Discordant Note | The Beginning After the End SI-Chapter 296: Family Reunion

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Toren Daen

It didn’t take long at all for Viessa to escape her ‘accommodations.’ Cylrit had stowed the unconscious Scythe in a feature-fit guest room, with as many luxuries as the dwarven castle could afford. Plush carpets, silk bedsheets, wine and food and everything else. Her stump of an arm had even been cauterized, with a little scathing note left apologizing for how her throat would always bear the marks of my burning fingers.

And just this morning, the Scythe had disappeared like a ghost, vanishing as if she’d never been there. Her tempus warp went with her.

Seris walked in front of me, the click-click-click of her high heels on the descending stairwell the only thing I could hear. Cylrit walked in front of her, holding out a simple mana lantern with his characteristic stoicism. If anything would dare try to attack Seris from the bottom of that stairwell, it would have to go through him, first.

Both of them were utterly unperturbed by the knowledge of Viessa’s absence as we descended the stairs leading to the dungeon in a macabre mirror of our last trip down.

“I know your fears, Toren,” Seris said. “But if Viessa had decided to take Chul Asclepius with her, we both know that you would know by now.”

Indeed, this was true. Aurora had spent the last night speaking with Chul, our bond distant and granting us both our time. If Viessa had dared to try and tempus warp Chul away, Aurora would have none of it.

The only real solace was that I’d finally gotten a full night’s sleep after so long. When I’d awoken this morning, it had been with a mix of utter confusion at how rested I’d felt. Seris herself hadn’t slept much, though, instead completing paperwork through the night after our rendezvous.

And she had oh-so-delightfully spoiled my morning by helpfully informing me that Viessa was gone, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

I had something of a talent for delivering bad news. Seris, however, made it an art form. It was something about her perfectly unflappable demeanor, unaffected by every single bit of bullshit happening around her. She made it seem as if it was all going according to plan.

“If you really wanted Viessa kept here, you could have taken away her tempus warp,” I said with annoyance. “Could you please tell me why?”

Seris paused on the stairwell, glancing over her shoulder as she peered at me. It belatedly occurred to me that my Scythe very, very rarely explained her plans to me in any fashion. But as she saw the little bundle of nerves adorning my face, something in that regimented habit relaxed.

“Scythe Viessa has seen fit to taunt me and make my operations on this continent exceptionally difficult,” Seris eventually said. “Her orders are clearly different from mine, and I have had trouble honing in on her as she happily galavanted across the continent, committing systematic genocide. That, Toren, has been exceptionally irritating to me.”

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Seris continued to stroll downward. “I’ve made sure to remedy that. Viessa may not know it, but there is now a mana tracker imbued into that tempus warp. Wherever she now wanders with it, I will be able to follow. Cadell’s location has also been indistinct across this war… And I do not like things being unknown.”

I rolled my shoulders, appreciating the intelligence while also fearing the repercussions of such an act. “And what about what she’ll say regarding Chul?” I pushed, remembering how I’d stopped Viessa from completing her goal. “That could be… damning.”

Seris waved a hand as if my words were a bad smell she could simply dismiss. “Superficially and on an immediate level, I can understand why you would think that to be so. But Viessa intruded upon my domain without consulting me. She attempted to steal my prisoner, won by battle and bloodshed, and then faced consequences. I was well within my rights to send you after her to protect our prize.”

I swallowed slightly at that, thinking it over. I had no doubts within my mind that Viessa suspected something deeper between Chul and I. She’d been there that moment where I’d seen him, where grief and rage had subsumed my psyche in a way unfitting for a simple enemy.

But how could she prove it? Perhaps she could open her mind to Agrona or Orlaeth, so they could see what she had seen.

Yet that would risk the cloying tendrils of those demons poking and prodding at her newly healed mind. Viessa was still caught in a typical catch-22. Submit herself to Agrona’s torture chambers, or try and outrun a phoenix on the hunt.

“Are these explanations sufficient, Toren?” Seris asked, tilting her head.

I nodded slowly. “Thank you, Seris.”

A fluttering of a smile dusted itself across the Scythe’s pale lips, before she turned back around with a contented hum. Her intent was lighter than it usually was. Not truly breezy or carefree, but… unburdened. Untroubled, despite the troubles.

Last night had changed things between Seris and me again. Or maybe things that had already been in motion truly settled into place. I wasn’t sure I knew what was different now, but there was a sort of openness that hadn’t been there before. An honesty about what we needed that had been veiled behind our stations and fears.

When we reached the base of the broken vault of black obsidian, Seris’ lips thinned into an irritated scowl as her eyes traced the edges of the cut material. Cylrit stood deliberately in front of the opening, his tall frame of plate metal an imposing barrier to anything that might come out.

