Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 275: The Sons of Eve

Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!

Chul Asclepius

The world around me seemed to fall away as that discordant song brushed my ears. The call wasn't mana. Not really. It was... something more. A warmth that seemed to brush against everything at once.

I ignored the rising smoke, the smell of burnt and charred bodies. All I could hear was that wonderful song.

"Mother," I whispered, clenching my fingers around Suncrusher's handle. I rose back into the air, drawn by that warm fire.

The platform was easy to find. It was warm like no other, empty as it was. Suspended by chains and almost adrift in that endless expanse of smoke...

I settled down on the platform, staring at that central point where I heard my mother's call.

This is another bitter lie, I told myself as I walked forward. It is a falsehood; a treachery of the Vritra.

But what if it is not? I thought, feeling that ember of hope. I remembered how my mother's truefeather had sparkled, rekindling in the depths of the Hearth; my home.

My footsteps carried me onward as my breathing began to fall more and more out of sync. Sweat beaded beneath my martial robes as I focused on the item that pulsed that song.

It was a brilliant, white horn. Striations of orange-purple ran through it like life-giving veins, banishing the relative darkness of the cavern around me. Like a tempting knife, it thrust deep into the center of the platform.

I quested out with my mana sense as I approached, seeking some sort of trap. But... I found none. Even as I moved closer and closer, there was no inflection in the ambient mana, no shift in the world.

And I finally reached that strange horn, the heat from it both there and not. It was almost overwhelming, in a way. It tingled at a sense I'd never-but-always had, luring me in like a siren's call.

I knelt slowly, reaching a hand out tentatively toward that little fire. The horn glimmered, like a single silver leaf atop the black of Charwood. The contrast was undeniable, unavoidable.

And finally, I brushed my hand against that horn. It was warm, almost with a heartbeat. And I knew instantly, deep in my bones. My Mother's touch had graced this strange, asuran artifact. She had cared for it or loved it or–

A click sounded along the ground. On instinct, I wrenched the horn free of the ground, trying to swivel to confront whatever had approached. But before I could even shift a single foot more, dark, dark chains of mana wrapped around me. They ensorcelled each of my limbs, trying to bind me tight. Between those chains, a plane of dark, corrupted mana crept like a smothering blanket.

My eyes dilated as they focused on the strange item that had been tossed right beside me. An unfolded triangular pyramid pulsed with horrid decay as the chains flowed from its center.

I strained against the barrier, siphoning mana from my dysfunctional core. Sweat beaded along my skin, but despite the utter force of the energy flowing from my core, I couldn't even force the barrier to shift at all.

"That is a force cage, Lord Chul," a soft, serene voice echoed from the side. "It is modified by my own design, incorporating more efficient draining methods than any others. The spell imbued uses your own mana to power it."

A snarl rumbled from the depths of my soul as my eyes flicked to the side. All the hope and fear and desire and everything was overwhelmed with darkness and fury as I took in the sight of the speaker.