Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 295: A Story Told

Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!

Toren Daen

Cylrit was there nearly immediately as I stalked out of the vault, no doubt because of the rumbling of my aura and how I'd slammed Viessa into the vault floor. He suspected a fight of some sort and he was ready to throw himself into the metaphorical fire that could have erupted down below.

When the stalwart Retainer witnessed his master hauling Viessa Vritra out by her purple hair, trailing blood and unconscious, he didn't even hesitate.

"Master," he said, bending the knee, "what must I do?"

Seris' cool gaze passed over her Retainer, something there still disturbed by my actions in the vault. "Scythe Viessa encountered... complications," she said, voicing the greatest understatement ever spoken aloud. "See that she is cared for before she awakes."

Cylrit raised his head, opening his mouth to speak. When he saw the shadow marring my expression, however, he became more solemn.

I didn't stay for their ensuing short conversation. I couldn't stay for their conversation, not with the confusion and rage festering in my soul.

I swept past them, my aura pulsing like a distant star. Up and up I ascended the stairwell like a soldier marching to war. Each step of my boots on the stones sent my sound magic through the earth, Sonar Pulse returning me a detailed overview of the castle.

I tuned out the terrified pulses of the distant soldiers' heartbeats. I snuffed out my sense of their terror as I struggled to contain my emotions.

Up and up and up I ascended, like a mortal man climbing towards the heavens in an act of utter hubris. My feet moved on their own, each step like the routine piston movement within an engine. I used the fuel of my anger and shame to push those pistons. Up, down. Up, down.

And suddenly, I was beneath the sky.

The night still gripped the world as I stood atop the castle ramparts. Her shadows stretched far and wide like rippling black silk across countless plains. To the north, just across the winding Sehz, I could see the Dicathian camps. Their cookfires sparkled merrily in the night, each like little fireflies captured from the night and superimposed over the vast canvas of the world. The light of artifacts and campfires stretched around this simple bastion far into the blackness, denying Night her due.

And high above, clouds blanketed out the stars.

I gritted my teeth in anger, my shrouded wings growing around me. They shivered with crystalline refractions as the torches across the ramparts cast light through them.

I bent my knees, glaring up at those clouds. And in an instant, I flew.

Up and up and up I went again, trying to capture that sense of vindictive pride and certainty I'd embraced when I'd fought Taci. The clouds had been my stepstools and my allies then, another visitor in my domain. But as the air burned around me and the sound barrier broke from my ascent, I could only see them as an obstacle.

I punched through them, water streaming off my shroud as I gnashed my teeth. The wind whipped and pulled at my long hair, creating a tapestry of golden blonde behind me. Higher and higher and higher I went, demanding the ambient mana take me above. Above all of this, where I didn't have to worry about it all. Where I didn't have to think about Aurora's relic connected to me far below. Where I didn't have to think about how she was talking with her son.

With my brother.

I emerged from the blanket of the clouds, finally able to feel the welcoming breath of the moon on my face. That distant body had just started in its journey towards fullness, and its light was a pale reflection of the sun.