Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 230: The Benefits of Swill

Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!

Toren Daen

I'd always known that my Phoenix Will affected my mind. Instincts, insight, and knowledge not innately my own pressed against the confines of my skull. They waited to be unleashed, to be harnessed and used. Like a roaring, raging forest fire that couldn't be stopped, but also a comfortable warmth like a grandmother's inviting hearth.

But as I settled into Soulplume for the first time since I'd ascended to the white core, I could sense–just barely on the periphery of my very essence–a deeper truth about my Will.

It wasn't just my mind that was influenced. No, it was my soul. Like a balloon that was suddenly being infused with more air, I could sense as my very essence expanded. Except that wasn't a perfect analogy either. It was more like... two different shades of paint mixing together, but one was so bright and luminescent that it threatened to completely subsume the other.

I could sense Aurora's soul, too, like guiding rays of sunlight that lit the path in front of me, showing me the path well-trodden. Even as I became more like the Will and the Will became more like me, my bond's steady hand guided me through the currents of energy. I could almost taste the bleedover between our souls.

I gently wiped the blood away from the back of my skull, watching the motes of aetheric heartfire simmer away in the crimson. So interesting an avenue, I thought, sparks of white flames dancing along my fingertips as it burned away the blood. To reach the soul.

Cylrit hovered motionlessly in the air further away, and from his widened eyes and the minutiae of his intent, I knew that shock pervaded his system. I kept my aura leashed, tightened and controlled. But I knew he sensed a modicum of the power in my veins.

"So this is your true power, Spellsong?" he said, settling back into stance even as he radiated uncertainty. "It took you long enough. It's time you stopped holding back."

I let out a sigh that carried untold weight. My breath steamed as I finally turned my burning eyes toward Cylrit. "We are under the sky, Retainer of Sehz-Clar," I said shortly. "This is no longer a battle."

Cylrit's brow furrowed as he regarded me. "You should not disregard me so casually, Spellsong."

"I am not," I said, tilting my head as my hair blew in the breeze. I straightened my hand so my fingers formed like knives, calling on my mana as I prepared to strike. "I would not engage this power if I did not respect your own Will, Cylrit of Victorious."

He opened his mouth to reply, just barely peering over the edge of his tower shield.

But I was already in front of him. My hand, vibrating with innumerable particles of sound mana and enshrouded with crystalline energy, pierced his tower shield like a hot knife through butter. My hand erupted out the other side, and with a twist of my arm, the metal spun away into the ocean below. My fingers grasped Cylrit's throat before he could even blink.

To the warrior's credit, he reacted nearly immediately. His spatha and greatsword surged in from the side, attempting to cleave me in two, but the barest application of my regalia froze them in their tracks.

I could feel Cylrit's mana struggling against the impossible effects of my own, twisting and clawing as each weapon attempted to wrench itself free. But his weapons would not budge, even as the man's hands gripped my forearm with deadly strength.

I stared into Cylrit's blood-red eyes as I raised my opposing hand. Orange fire coalesced on the tips of my middle and index finger, before brightening to a frightening azure, then settling into a brilliant white ember. And with a brush of sound mana, it began to hum with the contained force of plasma.