Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!
Toren Daen
The chill from the wintry winds tried to bite through my clothes. This high in the endless expanse of mountains, the cold held near absolute dominion. As the mountains stretched through the world like the spines of a dozen great beasts, all slumbering silently and solemnly for a million years, I almost found myself wondering what could make them lay so still. What could spurn them to such peaceful slumber?
Despite the cold, though, I felt warm. The great, bronze relic ensorcelled me with wings that radiated subtle heat, banishing what chill might have sunk into my bones. They scythed like threshing knives as they shifted around me, but the razor edges would never cut me.
A few feet away, a campfire burned, the tongues of fire popping and sizzling. They curled sadly around the body of the timestop yeti, condemning its flesh to ash.
"We honor our prey with fire, Toren," Aurora whispered over me, enveloping me in the safety of her soulmetal wings. "It is a pure end: one that allows them to truly reach the Beyond. We do all we can to make use of their Vessel, but with what remains… The fire removes all that lingers, preparing their soul to pass on."
I rolled the idea around in my mind for a time, slotting it into everything else I knew of Asclepius traditions. The idea of my distant family, so far away in Dicathen and awaiting me when I went off to war, made something both hopeful and fearful spark in my heart.
Such reverence for their foes, I thought to myself, sinking deeper into the metal safety of my mother's nest. Such reverence for the soul.
I found myself wondering what it meant to go to the Beyond, to transcend death and mortal limitations. I'd died before, in my old world, and I didn't remember what it was like to face that ultimate unknown. That ultimate fear that all living beings had.
I stared past the crackling fire, observing the contorted spines of the Relictombs zone. Maybe they're not just sleeping, I thought with low melancholy. Maybe they're dead. Maybe the act of moving miles upon miles became too difficult even for them eventually.
"Aurora," I asked quietly, wrapping my arms around my knees, "what rites do the Asclepius have for those they love? Not fallen prey… But when we lose a member of our flock, do you burn them, too? Do you prepare them for the Beyond?"
My mother had told me of how so many phoenixes died. If not from direct combat or disease or an accident, the asuran race of fiery avians could continue to sculpt themselves forever, reigniting their dying lifeforces whenever they neared the brink. But sometimes, it became too difficult for them to take that step, to sculpt themselves to last another few millennia. The burden of living became a greater and greater and greater weight on their shoulders, until they eventually just… gave in.
Give in, and leave all their loved ones behind, I thought, strangely angry. Why did it make me angry, that idea? It shouldn't… should it?
"I can't imagine it," I said, feeling strangely pained. My heart clenched in my chest for a reason I didn't understand. "Burning the body of one I loved, letting them simply become ash? It doesn't make sense. That would mean letting go."
Norgan hadn't been burned. His body lay peacefully beneath the earth a dimension away, slumbering like the distant mountains. Slumbering as if he might someday wake again. But the idea of burning him—of taking away his home—it was far too final for me.
Aurora's relic shifted about me, wrapping its wings closer about my huddled form as she sensed my emotions. But for some reason, the warmth seeping from her didn't quite push the chill away from me anymore. The long talks about the lives of the phoenixes and Epheotus felt strangely distant, shrouded in a mist that made it harder to think.
"Aurora?" I asked again, feeling desperate, feeling cold. "Just tell me, please!"
The sunlit relic didn't respond. She was silent as she stared down at me. The sunlit lamps of her loving eyes were empty. Not hollow, never hollow. But the inner spark that I should have seen, should have felt, wasn't there anymore. All I saw reflected back at myself as I stood abruptly, staring up at the avian form of my soulmetal bond, was my own rising anger and fear and worry and grief.
I stumbled out of my mother's arms, feeling wrong-footed. The great mountains in the expanding distance heaved, the artificial sky breathing in contempt. My body burned.
Aurora's relic didn't move. It stayed there, silent and still. Staring at me, never speaking. Because she was gone. Because she wasn't truly here, because I wasn't truly here. I spun on my feet, trembling and shaking like a fucking child. My body flickered, burns superimposing themselves on my soul's skin as the lie fell away. Feathered, avian runes shone with rising pain as memory flowed back into me like molten tar, scouring away what was once a happy time.
A dream, I realized, clenching and unclenching my fists as I stared out at the mountains again, unable to make myself look at the relic looming like an empty shell behind me. A memory of that time we were together, so long ago, as we trekked through the Relictombs for Sevren.