Considering what I could sense of his intent, I wondered who he believed was responsible for the wrecked vault. Cylrit had been nearly slain by Chul, and immediately afterward, the phoenix had driven a stake into his master’s heart.

He blamed himself, strangely. He blamed himself for not being there to stop Chul’s attack on his master. And for the first time ever, I thought I felt a simmering… hatred, somewhere, buried deep in Cylrit’s subconscious.

I could sympathize.

I sighed, stepping forward and past Seris and her Retainer. “Please stay out here,” I said quietly. “I shouldn’t be long. I just need to discuss a few things with Chul and my bond.”

Seris still had the djinn medallion that would see me and anyone accompanying me to the dwarven sanctuary, and she would work to try and capture the aetheric destination with what tools she had on her before returning it. In the meantime, I needed to have a talk with Lady Dawn’s son in regards to what would happen soon.

As much as I would rather hide away from it, I needed to have this confrontation.

Seris’ hand settled on my shoulder as I moved past her, halting me in my steps. I looked down at her, confused.

“Do not do anything you would later regret, Toren,” she advised softly. “Your emotions are a great asset to you, but do not let them control you when wisdom would be a better choice.”

I had meditated before this exactly for this reason. My thoughts and emotions were as serene as they could be. “Thank you, Seris,” I said quietly. “It does mean a lot.”

The silver Scythe released my shoulder. “Good luck,” she said serenely. “I think you’ll need it.”

I snorted. “I make my own luck.”

The vault opening was dark, but I’d stepped into Taegrin Caelum itself. This wasn’t much in comparison.

If only I could convince myself otherwise.

My boots didn’t make much sound as I strode through the darkness, sensing the two beings not far ahead.

When I entered the vault again, the black diamond still damaged and devastated from how I’d body-slammed a Scythe into it, with few notable differences.

Namely, Chul was no longer chained from the four corners of the room. The bulky phoenix was sitting in a common seiza position, breathing in and out. Slowly, the mana flowed about him, drawn into his core in a familiar flow.

For the first time, I stood still, watching the absent asura with a distant eye.

His lifeforce beat strongly in my chest. The rhythm of it… It was musical. Of phoenix and djinn both, mingled in a way I had never heard except from my own chest. Each pulse reminded me of the Hearth and the Relictombs all at once. It was like the bass war drum battled a simple pan flute, and both emerged greater for the experience.

His body was still covered in unhealing wounds. Nearly every single one of them were shallow, surface-level cuts. When my shrouded saber had met Suncrusher, Chul had proven my better in martial combat nearly every time. After all, he’d been trained for far, far longer. I’d relied on my healing magic to see me through.

My brow furrowed slightly as I saw those shallow cuts. That was pathetic of me. I should’ve taken someth—

Chul’s eyes snapped open, and at once I was faced with a half-mirror of myself. The phoenix’s hair was the same shade as mine under the effects of Soulplume: a deep red that burst with contained passion and fire. It wasn’t long like mine, but it appeared more akin to a wild nest rather than something more neatly groomed.

And his eyes… The blue one reminded me of J’ntarion, immediately. There really wasn’t a blue like it, as if crystal water and every emotion associated with it was somehow captured into a color and painted across someone’s eyes. It was startling, a bolt of lightning flashing across your vision for the briefest moment.

But the orange was so much more familiar. It was the captured caldera of a burning volcano, ready to throw her molten blood across the land at the slightest provocation. I could almost imagine that magma erupting…

And as my mind caught on that train of thought, something else occurred to me in that strange moment of time. Chul’s core felt full. His heartbeat conveyed nothing of the weakness that had permeated each of his cells barely ten hours ago.

His core was far weaker than his body. But he regenerated his mana and power at an absurd rate. And as I remembered what it was like for a volcano to erupt underground and for the wrath of Mother Earth’s hot, angry blood to coat an entire civilization, I realized that I didn’t know if I could stop Chul at full power.

I’d shifted to a defensive stance before I’d even realized it, the hairs on the back of my neck rising as my thoughts traveled a million miles per hour. Chul didn’t have Suncrusher. It was probably back somewhere in Burim, buried beneath the rubble. Could he summon it to himself? If I needed to protect myself—

Chul’s intent had been rising, just like a balloon ready to pop as he blinked at me, seeming confused.

And then he leapt to his feet, a wide smile stretching across his face. He seemed utterly oblivious to the defensive stance I had taken and how my mana churned reflexively beneath my chest.

