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Caera Denoir
I didn't know how long I stared at my mentor. I just… stared, unable to say a word, unable to really think or understand what I was looking at.
Is this some… trick of the Relictombs? I briefly wondered, my vision starting to blur. Or something else? An illusion, or…
It could be an illusion. That would make sense. After all, the Seris Vritra before me was utterly different from the one that had left so many months ago for war. Her skin was still that of polished alabaster, exactly as I remembered it. The dark turtleneck sweater that clung to her features was something that seemed like her style, even as she slowly swiveled around to pull herself off the couch.
But her horns were like sculpted snow, brilliant against the light of any sun.
My mouth felt dry as the canyons south of the Redwater as I tried to cobble the knotted slurry of emotions in my stomach into something that made sense. Nothing swirling inside made any sort of sense. I didn't know if it could.
One day, things were as they always were. I'd been interned for a time with my adoptive family in the wake of Scythe Melzri's attack, growing more and more restless and bored as Taegan and Arian stood guard over my room for fear I'd sneak out on another ascent.
I had never really taken Scythe Melzri Vritra's threat seriously. Because why would I? Seris Vritra was a Scythe, too. She was my mentor and protector, and she wouldn't let my adoptive family just burn. Lenora and Corbett were up in arms and moving so frantically I thought they might explode, but it didn't really affect me.
Because Seris was always there. She always had been, like an ever-present moon. She was wise, powerful, and cunning in a way I had never seen. Though I knew intellectually the war was dangerous and a threat even to the woman who had trained me in my basilisk arts, deep inside, I had never really considered that she was at any sort of risk.
And then came the Second Dawn, when the asura hauled the sun up along the northern horizon on their backs to demonstrate their might.
I was moving. I didn't remember telling my shaking legs to step forward, but somehow, I was moving forward against my will. I was barely aware of my arms reaching out, my core still doing somersaults in my sternum.
And I hugged my mentor. She'd been saying something to Sevren, but I hadn't been able to hear it before I'd reached her. Her words cut off in startled surprise as I struggled not to fall to my knees in relief. Some part of me still thought that this was still an illusion, but I could tell that she was there.
There was a beat of silence. Two.
And then I remembered myself, the sudden rush of confusion and emotion abandoning me as I recalled the truth. Seris was a Scythe. She was the highest order in all of Alacrya, set apart from the citizens of the continent by her status as chosen of the Sovereigns.
And I was hugging her. And my mentor had never been one for any sort of physical contact.
The rush of embarrassment and shame that flooded through my mana channels banished everything else as I shuddered, quickly realizing what a grave mistake I had made. And the utter, pin-drop silence of the room only reinforced the sheer magnitude of my error. Naereni was still nursing the welt on her arm, but I could see the sudden horror in her eyes. Alaric looked like he was about to pass out, and Sevren already had his weapons pointed at Seris, fearful of what she might do in retaliation.
I abruptly shifted, feeling a sparkle of fear mix with my horrified shame. "I, uh," I stammered, my face flushing red, "I'm sorry. I didn't… I forgot protocol, Scythe Seris. I didn't mean to… I was wrong to, uhh—"
I tried to separate, wondering how in the Great Vritra I'd fix this, when Seris threw back her head and laughed. Her weary eyes—each of them like glowing snowflakes—sparkled a little as some life returned to them.
"Please, Caera," she said in a tired tone, "I understand a little what's going through your head. I should have presented myself a little better for our reunion. A simple hug never hurt anyone."
She didn't exactly hug me back, stiff and terrified as I was, but Seris floated upward a bit, giving my shoulder a gentle squeeze that served to relax the anxiety racing through my veins. "I'm not going to bite your head off. Surely you know me better than that. Though, for all you know, I could be another phantom of these Relictombs, sent to hurt you."
Seris gently distanced herself from me, hovering a little so we were at eye level. "You shouldn't be so quick to let your guard down. I taught you better than that."
I still felt the embarrassed flush in my cheeks as I stood straight as a board. Seris was right. And now that I finally found something to think about, I realized that it didn't make sense for my mentor to even be in the Relictombs. But she was here, wasn't she?
"I'll let it slide this one time in light of the… unique circumstances," the Scythe said in an amused tone. "Next time you feel the need to do something so dangerous, schedule an appointment for it beforehand."
Strangely enough, it was this that assured me that what I was looking at was real. That if this was some sort of conjuration of the Relictombs, it was one too accurate to form. Seris was alive, and she was here in the Town Zone, somehow, scolding me for messing up in that teasing way of hers.
