Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 237: Warp

Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!

Arthur Leywin

I opened my eyes slowly. The passing clouds were less than a blur, but as the white wisps streaked past, I couldn't help but see darkness pulled from my past. The gray murk of a roiling storm overlaid my vision whenever I closed my eyes.

I was on my back in an endless expanse of sky, the great black bulk of my bond a comforting warmth beneath me. Sylvie's scales glinted darkly as her long tail trailed behind us.

I didn't know when I'd fallen asleep, but I wished I hadn't. I lay limply, one of my arms hanging weakly off the side of Sylvie's neck. My azure pupils watched the moving clouds as Sylvie beat her powerful wings.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Sylvie pressed over our telepathic link, my soul-bound dragon doing her best to provide some measure of support as we traversed the skies over Sapin.

I was silent for a moment, feeling the wind as it brushed past my cheek. The sun as it provided warmth.

No, I finally thought back. No. Not right now.

This last memory was particularly bad. Not in the way many of my memories of Nico and Cecilia were, but because that was where the changes that had already accumulated in my life reached a point of no return. Where the world itself began to bleed because of my pain.

It didn't take long for the figurehead position of King I'd won to become a monarchy in truth. After the war began, it wasn't difficult to force the oligarchy of the Council to become a dictatorship with me at the head. The title of King was no longer an empty, ceremonial thing meant to be thrown at enemies like upjumped gladiators.

No, I became something more. Something worse.

Because Holden Drutha was right. Millions died because of my warmongering–both directly and indirectly. I allowed nothing to stand in my way as I cut a bloody swath through Trayden and any others who stood in my path, all to wreak my vengeance. And as the other regional powers tried to band together to stomp out the burning flame of Etharia, they simply became more broken matchsticks.

"What makes you think you deserve this happiness?" that phantom image of Grey asked me again, half-remembered from a lucid dream so long ago. "After what you've done?"

Indeed, that was the question, wasn't it? I had my second chance. My opportunity to truly have a life worth living.

But could I honestly say that I deserved this chance? How many innocents paid the price of my pain? How many of them were denied a second life?

"Arthur," Sylvie said aloud, audible even over the wind as she interrupted the downward spiral of my thoughts, "you didn't tell me how your conversation with Reynolds and Alice went after I left with Ellie. What did they say? I know it was over long-distance communication scrolls, but still."

I exhaled, sensing my bond's intentions with this question. To distract me from the gnawing pit of Grey.

I took the lifeline gratefully.

"They're doing well," I said, shifting so I was in a normal position as I straddled my dragon's thick neck. I narrowed my eyes against the wind as I stared into the distance. "Dad was happy as ever, and excited to be of use. The troops in Blackbend are in desperate need of good fighters like him, and Mom is constantly healing people." I shifted uncomfortably, remembering the last time I'd seen my parents and the fight we'd had.

I hadn't wanted them to participate in this war. I knew what war did to people, the toll it wrought on all involved. And that sense had increased even more as Agrona's threat replayed in my mind.