“Toren Daen!” he boomed in a voice more full of hot air and noise than dwarven forge bellows. “I have heard much of your good deeds and escapades in saving our mother. You are worthy of every gratit—”

“Does he know about what we’re going to do?” I asked, my voice cool and sharp as I cut through the manchild’s ruckus. I turned to look at a spot on the dark crystal floor. “I’ve made arrangements with Seris regarding our future plans. There might be some changes to what we expected.”

Chul’s abrupt jubilation—that was all I could think to call it—shifted and dipped, his smile faltering as he seemed to belatedly recognize the way my feet were turned and my hand had been out in readiness to summon a weapon. I felt the tingling, reddish sound of his shamed heartbeat in my ears.

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He lowered his arms, seeming like a bird caught in a tailwind and thrown for an utter loop.

The Unseen World eventually overlaid itself across my vision, further darkening the already shadowed room. Aurora’s shade knelt just across from her son in the exact same seiza position, her hands crossed over her lap in a way that reminded me of a blade’s grace.

She opened her eyes, looking between Chul and me slowly. Our bond lightened slightly, but still wasn’t what it normally was.

“I have not yet, no,” my mother said quietly, still kneeling between us. “I have told him much, Toren, but not all.”

My gaze snapped back to Chul as I struggled with my emotions, the preparation I’d done in meditating already starting to creak. My gaze hardened along the stone ridge of my brow, my lips a thin line as I tolerated his presence.

Chul was bigger than me. Much bigger. He had the kind of muscles and physique that bodybuilders worked decades to achieve in my previous life. He was the pinnacle of physical power.

But as I slowly ran my judging gaze across him like a rake across dry leaves, he crumpled inward, seeming to become smaller and smaller as his emotions dipped so readily.

That annoyed me. That similarity annoyed me. His emotions dipped and weaved as often and with as much intensity as mine.

Think of Aurora, I repeated to myself like a mantra. Think of Aurora.

Our mother was watching me with solemn eyes, as warm as they were sad.

“I will need to use a djinni medallion soon after I put down Scythe Nico,” I said, not really caring if Chul understood what I was telling him. “Agrona will sink his fangs into you soon, and I barely stopped the Scythe who did so. You’ve got one option: join me in the sanctuary that the medal will teleport us to.”

Chul blinked again, before puffing his chest out as his pompousness returned. “Worry not, brother!” he said in that tone that shook the stones and pounded a headache into the back of my skull. It was only by the grace of a sound barrier that the entire castle wasn’t alerted to his exclamation. “Your cause in stalling the Anchor is just! I have seen this! But we need not hide from the evil Vritra. Already, I am nearly at my full power once again, and when I am hale, we can take our talons to those who hurt our mother!”

I exhaled, imagining that all of my irritation and anger—rational and irrational both—left in the cloud of heated steam that left my lips. I opened my mouth to reply, but someone else was faster.

Aurora’s shade slowly rose to her feet, like a wing unfurling to reveal its majesty. And despite the burns and tears marring every inch of her form, she managed to appear graceful and motherly despite it all.

She turned her burning suns for eyes toward Chul, her expression softening in the way it did when she looked at me.

“Chul, you are powerful,” Lady Dawn said with a poet’s honesty, “but this is not just about your power. A sole phoenix—even two—cannot stand against the weight of Agrona Vrtitra’s experimentation. Do not forget that it was my own blind assurance in my martial prowess that saw me captured and caged. And remember, my son: you have not yet taken the final step toward banishment.”

My features wrinkled ever-so-slightly in contempt at that. If Chul would simply avoid the consequences of his actions, running back to the Hearth and refusing to take part in the war…

Chul’s red brow furrowed as he processed this, his shoulders still slumped. “I do not wish to hide once more,” he said in a low rumble. “I hid for so long in the Hearth. I wish for vengeance and fire, Mother, not more empty waiting.”

Aurora’s attention focused on me for a few minutes as I kept careful silence. “Toren is close to the Integration stage,” she said soothingly. “Once that is reached, we will have more options available in the vein of resisting the High Sovereign—especially with the resources of the Scythe. We will not be simply hiding like snakes in the dark. We will be planning, waiting to make our rise.”

Chul nodded slowly. “Your words are truly wise,” he said, attempting some sort of sagely nod. He crossed his bulky arms, his brows furrowing. “I see the truth there, Mother. If this is what is needed, I can understand. But the Scythe—”

I interrupted again, taking the train of thought before it could be derailed. My head slowly ached somewhere behind my eyes from his incessant, booming voice as it rattled my brain. “Seris is working on a way to trace the aetheric teleportation of the medallion so that we won’t be stuck there alone and without contact,” I said to Aurora, brushing away the bulky half-phoenix’s words. “That probably won’t take too long, but it sets another timetable we’ll have to watch out for.”

