on in the outside world."
I paused, recognizing the words for what they were. A small, glimmering olive branch. Far from enough, and it might never be enough. But an acknowledgment of what I felt, and what he had done for millennia.
"What I learn here still needs to be ingrained in the outside world," I replied, gesturing about me. Golden fire—this time conjured by the faux-mana lilting in the air instead of the substance of my soul—burned at my direction. My emotions wove it, tied the knot, and lashed the world with heat. "I'm still able to learn incredibly quickly, but that's worthless if I can't apply it in this… mirror. I forge the steel here, but quenching it, hardening the metal?"
Mordain watched my golden flames with appreciation, tilting his head the way Aurora used to. It made the ache of longing in my heart pierce even deeper. "The echoes of a thousand past Asclepius warriors still linger in your soul, even if they have been ripped away from you," he observed. "Your soul is malleable, and insight toward mana and combat will come easy. Holes in your soul are refilling, muscle memory being regained. But you are correct, young blood. To linger here, with conjurations of the past…"
The phoenix said nothing, but I knew immediately that we both thought of her. My mother, somewhere out of my reach.
"Mordain," I said sharply, clenching and unclenching my fists. The stake thrust through my chest burned, memories of what had been stripped of me rising around me in eddies of scarlet gold., "I've been practicing what you've shown me since last time. About crafting a Domain and imposing myself on the world. But if I want to make the best use of my time, I need you to teach me more of the Soul."
Mordain had promised to teach me everything he knew: both about combat, about heartfire, and about the soul itself: so that one day I might call my mother back to us.
The phoenix prince looked at me, and I had the unnerving understanding that he knew me. That no matter how I tried to hide my intentions and desires, he could see through it in a heartbeat. He let out a breath, the air rippling through the conjuration of the hearth.
"Do you know what edict of aether the Soul belongs to, Toren?" he answered instead striding about the cool marble.
I thought for a moment. Vivum, Spatium, Aevum… Life, Space, and Time respectively were represented by the three edicts. But I had heard whispers of a fourth: a higher edict. That was Arthur's path to providence: the mastery of Fate itself.
"Fate," I said quietly, the word rippling through the expanse of my soul. The construct I'd conjured from my memories—real, or remembered in full, I did not know—joined back with my expansive Sea of golden fire.
The highest edict. That which Agrona sought for knowledge of reincarnation, to use to topple Kezess from his throne. That which my mother defied twice through a love of her sons.
"The djinn knew little of Fate, though they knew much of the soul," Mordain replied somberly. "Children molding clay gifted by their wayward parent. Or perhaps playing with serpents would be a more apt analogy."
Slowly, a memory of his own crafted itself around us. Tall, stained windows loomed high above us, stylized depictions of silver dragons breathing purple motes flickering through transcendent panes of glass. Sunlight streamed through, holy and warm, onto a long pathway of stone that seemed to never end.
Outside the windows, an unending sea of clouds spread across an infinite horizon, dappled gold, white, and gray glinting in the morning sunlight. We stood atop a tower, a lone island in that ocean of water vapor along a titanic mountainside. Pink petals drifted upward on currents of cherry-scents, masking the stonework below from my sight. But I knew where we were, if only from description of a world long past.
Mount Geolus, I thought abruptly, realizing where we were. At the highest peak of Lord Indrath's castle.
I stared down at the pathway in the long corridor, the judgmental gaze of draconic obsidian glass seeping over my soul. Grooves were worn in those stones, as if a man had paced there for ten thousand years.
This was the Path of Insight: an Indrath tool for extracting aetheric knowledge, drawn perfectly from Mordain's memories.
"The People of Life only began to seek that power in their latter days," Mordain commented idly, trailing around the path of worn stone. His cream-colored robes brushed at their edges, but he didn't brush close at all. "Under threat of dragonfire and destruction, some sought a strength that might see their people through. Something that even Kezess feared."
Always one for his stories and long talks, I thought, resigning myself to whatever point the Lost Prince was trying to make. "I know that Kezess approached the djinn, demanding their knowledge," I replied, seeing reflections of the past rising before me. Mordain had been confined to this narrow strip of stone, ordered to tread it to keep his flock alive. "And when they did not comply… No, could not, he and his clan eradicated their entire civilization from the face of this earth."
I expected my words to raise Mordain's ire. After all, he had journeyed out with his clan to rescue what was left of an entire race. He had witnessed untold bloodshed and death, through both his visions of the future and his own personal experience.
Instead, he looked… sad.
"That is true, Toren. Kezess is bound by his fear," Mordain replied sadly, his eyes going distant. He stopped, brushing a hand against the pale glass windows in a familiar way. "More fear than I ever knew he had. And I wonder if he had always been this way. It's that fear that keeps our family alive, Toren. He expects to learn of the future from me, and thereby enforce his control ever further."
It took me a moment to remember that Mordain and Kezess had once been the best of friends. As stated by Mordain himself, idealists. Working to tear down a system of unending war and cyclical violence.
"What you seek is something that has not been understood for untold millennia. A fear of this power compelled my oldest friend to become all that he hated."
I let out a breath, memories of the past seeping in. I couldn't truly remember it, just flashes. But when I had first entered my Third Phase, with Aurora by my side, I had heard something. A song so beautiful that it moved the World itself, turning a cosmic wheel about itself. Something living, vast and unknowable.
