Discordant Note | The Beginning After the End SI-Chapter 301 - 299: Lost Chances

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Arthur Leywin

Tess' illusory mist swirled in motes of blue water mana, weaving in deep green nature mana and a quiet pulse of bright green particles of wind.

I passed a hand through the mist, sensing the barrier between me and what was within. It clouded my senses, even as a white core mage.

Except it wasn't just Elshire mist. This was formed under the same base, yes, but it was something more—more dangerous, ethereal, otherworldly. Those eddies of water vapor drifted like morning fog, a grim contrast to the angry storm brewing overhead. Every now and then, lightning would flash, tendrils of electricity hurtling across the sky like chariots of light.

But no matter how much light brightened the sky, it couldn't pierce the veil before me or offer any glimpse deeper in.

"Tessia knew what she was doing," Sylvie affirmed from my side. Her dark dress pooled around her like living shadow, her horns absorbing the light. "You need to trust her, Arthur."

My bond's golden eyes peered into the mist. Though she spoke the words to me, I could feel over our bond how they were meant to reassure herself as well.

"It's not Tessia I'm doubting, Sylv," I admitted, wondering if the soft grass beneath me would simply swallow my body whole. "It's myself."

Sylv had spent the short flight here in silence, contemplating the memories of the conversation I'd shared with her. She still couldn't see Regis like I could, even in my memories, but she believed he was there.

Of course, she'd believe that, I thought darkly. The only other option is that I'm mad. Would Sylvie rather face my madness?

I shoved those thoughts from my mind, the fog of my thoughts churning like the illusory spell cast in front of me.

"Trail me from a ways away," I said numbly, staring into the gloom. "If Nico is in there, it's better if he thinks I'm alone."

Sylvie's worried eyes snapped to me. She licked her lips, her fist clenching and unclenching. She could see my logic. She even found herself somewhat agreeing with it. "If I sense you're in any sort of danger, I'm going to help you," she said resolutely. "I'm not leaving you to your demons alone. We face them together."

I smiled, feeling reassured by my bond's dedication. Then I took a deep breath, calming my pounding heart, and stepped into the fog.

The change was immediate. My senses compressed, my vision of all four elements squeezing inward as the cloaking effects of the mist eroded my senses like million-year wind across a mountain slope. I felt like a child in the dark, only able to perceive a few meters around me from how condensed and honed Tess' spell was.

It was disorienting, almost difficult to tell where was up and where was down. East, west, north, and south became indiscriminate points in space around me. The sensation of the earth beneath my feet drifted away, and for a moment, I wondered if I was flying.

Tess' skill is absurd, I thought with admiration. She'd told me a little about the training she'd done with Aya in Elshire as she sought to master the divergent powers of her Elderwood Guardian Will. But for it to cloud my senses this much, even when I'm not pushing myself to—

"Art, honey?" a familiar voice called out from the fog. Shapes and indistinct shadows swirled tauntingly around me. "Art, where are you?"

My mother's voice. Alice's voice, fraught with worry and fear. It sounded frantic.

I froze for a moment, grinding my teeth as her voice echoed from the fog like a waiting lure.

Illusions, I reminded myself, even as my mother's voice became more and more frantic. I stepped forward, focusing on my power and blocking out the noise as I trudged forward.

Other voices called out to me. My father, asking how much of his son was left. Ellie, crying for her brother to save her from some monster chasing her. Sylvie yelled from the far distance, telling me that I was going to die. Tess' weeping as she was stolen away tore at my eardrums. I could hear her begging for me to stop them, each sound echoing from the depths of the mist.

My teeth clenched so hard they nearly cracked, the acclorite across my blood humming with aether and mana both as I struggled not to launch myself into the fog.

"Just hallucinations," I reminded myself, ironing my will. "It's all tricks of my mind. Just like the first time I fought the Elderwood Guardian, so many years ago."

I walked forward, undaunted. Unbroken. Dawn's Ballad shimmered into my hands as my eyes flicked this way and that, watching for phantoms in the dark as the cries of all those I loved washed over and around me.

But not even the specter of Regis stood before me as I walked alone. My only solace was my bond with Sylvie not far behind me, that anchor point and surety in space allowing me to move unobstructed deeper into the demon's den.

"Grey!" a furious voice shouted, drowning out all the other sounds. The voices of grief and fear and terror were eclipsed by a fury so red and raw I could almost feel it peeling away at my flesh.

I froze in place, goosebumps rising along my spine. That voice—it wasn't like all the others. But I thought I recognized it. I'd known that voice for years.

"Turn around, Grey," that caustic voice seethed, each note laced with venom. "Turn around."

