Discordant Note | TBATE

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Toren Asclepius

I sat amid the Sunswept Glade for a time, breathing in the swelling passion all around me. The intent of all the phoenixes had settled slightly in the wake of Aurora's reunion, and the press of bodies and warm emotions around me still made something in me creak.

I heaved for breath, staring mutely at the ground beneath my feet. My eyes traced the curve of a blade of impossibly sharp grass as it bent from the weight of a teardrop. Whether it was mine or another phoenix's, I did not know.

The phoenix with short hair and a dark green dress–the one who had finally stepped forward to talk with me–knelt by my side alongside a few others. I didn't even know their names, but the interweaving of our intents made it feel like I'd known them all my life. I thought I could almost feel their souls calling mine.

Aurora's shade weakly pushed its way through the crowd of phoenixes, her head swiveling like an owl's as she looked at all her family. More and more were still arriving, but her burning suns couldn't hone in on whatever she was looking for.

She knelt by me, abruptly pulling me to my feet and breaking me from my reverie. I almost fell, still feeling overwhelmed by everything swirling around me.

"Chul!" she beckoned out, her voice somewhere between ragged and joyful. "Chul! Where is my son?"

And suddenly, the intent of the phoenixes around us dipped away from the joy and happiness of reunion. With it came confusion and worry, and I felt my focus suddenly sharpening at the change.

Aurora didn't seem to understand the intent, too enraptured with her reunion. "He's here, isn't he?"

Aurora, I thought, looking around at the members of the Asclepius Clan as they watched us with sad features and wincing grimaces. Something's wrong.

"Chul isn't in the Hearth any longer, Aura," Mordain's voice echoed out sadly as he settled down onto the grass a little ways from us. "When your truefeather showed signs of life once more, his fire began to burn hot again. I tried to convince him to stay for a time until I could be certain of your condition, but his heart was closed to my words, and I would not bar him his freedom."

Aurora froze, the Unseen wind in her hair abruptly stopping in its movement. Her eyes traced the gathered phoenixes again, searching and probing as if she could somehow prove Mordain's words wrong.

"He isn't here?" she whispered, seeming to shrink in on herself.

"I didn't tell you when we arrived because I didn't want to sully your mood," Mordain said sadly, walking through the murmuring crowd. "But I will beckon him back now that you are here. You need not wait long, Aura. I promise."

The shade trembled, and I felt a strange sort of loss at the missed opportunity to meet my brother. I shifted slightly, then spoke up.

"If he isn't here, where is he?" I asked, worried about the implications of the young half-asura roaming about in Dicathen.

"From my last divination, Chul is currently traveling around the countryside of the land you call Sapin." Mordain tilted his head. "He's been striking at each and every rogue beast horde he could find, working to ensure none of the men and women of that land suffer any more tragedy."

Tragedy you caused, his eyes subtlely accused.

Mordain's eyes flashed orange for a moment as he stared at me, the implications of his words making me exhale in annoyance. I felt my soul tremble in resonance.

"He's doing a good thing," I responded, turning to Aurora as she slowly absorbed Mordain's news. "I couldn't be there to stop it, but my brother can. He's using his power well."

Mordain slowly shook his head, seeming slightly disappointed. But before we could trade subtle barbs anymore, another stepped forward. They had a mostly bald head and a beard that almost looked like fire itself. "Regardless of any of this, this occasion is worthy of celebration and joy. One we thought lost in our hearts has returned, and has brought another into our flock. Now is not the time for this."

"You're right, Soleil," another phoenix said—the same one who had hugged me first. She blinked a few times, her breath stuttering as she smoothed out her dark green robes. "We must celebrate. We need to do something to mark this occasion!"

She spun around slightly, finally spotting me. She strode forward sharply, grabbing me roughly by the shoulders. Her orange eyes narrowed as she looked me up and down quickly. "We need to get you better clothes. Something fitting and not so disgusting!"

I coughed in surprise, raising my hands in a warding gesture as the phoenix began to shift me about. Laughter rose around me from the phoenixes as I was subsequently carted off to the side. "Hey!" I said aloud, trying to peer back at Aurora and silently pleading for her help. "Do I get a say in this?"

"No, you don't!" the young, short-haired phoenix chirped, her chin upturned. "Lithen, help me! You know threads better than I do. We won't let another moment go by with this travesty of attire!"

