ShadowSong [Book 1 & 2: Complete] [NaNoWriMo16/17]

Chapter 20 - Too Quick To Judge

Jason managed to find a place to dim despite the thoughts still reeling through his head.

"You okay?" asked Sae.

"Starsong amulets," said Jason, glancing around to make sure no one could see them. He rifled through Cryo's offering pouch, searching for a particular request. "When you touch them, how likely is it that the vision will come to pass?"

"That would be the certain future, had Starsong not given you the task to save Ella," said Sae. "But the events that led up to it have already been changed. The only reason Starsong could show you that at all is because it will no longer come to pass exactly in that way."

"When you say exactly in that way, do you mean it's still possible but say, I could be on the left instead of the right, or that a situation close to the one I viewed is now impossible?"

"No idea," said Sae with a shrug. "Starsong's unpredictable like that. Hard to read her a lot of the time. Guesswork and all. But I wouldn't bother trying to plan your way out of this one. Just don't fail. Fixed."

"Helpful," muttered Jason, tucking the Ascended away out of sight as he heard footsteps. He took a breath and collected himself, ensuring nothing of how he felt was showing on the surface. He tucked Cryo's pouch away, keeping only the single request in his pants pocket. "I'll ask you more later, Sae."

Jason made his way down the corridor, maintaining a stride that told anyone who might've looked at him that he had somewhere to be five minutes ago. It did its job, and as he passed people, they exchanged no more than a nod. Mentally, he took note of them, just in case he needed an eyewitness as to his location, should his mother or anyone else inquire.

It didn't last. The sixth or seventh person he came across caught his eye and approached him, one sleeved arm pointing back towards the room designated for performance practice.

"Jason Frostsong?" they said. "High Shadowspeaker Aurelia is requesting your presence immediately in the Sylrael auditorium hall."

"Thank you," said Jason. "I will make my way there now."

They inclined their head. "Skypillar be with you."

Jason echoed the blessing and continued on. He'd expected as much. He could make up excuses as to where he'd been during the offerings--he'd given himself his own alibi as Cryo more than once--but after was always a little harder when the elder Luminaries requested meetings. Still, he'd worked out a system, even if it wasn't as fun as his alter-ego directly telling the High Speaker that he'd made use of Jason's time. Hopefully Olivia's presence wouldn't require him to rework it--he'd done that far too many times already.

He turned his thoughts to Banshee and Ella as he strode down the corridor, occasionally nodding to a person or confirming that yes, he was indeed heading to the Sylrael auditorium for the High Shadowspeaker.

To save Ella, they'd have to find her. Banshee had the right idea that Ella would go after Andrew, but using him directly as bait seemed far too risky. She was also right that they'd have to move Andrew and anyone close to him onto golden starstone until Ella had been dealt with. Manifested, especially the stronger, more wily ones, tended to possess a scary logic. If they couldn't have the thing they wanted--they'd hurt everyone else until they had it.

He'd have to think it over and come up with something, but while he was pretending to be under orders from Cryo, he could probably set Andrew's temporary move to the temple into motion. Ella would likely strike after tonight, which put the ex-Centaur in a lot more danger than Cryo or Jason cared to deal with.

Jason reached the auditorium still playing around with ideas, letting them slowly link together in his head as he tossed them around and elaborated on Banshee's rapid-fire thoughts.