Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 264: The Dragon Within

Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!

Toren Asclepius

I pulled back from my sense of the soul, a strained breath leaving my body. I leaned forward from where I'd been sitting cross-legged, my hands clenching around my knees. My heartrate wasn't exactly fast, but it was uneven.

Circe Milview, I thought distantly, blinking as I relived memories of Norgan's death. How it felt superimposed over her emotions. And Seth. What happened to him?

I knew Seth was healed, now. Whatever... however Circe had managed to channel my abilities—

A worried hand clasped my shoulder. I looked up, noting a phoenix as they looked down at me with visible worry. "Are you well, young blood?" he asked in a concerned tone. "We sensed... a disturbance in you. A break in your emotions that was unnatural."

I blinked, remembering where I was. I was meditating in one of the glades of the Sunswept Gardens with many of my clanmembers. It was something of a tradition here every morning to center oneself and cultivate both mana and serenity. Aurora herself was off somewhere else doing the same thing as she caught up with her loved ones. For now, our bond was distant and slightly muted as we allowed ourselves time to grow and mesh with our family.

And speaking of family, many of the other Asclepius members had broken from their trances as well and were staring at me with burning orange eyes laced with concern.

"I'm alright," I replied hesitantly, recognizing the man who'd asked after me—Sundren, one of the older phoenixes. "It's just... something happened. When I'm meditating, I'm closer to my soul. And just now, I... felt something."

I rolled my words around in my mouth, trying to find the right way to describe it. I hadn't been truly in the Sea of my Soul, but I'd been coasting about the edges of it. Feeling the dips and weaves and mists of my essence.

And I'd felt a sort of... cry. A resonating tug on my being that echoed of grief-despair-faith-pain-death. A terrible, mournful plea that resounded with the true language of souls as it washed over me.

It was a familiar emotion. And when I'd answered the call—the same way I'd followed Tessia Eralith's soul to her body when she'd been attacked in Zestier—I'd been able to heal Circe's wounds. But her emotions hadn't settled from that.

And then she'd done something. Something I didn't really understand as my power resonated with her blood. Like a sort of... pseudo bond, she'd drawn on my insight to heal her brother.

I turned my head, looking in the direction I knew the two resided now. Far, far, far, far to the northwest, Circe knelt in Alacrya with her brother.

Ever since Seris had expressed her uncertainty about how I peered at her soul, I'd restrained myself from actively looking at the spirits of those I could see. Arthur, Sylvie, Tessia, Cylrit, Seris, Naereni, Sevren, Wade... Though I could see them, I kept my eyes averted. It was Agrona's domain to pick apart the mind and tear away a person's deepest secrets. I would not do so without the consent of those in question.

But this was the first time someone had called out to me.

"Someone called out with their soul," I said quietly, my eyes unfocused. "I answered them."

The phoenixes about me shifted, looking with a mix of interest and worry. Sundren slowly sat himself down, the grass bending like a graceful dancer beneath his loose robes. "Called to you with their soul..." he said slowly, sharing a few uncertain looks with the rest of the clan gathered.

"The soul... Our heartfire arts are potent with the Vessel. The soul was the domain of... others," Aubuen—a younger phoenix—said. A solemn silence slowly grew throughout the glade, silver-barked leaves reflecting light in orange ribbons in a truly fantastical way. But despite the alluring and almost phantasmal glow, I suddenly realized that no wind blew through this little slice of attempted paradise.