Another member of the Asclepius—this one tall and burly and with a solemn and stoic face—inserted himself on my other side in this sudden abduction. He narrowed his eyes, casually grabbing my long, haphazard tail of hair and inspecting it as we went. "You haven't washed, young blood," he said, shaking his head with disappointment. "Too greasy. Roa is right; you've got to present yourself better."

"I've been doing nothing but fighting for the past month!" I complained as I belatedly remembered how decimated my clothes had become. Silver-dressed trees passed by as I was slowly led away from the central glade. "It's not exactly my fault!"

A few other phoenixes fell into the procession around me as I got carried away. Aurora's eyes narrowed slightly, a bit of her good mood returning as I was abducted by half a dozen gods and carted off to who-knew-where.

"Go with Lithen and Roa, my son," Aurora thought to me warmly, smiling as I was carted away. The tether of lifeforce between us stretched unnaturally far for some reason I couldn't understand. "They are your cousins of some variety. Get to know them."

I looked back at Aurora for a time, seeing the hope in her sunset eyes, before finally surrendering to the wave of chattering phoenixes as I was drawn into a nearby tunnel.

"I don't think I ever got your names," I finally said, my voice laced with faux-annoyance as the squadron of asura marched me away. "Considering you're carting me off to who-knows-where, I'd like to at least know the identities of my captors."

I winced as Roa slapped the back of my head lightly. "We are your elders, Twinsoul," she said playfully. "But yes, you will have the grace to know our names. I am Aurora of the Vine, but… I guess you can call me Roa. I was named after your mother."

The burly one grunted lightly. "I'm called Lithen," he said, his eyes wandering as more phoenixes we passed gradually melded into the group like a school of fish. "We've been waiting for you for a long time, new blood."

The other phoenixes slowly introduced themselves. Sundren, Diella, Aubuen, and a few others. They each said a little about themselves, but almost universally they stared at my heart, their eyes twinkling and intents curious.

The names swum around my head, but I cemented them with surprising ease. "Well," I said a bit sheepishly, "I'm Toren Daen. Spellsong. Twinsoul. Whatever you want to call me, I guess."

Roa bristled lightly. "Toren Asclepius is a fine name," she asserted, her steps confident. She slowed slightly, then stared back at me with a quizzical gaze. Her eyes snapped to my miscolored lock of hair—the one that streaked feather-red and faded to a purple-silver. "But I do find myself curious."

There were a few murmuring agreements from the phoenixes around me, their intents wide and open to my senses. "About what?"

Lithen pushed his way forward as we reached a bend in the road. "The Sculpting of your body is different from what we know," he said gruffly. "Usually, each successful Sculpting is celebrated in the Clan. Normally in a way that emulates the event and chosen path itself. But yours is… strange."

I blinked, turning back to the other phoenixes who watched. Diella shrugged. "It is pretty weird," she said, brushing a lock of hair the color of campfire ash from her shoulders. "I'm close to my next Sculpting. Only a hundred more years or so before I need to remake myself, and I've been looking for some sort of inspiration. How did you do something so strange?"

"Well," I said slowly, finding my thoughts, "it wasn't me that performed my Sculpting. I was… in a dark place. And Aurora helped push me through it. She used a djinn bone dagger and a feather from her brother, but the process is… lost on me," I reluctantly admitted.

Roa hummed, a noise that sounded remarkably like the undertones of a songbird's call. "Your mother did something fascinating. Sculptings are only possible when the body and soul are on the brink of severance. And all of us have to work through the changes slowly over the course of decades," she said. "My specialty is in nature magic, you see. And from what I divine, the changes to your body were not incremental or a slow buildup. More like a sudden riptide, unlike any body-reformation I've seen before."

I raised a hand, looking down at it as I inspected my body. Then, with a bare tug, I called on my lifeforce.

Dawnlight flickered through my fingers as I stared at the light. "Well, I can't deny the benefits of it. They were…" I trailed off as the intent of the phoenixes nearby all seemed to snap into focus, the procession halting abruptly.

All of them—every single one—was staring mutely at the dawnlight misting through my fingers as if in a trance.

"You can control your lifeforce," Sundren said, his voice belying his shock.

I blinked, feeling uncertain. I knew that my control of my body's vital energy was unusual. Even visceral and primally gripping in a way Aurora claimed was like nothing she'd seen from phoenix or djinn. But I'd forgotten that for a while as I'd grown so accustomed to its use.

"I can," I said slowly. "But my abilities with it are… limited. My insight isn't what I want it to be."