"You can't be Scythe Seris. She's dead," Sevren interrupted with a quiet growl, electricity jumping along his arm as he stood like a poked shintcat. His eyes gleamed with fear. "Caera, get away from it. This is an illusion of some sort. The Relictombs are playing tricks on our minds."
Seris sighed audibly, giving me a deadpan stare that radiated annoyance. On the sidelines, Alaric was whispering curses under his breath, while Naereni was inching to the side to flank my mentor, her eyes nervously flicking from her to Sevren and back again.
I was about to open my mouth—probably to hastily tell Sevren to lower his weapon and not get us all killed—when Seris spoke.
"It's strange how selectively intelligent you can be, Sevren Denoir," Seris muttered with a sigh, turning slightly in the air. "I am very much alive, though not without thwarting many attempts to change that fact."
She blinked tiredly, sniffing as she patted me on the shoulder one more time in a strangely un-Seris-like way. "Lower your weapons. You know just as well as I that if I wished you ill, all of your various limbs would be somewhere on the other end of the zone. While I am certain your soulmetal appendage is useful, I doubt having to make three more because of stupidity would be an enjoyable thing. I am a patient woman, but I am also in a… bad mood."
She punctuated those words with a snap of her notebook closing, the sound reverberating like an ultimatum through the house. "Now, please step aside. You're blocking the coffee machine."
Sevren, please, I thought, my eyes darting from the argent figure to my brother. I knew he didn't like Seris. I understood that. But starting a fight would only serve to result in disaster. He'd already tried to shoot one Scythe, and that had gone about as well as was to be expected.
I pleaded silently with Sevren as he ground his teeth, his instincts warring with everything else. The room held its breath for a few seconds, no one moving as Seris hovered like a beam of moonlight.
And finally, my brother lowered his arm with the grace of a stuttering clockwork engine. "How are you here?" he demanded quietly, still strung taut as a bowstring. "The Supervisory Office said you were dead, and only Cylrit and Mawar returned alive."
Something approaching a sad smile stretched across my mentor's features as she sighed, low and long. "Cylrit's alive, then. That is very good news."
Then she shook her head lightly, as if banishing some annoying itch. "There's time enough for explanations of all sorts," my mentor said, clutching her book close to her chest. She floated away from the couch, drifting like a cloud past my nervous brother toward some sort of gadget in the cluttered kitchen. "But as I was so rudely awoken, I need some time to adjust."
Seris' eyes darted to Naereni just as she reached my side. The Rat squeaked like her namesake as my mentor's diamond stare pinned her for a moment. "Sorry!" she pushed out, shuffling on her feet. "I didn't mean to. I just thought something was wrong with the blankets, so I poked them. Please… Please don't scatter my limbs across the zone. I promise that only Doubouir would deserve that."
The Rat's eyes shone in a comically pleading way as she placed herself halfway behind me, unable to mask her curiosity even as it clashed with her fear. Sevren, for his part, glared at Naereni from the edge of the room as she threw him under the carriage.
A smile stretched across Seris' tired face, her pale lips straining to rise. "It's fine, Naereni. Next time, make sure to drive your dagger through instead of just prodding. It wouldn't have worked, but I'd respect the effort more than an annoying point waking me up."
My mentor tilted her head slightly, her eyes drifting up to where Naereni's single horn remained prominent. Something in her gaze softened as she observed the stump of the Rat's single horn. "Have you been acclimating to your manifestation well, then? I didn't have the time to work you through the process before the war. That was a failure on my part. Was Caera able to help you adjust, at least?"
One of Naereni's hands drifted up to the stump of her horn as if she was only now remembering it existed. She swallowed, sharing a look with me. "Y… Yeah," she said, uncertainly. "Yeah. Boulders helped a lot. She knew what to do and how to act and everything already."
My brow wrinkled a little as I looked at my friend, surprised by her words. She took whatever opportunity she could to prod me and try and rile me up, and to hear something genuine like that settled so much of my earlier confusion. "I didn't know you cared, twitter-fingers," I said smugly, bumping my shoulder with hers. "I'll keep note of that next time you swipe my allowance."
"Shut up, Boulders," the young woman muttered, looking away with an embarrassed expression. "I'll still stuff your sleeping bag with something later."
Seris watched the interaction fondly, her eyes narrowed into little crescent moons. "That's good," she said, releasing a breath. "I'm glad you've managed to be friends. That eases so many of my worries."