I exhaled a breath of mournful steam as I stared angrily out at the horizon, remembering the truth. I refused to face the fire, refused to face the husk.
We'd reached a place of relative safety after flying through the night, hunkering down in an empty nest. A place of dead silence and corpse-like winds, where every howl and twist only ripped saturation from the world. And Wren had offered to take watch, giving my exhausted form a chance to sleep.
I had never been one to lucid dream, to take control of my innermost psyche as wild visions played about before me. My dreams, though, were always vivid, so very potent in their substance. Even now, the sensation of the mana in the air coiling about me was far, far too tangible. The nipping little beast that was the winter wind tried to pull at my heels, and the way my blood seemed to freeze in my metaphysical veins would have fooled me in any other time.
The world around me—my senses, my thoughts, my emotions, my perception—all of it was a perfect mirror of the true physical plane. And even in my dreams, my connection with my bond had long since died.
"Dreams are a gateway to the aether," a voice said leisurely behind me. "They are the Little Death, the soul's practice for the end. Many asuran clans have questioned the nature of dreams and what they entail, but… I don't think most made any sort of real progress, despite the amount of time afforded to them."
My jaw clenched hard enough that my teeth would have shattered if they were real. Nonetheless, I still felt the pain radiate through my shade's jaw. The voice, the inflection, the argent flow of the words through the air.
The chaotic tumult of my pain finally found a center. Between the fear and the anger and the grief, my talons sank into my fury, holding fast, using it as the foundation for a castle of rage.
The painted memory of the past fell away with a simple flex of my soul. All around me, fiery gold blood drops seeped from the seams of this faux reality, tears of grief heaving their substance back into my source. The painted scenery of my memories sounded like a falling thunderstorm, the curtains peeling away to the truth beneath.
I stood in the Sea of my Soul. A near-endless expanse of scarlet blood, alight with golden fire. At my side, the towering stake of the Brand of the Banished pulsed with true heat, the rivulets of flame threading through my essence like veins. Feathered runes swam like living fish through the expanse, keeping their knowledge hidden within the tufts of their gleaming plumage.
I didn't turn around. I simply stared into the distant abyss, tracing my eyes over the souls I'd been so privileged to grow close to.
"Do you think you have a right to show yourself here?" I forced out through my spirit's lips, my soul rippling with my rising anger. "After everything that's happened, after all the pain and sorrow and tragedy, do you really presume to show your face to me? To bare your soul here?"
I turned, my lips curled into a sneer as I stared at the intruder on my sunlit spirit.
Mordain had not changed a single bit from when I'd last met him. Cream-colored robes, long, feather-red hair, a face that carried an ethereal air of eternal youth. That ageless aura that hung about him, however, was stripped away by the heavy years entrenched deep in his eyes.
The eminent Prince of the Asclepius Clan kept his hands tucked in his belt, weathering my initial assault without pause. "Toren Daen," he said solemnly, his eyes flickering lowly. "If there were a more formal designation for a meeting of two whose path is the soul, I'd have done what—"
"That wasn't what I asked, Mordain," I interrupted. My hand brushed instinctively against the great, golden lance of the Brand of the Banished. That soul-searing stake—changed and subsumed into me as I found my resolve once more—flickered around my fingers in silent threat. "I asked you if you thought you should be welcome here."
Mordain's eyes drifted to the stake consideringly, then back to me. I thought it was that nonchalance that raised my ire the most: the almost-apathy that pervaded a man who should have cared.
"I can understand your anger," the Phoenix Prince said calmly, his posture still unguarded. "But taking rash action would be unwise."
Unwise. Unwise. "I don't think we have anything to say to each other, Lost Prince," I growled, feeling the fires of my soul burn hotter. Memories of all the pain and sorrow that had transpired in the wake of my banishment flickered across my mind. All because this man had, still, refused to act. "For intruding here, for prying at my soul, I'm resisting the urge to take this Brand and press it through your essence."
I didn't even understand how Mordain had approached me, but I knew on a fundamental, primordial level, that this was him. That the person who presented himself before me now was the absent asura who had allowed so much pain and sorrow to wreak havoc in the world. The man who had the power, but refused to use it.