Roa took my hand slowly, watching in awe as she brushed her fingers through the light. She shuddered lightly, the act strangely intimate in a way I couldn't really pinpoint. The other phoenixes inched closer, their hands touching mine as they brushed against my lifeforce. Hesitantly, I allowed more aetheric heartfire to flow from my fingers, bathing every pale hand as they ghosted over mine.

They're so open with physical contact, I thought, restraining my slight discomfort with how ready the asura were to touch me, none really aware of what most humans would probably consider boundaries. It's strange.

When the hands retreated, a few of those I'd spoken to trembled lightly. Diella pulled her hand close to herself, her fingers shaking. She looked at the floor, her body heaving slightly. Sundren stumbled back a step, tears gathering at the edges of his eyes and his breath coming up short. He looked at me aghast.

The other phoenixes generally fell away, only really seeming halfway-there. Their intent radiated a sudden, familiar sorrow that struck me like a hammer.

"I'm sorry," I apologized instinctually, feeling like I'd done something wrong. "I didn't mean to–"

Roa abruptly pulled me into another confusing hug, sniffling slightly as we stopped in the hallway. "No, we are sorry, young blood," she said, her voice choking. "We did not know."

Lithen laid a hand on my shoulder, keeping his eyes forward as the other phoenixes gradually hobbled away, their minds and emotions churning to my senses. I felt like I'd driven them away. Done something obscene or horrid that implanted them with such grief.

I hesitantly returned the hug, feeling confused and worried. "Did I do something? I didn't mean to–"

"It is nothing, Toren. It is just… very rarely are Bloodties so visceral. You have great insight into what it means to feel, and we did not expect to delve so deep."

"Bloodties?" I echoed. Aurora had told me of those, where phoenixes dipped their fingers in the blood of those they cared for, drawing sensation, emotion, and knowledge from their lifeforces. It was usually done on the rare occasion of funerals as the flock shared their pain. But…

My eyes widened as I connected the dots. My lifeforce wasn't like most phoenixes, and neither was I dead. But if I'd just subjected these members of my new family to my memories or emotions…

Before I could protest, Roa separated, taking me by the shoulder. She and Lithen began to walk with me alone, and I felt a strange knot of emotion in my stomach.

By tradition, what was seen or experienced in a Bloodtie was never spoken of again after the event: only during. It was made to allow emotions to pass on and symbolically leave you as you grieved for another.

I could ask what they saw in my soul just this once, but I realized I didn't really want to. I'd experienced enough darkness that I didn't want to taint this space with shadow.

We walked in silence for a time as I fell deep into my thoughts. We didn't see any more asura as we trailed along marble rooms with trailing silver sconces and auburn-leaved vines that shone like platinum, before we finally arrived at a specific suite.

"This is where I spend my days," Roa said aloud, leading me into a small, homey room. Almost immediately, I was hit with innumerable different scents as the ambient mana warped and bent with each smell. I blinked as I tried to separate vanilla from cinnamon from chives and half a hundred others that were distinctly supernatural. A light layer of familiar mist coated the stone floor of the room, swirling and churning like fog overtop a lake.

Roa didn't stop as she strode toward an ancient-looking desk made of black wood. Lithen took the opportunity to stroll to the side, before letting himself collapse onto a nearby bed.

"Don't mess up my sheets!" Roa snapped at the bulky phoenix. "You did that last time I had you in here, and it took me ages to reset the spellforms!"

The phoenix groaned. "I won't, I won't," he dismissed. "Just… need time to think."

Roa paused for a moment, then got back to whatever she was doing at the desk. I worked my jaw, feeling awkward for whatever I'd dumped into their minds.

My eyes traced along the ground instead, noting the eddies of mist that dampened my senses and kissed my boots in a familiar way. "This is Elshire mist," I said wonderingly, finally latching onto something familiar. "I didn't think I'd ever see any so concentrated. Did you take it from the Elven Forest?"

"That I did not," Roa said, turning around as she held something in her hands. A dark green vine with silver blossoms that looked vaguely familiar breathed little swirls of mist from each petal, creating a cascading fall of water vapor that made the phoenix in front of me look truly ethereal. It sat snugly in a gilded pot, the vine twisting in and around itself in a rhythmic way. "In truth, the Hearth concocted the Elshire mist with this remnant of great power. It is still my greatest work to this day. Never before had another divined a way to use the remnants of a Catastrophe in such a way."

