Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 231: Puppeteer

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Seris Vritra

I floated ever-so-slightly above the docks, refactoring and re-evaluating my current knowledge like clockwork. I was hyper-aware of Toren and Cylrit below me, each like a pillar of silent resolve.

I'd rushed to Burim as quick as I could manage after my scouts reported sightings of an incoming fleet–the reinforcements that were due in several days. But instead of joy and relief, this news only sparked concern and worry.

I had several ties back to the mainland of Alacrya where I received semi-regular updates using communication artifacts and intermittent messages. There was a relay of steamships across the ocean that allowed the transport of information from Taegrin Caelum directly to me.

The High Sovereign would not allow us to stray too far from his touch.

This could simply be a coincidence. Perhaps the fleet encountered a stretch of calm sea that allowed for faster travel. They could have braved more dangerous ocean currents for a swifter trip.

But I did not rise to my current station by believing in coincidences. Paranoia drove my plans onward, and this was no exception.

And there was purportedly another Scythe on the ships. I had been told that only another Retainer would be sent to bolster our numbers in the war. But that was also wrong.

It reeked of a setup. Of intentional misdirection. Someone had played me, maneuvering my sources of information and seeking to undermine my expectations for the war.

The wind stilled as the steamships finally crested the horizon, inching like inevitable dreadnoughts toward the Bay of Burim. Around me, what few troops I'd managed to call together as a welcoming party shuffled nervously. The sun hid behind blankets of clouds, as unhappy with this development as I was.

As the chugging sound of the engines gradually approached over the course of the next few minutes, the tension seemed to grow. The arrival of these ships was a silent message from Agrona to the pitiable Triunion Council: the war was going to begin in earnest. And everyone around me knew it.

A musical note brushed against my ear, soft yet serious as mana coiled. "Seris," Toren's voice said, carried by sound magic, "I'll do whatever you need me to. The last time such a confrontation happened, you sent me away to reinforce your needs. I want you to know that I'll do whatever it takes for you in this... confrontation."

Unbidden, a slight smile stretched across my face at the earnesty in Toren's words. Such an honest man, my Spellsong was. We had faced some difficulties after my earlier manipulations of him in the wake of the war summit. For the mage to place himself so willingly in the palm of my hand made something in my chest smolder with reassuring heat.

My eyes stayed focused on the horizon as the steamships coasted forward, but when I whispered my response, I knew Toren could hear it. "This meeting shall be different than the last," I said into the wind. "I cannot deny or brush away your importance any longer, Toren. Too many stories of the Ascender and the Sorceress abound for that. But I will need to maneuver you regardless."

I paused as I sensed a familiar mana signature rising into the air from the ships. Dark and ominous, it seeped like molten tar around us all. Not quite aggressive—not yet. But taunting. Provocative.

And as I locked eyes with the approaching Scythe, I knew for certain that I had been played.

Viessa Vritra dressed in paradoxically bright colors, the teal and white of her blouse making the shifting tides of her deep purple hair seem more ominous and consuming. She drifted like a wraith over the waves as she approached like a general leading the charge.