He shouldn't have been able to manifest here, not without making me burn. He was still a member of the Asclepius Clan, and the Brand—though its nature and substance had changed—still reacted violently with those of my former clan.
It doesn't matter, I thought angrily, feeling the pulsing desire to move. To hurt. To sear.He has no right to—
"I have the knowledge you need," Mordain said quietly. "About the Hearth that you wish to save. About Epheotus, about the soul—"
"That's what it comes down to now?" I asked, still feeling like the core of a star barely held from fusion. I slowly loped forward, feeling myself grow. "I know why they're captured at all, Mordain. Because of you: because you surrendered when Epheotus came to fight. Do you think I want to hear what you have to say?"
That, finally, seemed to raise the shade's ire. Such a paleimitation of Aurora he was, his shoulders flaring like wings. "I took the only option available that would see my clan survive, Lord Daen," he said with forced calm. "I trade my aetheric knowledge to Lord Indrath along the Path of Insight, and they are allowed to live. Captive, but they are all alive."
I stopped before the Phoenix Prince, looking up at him. Letting him see the countless burns across my body. "They are all alive?" I echoed, my fists clenching. "Are you so, so quick to forget, Lord Asclepius?"
As I locked eyes with the phoenix, the gold-burned crimson that made up my soul rose again, whirling like a hurricane as it painted a new image across the endless expanse. Before, I had stood in a land of wintry mountains and solemn fires.
Now, a crumbling Burim—torn from the depths of my worst memories—arrayed itself in terrible clarity around us. The scents, the screams, the sorrow, the intent… It raged about us like a hurricane, background only to another's ragged cry of pain.
We stood together on a platform doomed to destruction. A mirror of myself—a scared, terrified young man—cradled his lover in his arms, Inversion's stake peeking from her heart like a terrible nail of finality. The me from my past worked feverishly, cursing as he ripped out his own weapon from Seris' heart, before working with purpose to try and heal the damage.
But the true, terrible object of this vision stood not far away. Chul, his hammer held loose in his hands, staring emptily at my past self, his horror and grief stretching through the air. It was like a great, titanic tree, falling in slow motion. Uncountable centuries of emotion had been imbued into the mighty oak of Chul's foundations, and as they crumbled, the coming crash would shake the entire forest on impact.
Aurora's shade approached her son, her face alight with terrible hope, her eyes searching for recognition. "Chul, little chick… Look at me, please. I'm here! Look at me!"
Mordain's eyes drifted closed as Aurora's shade slowly raised her hand, looking to caress her son's face. His face wrinkled ever-so-slightly as he turned his head away.
"Watch," I growled, infusing my will through the atmosphere. "Watch, Mordain. You locked yourself in your little Hearth for a short eternity, keeping your eyes away from your actions. Because it was easier when you didn't see them. So watch."
Mordain seemed to sink in on himself slightly, a sigh escaping his mouth. Then he opened his eyes, acquiescing to my demand.
The phoenix watched as Burim broke. He watched as the world crumbled around us, Aurora's screams cascading through the air as Chul and I fought. The worst day of my life echoed around me, and the Prince of the Asclepius only watched. His orange ember eyes followed Aurora's desperate movements, noted her burns, noted her pain. But his face didn't change. His hands stayed shoved in his belt, his shoulders still slumped with defeat.
The memory faded away as my broken body collapsed atop a single, lone island of solid rock, floating through the lavatides, my mother's shade huddled around me as if she could shelter me from every bit of pain.
I stared at Mordain, inspecting this reflection of his soul. In the living world, one could hide their emotions, learn to suppress what they felt. But in a realm so transcendent, that was no longer an option. The ageless and age-old phoenix couldn't hide what this drew from his deepest self.
Once, when I'd spoken with this asura, I'd realized how greatly fear had gripped him with its deadly talons, anchoring him to the roots of his nest and binding his wings with chains. But right now, what I witnessed there wasn't the grief that should have pervaded it.
There was sadness there, true. But it was abstracted, distanced. Like watching the pain of a character on a television screen instead of someone you held close to your heart.
"May I show you something, Toren?" the phoenix asked quietly, his eyes still fixed on Aurora's memory.
"What could you show me that would change anything?" I shot back, feeling even more angry.
Mordain's eyes flickered with an orange light as he turned to me, an empty shell. "I never told you how I saw the future, did I?"