I watched Seris with uncertain eyes, feeling somewhat wrong-footed. I didn't think I could remember the last time she'd… said she was glad about anything. She'd say that my progress in mana arts was superb. She'd say that I was progressing nicely, or taking the right steps. But she never spoke about what she felt.
"We aren't friends," Naereni mumbled, still leaning against my shoulder. "We're mortal enemies. She's a cat. I'm a rat. Simple as."
"Well, would the Cat and Rat put aside their differences for a moment for some coffee?" Seris mused, fussing with that strange machine on the counter. Her slim fingers poked and prodded at some dials and buttons. "I planned to only make enough for myself, but seeing as you two are here, it would be rude to exclude you."
Sevren's brow wrinkled. He'd moved to the edge of the room, keeping his arms crossed as he leaned against a doorframe and eyed the Scythe with utmost suspicion. "Alaric and I are here, too."
"A keen observation, Lord Denoir," Seris agreed succinctly. "But I do not think Lord Maer is one for this sort of drink, and you've forfeited such privileges."
As if to punctuate her words, Alaric—who had wandered silently over to the area near the couch's base—raised something up to inspect it in the light. At first glance, it appeared to be an empty bottle of some sort.
"Sandaerene Red," he muttered, his eyes blown wide. "Aged for… for five hundred years. And it's all…"
Alaric turned the bottle upside down. A single bead of red flowed along the neck of the ornate bottle, before splashing to the ground. The man's hopes and dreams seemed to evaporate with that single droplet.
"It was necessary," Seris said quietly, her voice slightly strained. Her pearlescent hair shadowed her eyes as she stared at the machine. I noticed that one of her hands was absently clenching around the notebook. "There was none to spare, Lord Maer. I… underestimated someone's words. Again."
It was only then that I realized that what I'd mistaken for mere exhaustion in my mentor's gait and eyes was something more. The way her eyes drooped, and the manner in which she hauled herself through the air…
Seris Vritra was hungover. Scythe Seris Vritra had been drinking. I felt my jaw slowly unhinge, the bottom practically falling to the floor in more disbelief as I briefly questioned if this was some sort of specter of the Relictombs again.
Nothing made sense anymore.
Alaric shivered at the mention of his name, a bolt of adrenaline visibly shooting through him as he focused on the Scythe. "Oh, Lady Scythe… I didn't mean to touch your vintage. Please don't… rearrange my limbs. I like them where they are. I really want to—"
"You were one of Cynthia's, if I recall," Seris interrupted, sounding more subdued than before. She flipped open the notebook again, sifting through the pages in an absent caress. Her eyes roamed across the yellowed pages, searching for something inside. Alaric stood stiff as a statue as she utterly ignored his earlier bout of disrespect. "Interesting, how things would have aligned otherwise. Picking up strays instead of being picked up by strays… Yes… Goodsky trained you well, didn't she?"
Alaric dropped the bottle abruptly. It didn't shatter against the stones exactly, but it bounced with a resounding cling as he stared at Seris as if she were a phantom come to take his soul. "That name," he whispered sharply, "how do you know it?"
"That woman was one of my best agents. She did her duty well, building Dicathen's infrastructure and magical knowledge," Seris said simply, staring at the pages of the splayed notebook. "I pray that you have a fraction of her competence, because I will have use for you in these coming months. I'll have use for all of you."
Alaric slumped to the couch, his eyes going hazy and distant. Normally, the old man would be quick to retort with a joke or a boisterous laugh, but something in Seris' words sapped the life from his bones. "She was… one of yours? And Dicathen…"
The old man stared upward lifelessly, his eyes darting this way and that. I caught Seris' bemused expression as she observed the tired ex-ascender, making note of his every move like a waiting viper.
Use for all of us? I thought, swallowing nervously. Use for what?
"I think I'd like some coffee," I said at last, feeling slightly overwhelmed again with all that had happened. I didn't even know what coffee was, but it felt like the right thing to say. A moment later, Naereni softly added that she wanted some, too, following my lead.
Seris nodded, then pressed a few more buttons. She didn't say anything as she hummed a light tune, going through the motions. She floated up to one of the cupboards, then retrieved three mugs from the highest place, before drifting back down to the machine.
I recognized the soft, solemn tune she hummed. It was one of Spellsong's, wasn't it? The Song of the Storm had become ragingly popular amongst Alacrya's upper crust, but this wasn't that one, I didn't think. It was more solemn and subdued than the tense, raging energy of Toren Daen's titular performance.