I blinked. "The remnant of a Catastrophe?" my thoughts snagging on that tidbit of info. "Like, Brother Fire? Mother Earth? Father Sky, and–"

"Sister Nature, yes!" Roa said animatedly, pushing the little potted plant toward me. Instinctively, I took a step back as the vine quested outward with a life of its own. "Though not really her, either. Just what is left."

Distantly, I recalled the story Barth had told me a couple of months ago. Where the story of Geolus' fall to Arkanus Indrath was told in fantastical prose and I became aware of other beasts of mana.

Hesitantly, I allowed my hand to hover near the plant. The silver petals and bright green vines reminded me of something, but for the life of me, I couldn't place my finger on what. "It's so… small," I said in amazement as the little vine curled around my finger. I could hear a slight pulse of lifeforce radiating from it. If I hadn't been told otherwise, I would have never guessed this was some sort of… legacy of a Catastrophe.

"This is all that the Hearth has left," Roa said. "There were pieces we left behind across the Beast Glades and Elshire Forest, hoping that they would be able to find some sort of path forward or grow as needed. Some acted as protectors for hidden glades, too. But now…"

I blinked as the pieces finally clicked into place. "The Elderwood Guardian," I said, my eyes widening as I finally remembered where I'd seen these colors. When I'd healed Tessia Eralith's beast core. "That's a remnant of a Catastrophe!"

Roa slowly withdrew the potted plant, flexing her mana in a way I couldn't follow as she passed energy to and from it. "Why yes, I think the humans and elves of the land did stumble upon a few of what we left behind. But it's not anything noteworthy, unfortunately. The parent Catastrophe—while not slain like the other walking disasters of Epheotus—was divided and split into countless pieces. No single piece could rise above the others. Not really."

Roa's eyes darted to the ring on my finger. "Well, I'm going to create some thread from the offshoots here for a Sculpting gift, considering you never got one—but our little 'remnant' feels like there's something else she needs to really make things nice. Something in your dimension ring."

I blinked. Lithen finally pulled himself from the sheets, stumbling over. "Yeah. The plant wants whatever is in there for its 'art.' It's always wise to listen to the plant."

Roa glared at Lithen, whose shoulders were drooping slightly. He had a suddenly tired air about him. "The 'plant,' as you called it, is going to make Toren garb worthy of his Asclepius name. And you are going to help me, too, you ungrateful lout."

"Okay, okay," Lithen said, raising his hands in submission. "You've got it."

Hesitantly, I withdrew a few items from my dimension ring, one at a time. The phoenix wyrm beast cores. A few of my remaining rations. The black and white pelts of the echo vespertion and timestop yeti settled across my arms. I raised a brow at the phoenix, thinking this was probably what she was wanting.

She shook her head, her short orange hair swaying. I furrowed my brow, trying to think of what else it could be. Then I blinked, remembering that there was one other item inside my dimension ring. A few of them.

I withdrew the djinni relic from my ring, alongside a few scuffed and damaged soulmetal feathers that had been torn from Aurora's relic as she piloted it.

The plant immediately reacted, twisting and churning in and around itself as if it sensed the relic.

I mutely offered up the bronze shards to the waiting phoenix, who inspected them closely. Her eyes flashed, and I heard her heartfire pick up in rhythm slightly. "This is… an artificial Vessel?"

"Of a sort," I said as Lithen took the remnants of the bronze metal, inspecting them closely as he murmured something under his breath. "It's… a djinni relic. Something they made that my mother is able to use to interact a bit with the world."

Roa took the bronze metal brooch, holding it lightly as she turned it over with delicate fingers. I felt a question building in my gut as she did so, the effort of holding it back tearing at me as she reverently observed the feather.

I remembered the quiet desires buried deep in my bond's soul. The ones she tried to keep hidden from me, for fear that I would feel more guilt about her true feelings.

Long ago, I'd lamented that I felt Aurora's state as a mere spirit was just another prison. She'd honestly told me that she felt more free than she had in uncountable years.

But that didn't mean she was free.

"Is it possible to make a more permanent Vessel?" I blurted, my fists clenching at my sides. "One that is flesh and blood and isn't just a shell?"

The room fell silent for a time after my words. I thought I could hear the mist as it brushed against my tattered leggings.

"To create a true flesh-and-blood Vessel…" Roa's words petered out as she looked at me, seeing far too much with those orange eyes. "Toren, what do you know of the soul?