Elijah? I thought, my mouth running dry. I hadn't heard that voice in years. I'd worried as much as I could afford, but…

But that voice felt wrong, amidst the endless slew of my loved ones begging for my help. It was disjointed, an off-key scream in the chorus of cries. And as the familiar voice crawled its way into my eardrums, through the electrical connections of my brain, and registered with meaning deep in my mana core, I finally turned.

The illusory mist parted, as if each and every tendril were retreating away from the dark. A clearing seventy feet across opened to the roiling, angry storm high above. Lightning flashed, and thunder rolled.

The short clearing didn't have much. Just dead grass and dying trees, the yellow speaking of death come too soon. Devoid of the sun's warmth for so long and without the adaptations of the Elshire forest, a week without sunlight had killed every spot of grass.

A vision from a nightmare stood at the far end of the clearing, glaring holes into my very soul with eyes the color of maddened blood.

Elijah Knight, my best friend in this life, had seen far better days. His dark clothing was tattered and worn from days of misuse, and there were dark, dark circles under his eyes. His hair was a wild nest of darkness, each lock unkempt and nearly vibrating with rage. Dark motes of hellfire—the same kind that the caster Wraith had used against me in our battle—sparkled and popped in little firework explosions. All around him, black spikes of oily metal like Uto's thrust up like spears, barring my way forward.

And before him, clutched by the hair and with a dagger of bloodiron poised to drive through her throat, was Tessia. Her teal eyes were wide with fear as that little knife drew red blood from her pale throat, the droplet leaking down into her tattered battledress.

"Took you long enough, cockroach," Elijah sneered, his aura dancing with malice befitting some of the strongest mages I'd ever faced. "You just can't help yourself, can you? Rushing in and trying to play the hero."

Tess blinked rapidly, opening her mouth to speak. Maybe to cry out and scream. But the man who had once been my childhood friend leveled the little dagger of bloodiron closer. "Quiet, Tess," he said sharply. "This is the only way."

"Elijah," I said, wanting this to be an illusion. I wanted it to be another lie of the fog, a mistake of the darkness. I raised a hesitant arm, feeling it tremble as my fingers stretched out to him. I didn't let myself look into Tessia's eyes. "What happened to—"

The dark-haired mage scoffed. "Really, Grey? Really? Are you going to pretend you don't know who I am? With that kingly fucking crown of yours? Look at me."

I slowly lowered my hand, clenching it as I forced it not to tremble. "Let Tess go, Nico," I said quietly, my heart squeezing painfully. I could feel Grey trying to sap everything away. I could feel him trying to paint my vision in monochrome. "We can talk. Just you and me."

When I'd set off for this confrontation, I hadn't known what I wanted to do. What I would try and do. And even now, I didn't know. My head was swimming. If Elijah was somehow Nico…

Nico laughed, a dark, cynical sort of sound that sounded like a wolf's dying rasp. "I was always Elijah. Always, just with a little cap on my memories that stopped me from tearing out your throat. It was Agrona's plan so I could get close to you. It was ruined once, but that doesn't matter anymore. But it all makes sense, this being the first thing you try. Do you think you can avoid this? You think you can run?"

The Scythe's eyes smoldered with repressed hate. "I tried talking to you, once. When there was still a chance for me and Cecil to have a life together. And you know what you did? You ignored me. For that bitch, Vera."

"Grey, run," Tessia pressed out, her silvery voice strained as she stared at me. "Run! Run!"

Nico ignored her, more spikes of bloodiron thrusting up from the ground in response to his anger. "You're going to die here, King Grey," he seethed. "You don't get to be a king again. You don't get to be happy. You don't deserve it. I do."

I felt a snarl build in the back of my throat. I didn't get to be happy? I didn't deserve it?

Maybe Nico was right. No, he was right. But I had given everything to earn what I had been given. I'd been doing all I could to give everyone else their second chances, too. And I'd finally been finding a way to be what I needed to be.

"And you think taking Tess and replacing her with Cecilia will fix everything?" I demanded, my fury pushing me a step forward. "That's your grand plan, now that you're in another world? With another chance? You're just going to—"

"I have done nothing!" Nico howled suddenly, a nova of soulfire sparking around him. Particles of black deviant fire mana roared about him in a furious torrent. His hands tensed around Tess' hair, making her whimper. "Nothing but train for this moment, Grey! For a decade, I prepared to put you down. It's what's right. It doesn't matter that Cadell isn't here."

I found myself marching forward. My aura swelled up around me, battling against Nico's as my rage and sorrow twined themselves about my throat like a garotte. All around me, a domain of conjured black spikes erupted from the shadows cast by the clouds high above. Each of them hovered, dripping with black venom as they stood poised like javelins to fall down on me.

