Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 246: Intentions Uttered

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Seris Vritra

When I finally ended the call with my Truacian counterpart, there was a long, long silence that seemed to deaden the room.

Viessa Vritra was open. Though she proclaimed success in her assault on the elven forest and stated she'd taken the Commander down, the underlying tension in her voice and anger told me that there were more losses she hadn't spoken of.

Retainers Mawar, Bilal, and Bivran, I thought. Something has happened to them. Something she doesn't wish me to know. That was why she was so ready to tell me of Commander Virion Eralith's coma.

Something like the Commander of the entire Triunion being sent into a coma couldn't be hidden for long, if at all—especially if the nature of the attacks were public. I'd played a gambit to divest Viessa of more information, and it had both confirmed Toren's speculation of Tessia Eralith's importance, but also made everything all the more dangerous.

Viessa is being given orders different from mine, I thought, standing slowly. Distantly, I was aware that Toren was looking at the dark crystal floor, his face marred by a complicated expression. Probably conversing with his bond. Orders directly from the High Sovereign. Is Agrona playing us against each other intentionally? Or is he going for something else?

At the start of this war, Agrona had stated he required the Dicathian populace alive and healthy for his needs, but the massacres and genocides flooding across Sapin said otherwise. Had he changed his modus operandi? Or had the Lord of the Vritra always planned for such bloodshed?

I sighed, recognizing the rabbit hole that those thoughts would lead down. One couldn't predict Agrona Vritra. It was fundamentally impossible.

Not impossible, my blood whispered. You can. If you are willing to take that step.

It had been resurging lately. More and more, as I let my masks fall. As Toren wore away the protections I'd layered to keep the song of my blood contained, so too did that monster rise—like bubbles of rot in the flesh of a corpse.

I spared a glance toward Cylrit, watching the stern face of my stalwart Retainer. Using it to give me strength: the strength to resist. He met my eyes, sensing the need. And as I traced the lines of Kelagon's old features, as I saw in my Retainer all that I once had been and fought against, I found the strength to quell that rising tumult in my veins.

Thank you, Cylrit, I thought, but did not say. For keeping the worst of me contained.

Cylrit didn't hear me, of course. But in a way not unlike Toren, but also so very different, he seemed to be able to sense the intention behind my eyes. He nodded slowly, the barest twitch of his lips acknowledging how he'd helped me.

No, I couldn't predict Agrona. But I could adapt.

And then Toren spoke up, his voice serious. "This war is going to end soon," he said. "Without Commander Virion keeping the Triunion Council together, they'll tear each other apart. Brick by bloody brick, they'll become a mirror of what we've seen in Darv."

I turned slowly, taking the time to drink in the features of the only other person I allowed close to my heart. He bore an expression so deeply complicated that I fought back the urge to chuckle with mirth.

The news rattled him in a different way than I'd suspected, however. The sadness I saw there wasn't entirely what I expected. I knew Toren sympathized with the Dicathian struggle, their futile resistance against their inevitable domination by our Sovereign. But what I saw in his features seemed too personal. As if the news of Virion Eralith's fall were not the news of an enemy combatant's defeat—one you respected, but needed to break regardless. No, it was as if it were the news of a personal friend being hurt.