I was silent for a moment, digesting the question. It was one that most philosophers in my previous life would have struggled to answer, and I was no different.

"If the Vessel is the body, then the soul is a balloon anchored down by strings of heartfire," I finally decided on, "But that balloon can swell and shrink with insight and knowledge. It can deflate and pop, but it can also be pulled on currents of air around it towards others. The air inside that balloon is everything that makes us us."

It was far from a perfect analogy, I knew. One of the most fundamental experiences I knew was the pure intent I'd known in the Sea of my Soul. Where the line between thought and existence became blurred by desire.

Language was designed to convey understanding. But there were some things that language would never truly capture.

"A good perspective, if a flawed one," Roa allowed. "Truthfully, I suspect you understand the soul differently than most all of us in the Hearth. But it was the djinn who delved into the soul. Truly pried at Fate."

Roa casually waved her hand. Though I could sense no change in the ambient mana, I saw as a small tree rose from the ground. Autumn leaves and rich bark crowned its trunk as its roots dug lower and lower into the compact earth. Those leaves stretched upward like the morning stretch of a young child, each finger grasping for something. A split second later, a little burning ember rose above the tree like a star.

Each of the autumn leaves reflected the burning light above it, absorbing the corona. I furrowed my brow, uncertain what this was supposed to mean.

"I asked about the soul, once. A woman named Yun-El showed me something akin to this and told me it was the truest representation of the soul she could understand."

I squinted, staring at the tree and sun as they seemed to draw at each other. I did not have an affinity for nature magic, but even this tree had heartfire in it. This felt significant. "This is interesting," I said slowly, sensing how life and mana coursed through the plant. "But it doesn't answer my earlier question."

Roa hesitantly let the conjuration of nature magic and fire evaporate. She stared at me uncertainly for a time, and I got the distinct sense she wanted to talk about anything but what I'd asked. I wondered how many distractions she'd try to lay to divert my question.

But the intensity of my focus compelled her.

"Do you know why you were able to be reborn in this world?" she finally pushed out, relenting under my gaze.

I hesitated for a moment, feeling a sudden discomfort at the phoenix's words. I had only told Seris and Aurora that part of me was from another world, and to have that secret stated so simply made me feel unnerved. I didn't even really understand how Roa had divined this truth about me. Though I felt truly welcome around these asura in a way I really couldn't define, it was suddenly apparent once more that I was chatting casually in a room of what was the closest thing this world had to gods.

I still have an aura of rebirth about my lifeforce, I reminded myself, taking a few seconds more to think. Thankfully, Roa seemed happy to let me do so. She isn't just… casually tearing apart my mind.

"I am Twinsoul," I finally responded. "On this world and another, I had a mirror. A reflection in the Edicts of Aether that created a sort of symmetry. A gravity that allowed one soul to travel to another world."

Roa nodded slowly. "The soul is a strange thing, Toren. It appears you have greater insight into it than many of our greatest already, but there is an overlap with Vesselcraft. And that is that a soul must fit a Vessel in a fundamental way if it is to reach any permanence. Yun-El explained it to me like this: the sun nourishes the branches, but the branches must know the sun.

"As one with parallel lives across worlds, the Vessel you bear now is a natural fit for both halves of your spirit. Your branches naturally received the light of your sun," Roa continued. "So your rebirth was simple and easy. But when it comes to your mother…"

The phoenix nervously chewed on her lip, before her eyes darted to Lithen.

The bulky asura gently set the collage of soulmetal down with careful clinks. "Aurora's condition is not like anything I've ever seen," he said quietly. "The mind is a shadow of the soul, Toren. And it is that shadow that drives and pushes our arts of rebirth as our Vessel falls towards singularity: our mana cores. Throughout the entirety of our Sculptings, our cores keep us bound to the physical plane. The feather in your core is proof of Aurora's physical death, Toren. It serves to anchor her spirit to you, I think. But that is the only reason she yet persists."

I felt my shoulders slump, my eyes drifting to the floor as a subtle thread of despair wove its way through my system. "Then is there no way to make her whole again? To really give her a body she can call her own?"

Lithen patted my shoulder. Half a dozen items weakly streamed back into the dimension ring on my left thumb as my hopes withered.

Aurora loved the sky. There were few things she enjoyed more than flying, the sensation of wind beneath her feathers and the freedom it brought.

