Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!
Toren Asclepius
In my dreams, I flew. My feathers were a glistening, translucent silver as I coasted about the winds, free and unburdened. The scent of summertime eddied about me as the land passed far below.
Gravity tried to take me, but it could not hold me. The sky was mine. Gravity? It was a paltry, petty thing. An arrogant thing.
I coasted about, enjoying my freedom. That sweet kiss of the breeze let me know I was alive. For such a long time, I coasted on the winds. The embers of those I loved drifted about on my feathers. In my talons was a hope so precious I could not put it into words.
I let a tailwind push me higher as I flapped my wings, calling into the expansive world. It echoed as the reverberating joy of a falcon, yet there was music inside, too. I continued my cries, singing to the world as my heart beat.
This is life, I thought, flying high above a continent I could not name. This is wonder.
But then the winds started. I flapped my wings in surprise as the world began to churn, winds picking up and ruffling my feathers. I turned an uncertain look behind me as I felt the scent of a storm approaching.
I swiveled, my beak poised as I followed that scent. What could intervene in my domain? I would see their wings broken and their–
My heart went cold.
A black hurricane approached, the wall a hundred miles high. Never had I seen a storm such as this. Never had I felt such power as it surged forward. The shadows that storm cast over the land were dark enough to trap light. It howled and raged, a million shifting scales and batlike wings churning inside.
And everywhere it went, the land was rent asunder. Lightning bolts the color of a grave flashed and screamed, carving across the earth with the sound of thunder. Winds that decayed and eroded and took the souls from their victims turned mountains to dust and trees to corpses.
I cannot face this! I realized, flapping my wings as I did an about-turn, looking east for a reason I could not understand. I cannot!
I sped along with the force of lightning. The hurricane laughed at me as I flew, my wings flapping faster and faster. It mocked me as I struggled like a mourning dove facing entropy itself. Each crackling bolt and tumbling mountain behind me sounded like a sneering cackle.
The hurricane could move faster, I knew. Even as it reaped the lives of a million souls, I knew it still was toying with me.
It was gaining. The winds pushed me to the side, tearing at my feathers. I nearly fell from the sky as lightning crashed overhead, taunting tendrils misting across my beak and making me spasm.
Can't fall, I thought, terrified. I saw that shadow inching closer, casting the world into a darkness blacker than the blackest night. It will tear me apart!
I opened my beak to scream. To call out as those winds teased at my tailfeathers, staying just out of reach. I wanted to cry out. To who, for what, I knew not. I just needed to cry.
Then something flashed, binding my beak in a weave. I blinked, stupefied, as vines stretched up from the forest floor far below.
Silver vines erupted from that forest, cascading upward with smothering love. I struggled against the tendril binding my tongue, ripping and tearing at it with my claws. The glittering plant came apart beneath my talons, freeing me.
I breathed, looking upward as that storm and the vines both sought my soul. The stars. That is the only place I am safe!
I flapped my wings, changing my angle. I began to ascend, the turbulent winds and crashing devastation of a damned god pulling away my feathers. More and more of them fell away, ripped from me and with them taking my flight.
There was a moment there. Where I was but a gnat in the face of a typhoon as I hung motionless, stripped of all that kept me safe.
And then the vines caught me. They swiveled about my wings. Wrapped my feet. Created a noose about my throat. My skin began to decay and wither as silver vines wrapped my feet. I struggled and thrashed against that untold care as the storm cackled.
I couldn't even scream as autumn leaves blocked my sight, and I was pulled back toward the ground. I felt it approaching, the gravity that I had denied for so long finally finding me.
I surged upward, crying out in pain and terror. My eyes shot open as I clutched at my chest. Sweat beaded down my face, drip-drip-dripping in a rhythm that outpaced my heart.
I was… I was in my rooms? In the Hearth?
I turned around numbly, trying to understand why I was here. What had happened.
The sound of a page turning brought me back to reality. I turned numbly, noting Mordain as he sat nearby. The way he lounged in the chair was almost effortless, a book in his hands. He casually turned the page, the sound of the paper echoing in the room.