I blinked in surprise at this avenue of questioning, but withheld more barbed retorts. "What does that have to do with this?" I seethed, gesturing a hand at the devastation around me.
"Everything, Toren," Mordain countered. "Everything."
Color seeped from Mordain's soul, the deep oranges meshing with the illusory conjuration of my memories. And now, instead of my memories…
A new world built itself around us. An empty, barren wasteland, devoid of life and mana and even any sort of cloud in the sky. The sudden absence of life-giving mana in the air reminded me of the fruit-bound prison Chul and I had been captured in, but this was somehow even more vacant.
When one stepped into a room, there was always a sense of what had come before. The items people cared for might be laid about, telling stories of what tasks were being done. A steaming stew, a simmering cup of tea, a half-made painting, or even something as simple as a cleaning cloth left out. Lights left on, a television playing, music in the background… Even the marks of wear and tear on the paint could tell me how loved a place had been. The scents of hearth and home lingered in places that were loved, and sweat and blood marked places of pain and story.
The world told stories of the past.
But now, I felt as if I were standing in a room that never held a single soul. I'd entered a world that had never known the touch of any life whatsoever, so true was the void around me. For miles upon miles upon endless miles, the blue void of the sky beckoned, impossibly vast. The dirt beneath my feet crumbled without any resistance like dust.
No sounds of birds to brush against my ears. No scent of the seasons to breathe through my nose. No brush of the wind caressing my face. No mana at all to reflect the world.
A mirrored image of Mordain strolled through the empty world, his hands slotted into his loose belt. His eyes were slightly detached as they roved over the ultra-flat expanse, stripped of any sort of hill or uniqueness. This Lost Prince didn't fly, as was his bloodright. No: he simply strolled through a broken expanse that I somehow knew stretched without end.
"I live through every one, Toren Daen," Mordain said by my side, watching his past self. "I sense the probabilities of each as I stroll through the weaves of aevum."
My fury slowly evaporated from me, dissipating into the utter emptiness of this devastated memory. Without any words, I knew what I was witnessing. I'd read descriptions, been warned of its utter power. The World Eater Technique, the ultimate tool of destruction in Kezess Indrath's employ.
When asura wage war, I thought somberly, continents sink.
"How many timelines have you seen that ended in ash, Mordain?" I asked, thinking I was beginning to understand. The scene playing out before me was so very empty, yet there was a substance to it. The same substance that gripped Burim as it broke apart.
"Enough."
I considered this in my mind for a while. I still felt my anger, but no longer was it compelling me to lash out. I couldn't bring myself to, not after the wind had been taken from my sails.
Enough. What made enough? One devastated timeline? Two? Three? At what point did Mordain give in?
The phoenix and I stood in silence for a time, observing this carcass of a continent. The Mordain of a foreseen timeline continued to walk for hours more, immersing himself in whatever failure had led to this world.
Words did not pass between us, but I felt myself reach a new understanding of the asura. In this theater of souls, where the stage was our memories and the actors ourselves, we didn't need language to convey what we thought.
I took the scene of despair around me, saying no words as I conjured a memory of my own. Golden-fire blood shifted in a maelstrom, taking away the scene of utter emptiness.
I was in Seris' rooms again, a broken shell in the Divot. The man I'd used to be sat at the edge of the bed, a weak smile on his face as he read through an otherworld novel. Just in the aftermath of the world falling apart, I'd taken my journal, reading it to find a hint of a future I'd thought lost.
But then it had all broken, leaving me empty. Mordain and I watched in silence as my journal slipped from my past self's fingers, crashing to the floor as the me of my memories began to sob silently, my shoulders heaving from the utter loneliness. From how Aurora wasn't there. From how Barth had died, how I'd fought Chul, from how many had burned.
I thought I knew Mordain a little better. He was me. He was me if I'd never journeyed past this room. If I'd never found that Lusul was having a child, if I'd never learned that there was still life continuing on. He was me if I'd never tried to mend the gap between Seris and me. He was me if I'd never sought out Cylrit in the Dicathian flying castle. He was me if I'd never given words of hope to Sylvie Indrath or found solace from Rinia Darcassan.
Mordain was me if I had remained alone.
