Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 245: Branching Paths

Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!

Toren Daen

I pulled myself out of the Sea, feeling strangely detached for a bare instant. When I emerged from my meditative inspection, an odd sort of weariness stretched across my bones.

I didn't move immediately. I wasn't sure I could. Physically, I was in perfect health. But mentally...

When I'd witnessed Tessia's soul withering—a vine ever-blossoming with motes of silver and life—I'd acted on instinct. I'd reached out with more than flesh. More than the mind. I pressed outward with my very soul.

The sensation was like nothing I'd ever experienced. I was moving something that was me, but was also beyond and above and through me. It was impossible to put into words. Language simply failed to describe something so vast.

And as my soul had approached Tessia's, I was able to do a sort of... inverse of how I traced my heartfire up to my essence. When I sought my soul, I was a fish fighting against an upward current of heartfire. Yet by knowing the dips and weaves of that lifeforce—by understanding myself—I could follow that life-giving river to its source.

When I'd approached Tessia Eralith's soul, I saw the downward trickle of her pained heartfire. I could see and sense and feel the anguish that radiated through her blood. And I'd done all I could. I'd reached out, offering whatever I could to help her.

And she'd accepted the help I'd offered. But what I sensed as I healed her–the damages I'd detected in her flesh and bones...

Decay. The wounds Tessia Eralith bore could've only been caused by void wind and bile water.

"Agrona has made his move," Aurora said gravely at my side, her shade pacing back and forth. "He has levied an attack on Elshire. The Heart of Elenoir, no? That was where your nest-mate's intel placed the elven princess." Her eyes dimmed for a moment as they flicked to me. "Has he succeeded in the capture of Elshire? As you worked to prevent?"

I allowed myself a deep breath, steadying my heartbeat. I wanted to panic. Wanted to rush to Seris and demand what intel she had on the elven forest.

But that would solve nothing. I needed the calm that my meditation left me in to sort this through, to understand the facts I had at hand.

No, I do not think so, I thought to Aurora. But the wounds on Tessia's body... they matched the abilities of a specific few people. Mawar and Bilal, the ones who were about to enact some sort of plan soon.

My mood darkened as I exhaled. Aurora's emotions matched my own, questions there. Viessa Vritra had made her move. The only question now was what the outcome was.

—

I struggled to maintain my composure as I walked through the deep chasm of the Divot, wary of every shadow that appeared a bit too deep. In my head, I constantly weighed the possibilities of this war.

The weight of Mordain's message had redoubled in the back of my mind, a headache growing that no amount of heartfire healing could wash away. My head throbbed with piercing pain as I approached Seris' quarters.

Mordain laid the weight of Agrona's massacres at my feet. If not directly blaming me, then at least asking me if what I worked for was worth the cost.

And now another divergence from what I knew. Bilal, Mawar, and presumably Bivran–going off the conversation I'd heard not long ago between them–had somehow infiltrated the elven forest. Was I willing–was I able–to bear the weight of whatever lives were lost on my shoulders?