It filtered back to me slowly. My memories of my final plea. The utter union I'd held with Aurora as our souls were in perfect sync. As we laid out that core memory of ours to all.
We didn't share memories. Aurora and I… we couldn't afford to. Not with the darkness that plagued us. That haunted our minds and soaked into our thoughts. But here, deep in this Hearth? With our family and clan?
For the first time ever, we'd felt safe enough to open our minds. To let others see our memories. But Soleil had…
"You haven't been asleep long," Mordain said as if remarking upon the weather, breaking me from my downward spiral. "Only a couple hours. Your body and soul were strained from what happened today."
He peered up at me, each of his pupils like the caldera of an active volcano. "You opened yourself up too much," he admonished. "You would not have suffered as you did if you had not laid your soul bare."
I opened my mouth to speak. To say that that was what was necessary if I wanted to impress upon… upon my family. The gravity of it all.
I was Spellsong. It was my gift—my purpose—to instill understanding. I ingrained that deep in my being with every single concert in Alacrya. With every shift and sway of my music, I brought people closer together.
And then in Darv. Seris' directive was to bind Dicathen and Alacrya together; to really be the connective glue that made resistance against the High Sovereign possible. And I'd… I'd been succeeding.
I'd come here with that confidence. That belief in my abilities. That if I spoke from my soul, all would listen. That was something etched deeper into my essence than any rune. The foundations stretched lower than those of Taegrin Caelum, and I'd thought them sturdier than the ground of Mount Geolus.
But now…
"There was no other way," Aurora said, appearing beside me. Her emotions ran hotter than I'd ever felt them as she laid a hand on my shoulder. Her phantom shade glared daggers at Mordain as her fingers dug into my tunic. "We are beings of emotion and passion, Mordain," she sneered with a smoldering fury. "Perhaps you've forgotten such, with how you've extinguished every bit of fire in your blood. But that is our truest essence. It seems only some of us remember this."
I was once again reminded of how ancient this being was as he turned his eyes up to us. But right now, he didn't garb himself with the old wisdom of a sage. No, he looked more like a withered husk. A corpse that still moved.
"You've found your fire again, Aura," he said quietly. "I am glad for that."
"And all it took was my family burning everything!" my mother yelled, more anger and rage pouring out of her than I had ever seen. "Do you know what will come of us now?! Do you know what will happen to this world? It will be torn asunder by war and plague and death while we watch! My son and I are bound here! Bound by Oath and the Will of the clan!"
While Lady Dawn burned hot as a funeral pyre, I couldn't think. If I thought, then I'd think of Seris. I'd think of Naereni and Sevren and Lusul and all those I'd failed.
The oath-chains on my arm glistened, telling me that any betrayal of the vow I'd sworn would result in the breaking of all I knew. I couldn't break my oaths. For the same reason I could never afford to let the Legacy return.
"Indeed, you're both bound to Clan Asclepius," the Lost Prince sighed, closing his book. "That was the basis of the oath. And it is Toren who is truly trapped by our clan."
Aurora opened her mouth again, fiery words and caustic insults ready to surge. But then she met her brother's eyes.
"Oh, Morn," she said instead, her voice coming out as a whisper as some unspoken message passed between them. "No."
I didn't know what had happened between the two, but I felt it as it doused the fire in Aurora's heart. It wasn't like a hurricane tide ripping away the flames. No. This was a smothering, loving thing that snuffed out her inner candle.
Mordain smiled softly, and I thought I saw tears glistening at the edges of his eyes. When he blinked, however, they were gone. "It's nice to hear you call me that again, Aura," he whispered, standing up. "It's been millennia since you've acted like the little sister you are."
"It can't be that way," Aurora pleaded, sounding… like a young child. She floated forward, her hands grasping Mordain's robes like a lifeline as grief flooded through her. "You're the head of the clan. You can do something. This isn't the way forward."