I had lost that understanding since. But the ache in my chest, that open wound where my bond should be… It demanded I find it once more. A gaping void that nothing could fill. Nothing except her. I gripped that foreign emotion, that grief. And I refused it. Death did not deserve my mother, and I had sworn defiance.
Arthur got to revive his bond after all his trials, I thought, gritting my teeth. It's only fair that I do, too.
"Your warning has been received, Mordain. I am not Kezess, and I won't lose myself to fearmongering and genocide out of some power," I said bitterly, brushing his words away. How many more times would we need to go through this song and dance?
"My questions were never about Kezess. His insight forward, or any insight he might make, is utterly bound by that fear of his. He can never progress." Mordain sighed, tearing his vision from that panel of stained glass. "You still have the impatience of youth, Toren. Never looking back, always moving forward."
My nose wrinkled. "You think I can't learn because I'm… what, impatient?" I countered. "Try me, Mordain. We've spoken enough. The time has long since come for action. The time for action was years ago."
The phoenix slipped his hands into his belt, staring off into the endless expanse of conjured clouds. "You are right," he admitted. "I have sat far, far too idle. Using my own rhetoric as an excuse to bar my path: for all that I lecture you. So tell me, Toren," he finally asked. "What makes a Soul?"
I turned, looking out toward the clouds myself as I suppressed my anger. What made a Soul?
"A philosophical question," I answered, staring into the endless swirls. I licked my lips, trying to pull myself together. "Souls are drawn to each other. Through connections: like stars with gravity, pulling each other closer."
Little dots of burning blood separated from the walls as I stared out at the sun, a flow of golden light representing those memories, those emotions that all dealt with the sunshine. I held out my hand, watching the liquid bend and course around me. It flowed like oil pastel from an unknown, unseen brush, carrying meaning that only art could convey.
I brushed a finger against the blood. A memory of another mountainside where I watched the rising dawn… But with my mother. When she was still here, still with her hand on my shoulder.
Mordain was silent, and I knew he wanted me to continue. "But they're also… paintings. They represent us in a way nothing else can. Words aren't enough to grasp it. They'll always fall short of what I want to convey."
"The first beings held ideas in their mind," Mordain soothed, somehow distant. "They beheld consciousness itself, and they needed to express it… So they made imperfect methods."
I felt that strange soul-thought-feeling come over me. Where I was less a man, thinking in linear threads and logical, timebound form. And as I continued to think, to feel, I knew Mordain deeper.
He never spoke directly to the point. Always danced around a thesis, leaving bits and pieces for me to pick up. Like an archeologist following the trail of long-dead creatures, I was left to form a picture with what he left behind. Something more complete and whole than it could otherwise ever be.
When I read that otherworld novel, I thought, the swirl of burning blood seeping away, what made it so special to me? If someone had told me everything that had happened, from A to B to C… Would not the wonder be lost?
I did not know when I began to pace, but I was moving. Back and forth, like a ghost haunting a memory of something they'd once known. I felt the shape of what I was looking for. Art, expression, the spirit pressing itself through to the physical.
I stared up at the stained glass depiction of a dragon, its silver maw breathing aetheric light. I pressed my hands to the smooth surface, knowing. "A soul is…"
Something rippled through my spirit. A call, distant and aloof, made the illusory outline of Mordain's memory tremble, its foundations cracking and bleeding scarlet gold. In mere moments, we were atop my Sea once more, the panorama of clouds and a titanic mountain falling away.
All my questions of Fate, that terrible twist in my heart… It fell away. My thoughts—on the border of crystallization—splintered.
Pulsing, foreign music flowed through the night sky high above. Beautiful, beautiful music, like singing voices. Haunting cries, lilting in octaves of the soul as they sought me. The eddies of sound traveled undisturbed, waves lapping against the island of my existence. Answer us, they asked. Please, answer us. Just a little of your time.
It was… beautiful. They were beautiful, a heavenly choir that did not know what they offered. Hands offering something treasured and special to the sky.
My hand rose to my chest, clenching around Inversion's hilt. I blinked away sudden tears of fire, remembering the last time a song had carried through the echoes of not-space. Droplets of burning blood rose into the air, swirling up in a mutual hum. Those parts of my soul resonated with the calls that reached me.
Mordain strode worriedly up to me, staring inquisitively at the distant soul-stars. "What is it you feel, Toren?" he asked worriedly. So different from his earlier, sharp tone.
I swallowed back a lump in my shade's throat, wavering from those haunting tones. All my earlier thoughts and fears were taken by the sound, subsumed and drawn under the current. "You can't hear it?"
Mordain shook his head slowly, his hair flowing about him. "I am a guest in your demesne, Spellsong. I see what I am able to decipher… But so very little, sometimes."
I looked up into the effervescent night, seeing all that my light cast. I'd never been in my Sea when Circe had called to me, had called for my powers a continent away. I hadn't been in my Sea when Chul channeled my aetheric abilities. But now, these voices… these ethereal songs, calling out for just a little bit? It was the same, and I hadn't been able to understand.
These songs were so precious, so beautiful. Nearly the most beautiful sounds I had ever heard. I'd been so casual in responding, so nonchalant in answering what I thought was just a call that I had reacted to. But in the infinite voice of the soul—for common language could only fail in its rigid chains—I knew so much more.
I let out a nervous laugh, struggling to understand. "Souls are Songs, Mordain," I whispered, finding my answer. "They are art."