And she was happy with piloting the djinni relic; at least, she said so. But in the deepest depths of our bond, I knew she felt otherwise. It was a better situation than before, but she couldn't feel. The closest thing we had was when she ruffled my hair or clutched me tight when she needed the comfort. But my mother was still bound as a shade with a hundred prisons reminding her of her death.

The heartfire tether between me and my bond hummed slightly.

"If she found her original Vessel," Lithen said, pulling me from my subtle grief, "then there might be a chance with our knowledge. To really give her another life."

I smiled sadly as I looked at Lithen, my shoulders slumping. "My mother's body decays in the depths of Taegrin Caelum itself," I said sorrowfully. "It might as well be a lightyear away."

Aurora Asclepius

I walked for a time through the Sunswept Gardens, feeling light and airy in a way I had not known for an age. If I still bore a heart, I was certain that it would thunder with every single step. I imagined the bending of grass beneath my boots. The scents that I'd once smelled constantly, that of autumn and sunshine and burning hickory. I could hear the babbling of Chul's stream not far away.

Mordain and Soleil walked with me as well as I admired the trees of purest silver. Falling leaves might have phased through my phantasmal form, but if I thought deep enough, I could remember how they felt as they nestled in my hair.

The Sunswept Gardens were our deepest attempt at mirroring our old home of Epheotus. It wasn't as grand as the Starbrand Sanctum, of course. I did not have the sense that a breeze was always beneath my tailfeathers, nor was I able to see the constant flittering lights of swirling fire mana that illuminated our old streets.

But this… this was more than enough. I let my eyes roam over everything, drinking it in.

We strolled for a time, stepping through the gardens with learned grace. Half a dozen of my clanmembers watched and stared, and I shared heartfelt and tearful reunions with each and every one I could see. Mordain and Soleil allowed me my reunions in peace, smiling and helping me as I finally felt home again. Every now and then, I simply stopped, letting myself absorb the emotion as Toren had taught me. Really acknowledge each swell of joy and relief. Immerse myself in them.

Despite it all, though, it couldn't last.

Finally, we stepped into a different passageway. The marble darkened more and more as we strode down. The tether of heartfire connecting Toren and I frayed from the distance, then bled away.

My brother could still see me, even as that tether vanished. His eyes saw much in this world and peered deep beneath its layers. He looked through times in unfathomable ways that no other Asclepius clanleader had ever managed as he learned under the last of the djinn.

My attention shifted nervously to Soleil, one of the oldest members of the clan. He indeed had to focus for a time, his eyes staring at where my phantasmal shade trod. But eventually, he seemed to be able to see me again as he nudged his lifeforce.

"A strange thing," he grunted. "It seems I can only see you because of some connection between our souls. Connections that I can only sense when you are near."

I exhaled, feeling a measure of peace returning. They could see me.

"I have grown accustomed to being naught but a ghost," I commented, staring forward. Then I hesitated, biting at my lip. "I have… worried about what might come when I finally reached home."

"It is fortuitous that we can see, you, Aura," Mordain said, pausing as he looked me over again. Something he did for my benefit, to make me feel seen. "I made sure to call the members of our clan forth when I sensed your approach. But it seems I did not take into account your potential fears."

"It is no worry, Mordain," I said with a soft smile, remembering the warmth with which my brother had always treated me. All throughout our childhood, he—the eldest among us—had been the only one to truly support me. To encourage me to take a path of my own forging.

Even if that path led me to pain.

My brow furrowed as the dreaded subject matter loomed like a fanged basilisk in the dark. Mordain's earlier assertion that all of the clan had been gathered reminded me of something that was missing. "I have not seen Evascir yet. Is he performing his duties… elsewhere?"

Evascir, resident titan forger of the Hearth, was an odd sort, for many, many reasons. He was the only asura not of the phoenix race to join us in our flight from Epheotus, and all in secret.

Considering he had long since been Banished from the Grandus Clan, he was already an anomaly. Given no respite from his race after a failed creation of an artifact, he'd been adrift and aimless till Diella—one of our younger members of the Asclepius—welcomed him in in secret.

"Evascir is currently stationed in the city of Klethra, keeping his ear close to the ground," Soleil muttered, confirming my suspicions. Considering that the wayward titan was not a phoenix and had no visible ties to any clan due to his Brand, he acted often as a spy for the Hearth within Epheotus itself. "Dangerous rumors seep like the water of the Mighty Hosh through the Last Bastion. Rumors about what Lord Indrath's plans may be, and where the lesser's war may proceed."