"Has anyone known of the worlds you've seen leveled, Mordain?" I asked, watching my past self with pained compassion. The book on the floor spoke of something that would never come again, and though this young man would eventually find the courage to share his burdens with others, he was so broken in that moment. "Have you let anyone know?"
The Phoenix Prince was silent. In this expanse of spirit, language failed to capture true meaning. But it wasn't needed.
Again, the world bled away in a scarlet-gold sweep. Where before, every canvas of memory had been one of despair and pain, now something… lighter breezed through. The scents of autumn tickled my nose with her teasing breath, shoving the reddened iron off to the side. Light filtered through the leaves on high, dappling off of a radiant angel as she descended before a broken boy.
I had died after reaching Integration. I died before I was taken to this world. But there was a third time I'd died, too. The critical time that made it all possible.
Toren Daen, a scared boy mourning his brother, stared up at a spirit descending like an angel from on high. All around him, the corpses of skaunters were strewn about—slain in a final, suicidal stand when he'd lost everything.
"Am I going to heaven?" the child asked, his body a ruined mess.
Mordain's eyes widened slightly as he saw his sister's shade, descending like a feather through the wind. His mouth opened, but no words came out. For a moment, he looked younger again.
"I do not know what lies for you Beyond," Aurora's ghost said softly. "But I come bearing an offer for you."
Words passed between the descending ghost and the dying child, neither of which knew what wonders they'd experience together.
"Can you make this world better?" Toren asked, wavering like a dying candle. "So brothers and sisters will never lose each other again?"
I turned to Mordain, clasping my hands behind my back as a Discordant break in Fate played out before his eyes. As something he'd never seen in any of his future visions occurred, a counterpoint to all the despair he'd used as an excuse to languish.
I wouldn't ever forgive Mordain for his inaction. Some part of me would always look down on him for his failures and refusal to act, and perhaps it was hypocritical of me. I could understand how he'd become what he was as he kept his plans and ideas to himself, yet I still felt a refusal to pardon him his sins.
"We aren't always strong enough to carry hope for ourselves, Mordain," I lamented, letting the final memory drift away. Behind me, the souls of my loved ones burned. So far away, yet so paradoxically close. The lanternlights of a hundred Asclepius phoenixes shone like glimmering stars, carrying the hope of my mother inside. "Well… most of the time, I've found that we aren't strong enough to hold it for ourselves. Our candles blow out in the wind.
"But sometimes, the candles of others linger for us, offering us another spark, if we only reach out to take it."
I didn't like Mordain. I hated how he'd let my mother hurt. I hated how he'd sat by and watched, caged by his fear. But as my anger cleared, I found the truth of why he'd reached out to my soul.
Another flickering candle, needing a bit of light.
The Lost Prince's tired gaze roamed across the nigh-endless expanse of my spirit, taking in the lanternlights of those who had accepted banishment for something better, then drifted back to me.
"You have a talent for inspiring speeches, Spellsong," he said lightly, running a hand through his long, untamed mane. "You make quite a few assumptions, though."
I felt a cynical smirk tug at the edge of my mouth. "Am I wrong?"
Mordain rolled his eyes dismissively, waving my words away with a brush of his sleek fingers. "I came here to offer what assistance I could in your upcoming 'quest,' " he said with a tired sigh. "If you wish to proselytize or look down on me, it might taint your ability to work with the contents of my words themselves."
Silver words, and not-so-silver meanings. I tapped my avatar's foot across the fiery surface of my crimson Sea, letting a ripple spread through the infinity. "Then spill it. If I'm going to clean up your mess for you—and maybe stop you from being a fucking nihilist about everything—I'll need everything you can give me."
"I'm not sure you understand what it means to be a nihilist, Toren Daen," Mordain said, strolling around on the surface of my soul, inspecting the burns all across my spirit. "The only axiom is 'There is no ought.' I believe there might be an ought. That—by the philosophical definition—means I am not a nihilist."
God, I'd forgotten how much of an irritating bastard Mordain could be. "That's literally arguing semantics," I retorted with an irritated sigh that rumbled through my soul. "You're avoiding the subject now, trying to speak circles around me."
Then my brows furrowed as I caught on to something else. "Wait. Asura have concepts of nihilism?"
Mordain smiled slightly; something that looked like it was reserved for someone who'd tripped on a pebble placed in their path. "Not by such a name, no. All of what I repeated to you was something you already knew, deep in your soul. But by inviting me in and not understanding the intricacies of your own Legacied spirit, I was able to see enough."
