Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 268: Bloodtie

Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!

Toren Asclepius

I'd spent only a week and a half in the Hearth, but it felt like a lifetime. Between the constant talks with my clanmermbers, the stories I gradually got to hear, and the time I'd spent every day with them, I felt as if I'd known each phoenix for years instead of a few days.

"Well, this is it," Diella said matter-of-factly as she led our little group forward. "Our kitchens."

I struggled not to gape as I stared at the scene before me, because it wasn't really a kitchen. It was like a living, shifting garden. A dozen different plants floated around the space on islands kept aloft by whirlwinds. The scents of each of them drifted back to me in an almost dizzying array of aromas. Cinnamon and vanilla I recognized amidst the smells, but most were so alien and rich with strange and untold flavors that I couldn't even begin to decipher them.

The ambient mana itself seemed to carry the scents of those hundred different ingredients in a truly fantastical way. My eyes darted about, focusing on one plant. Alathora. Its clover-shaped leaves were ever-so-slightly purple, and each of them seemed to move individually of the others.

My attention shifted to the side again. Norsican wildflower. That one did look like a bright white flower, except it was constantly furling in on itself over and over and over in an almost mindbending manner. I felt that if I stared too long at it, I'd be drawn in like a fly into a spider's web.

"Careful there," Lithen said, patting my shoulder as he walked past me. "Norsican wildflowers grow in large patches on Epheotus. Their innate mental magics ensnare their prey. A single one isn't really enough to warrant the fear of an asura, though."

I blinked, abruptly pulling my attention from the flower. With my growing sense for the soul—which cascaded in an almost trickle-down effect toward my Mind—I could belatedly sense the effect the flower had in siphoning my attention like water down a drain.

"This is more than a kitchen," I said slowly, struggling not to sound like a teenager in over my head. "It's an entire garden in and of itself."

Indeed, there was even a stream that ran through the large chamber weaving through the entire room in a gentle, meandering manner. Every now and then, the islands would dip down toward the water like animals roaming for water, allowing the roots to drink of their sustenance, before rising back into the sky.

"Kitchen is the best word we could use," Diella said simply, putting her hands on her hips as she strode forward confidently. Her hair was dark as dying coals as her lifeforce simmered away, indicating she was close to her Second Sculpting. "But we of the Hearth don't really have normal kitchens anymore."

She waved an intentionally impassionate hand toward the jungle of plants around us. "All our ingredients are grown fresh here in the Hearth, saturated in the ambient mana as they await the table. We only pluck them when needed, ensuring maximum quality."

To punctuate her point, the phoenix reached out, casually plucking a glistening fruit that looked somewhat like a plum from a nearby branch. She bit into it, trying her best to appear unaffected by the taste.

Diella liked to present herself as nonchalant and unbothered, but I knew she was just as passionate as the rest of our clan through the rumble of her low-burning heartfire and the pulse of her intent. It was a strange quirk of hers I'd observed over these past days.

Roa strolled in next, a wide smile on her face. "It was one of my ideas," she said proudly, puffing out her chest as she strolled toward the stream. "We can't hunt like we used to, of course. But we can grow and nurture any food we need!"