My mentor placed one of the mugs beneath the spout of the machine, just in time for it to drip a dark liquid into the container.
I blinked a few times, the strangeness of this situation reasserting itself. Seris was somehow here, in the Town Zone. She wasn't dead, which meant my family would be safe again. How did she get away from the asuran attack, though? Did she come here to search for us specifically? Was everyone else alive, too? What would we do now?
And she was different somehow, too. It was in the way she talked, the way her shoulders rose and fell whenever she hummed that tune.
It struck me a moment later what was so off about this entire thing. My mentor displayed more emotion in one sitting than I'd seen from her in nearly all of the time she'd spent teaching me. In the ways she tenderly brushed that notebook, to the tune she was humming, to how she'd smiled warmly at me and Naereni…
All of the turbulent rage that had been boiling in my gut had nowhere to go. Nothing to do. So it collapsed in on itself, becoming a roiling mass of confusion that made my throat clench and nausea claw at the edges of my stomach.
"I can feel all of your questions scraping at me, Caera," Seris' voice pierced the maelstrom of my thoughts. "Truth be told, I have a few questions of my own for all of you. Let's take this somewhere less… messy," she muttered, her nose wrinkling in disdain as she looked at all of Sevren's clutter.
My brother's shoulders tensed, his face becoming awash with annoyance. "It's not a mess," he snapped, utterly oblivious to the random tools and gadgets strewn across the entire room. "You're the one who barged in here unannounced. Now you want to, what? Order us around like—"
"I want to serve my students coffee," Seris interrupted simply, utterly unfazed by my brother's agitation. "And I want to do it in a place where they might not burst into flames if they trip over the wrong tool. Is that disagreeable to you, Lord Denoir?"
Naereni looked nervously between my brother and Seris. Internally, I felt a flash of worry. Sevren had always been agitated by Seris' prodding and mentorship, though he'd always kept it private. But I hadn't ever anticipated my mentor showing up in the one place my brother treated as sacred to him, where nobody could intervene or remind him of the hell outside.
"Sevren," I said with a strained voice, "I know this isn't the best circumstance, but just give it a chance."
My brother looked at me askance, his own questions whirling there. "Fine," he finally muttered. "But I want answers. Not just about how you're here when you shouldn't be. But everything."
"You will have them, Lord Denoir," my mentor said, pressing a button on the machine. A dark liquid dribbled from a fount into the cup. Over several moments, a steaming hot beverage slowly coalesced from the unknowable workings of the Town Zone machine.
"Yours is ready, Caera," Seris said absently, lifting the porcelain mug in her slim hands. It was unornamented, almost terribly plain and droll compared to the sprawling mess all about us. "Careful, it's quite hot."
My mentor passed me the mug, our fingers brushing gingerly for a moment. I tensed as an electric tingle raced along my arm at the single bit of contact, my horns aching for a brittle moment. It wasn't painful, per se, but it could be.
"What was that?" I said, more surprised than in pain. "I felt a… tingle, or something."
The strange sensation was gone almost as fast as it had come, and I hadn't even had the time to show anything more than a little surprise. Seris, however, was looking at my hand in consternation.
"It is nothing to worry about. It appears that my mana reacts differently depending on how alert I am," my mentor said, her eyes narrowing. "I apologize for that. I am not yet fully accustomed to my new abilities, and it seems that I must keep a tighter leash on them."
New abilities? I wondered, staring at my mentor's burning horns. Just looking at them for too long almost made my own horns ache in a way that was hard to define, so I instead forced myself to look at the swirling, dark liquid in my bland mug. The surface of the steaming beverage was calm, just like my thoughts. But a little poke, and it would burn anything that got too close.
Naereni hesitantly approached next as Seris gave her a mug. I didn't drink yet, but Twitter-fingers looked just about ready to take a whole gulp on the spot. She always suffered from impulse control.
Seris turned in the air, holding a cup of coffee in one slim hand and a notebook in the other. "Now that everyone is accommodated for, let's take this outside, shall we? I could use some fresh air, or whatever equivalent Toren's zone can provide."
Sevren grunted. "There's a hill I used for experiments a little ways past the portals. If you want to drink your coffee, that's the best place for it."
The silver-haired Scythe shrugged, absently flipping through the notebook again. She seemed drawn to it almost like a compulsion. She'd finger through a few pages, seem about ready to close the book, then continue to read on anyways. "Lead the way, Lord Denoir, but please be swift about it. Our coffees will only stay warm for so long."