Memories of another who had sifted through my soul, scouring and blackening wherever he went made my ire rise slightly. I forced myself to think of what Mordain was doing: not taunting me, at least not maliciously. "Because I don't know how to shield myself?"
"Because you haven't been taught," Mordain acknowledged, turning to look at the infinite darkness beyond those I loved. "In truth, our flock doesn't live because of the insight I provide to Kezess. He will not be able to comprehend any of it, nor shall he make any more progress in his understanding."
My brows furrowed, a creeping dread slowly snaking around my insides. "Then why, Mordain?" The Phoenix Prince had a fond habit of speaking circles around the point he really wanted to get across, making an art form of the recipient reaching the answer on their own. It infuriated me to no end, so I shot an arrow to the heart of the issue.
Mordain didn't reply for a time, just spared me a glance. "I am interned in Mount Geolus, Spellsong. Separate from all others of our clan, and I know not where they are held captive. I am kept close: closer than any enemy ought to be, but shackled. My core restrained and my heart sedated. But I am allowed a measure of slight leisure."
"Your friendship with Kezess," I muttered, catching on to what I thought the Lost Prince implied. "That's what this is really about, isn't it? That's why you're alive at all. Why the Asclepius Clan hasn't been executed in their entirety."
The idea that the cold and ruthless leader of Epheotus would spare an enemy sat strangely with me, disjoint with all I understood of the Dragon Tyrant.
"My history with Kezess is complicated, young blood," Mordain muttered, not turning away from the abyss. "More complicated than you might comprehend. His father slew mine in battle, and though his mother died giving birth to him, my own passed when Aurora was welcomed into the world." The man cocked his head, letting his hair shift as it splayed about his cream robes. "We should have been mortal enemies. I was prepared to wage war with the Indraths for the thousandth time in the unending cycle of our cultures. But he broke that cycle, trapped it in time when he… offered me a hand."
I ground my metaphysical teeth, the intended implications immediately apparent. "We've had this talk before, Mordain," I said. "I am not Kezess."
"You are not," Mordain agreed for the second time. "But when he did so, I was not aware of how it could shift. I did not know the warning signs before it was too late. But you do."
The phoenix shook his head dismissively. "Regardless, you are on a time limit to save our clan. Right now, Kezess is torn between what remains of his ideals and the tyrant he's become. And I am the center point. When he makes his choice—and he will—you need to have already succeeded."
The lives of hundreds rest on one dragon's indecision, I thought, my burgeoning plans cycling through my mind. This information was helpful; it gave me context for what needed to happen. For the future.
"Klethra is the city where you should start," Mordain said after another few heartbeats. "The Forge of Pages. It is one of the only cities that has a level of autonomy from Kezess' iron grip, but even that is starting to wane. The ancestral homeland of the Thyestes Clan is called Battle's End. I wonder if it deserves that title." Mordain chuckled cynically at a joke only he understood, waving away whatever melancholy had gripped him. "One of the honorary members of the Hearth, a banished titan who went by Evascir, should be stationed there."
"I heard about him," I muttered, remembering the bygone days of the Hearth. When Diella had fed me the best meal I'd ever had the pleasure of tasting, she'd mentioned her companion. The banished one, who nobody would miss. "Ironic, now that I think about it. I heard he was on some sort of undercover mission, though… Keeping eyes on the movements of the dragons, right?"
Klethra… I assumed I'd be learning a lot about Epheotus soon. I'd had the benefit of Toren's knowledge of Alacrya when our souls had merged, but this felt far more like I was going in blind.
I strolled forward to stand by the ageless Clan Head, staring out into the endless darkness alongside him. The earlier reference to nihilism made me feel more philosophical. Does this abyss gaze back?
It was hinted that there was a higher power in this world, granting power to an Arthur of another time. Fate. The aspect of destiny itself, weaving threads through every action and consequence.
But does Aurora stare back, too? Is she out there waiting for me?
My earlier dream—that pained reminiscence of what had been stolen from me—coasted like clots along the ocean of my spirit. I realized that I couldn't afford to dream any longer. Not if I wanted to stay sane.