Chul’s expression darkened. “The Scythe… Mother, you say she has acted with wisdom and restraint. But I do not know if she is to be trusted. Her words must be taken with caution and care, to be sure. Will she truly rebel against her wretched forefathers? I cannot fathom it.”

All signs of emotion slipped from my face like water off some massive sea serpent’s back as I fixed the phoenix with a stare. In the back of my mind, I recalled everything that had happened between me and Seris last night. She had shown the deepest, most vulnerable parts of herself to me—not out of some scheme or vicious serpent’s ploy—but because she knew I would keep them close to my heart like the sorrowful treasures they were.

And in turn, this son of Dawn questioned her. He drove a stake into her heart, led thousands of innocent dwarves to their deaths, and then had the audacity to question her intentions. I struggled to suppress my rising fury for having looked at this man like a brother, juxtaposed with the promise that I would try to do so.

Deep breaths. In, and out. In, and out. This headache would pass.

Instead of remaining in the room, I turned on my heels, recognizing that my temper was beginning to fray. “I’ve said what I needed to say,” I said curtly, ready to destress somewhere else. I felt like poultry being pressure-cooked in this godforsaken vault with how quickly my anger rose, each inch of it pressing down on me and agitating my atoms towards movement and eruption. “I’ll speak with you over our bond when Seris informs me our chance is near, Aurora.”

“Wait, brother!” Chul beckoned from behind as I stalked toward the exit. “You have not yet told me of your journeys. I must know of your glorious ascension!”

I froze, clenching and unclenching my hands. I felt the urge to whirl around and throw a punch. But Aurora was here. I could sense her hopeful, quiet eyes on my back. I could feel them, asking me in as mournful a plea as she could.

Chul had taken several hopeful steps forward. I could sense that hope in his intent, pure and undiluted as every other emotion he bore.

“I’m not in a place to be anything to you, Chul,” I said with restrained calm. “You’re insistent on calling me brother. But I am not. Not right now. And I might never be.”

I turned, feeling the burning pits of my eyes smolder further as I pinned the half-phoenix with a stare. “Do you know what you did? When you shut that mouth of yours and stop trying to use the sound of your voice to drown out the sound of your thoughts, what do they tell you?”

I watched as some of the light behind Chul’s hopeful eyes flickered, wavered, and then died a pitiful death. His grin and laugh were well-practiced, and those of the kind of person who had more than enough joy to spare, but I could see as some part of his heartfire sizzled away at my question.

The vault was silent as the grave as shared memories danced in the darkness between us. In the same breath, we relived our fight blow for bloody blow. I imagined each of the cuts I’d traced along his damaged form. I remembered the sense of severing his heartfire, begging him to stop. To just listen to reason. To adhere to his mother and stop trying to kill everything.

The lavatides flowed in the back of his eyes as Chul’s mouth came to a line. He didn’t need to say anything. I knew he could not sense my intent, but regardless, something in both of our emotions aligned there. Without the need for music. Without the need for a violin or a crowd or an asura-forsaken stage.

“When I grew up in Alacrya,” I said quietly, feeling the white-hot rage of mine settle into a colder, searing sort of frostfire, “I was a healer. Every day and night, I spent healing the sick and wounded. I learned under a man named Trelza. He was a hard man. Unwavering and uncaring, at least as he presented himself. You could see more emotion in a block of steel than in that surgeon.”

My fists clenched as I looked at the murderous manchild, my headache rising rapidly toward a crescendo as it pulsed in tune with my heart. “But you know what he did? He taught me to care for people. He taught me to heal them until I could do nothing more. Until there was nothing left to save, I would try anything.”

Fire sputtered and popped around my hands as I held the bulky man’s empty eyes with my own, the very lines of the world seeming to grow taut between us as I hauled more and more of my memories to the surface.

“I have seen many things, Chul,” I said quietly. “Many, many horrendous things. Before that awful day, I counted the worst of those the Plaguefire Incursion. In that, I faced the wretched experiments of the Vicar of Plague, one after the other. The scars that bastard Mardeth left on my home will remain for decades. But you know something interesting?”

Chul swallowed at the cold, underlying fury that coated every syllable of my carefully enunciated words. All the while, Aurora quietly stared at the ground, not interrupting. Unable to interrupt. Because she knew this was necessary.

“When all was said and done—when that megalomaniac had spread his disease across the city and tried to force his way to godhood—there were still people left. Many people died in the Incursion. Many, many people. But when I put on my mask and gloves and called on my heartfire, I saved far, far more people than those who died. I was able to make some sort of difference in the aftermath.”