I favored Soleil with a scowl, irritated by his use of the word lesser. I knew why he said as such: the wounds deep in his soul compelled him to cope in unsavory ways. But that was no excuse. "They are not lessers, Soleil." I recalled some of the painful sights I'd witnessed in Alacrya, where even those I might have once deemed lessuran were simply… people. It was discomforting. "They are humans and elves and dwarves. That is a distinction that I have found is important."

"They are lessers in strength," Soleil muttered, keeping his eyes forward and refusing to meet my gaze. "That is what matters."

I opened my mouth to retort, feeling emboldened by all I'd had the grace to learn in this past year, but my brother cut me off.

"It would be well to measure your words, Soleil," he said in that measured tone of his. Always laced with silver acceptance, but still firm. "We both know why you are so insistent in your words, but times have changed. This can, and should, be discussed later: but now, there is more we need to deliberate."

I forced the rising fire in my stomach to settle at my brother's logical words. Where so many of our kind were slaves to our emotions, Mordain found the perfect balance between reason and passion. That ideal was why we followed him as a clan: out of respect, and not fear.

We emerged into a familiar room. One of darkness and shadow, where a hundred and a half small pyres burned in dedicated sconces all around in a circular pattern. I watched each of the fires in their sconces, feeling sorrow and pain renew themselves in my heart.

This was where the pyres were lit for the dead. When the heartfire of an Asclepius went out and would never be rekindled, those left behind lit an ember in eternal remembrance.

Since the formation of the Great Eight, it had become rare that an asura was slain. More often, the oldest of us lost hold of their sense of self. The constant struggle to put one foot in front of the other with every passing day became too great a burden for their minds, and they just… let go.

Uncountable thousands more pyres burned in the Starbrand Sanctum. But this small haven of sorrow was still seared deep in my spirit.

Are those pyres even lit, now? I wondered mournfully. Word says that the Avignis Clan—our replacements in the Great Eight—moved the heart of their home to the Featherwalk Aerie. The Sanctum is now just… a husk. An empty Vessel.

My eyes traced over the fires, recalling familiar names as the sons and daughters of my clan burned in the back of my soul.

But there was one that drew my attention first and foremost.

"I don't wish to burden you with your sorrows, Aura," my brother said softly, walking toward where a single pyre flickered for me. "But we must know what led to your current circumstances. I know some—some that I could glean through my sight. But not all."

I took a shuddering breath, my eyes locking on the truefeather that lay kindling just beneath the fire. The feather—long as an arm and brimming with heartfire—told the truth of my survival. "It is a long story, brother," I said quietly. "Fit for the greatest of our clan's songs. I have seen much in this past year. Though much was taken from me, I have known that much more."

And so I told them of my arrival at Taegrin Caelum under guise. The way Agrona had taken me in with a grand welcome, sharing the Hearthrite. How we'd spoken and bargained for several months as he tried to tease the location of my home from my lips.

And when the High Sovereign had learned that I would never divulge the hiding place of my home, he had shown his true colors.

I stared long at the fire of my feather, lost in the dreadful memories. Of the claws and decay and mindshearing horror. Of how every bit of my being was picked apart.

And I had never been given the chance to fight it. The cowardly Vritra had poisoned my food, unwilling to give me the chance of honorable combat. And for uncountable years—of a number I was still unsure—I'd languished in his dungeons.

I shuddered slightly as I stared at my truefeather. Mordain settled a hand on my shoulder, and Soleil looked away.

"I learned of his plans, deep in the dark," I whispered. There were patterns to some of his questions and desires as he tore through my mind. A throughline that revealed aspects of his plans, reinforced only by what Toren had revealed. "He hopes to bring the Legacy to this world. To bind her to his whims and use her power to wrench Lord Indrath from his mountain throne."

The silence that pervaded the room made it feel even more like a graveyard for the gods. The flames about us seemed to dim.

"The Legacy…" Soleil said gravely, beginning to pace. His fire was always the bluntest, but when it was perturbed, it flared in equal measure. "The insight compounded within that one, forbidden soul… In the legends, it was already enough to nearly tear apart the world. The old stories of the Wraiths…"

The old stories…

Even in asuran folklore, knowledge about the Wraiths were slim and indistinct. Legends told of a warlike asuran race that ripped the life and insight from their foes and feasted on it in an unending cycle of misery and despair. And the Legacy was their greatest weapon, as so many hushed rumors told.