"This is what I can do," Mordain said, not looking his sister in the eye. "Your son made his choices. He made his oaths. And these are the consequences, Aurora."
I didn't have the energy to ask what this was about. I could sense the gravity of my mother's talk with her brother, but I couldn't look past my failure.
"But there must be another way. You look into the future. You have the arts of my husband's people. There must!"
Denial flooded over our bond as Aurora pleaded with her brother like a subject praying for salvation from their lord.
"You agreed to the terms, Aura," Mordain repeated, his voice straining somewhere deep in its timbre. "I cannot break them. I am clan head, but I am not everything. This is the only way. I told you before. I warned you."
I thought I could see it. See how each of my mother's words wore down something that had been close to breaking for a very, very long time. His last word came out sharper, an edge revealed as it gleamed.
"Then make an exception! Anything but this. We found another way with Kezess. This–"
I started to shift as I finally felt the Asclepius man's intent flare, his heartfire pounding outward once. He seemed to swell like a growing wildfire, his teeth gnashing as he grew ready to burst.
"There is no other way!" Mordain erupted, glaring down at his sister's ghost. "Don't you see? I warned you before this started! I told you that it would divide us! And you didn't listen! Didn't think!"
Aurora recoiled as if she'd been struck, floating backward as Mordain's heartfire finally pulsed. The Lost Prince shoved a finger forward, the tip seeming to bore deep into my bond's heart. "You think it's only Toren that will have to do this? It's you as well, sister. That is what your son did. And Chul? If Chul does not obey the demands of the Clan, he will be subject to the same fate! He will have no choice but to join you in your punishment!"
The phantom shade of my mother stopped in her flight, stumbling backward as Mordain's words struck her like physical blows. "You never think! You never look to the future, Aura! Always it's emotional, impulsive decisions; always fueled by that fire! You can never look past those feelings of yours to what truly matters!"
With every word, my mother took a single step backward, and Mordain stepped forward. Cracks stretched through her at every syllable, yawning wider as Mordain sank his talons deep into her heart.
Until finally, she broke.
Aurora fell to her knees, tears streaming from her eyes as Mordain's words tore at her soul. I found the strength to push aside my failure as her grief and sorrow tore at a part of me I didn't know could hurt.
I stumbled, pulling myself off the bed. I hobbled over to where the shade of my mother wept fiery tears, hugging her as I tried to offer some sort of comfort. I forced my way through my internal conflicts, using her form as an anchor.
I glared up at Mordain, my teeth gnashing. For the first time, he glared back down, that aura of endless grace and patience evaporating as his fists clenched. "Why do you need to be cruel?" I hissed, holding Aurora. She wept fiery tears into my robes, sobbing uncontrollably as she clung to me with the pull of a star.
I remembered the emotions that had gripped me like a vise in the wake of Norgan's death. The utter horror and disbelief, followed by the thoughts of what could have been. When I'd grieved him, I didn't just lament his loss. I lamented everything that could've been.
And Aurora grieved. As if hundreds had died at once, it washed over me in a tide. My earlier self-sorrow was quenched in that typhoon of internal tears.
She felt so small in my arms.
"Why did you hurt her?" I snarled, staring up at Mordain as I gave my bond comfort. "You're her brother! You aren't supposed to hurt her!"
Mordain laughed. It was a dry, sardonic thing like coarse sandpaper. "Me? Me hurt her?"
He leaned forward, his eyes flashing orange as he stared through me. "You still don't understand, do you, Toren? You swore an oath when you started the Forum. When you rushed forward, led by your impulsive desires, you devoted yourself to the Will of the clan." His eyes flicked to the oath-chains on my left arm. "And if you betray this oath, you know what will happen. You can never leave the Hearth to intervene in lesser affairs, lest your core shatter. You must prevent the descent of the Legacy, lest your core shatter. And if your core shatters? Then Aurora is lost to us all."
I clenched my arms around my mother as her sobs reached a crescendo, that grief worming through my soul as dread slowly weaved alongside my earlier fury.