I slowly stalked forward, looking the asura in the eye as I searched his soul, drawing on every inch of guilt and remorse and sorrow that I felt permeating from him like tar. His shoulders were loose, his frame trembling slightly as he remained mute in the face of my quiet scorn.

“When I sifted through the ashes of what remained in Burim, Chul, I found more corpses than I have ever healed,” I admitted, gnashing my teeth as I fought down a treacherous tear. “I dedicated so much of my life to helping those broken find the strength to run again. And when I sifted through that rubble at the behest of weeping families and distraught loved ones, I saw more death in one place than any sort of life I had ever given to this world. Dwarf, man, elf, Alacryan or Dicathian? It didn’t matter. Two things above the lessers fought, and they died in droves. Pointlessly. Because of your fire and vengeance.”

“I will make it right,” the young man mumbled, the words leaving his lips in a fitful press as his shoulders heaved. “I will see it fixed. It must be done. I will see justi—”

“Fixed? How will you fix it, Chul?” I interrupted, still staring through his soul. “Will you kneel before the dwarves and beg for forgiveness? Before the families of all those you’ve killed? Will you offer your throat for them to slit in vengeance?”

My eyes roamed across the bulky man’s body. They narrowed contemptuously. “There isn’t enough of you to go around for that. You’d run out of blood to spill too quickly.”

“I will find a way forward!” Chul said abruptly, pressing away at the despair that clouded him. His eyes flickered with rising light. He waved an arm, as if it could banish all the curses and sins cast by the folk of Burim as they hung about him like smog. “This, I vow! I cannot see it, but I shall right my wrongs.”

From the glistening in his eyes and the surety of his intent, I believed he wanted to. From the deepest depths of his soul, he wanted so very much to make it all right. I could taste that desperate desire of his on the air to fix it all, to turn back time and mend all that was broken.

For an instant, I was almost convinced that it might be possible from sheer will alone.

But as I remembered the image of Chul driving Inversion through Seris’ chest, spearing her heart and tainting her lifeforce, I knew he would never succeed. As I remembered Bartholomew Morg, a half-dwarf performer who loved his life, falling to the ground in a pointless, cataclysmic death, I knew he would never succeed. As I remembered the hours of searching through rubble with my telekinesis, covered from head to toe in dust and despair as I told family after family after family that there was nothing left of those they loved, I knew he would never succeed.

It was strange, that realization that this young man was doomed from the start. Before he could even set out on his quest, I couldn’t fathom any way he could succeed. Something about that made my anger cool, settling it back into something I could manage and control.

“When you find a way to right those wrongs of yours,” I said, letting out a breath, “tell me. I can’t imagine a way forward, either.”

I turned around, sensing Aurora’s quiet disappointment in the back of my head. I ignored it, along with the pounding headache that had grown in my skull. “You’re going to be stuck in here for a while, no matter what choice you make regarding your banishment,” I grunted, marching back toward the vault exit. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll ensure you get food that’s not just prison slop.”

I wouldn’t offer the luxury of a pillow or blanket, though. The cold, unforgiving surface was all he would get for now.

As I marched out of the vault, getting more of a grip on my emotions, Aurora’s voice trickled like cool springwater into my pounding skull.

“Thank you, Toren,” she said quietly. “Thank you for your restraint.”

I didn’t respond for a time, still quietly mulling over my anger and its unique tinge. I was so used to being able to share everything with my bond, but this… this was something I couldn’t share everything about. It wasn’t fair to burden the phantom shade with all my boiling hatred and grief and trauma. She had enough of those herself to deal with without being torn between two sons.

Yeah, I thought, remembering the promise I’d made. The promise that I would try to let Chul be my brother. Yeah. Whatever.

“He means well, Toren,” she replied after a moment. “He wants to be your brother. He wants to know about you and who you are, from the depths of his soulful heart. Just don’t drive a stake into it when he leaves it in your hands.”

I gnashed my teeth as I returned to Seris and Cylrit, too engrossed in my thoughts to grant them anything other than a brief glance. You talk as if it is so simple. He drove a stake into thousands of hearts.

Mine included. Seris’ included. Aurora’s included.

“Then show him what it means to be better,” my mother shot back. “That is what you do, is it not? You lead by example, Morningstar. You show the world what ought to be, rather than what is. Show a broken sinner what it means to change, my son. You’ve done it so many times already.”

I closed my eyes, registering her heartfelt pleas in the back of my soul. And then I kept walking, uncertain and unable to truly define what I felt.