But those tales were older than Epheotus itself. Hundreds of thousands of years had passed since the presumed existence of the so-called race of Wraiths. Only exaggerated tales and questions remained.

And a deep, undying fear. A fear of the Legacy. The Singularity of Mana.

"We know the stories, Soleil," Mordain said, his tone ever-so-slightly snapping. That was the only indicator of how my declaration had affected him. "Fretting over Agrona's plans will only serve to make our steps hasty and uninformed."

I allowed my thoughts to drift away from the terrors of the unknown at my brother's words. He was right.

"I threw my soul to the wind," I said quietly. "After the Lord of Alacrya took something that he should have never taken. Truthfully, I did not know what would come of my aetheric arts. I did not truly understand what I was even attempting. I sought… I don't know what I truly sought. What I hoped to find. But I think… I found something that I needed."

"You are going to call a Forum, aren't you?" Mordain said, his jaw clenched as he stared at my truefeather. "That is why you are here, in the end."

"I am," I said honestly. As an elder of the clan, it was within my right to demand a gathering of all members of the flock. "I risked life, limb, and spirit to bring this message to those I love. And though I may enjoy this reunion for a time, there are greater things in play."

The room was silent for a time as this sank in. I didn't look at my brother, but I knew his underlying thoughts. Knew what he thought of my resolve.

Before my brother could speak, however, another presence slowly entered the room. I turned, the melancholy coursing through my spirit evaporating ever-so-slightly as Toren appeared.

He was clothed in loose robes that fit his broad shoulders nicely, and his long hair—now brushing his upper back—had been delicately washed and groomed, turning it into a curtain of golden-red. Though he normally tied back his hair, he let the locks hang naturally and unrestrained today. He looked more refreshed than I'd seen him in a long time.

Toren's eyes roamed over the fires, a solemnity passing through our bond. I had told him of this place, of course, and he recognized it for what it was.

"I dropped off the phoenix wyrm beast cores with Lithen," he thought to me. "And they're making some sort of clothing for me right now. How are you doing?"

I settled an arm on Toren's shoulder, staring at my truefeather in turn. "I plan to call a Forum soon," I said aloud. "To present what we know and demand a call for action. Our timeframe will not allow for anything more long-winded or the traditional routes."

The Forum was one of the old remnants of the integrated djinn. A mirror of their freehearings, where a single person could speak to the masses and be heard. My brother had given up sole authority in the Hearth to allow this unique form of group governance to bind our hearts in its stead.

We honored those of our flock in eternal slumber through kindling fires. We honored the forgotten djinn as we carried their ideals of everyone having a voice.

"You recognize the dangers of this," Soleil said sharply, stopping his pacing as he turned to face me. "You only get three chances to air your desires and make your argument, Aurora, in the face of opposition and questioning. And if your call is rejected, then that is the Will of the Clan. You cannot change their minds, and you will be oathbound to acknowledge it. You will divide us, Aurora."

"I know. This I know better than any other. But I came here ready to preach words of fire and call for action. I am certain that I will be understood." I looked into Soleil's eyes, watching the man I'd known for countless millennia. "We of the Hearth have stood on the sidelines for far too long. But now, with what is coming, we cannot. We must make a stand. If not now, then soon."

I knew Soleil would try and push against us in this Forum. He was one of the greatest voices for isolation as the only option after the destruction of the djinn. Half the current measures of the Hearth were because of his stalwart efforts to keep us contained. He stared at me, his eyes burning and his fists clenched.

Toren caught on quickly to the nature of our discussion. "Aurora and I can attest to this on any stage," he said, turning up his chin with determination. "The horrors we've witnessed—the horrors that pervade the world even now—they can't continue. And there is power in this place that can help stop it."

Mordain sighed, a sound that seemed to sap all of his life from his very soul. Though he bore no wrinkles, each shadow cast over the sharp lines of his face made him seem older than Geolus itself. "You are young yet, Toren Asclepius," he said, turning subtly as he faced the exit. "I will inform the clan that a Forum is to be held to determine the future course of the Hearth. I hope you know what you are doing, sister."

Mordain plodded to the exit of the sanctum. He stood in the doorway for a moment, seeming as much a shade as I for the barest instant. He seemed to think for a moment, looking back at us and searching for something to say.

But then he dismissed it all, leaving the room with heavy steps.