Sevren let out an irritated breath, then marched out the door. "Follow me, then."
—
Alaric didn't join us. Something about what Seris had said earlier had rattled him in a way I hadn't anticipated, and though part of me wanted to nudge the old oaf and drag him along, the other part of me was still too unsettled to even begin to question it.
My brother led us up to a hill that overlooked much of the Town Zone. It was a quiet, lonely place. Rolling green hills stretched onward into infinity as far as the eye could see. An unending blue skyline caressed the smooth brush strokes of each swell in the earth's folds, giving the zone a beauty I was unaccustomed to recognizing.
I clenched my warm mug of steaming dark liquid as I stared out into the endless expanse of green, feeling strangely uneasy. It just… never stopped. It made me feel so small. If I wandered out for even a mile or two, I could get lost and never find my way back. Just a single woman, stranded out in the endless expanse of green with nothing to guide her home.
A couple of benches watched, too, condemned to contemplate their small existence for eternity as they gazed into the abyss. Sevren stood behind one of them, his hands clenching on the metal as his green eyes flicked across the horizon as if searching for some hidden threat.
Seris lowered herself gracefully into one of the benches. Though it was a simple construct of wood slats and molded metal, the casual way she positioned herself made it look more like a throne.
Naereni had already plopped herself down across from my mentor on the bench in front of Sevren. She was visibly trying her best to act unbothered and unaffected by the powerful woman across from her, keeping her eyes down as she blew across the steaming coffee.
When I first met Seris, I didn't really know what to do, either, I thought, licking my lips. I can hardly blame her for being uncertain.
I gingerly moved to sit next to my friend, nervously preparing myself to face my mentor. My fingers tensed on my mug as I tried to consider what I should ask first.
"Vritra's horns," Naereni suddenly cursed, sputtering and coughing as she fell to the wood slats beside me. I blinked, looking down at the Rat as she pushed her mug away from herself. "This tastes awful. Why would anyone drink this stuff?"
It took less than a second for me to put together what had happened. My friend had taken an entire gulp of the dark liquid, uncaring of the conventions for these sorts of things. Immediately, like a cat spotting the movement of its prey, I caught a whiff of an opening. An opportunity.
"You're not supposed to gulp drinks like these, Twitter-fingers. As a rat, you of course wouldn't understand," I said imperiously, exhaling with forced arrogance. To demonstrate my point, I raised my mug to my lips in an artificially exaggerated noble grace, the exact kind that irritated Naereni to hell and back. "Like… this…"
My words of reproach, however, fizzled out as Seris pinned me with a slightly admonishing look. Are you really going to tease her about that? that look asked with characteristic amusement. I coughed with slight embarrassment, using the mug to hide the red flush again as I took a ginger sip of the brew.
I blinked in surprise as the bitter taste struck me. If I were more prepared, I might have been able to hide the expression of slight disgust that crossed my features. It was not a pleasant taste at all.
"See?" Naereni said, covertly nudging my shoulder and nearly making me splash the bitter drink. "I'm not the only one. It does taste awful. Even you agree, Boulders."
Vritra's horns, I cursed internally. For all that I gave my friend grief about adhering to noble grace, there was a difference between being a pompous, strutting highblood and being outright rude.
"Naereni," I hissed under my breath through clenched teeth, "Seris gave you the coffee as a gift. It's rude to insult that."
"It's fine, Caera," my mentor said, taking a liberal sip from her mug. To my surprise, her brows also knit in slight distaste. "I do think this is the most foul-tasting drink I have ever had the displeasure of ingesting. I would much prefer a cup of tea."
Naereni shot Seris a strange look. "Then why do you drink it if you don't like it?"
Seris crossed her legs, leaning back a bit on the bench. Her other hand still clutched that world-weary book close. She appeared entirely uninterested in gracing my friend's question with an answer, though I thought I heard Sevren snort in disbelief above me.
As those with power always did, the silver Scythe decided to not answer the questions she deemed beneath her.
"I suppose I shall start," she said simply. "Time is strange in the Relictombs, and considering the time I spent comatose, adapting to certain changes, I cannot be sure how long it has been since the asura struck at me and my army."
I tensed, leaning forward as my mentor confirmed the worst. I remembered that burning northern horizon, bright and vibrant even a continent away. "How did you…"
"Survive?" my teacher finished for me, sensing my reluctance to approach the topic. She took another sip of her coffee. "Because of very many factors that I forced to align at the perfect times, and I suspect a dash of luck and Fate. Toren had come into the possession of a djinni teleportation artifact that should have brought me to a hideaway beneath the sands of Darv. Instead, I awoke some time later here, with a broken amulet,covered in ashes and very much confused. I personally suspect I was unconscious for… perhaps two weeks in Relictombs reckoning. Since then, I have been acclimating to this place and drafting what plans I could."
