Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 263: To Those We Pray

Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!

Circe Milview

The sound of my boots kicking up cold, winter dirt didn't do much to block out the slight exhaustion burning in my veins. I heaved for breath, my long hair sticking to my face as I trod after Seth. My younger brother bounded across the rocky terrain with impossible ease as he tracked toward something I couldn't see or understand.

"Just a ways over this ridge, Circe!" he called back to me as he stood triumphantly atop a boulder. "I recognize this place! We're so close!"

I finally managed to reach my baby brother, before collapsing in a heap atop the ridge. The winter chill tugged at my thick clothes, but the sticky sweat lining the inside of my jacket made me feel like I'd simply jumped into a hot river.

"Give... me a moment, Seth," I wheezed, laying out across the rock as I fought to get my breath back. "Can't... Can't move like you."

Ever since Spellsong had healed my brother, he'd borne an impossible sort of vitality that defied belief. Anyone who saw him would never have guessed that he'd spent his entire life stuck in a bed with twigs for arms and blood fits that brought him low.

He did still have fits. But they... they were different.

"It's just over this next ridge, Circe," Seth said, his slightly-high voice resolute. He'd turned thirteen recently, and he'd really started to shoot up. "You can still use True Sense, right? I think you'll be able to figure it out when we get there."

I finally sat up, groaning slightly. "You didn't see the place we need to go, exactly?" I said. "I thought you did."

Seth shook his head, his short dark hair waving slightly. I'd finally gotten around to cutting it regularly. "The visions aren't like that. Not really. I can tell that it's really important that we're here. Or somewhere around here. But it's really weird. You wouldn't believe it!"

I sat up slightly, staring around at the expanse of boulders where we stood. We were far, far from civilization. At Seth's most recent fit, he'd demanded that we leave to come here, traveling to the middle of nowhere. Dozens of miles from the closest town and near the headwaters of the Heart's Blood River.

He hadn't even been able to ask me why. Just had a feeling.

He'd told me I needed to have faith.

Faith in what? I thought bitterly, feeling my body tremble as the events of the past seven months sifted back through my mind. Faith didn't save my brother. Faith didn't give him back his life.

I'd always been an avid worshiper of the Vritra, believing in their promises. Following their vows of salvation for all. The lie that I would bring glory and honor to my Blood if I just dedicated my soul.

But my faith hadn't been rewarded. Far from it.

One of the first times Seth had another one of his fits, I'd descended into deep, primal worry. I feared that his blood sickness had somehow resurged, coming to reap its vengeance. But though he'd shaken and his eyes had rolled into the back of his head, he'd emerged from it no worse for wear.

Except he spoke of impossible things. He told me that we needed to leave our house and take our things, because it was a bad time to be there. I didn't understand what he was saying. I didn't really believe it, either. But I'd been so grateful to have my brother back that I'd acquiesced anyway.

And I'd watched from a block away as hooded men in robes of the Doctrination battered down our door, before ransacking every meager possession we had. I'd heard them as they'd walked by our hiding place, claiming that this was worthy tithe they were taking. Because I'd stopped sending in my monthly donations.