In a furious mockery of his earlier presentation, Mordain held his hands out to the side. "Two impossibilities, Spellsong. But these oaths bind your Clan. They bind Aurora's Clan. They bind Chul's Clan."
My eyes slowly widened as the implication finally clicked; the only way out of the grave I had dug for us all. My mouth felt dryer than the deepest depths of Darv as I trembled in turn with my mother. Each tear that struck my shoulder held the weight of a hammer breaking skulls. Memories of all I had experienced in the past weeks coursed like molten sap through my mind, scouring channels of burning pain as I finally understood.
The companionship. The understanding and sense of belonging I had finally accrued, where I'd never thought it possible before.
I said nothing as I stared up at the Lost Prince, my body suddenly feeling as weak as it had when I'd been barely stronger than an unadorned. Because this meant… This meant that I had, to my mother…
"Why didn't you tell me?" I whispered, the words like hot, scalding ash leaving my throat. It hurt to breathe, as if the plume of a volcano had coated my lungs in smoke. "Why didn't you tell me this would happen?"
"You had every chance of victory in the Forum, Toren," Mordain said, his ire abruptly cooling. The hint of the supernova was carefully suppressed and systematically murdered as the Lost Prince regained control. He stood like an unfurling willow branch, all unnatural calm and neutered fire. "But I did warn you. I tried to dissuade you from this course. But you made your choices. After all, what was it you said to me at the very end of our talk?"
I knelt, feeling parts of my soul crumble as I held my inconsolable mother. I had nothing else to say. My own words flickered back to me. I'd felt so powerful in that moment, so assured of my own righteousness. But now I saw them for the naive, damning words they were.
"Tell me how many futures you saw where this talk did anything to dissuade me from my course," a vision of the past muttered, condemning the future. Because I knew, before my wax wings burned, that even if I had been told the great implications of failure I would have still tried.
And as I stared into Mordain's eyes now, a burning volcano mirror of that time not long ago, I saw inevitability once again.
—
I didn't have much to pack. My dimension ring held most of my belongings, namely a few changes of clothes, the pelts of the echo vespertion and timestop yeti, a few miscellaneous trinkets. My notebook on that otherworld novel.
And the phoenix wyrm pendants Roa gave me.
Each of my steps through my rooms carried a burning fire. I used the despair in my mind for kindling, letting it burn in an enraging tempest. I never allowed myself to think of the weight of my failure here and all it implied. I tossed it into the pyre of fury.
My intent warped and welled as I marched over to the desk I'd been given. I began packing up what other clothes I had as I struggled to keep my mana bound in my core.
"You can hate me," I grunted. "I deserve it."
I felt no response from my bond. Our tether was cold and dead, the feather in my core granting me no mana. I knew not if she blamed me for what was about to come.
She might even hate me as much as I hate myself, I thought with a sneer, marching toward my door. I'm going to steal something from her more precious than anything Agrona ever took.
I could sense her shade as it lingered around me. If I really tried, I knew I could see her if I pulled on that sense. But I knew what I would see.
I couldn't afford to see it. I stared down at the black charwood of the desk for a time, feeling it build and build. All that emotion fuelling my phoenix-fire higher.
Mana built around my knuckles, a shrouded spirit outlining me as my heartfire trembled. I felt the power I could output increase as mana and fire sputtered around my fist.
I screamed in rage, whirling on my feet. I hurled a wild haymaker at the wall, wanting to punch something. Wanting to hurt something.
I slammed that fist into the nearby wall. My fingers shattered and broke from the sheer force, blood splattering before it was instantaneously burnt away. The reverberating sound mana traveled through the marble, attacking it and wearing it down from within.
But the wall didn't even crack from the rumbling force imbued into it. The wash of flames hot enough to turn men to ash in an instant left no mark beyond soot and broken dreams. Blood ran in rivulets along my hand.
I'll have to tell Seris I failed, I thought. I failed her. I failed her rebellion.