"Now," Seris said, leaning forward slightly, "you said that Cylrit is alive? He is… well?"
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, remembering Cylrit's empty stare as he came through the tempus warp. "He's… alive, I know. The asura attacked only a week ago, and we got a few survivors through a tempus warp a few days ago. We thought… Well, I thought you were dead. And Cylrit—while he did return—he didn't look… well."
Seris set her mug of coffee down on the bench beside her, her gaze distant as she observed the sky. "I suspected as much," she said with a sigh. "I gave him and the rest of our army what chance they could to escape the asura, but it was too much to hope that the removal of one would stop their returning advance. Cylrit… I hope he is well. I hope he has not lost too much."
It was strange, looking at this white-sheathed woman that had taught me most of what I knew. As she gazed off into the distance, yet again expressive in a way that felt strangely both alien and so fully like her, I realized that the war had changed her in more ways than just her physical appearance.
But Seris was alive, even if she was a little strange now. That meant that my adoptive parents didn't need to worry.
"Now that you're alive, we can bring you back to Alacrya," I said, already planning for the future. "You can meet Cylrit again, assure him you're alive and all. And my family… they're being torn at from all sides now that you're gone. We need your protection again, Scythe Seris."
Seris gave me a look that was almost mournful. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Caera," she said softly. "I cannot return to Alacrya for some time yet, at least. I suspect I will be interned here for a long time."
I blinked in surprise, feeling some of the foundations I'd finally started to piece back together crack.
"What?" I said, sitting up straight abruptly. "But you're alive, Scythe Seris! And my family, they're… They're in danger. You're our best chance to fix things!"
I didn't know when, but at some point I'd risen to my feet, my stammering words leaving me like a rush. A sputtering mess of all that I'd been feeling these past few days tumbled in a tangled tumult from my mouth. "I mean, just… Why? We need you back there! Alacrya needs you!"
I need you!
"Because I am supposed to be dead," Seris said sadly. "It is likely that you do not know much of the asura's attack on my army, but it was not circumstance or betrayal by the Indraths that led them there. We were… an offering, you see, to reset the playing field."
Seris' eyes flicked to Sevren, whose teeth were gritted hard enough to shatter a diamond. "The High Sovereign needed room to execute another plan, so he offered his position in Darv as collateral to Kezess Indrath to turn the Dragon Lord's attention. But, for what little it is worth, I do think the plan was thwarted on several fronts. But because I am supposed to be dead, I must play the part. Otherwise, questions might be asked. Questions of how I survived, where I fled to…"
I blinked rapidly, trying—and failing—to digest this new wave of information. I felt suddenly dizzy, wavering on my feet as I tried to understand this turn of events.
The High Sovereign had… given Seris up? Given up his army in Darv, alongside his position? Why? It made no sense! And besides, Seris was a Scythe, one of the most important people in Alacrya! All of society was dependent on the Scythes to keep order at the very top. If they were just discarded, then all of our structures would just fall apart!
"But you're Scythe Seris," I said a little numbly. I fell backward onto the bench again like a sack of potatoes. "You're a Scythe. A—"
"A piece on the board," Sevren interrupted angrily. "That's what they do, Caera. Sacrifice things that aren't necessary anymore."
"Just as they took your Abigale," my mentor mused, picking up that notebook of hers again. "Just like they took Naereni's fathers. That willingness to discard… It is something that seeps through every level of this society."
My brother glared at Seris, a fury he was fighting to keep contained boiling at his edges. "So, what? All your little schemes with my family are going to be cut away now, too? Are they just a discarded experiment now? I know about some of them. I figured it out not long ago when I put two and two together about Renea Shorn."
Seris clicked her tongue. "I should have expected you to put that together," she muttered. "Refuge in audacity is a cover for only so long. I'm not throwing your family away, Sevren Denoir. But I cannot rush to their aid."
Sevren's mana pulsed, making me stumble slightly. "That's what it all amounts to, then? All the constant sacrifices? They've already given so much for whatever the fuck it is!" he snapped, throwing out his arms in exasperation. "And then you drew in my sister. Naereni. And me, too. You mentioned Abigale on purpose."
