Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 210: To Catch a Traitor

Toren Daen

Wolfrum's words settled across the room like a thick blanket. Not the kind that kept you warm in the depths of winter. No, this was akin to the sort a murderer would wrap around your mouth to cut off your screams. It was suffocating, a presence within that stole life from everything around it.

"The downfall of a Scythe," I said after a minute, the words leaving my mouth as if torn. "And how exactly are you going to do this, Wolfrum?" I challenged.

"Seris brought me in because she thought I had basilisk blood," Wolfrum spat, resuming his manic, almost crazed pacing. "I didn't know how she figured. But she was right. I manifested a few weeks ago. Right after you went to the Beast Glades. I'd been asking myself what I should do. What options I had next, when I was doomed to just be a pawn for the rest of my life. And as if a message from the Sovereigns themselves, they bestowed me with their answer."

I licked my lips, my mind whirling at a hundred miles an hour. If I hadn't been meditating just a moment before, I suspected I wouldn't be so equipped to process all of this. I felt my brows narrow as I tried to approach this logically, simultaneously feeling the tension of it all agitating my nerves.

Wolfrum Redwater had acted as an agent of Seris in the original canon of that otherworld novel after she'd erected a mana barrier around all of Sehz-Clar, keeping Agrona and the Legacy herself locked out. Except, just as Seris had sent Caera on a mission to contact Arthur in Dicathen, Wolfrum–who'd been accompanying Caera as an agent–had betrayed her, revealing himself to be a double agent for Dragoth Vritra and colluding with forces from Vechor.

But from how he's talking, I thought, centering on one thing, he doesn't appear to be working for anyone else. Only himself. Does that mean Dragoth isn't a part of this?

"And you plan to somehow harm Seris," I said slowly, "after all she has done for you? To try and bring about her downfall?"

"After all she has done for me?!" Wolfrum snapped, rounding on me with a spark of fire in his eyes. "She made me a glorified secretary, Spellsong! Do you have any idea how long I worked under her? How long it took me to learn her true identity, apart from Lady Shorn? All those years I endured her cold remarks and errant personality. All for some upstart to surpass me in months! How good you must be in bed, Toren, for her to just... throw away all I've done!"

I felt my anger rise as Wolfrum levied his accusation. I restrained the urge to throw myself at him and wrap my fingers around his throat, the implication against Seris making something dark in my gut churn.

Instead, I closed my eyes, my fingers flexing as I took a measured breath.

For some reason I couldn't understand, Wolfrum was confiding this to me. Talking to me while I was leashed in a cage. Even if he was using it to hurl insults and trying to raise my ire, he didn't have to approach me, did he?

"Keep him talking," Aurora hissed in my ear, her fury still palpable from being caged. "Never interrupt an enemy when they are making a mistake. Never."

"So you're doing this because of me," I accused, the sharp edge to my voice palpable. "Because you're jealous of what I've gained?"

"You gained nothing," Wolfrum shot back. He looked like he wanted to march forward, but I detected a bare trace of fear in his eyes that still stayed his anger. "And still I'm relegated to secretary. That's all I would've ever been, but not now."

And suddenly, it clicked. Why Wolfrum was here, monologuing about his plans.

"You've never told anyone this, have you?" I said, narrowing my eyes. I took a step forward, and in turn, Wolfrum stepped back. "That's why you're here, telling me this. It's built and built and built for so long. And now you need someone to rant to. To try and make yourself feel justified for the sin you're about to commit. For the act of betrayal."