Songbreaker

Chapter 16: Spark

In a world where you are not heard, but dismissed without a word, what would you do to make people see you? In a world where magic governs the minds of an entire species, what would you do if your differing opinion is seemingly laughable?

Become the Songbreaker. Let your actions be your words. Let the consequences be your voice

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Ever since the existence of Songs was discovered, no one had even once considered breaking them purposefully. They had been broken accidentally in attacks on homes where they were not harnessed or bonded with the Ardoni in question, and they had been broken when they had materialised beside a corpse amidst battles where they were unseen; but never before had another Ardoni – or other species – considered breaking them with intention. Everyone knew what they would do if anyone got too close to a breaking Song.

The burns and the scarring on the corpses they found where Songs had been broken accidentally had led them to understand that the energy within a Song is simply too powerful to roam free and the power that each Song exudes when free from its shell is too great for the body to handle, hence the burns.

Of course, all that was before the Songbreaker was a story that people told to warn others off of breaking that power. Little did they know that the Songbreaker would become so real and so frightening. When the first report of smashed Songs hit the clans, everyone dismissed it as a scaremonger tactic employed by the Voltaris to hide their shame following the Great War. That dismissal was constant for several months until it could no longer be denied, and something had to be done.

Yvana thought exactly the same.

She was just unaware of how far away from the truth she was. Yet, she was also unaware of just how close she was to the real truth.

*****

He told me that they must be destroyed. He told me that it was the only way to bring peace to Ardonia. I do not understand. Why must Songs be the be all and end all? Why do we even need them? What is it about them that makes us who we are? We are much more than the power that we hold, than the power that we wield. It makes no sense.

He was right, though. They must be destroyed. Of course, he was referring to the Prime Songs. I'll get there. I will find them, but I want to do good while I still have the chance. If it is the Prime Songs that he wants destroyed, then for every Prime Song there is, I must destroy ten other Songs. I'll do more. I'll destroy them all. We do not need them.

The clans will not listen to me. Who am I to be of any concern when I stand as nothing more than a simpleton? I have no voice in this world. I never will all the while the era of the ancients still reigns strong. I have tried to tell the clans all that I know and all that I believe, yet they mock my words.

I have no voice in this world.

I have no voice because I do not speak with words. I speak with actions. They all heard me when I began to take their power; they just tried to deny it all and continue pretending like I don't exist. I rose through the ranks until they could no longer deny my existence.

I remember holding a Song in the palm of my hands that wasn't mine. I wasn't given it. It was not a gift nor a right. I stole it. I found that power in my mind and I looked to the sleeping Ardoni before me, and I could feel the power coursing through their body. It was calling me as though I was the magnet. I could feel it as though it were my own. When I laid my hand on their body and felt their power come racing to the surface to meet my contact, I knew I had to pull. I knew I had to take it. I had tried so many times before to ask nicely, to plead to the other Ardoni to hand their Songs over, but I was just delusional to them – nothing but a loony to be ignored; shunned and pushed to the side. I barely spoke a word as a child, but I found a reason to speak, and they silenced me. These were my words.