My brother glared at the silver Scythe, his rage close to boiling over. For the first time, I recognized something I'd missed.
My anger and rage… They'd evaporated into undecipherable mist when I'd seen my mentor again. And as I'd vented and spoken, the swirling confusion that was left in its place had some time to settle. Because Seris was here, giving me answers, I had a path forward.
But in my relief, I'd missed something crucial. My foundation of hope, which I thought I'd lost in this war—the person who had been my cornerstone—they were alive. Strange and different, but alive.
And Toren was still dead.
"And Toren! All of it's fucking connected," Sevren yelled. "And now you hold his notebook, acting as if it means something."
"Sevren," I said, feeling worried for my brother, not because I feared Seris' retribution this time, but because of that pain I saw in his expression. His accusations and assertions swirled in the back of my head, bringing more questions. Why had Seris hidden my horns? Why had she prodded at my brother? Was Toren really some sort of paramour, or something more important?
But any words I might have given him died on my lips. Because what could I say to make anything better? Naereni, at least, had the courtesy to look down at the ground, a kindred sort of misery there that my brother shared.
"You are grieving, Sevren Denoir," my mentor said coolly, brushing off my brother's tirade. She adopted an expression that was simultaneously harsh and soft, like steel woven into cloth. Strong, but also… gentle. "I understand this. You are angry at me. I think that—if you could kill me—you would. You would call it justice as you spat on my corpse. Justice for Abigale. Justice for the Fiachrans. Justice for all those lost in this war."
Seris slowly stood, unfurling like a loosening whip. Physically, the Scythe was a small, slim woman, but she seemed larger, like a viper poised over unknowing prey. There was a tremble in the air, like a live wire rippling with energy.
"But it's not truly me you are angry at. It's everything." Seris' face gradually turned into a sneer—an expression I'd never seen on her pristine face. It didn't make her look ugly. She could never appear ugly. But she looked like some sort of phantom from the stories as her hair flowed on currents of subtle power. "The rot."
The words echoed across the atmosphere, a power in them I only barely sensed. That tingle I'd felt earlier as my hands brushed Seris' hands doubled, tripled, then quadrupled over as my horns ached.
"I will cut the rot free. It is what I have always aimed to do since the very beginning. Piece by bloody piece, I will grind it to ash. Those who have had enough of being mere experiments to be discarded and tossed aside will have their chance at freedom."
And Sevren laughed.
"Freedom?" Sevren asked humorously, his shoulders shaking with mirthful laughter. "Freedom? Seris Vritra, we are all test subjects. Maybe you want to set yourself up as some sort of queen to oppose the Sovereigns, but you'll die like a dog. They'll march in and rip everyone involved away, before making an example of all of you. The only place safe from them is this place, and it's already a Tomb.
"Toren was this continent's only chance," he muttered. "He was our only chance that things could get better. You saw his music. You saw his hope. That's why you took him, I bet. But he's dead now, probably less than ash. Because he tried to make a difference. Because he tried to change things."
"Dead?" Seris whispered, the aura suffusing the air abruptly vanishing. "You say that Toren is dead?"
"Don't act like you don't know, Scythe," my brother spat angrily. "You haven't even said a word about him. You took him to war. And you got him killed. I don't know what he saw in you, but I know that if he were right here, and you were gone? He wouldn't pretend that you didn't exi—"
I didn't even see Seris move. One moment, she was several feet away from me, standing by her bench. The next, a streak of silver hung frozen in front of Sevren, flaring with mana. I didn't even have time to react with anger or fear or anything before my mentor placed herself in front of my brother.
A crack echoed out that rumbled through the zone, and Sevren stumbled to the side, his face a mask of pain and his cheek reddening.
"I was so lenient with you," Seris sneered, her hand outstretched from where she'd slapped my brother. "I goaded and pushed and encouraged every act of foolish rebellion you tookbecause I need people who see this society for what it is and are willing to take risks. But you will not use him like a knife. You will not goad me through him. That is a risk you cannot afford, Lord Denoir."
I moved as quickly as I could to Sevren's side, chewing my lip as I looked nervously between him and my mentor. I inspected my brother's face where it was reddened from my mentor's slap, recognizing that if she really wanted, she could have taken his skull off with a single swipe.
I'd seen my brother force so much faux respect around Seris that I'd never really expected him to cross a line. But apparently, Toren Daen was a line.
"And Toren isn't dead," my mentor whispered, her hand slowly closing into a fist. Her diamond-white eyes bored into my brother, piercing all his veils. "Make no mistake, he will be back."