Maybe she'd reassign me from my position in Darv after this. I was supposed to be that one big tether, wasn't I? Never before had I opened myself to anyone as much as I'd opened my soul in that final plea. And I'd failed.
But beyond that…
"I'll find Chul," I vowed, my broken hand healing over in a wash of lifeforce. "I'll find my brother. If the Asclepius will not help us, I know he will. He's my brother. He–"
My words choked off as reality came back to me. Chul was my brother now, yes. But if he wanted to help—if he wanted to assist the lessers of this world against the tyrants of the Indrath and Vritra—he'd have to make the same sacrifice I was about to undergo. The same sacrifice that I forced upon him without thought or care.
I'm sorry, Mom, I thought, my fire dying down slightly. I'm so sorry.
She did not respond.
I stalked from the room, little scorch marks following my footprints. My body felt burning hot with anger as the phoenixes I passed shied away, averting their eyes in shame.
But as my direction became clear, I found more than a few Asclepius hesitantly following after me. Silent, of course, like the muted songbirds they were. But they were will-bound to try and stop what I was about to do.
They could sense my anger.
When I reached the doors of the Hearth, there was already a contingent of phoenixes waiting for me. Soleil stood stalwartly at their front, his stance like iron and his mana like a controlled wildfire. His gaze was solid and determined as he stared down at me.
And far to the side, Roa slumped in the shadows.
I stopped, staring off with Soleil and his half-dozen compatriots. I swept my eyes over them, clenching my jaw. "You move quickly."
"The Forum came to its conclusion," Soleil answered. "If your intent is to leave in defiance of our clan, we will stop you."
I laughed. It was a dark, sardonic thing. It sounded an awful lot like Mordain's earlier laugh, devoid entirely of humor.
"Our Clan," I echoed back, not really looking at Soleil. "Our Clan."
It was a beautiful dream. A fleeting one, like the kiss of a sun just as it sets. The aromas of home and hearth still lingered about me, sinking into my skin and caressing me with the promises of fall leaves.
I inhaled deeply, taking in those smells. The scent of hickory and cinnamon and spice. They suffused my entire being for a moment as I just let myself… feel.
I remembered the sense of warmth and companionship I felt when I first came to the Hearth. A warmth and companionship I never thought I could feel. Here, everything of me was accepted in a way I'd found in no other place.
They can separate us, I thought to my bond. My mother. I felt something in me lurch as I proposed the possibility, fearful. They are the masters of rebirth. They are your clan. Your family. I… we can break this bond while maintaining your life. If there are any…
Aurora's shade manifested slowly. She'd always looked like an ethereal angel, like a goddess that brought the dawn. But as her feather-red hair clung to her, unable to sway in a breeze, she appeared more a husk. A corpse.
"So I would trade the unlife I have earned for another cage?" she asked, hollow. "A birdcage of oaths for one of silver vines and autumn leaves?"
I recoiled, stung by her words as they pierced my soul.
My bond swept her eyes over the gathered phoenixes. More arrived by the moment, the intent in the air simmering lowly. Guilt. Worry. Anger. Uncertainty. It all pervaded each and every member of our clan.
Most could not see her. Not without my tethers of heartfire. "No matter what, we will always be caged. So we move forward, Toren. As we always have. Agrona will not stop. Kezess will not stop. They will find this place eventually and tear it apart if we let them."
I stared at the ghost for a time. I wanted to tell her I was sorry again. To beg and plead for some sort of penance.
"If they will not fight for themselves," my mother said, looking up at me, "then we will."
I nodded slowly, swallowing the lump in my throat. We will fight for them.
Roa approached next. Hesitant, on feet that seemed like they might crumble from the barest shift. "Soleil is right," she said quietly. "You won't be able to go, Toren."
I didn't respond, still staring at the engraved phoenix on the exit of the Hearth as I tried to work up my courage.
"We… maybe we can send a message to your friends," Roa tried, insistent at my silence. "She can come here too. You don't need to be alone. It's not the end of the world. You can try to overturn the Forum in a few decades, too."