"Evascir is likely to have gone underground," Mordain said, peering into the endless black, too. I thought he'd spoken intentionally, tearing me from my spiraling questions about dreams and their meaning. "If anyone is aware of what's been done to our family, he would know."
Don't think about her right now, I reminded myself, shoving the cold away. Shoving the silence away. I'll bring her back eventually. The dreams will only make it hurt more than it needs to.
I let out a deep breath, the action unnecessary but helping me center myself. Helping me find my form as this world of transcendent thought and emotion refused to let my grief stay caged.
"I'll need to go underground, too," I said with a cynical snort, pulling my gaze away from the Beyond. Away from that terrible, remembered cold. Away from where Aurora waited for me to rescue her. "I've got experience keeping low, at least. Maybe I won't fuck it up this time. Actually stay under the radar."
Agrona had a purpose in traumatizing me in the Central Cathedral, but I didn't really think Kezess would be so indirect if he found me out.
"Radar doesn't exist in this world, Toren," Mordain commented with true amusement. "I have some advice for you there, though," my fellow abyss-watcher said. The way his eyes flicked to me, then back to the darkness made me think he wasn't just talking about keeping his head low.
"Beyond your ability to stay "under the radar," your knowledge of the soul is still unpracticed. Living Will you may be, but it is clear that you hardly understand what you've become."
I frowned, looking down at my hands. The burns left in the wake of my Mother's sacrifice still seared. I wondered if they'd ever stop. "It wasn't exactly planned," I said, the light streaming from me dimming slightly.
I'd turned Agrona's catastrophic ritual into a forge for my soul, Integrating with my Phoenix Will down to the highest level. The push from without and from within needed to be perfect for the entire gamble to pay off, and in retrospect, I could hardly fathom how I'd managed it. A little too much pressure within my soul, and my spirit would have burst. A little too much might from without, and both Aurora and my souls would have crumpled like an aluminum can at the bottom of the sea.
"You've become Legacy. Not the same sort as the one you think of, but sharing a fundamental trait," Mordain said solemnly, raising a hand. His arm stretched past the edges of my soul, stretching into the inky nothingness. As if it had substance for him to hold. "Your soul can brave every death, keeping hold of all that makes it whole. Were you to die again, you would never lose what you've gathered. And with every subsequent life, you would learn more and more, compounding into infinity."
Mordain's fist closed abruptly. "But you do not even understand half of what you are now. And it seems that it falls to me to teach you."
The world bent around us again as another one of Mordain's memories flowed through the expanse of my spirit, painting it with color and life and soul. A familiar scene painted itself before my eyes: the old training grounds in the Hearth. With white-marble walls, autumn vines, and silver leaves, I felt a moment of lingering nostalgia as the Lost Prince drew from the recesses of his mind.
"One of the greatest works of aether I ever made was in conjunction with Lord Indrath," Mordain said with a simple smile, standing at the center of the sparring grounds. "I was less knowledgeable then, untested by the methods of the djinn. You've read about it, young blood. A constructed world that drew an avatar of the soul into a false illusion, made to hone the mind and technique of the occupant."
I'd been turning my head about in solemn awe as I observed the old memory, reminiscing in that sweet poison of nostalgia. But as Mordain's words reached me one more time, the ever-silver phoenix always trying to push me to realize the answer on my own, my mind hitched.
In a certain otherworld novel, Arthur Leywin had spent years-within-months inside of a certain artifact, honing his martial form and learning the arts of the pantheon. "The Aether Orb," I muttered, a sudden understanding reaching me as I felt the illusory mana in the air around me. Felt at the potential of these constructed memories.
It was only once I reached the Integration Stage—once I'd hatched from the egg of my mana core—that I'd been able to conjure memories around me. Once I'd become a Living Will, an amalgamation of insight, memories, and past instincts of all who had been Willbearers.
But using my soul in this way… Time passed differently here. If every time I slept, I could focus on my technique in both mind and body…
Mordain made a slow circle around the training platform, a slight smile on his lips as he savored my rising awe. "Now, Toren, I must be direct with my next question. I can see far, but not everything. I don't know all that you have gained, and I do not know all that you lost. So."
The Lost Prince of the Asclepius clasped his hands in front of him, a bit of heat simmering in his ageless eyes. I thought they were a bit brighter than before. Maybe not so empty.
"What do you know of Domain spells?"