"How do you even know?" Sevren asked, his voice pained. But for the first time, he didn't sound hostile. He sounded genuine, as if he wanted to believe whatever words would leave my mentor's mouth. "The asura reignited the sun on Dicathen. Dawn shone for the second time in a day, lighting up everything in the north. That's how we know Epheotus intervened at all. And after that… after that, Toren never responded."
Seris' brows furrowed for a moment as my brother's words reached her. "Reignited the sun?"
"Yes!" Sevren repeated, annoyed that she didn't understand. "And now there's no contact from Darv at all, only the survivors from the army. Since you're so wise in setting up your army, how in the hells will we fight that? How can you fight something that can call the sun whenever they want?!"
Seris' eyes widened the more Sevren ranted. At first, I thought it must have been with fear. Because, for all that I wanted to believe the Scythe's words and take them to heart, my brother was right. That was the kind of power no mortal man could fight.
But after a moment, I realized she was not bearing an expression of fear. No, I saw something begin to sparkle and dance in those moonlit eyes, a smile slowly pulling itself across her lips. She started to tremble.
And Seris began to laugh, cutting Sevren off. It was the kind of sound you only heard once in a lifetime as it drew itself from my mentor's throat like music, her entire body shaking from her raucous laughter.
She threw back her head, her crystalline voice flowing through the world on currents of unseen mana. Her moonlit horns seemed to shine against the unending skyline. "How do you fight something that can call the sun?" she repeated, wheezing as if it were the punchline to the world's greatest joke. "How does one stop the continental plates from grinding each other to dust? How does one face a hurricane and command it to halt?! Who can bear the power to fight a tsunami and win?
"And if someone had the power to make the sun shine whenever they wished… who could dare stand before them? Who can see the rising sun and halt its slow climb? To do so would be futility, a struggle against things that can never be stopped. What hubris!" Seris' trembling voice evened out as she finally looked at my flabbergasted brother, a smile so wide on her face that I thought she might be mad. "Nobody, would you not agree?"
"The war turned you insane," Sevren accused, stepping away and pressing me behind him. Naereni stumbled to our side, unnerved by my mentor's sudden outburst. "You laugh at this!"
"I do!" Seris agreed warmly. "It might be the most amazing thing I've heard in decades!"
An extremely un-Seris-like smile stretched across the pale woman's face as she leaned in closer, as if she were about to whisper a secret. "Do you know what they called Toren on Dicathen, Lord Denoir?" she asked quietly, her teeth shining like glistening fangs. "A dozen titles, whispered quietly. You've heard Spellsong, certainly. The Lumineer was another. The White Flame of Fiachra. Vicarscourge, the Death of the Doctrination. But others… They called him Morningstar. They said it was he who crested the horizon at every dawn."
Sevren's rage—sizzling hot—twisted in on itself. He stumbled backward, the implications tumbling about his mind, before he finally fell to his knees. "You mean… No. It's impossible."
"Impossible, Lord Denoir?" Seris countered. "Impossible? You have mapped the unmappable. You have explored the unexplorable. You met a man bound to a god in defiance of Fate. What is impossibilitybut a human framework that halts our progress? So selectively intelligent."
"Great Vritra," Naereni cursed, leaning against me as her legs gave out. "No. It's impossible. Toren was always so strong, but this just doesn't—"
Seris smoothed out her turtleneck, still smiling warmly as she turned around. "You've been so condemned to the asura's power—so contained within your fighting pit by the Sovereigns—that you haven't been allowed to wonder what was possible. There are so, so many things that we people can do, if we but… changed our perspective."
My mentor raised an arm to the sky, her fingers splayed out and stretching toward a sun that wasn't there. The warm smile on her face softened, wearing away at the edges like a boulder beneath the wind. "I can feel him, Sevren," she said quietly. "He is there on the periphery, waiting and trying. Not long ago, the sun set. But the earth still turns."
My mentor's voice wavered slightly, her fingers grasping for stars that weren't in this artificial sky. "I don't know what he's doing. I do not know when he'll be back. But he will. And in the meantime…"
My mentor settled back to the ground, the soft grass finally reclaiming her child. She spared a single glance toward Naereni as she trembled against my side. A subtle look at Sevren as he knelt in shock. And then she held my eyes, so much swirling in their depths.
So much passed there that I'd never been able to see before. Love and care. Pride and hope, all condensed into something I could hardly fathom.
"The Vritra stole our futures from us, so many millennia ago. I think it's time we stole our futures back."