But we didn't have a few decades. And it would be the end of my world, I thought, moving forward instinctually. I wrapped Roa in a hug, squeezing tightly in a mirror of the first time we had met.
She began to cry, sensing the emotions I subconsciously projected into the air. "I can make you that coffee, right?" she said, a frantic edge entering her voice. "You loved that drink in your old life. You can have it here. You can't leave."
So desperate are they to pull my wings inward, I thought sorrowfully.
I pushed the young phoenix away, looking up at her. I didn't blame her for her choice at the end of the plea. That would be too easy and too simple. Ninety-nine other phoenixes could have voted differently, and it was I who called the Forum in the first place. Neither did I blame Soleil for his pain.
It was my failure. Mine and no other's.
It was strange. Roa's words only served to heighten my resolve. Though she had been like an older sister to me in the short time we'd known each other, I was reminded once again that this Hearth would never have what I needed. No coffee strain they made would be true. Every note of music I'd play would never be beneath the sky. My wings would never feel freedom.
Aurora shivered, turning away.
"You never really understood, Soleil," I said quietly. I pushed Roa away, slowly walking toward the phoenix. "You've tried to smother the fire that drives me. And when that failed, you've tried to cut off its oxygen."
I looked at him with a measure of pity in my eyes, an emotion that made his blocky orange brows furrow in the first moment of uncertainty.
"You underestimated the lengths a fool will go to for their ideals. Did Kezess' restrictions ever stop you from leaving to do what was right?"
My eyes drifted to the side. Mordain lounged like a hunched corpse, out of sight. He raised his head, staring at me. He looked just like his sister at my side. Withered.
"Coward," I accused, feeling a spark of white-hot fury deep in my soul. "You're so afraid of becoming Kezess that you don't realize how much it's molded you into him. Fear is what made Lord Indrath a monster. Fear makes you one, too. You think that action is sin, Lost Prince, but inaction is what made Epheotus a land of endless warfare for countless millennia."
Mordain shrugged off my insults, staring up at me with hardened eyes. He remained silent. Always silent, when he could have spoken at any time.
Until, finally, he spoke, when it was already far too late.
"Toren and Aurora Asclepius are bound to the oaths of their Clan; through their Clan," he said dully. "But I will never stop someone from leaving when they need to, Soleil. That is indeed what Kezess does."
Roa put it together first, her hand darting to her mouth. "Mordain, no! Don't–"
Time seemed to slow as the Lost Prince opened his mouth, my perception heightening as mana flooded through every passage in my body. I braced from all sides. Braced my body, my mind, my soul. And though I wasn't sure it was welcome, I tried to brace Aurora for it, too. I reached out with my mind, trying to cover her in a mental hug.
I found relief when she accepted it. Her phantom hand found its way to mine as she clasped it in a death grip, her teeth bared as if in a snarl. Tears trailed down her cheeks anew.
Agrona is pathetic, I thought, seeing Mordain's mouth move but unable to hear the words through the turmoil in my mind. A pathetic thing he was, thinking he could hurt Aurora. What he did was nothing.
Tearing the image of Chul's face from Aurora's mind did hurt her. Indeed, it drove a dagger deep in her spirit. Deeper than any other hurt she'd experienced before.
But as I felt the Brand of the Banished burn itself across my neck, pierce my heartfire, and send hot pain through my very soul, I could only focus on the trembling form of my mother. As her shade began to shift and smoke, a symbol of a crossed-through fire appearing on her neck, I knew how to hurt someone more than the High Sovereign ever could.
My grief and pain were paltry, petty things. The smoking rune on the side of my neck might sear my deepest essence, but it was nothing to the assaulting grief that nearly shattered my mother's shade into a million tiny pieces.
"No longer are you of the Asclepius, Toren Daen and Aurora the Clanless. Never can you meet another of your former home. Never can you embrace them or know their warmth," Mordain said into the grave-still silence of the Hearth, his voice a whisper. "You are banished."