At the moment, I didn't care. I didn't care that a kaleidoscope of black death loomed like a frozen rain of arrows. I didn't care about Tess' form clutched in Nico's hand. I didn't care about Sylvie's reassuring warmth as she tried unsuccessfully to calm me down over our bond.

"Agrona's a mad dog, Nico," I bit back. "He spoke to me. He threatened death to everyone on this continent! That's why I took up this godforsaken crown in the first place. Don't you see what he's doing? He wants the Legacy for himself, just like everyone from our old world!"

I had to howl to be heard over the thunder. Far above, rain began to fall, the droplets heavy and laden with the sins of the past. Each one slammed into my shoulders with the force of a battering ram.

"You think you became King for the people?" Nico barked back, his magic roiling as he prepared to throw himself at me. He looked like a half-crazed wolf, all teeth, fangs, and foam at the mouth. "You've only ever been a king for yourself! That's all you ever cared about! Yourself! You killed Cecilia. You ignored me, your best friend, when I told you what was going to happen! And you think I can't see it in your eyes right now?"

The rain matted Nico's dark hair to his face as it soaked through his body, making him seem even more thin and haggard. "You don't even care that I've got Tess in my hand right now. You never even cared from the start. Just like on Earth, it's empty posturing. You're pretending to be something good and noble, but deep underneath, it's all just empty."

I felt my shoulders slump as my eyes drifted to where Tess was clutched by her now-dripping wet hair. I stared deep into those eyes of glimmering turquoise, considering. Weighing my next step.

My sense of time seemed to slow in that moment as it all sunk in: the utter barrage of soulfire and bloodiron that was ready to tear my flesh apart. The uncontrollable rage spilling from Nico like toxic gas from an erupting volcano. The flexing of our auras as they meshed.

He never got a second chance, I realized, feeling something in the back of my head click into place. How long has Agrona poured his lies and bile into Nico's ear? How much has he been manipulated?

I had gotten a second chance in this world to right my wrongs. I'd gotten a chance to be the man I'd thrown away, and I was on the path to making good on all I'd failed to be on Earth.

But Nico? He hadn't ever gotten that second chance. He was a pawn in this life, just as he'd always been in his first life, in every life. And as that realization settled like the thunderstorm's chill into my bones, my anger and fury misted away. Pity rose in its place.

I held out my hand one last time as I stared through the torrential downpour. A flash of lightning made Nico's red eyes stand out, pinprick and feverish. His lips were curled back into a sneer.

"Just put Tess down, Nico," I asked quietly. "Please. We can do better than this. It doesn't have to be this way. You were my best friend once, in both lives. We can talk. We can do better with the chances we've been given. Better than being trapped by our past selves. We can be better."

I remembered a time long ago, when Nico had offered me another way. When I had been prepared to fight Cecilia in the King's Crown tournament, my best friend had approached me. He'd asked me to help him and his fiance run away. I could have done it. But I hadn't taken his hand. I hadn't taken his offer for a better future, and I had suffered for it.

Please, Nico, I thought, feeling the weight of two lives centralize into this point. I could imagine the twisting threads and pathways of our lives diverging and intertwining again, intersecting in this pivotal moment. Please. Take my hand.

I waited for a heartbeat. Two. Rain poured along the spears poised about me like a cage, dripping poison into the already-dead grass.

"No," Nico replied, his voice just as venomous as before. "This is where I fix it all. This is where you die, and Cecil gets to live. She gets to have what you took from her. And you'll just be a stain from the past."

I allowed my eyes to close, melancholy and a strange sorrow pervading every inch of my thoughts. My hands tightened around Dawn's Ballad.

Nico had made his choice. Or maybe that choice had been made for him. I didn't know. I couldn't hesitate any longer.

"Willow," I said, my voice quiet and monotone as a streak of Grey pervaded my thoughts. "Break him."

Nico could only blink in confusion, his mouth twisted into a snarl. And then the thing shaped like Tess erupted from its shell, like a butterfly tearing its way from a cocoon. Where once there had been a slim elven woman, adorned in a white battle uniform with gunmetal gray hair and fierce, turquoise eyes, now something else arose.

A beast of verdant vines, each as thick around as my torso, rose from the shell mimicking the princess. They coiled and writhed about themselves like seeking serpents, before strengthening into something greater than iron and steel.

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The mist all around began to rush inward, the vines drinking it greedily. Each of them gorged, swelling once and twice and three times over as they drank their fill. Silver flowers blossomed along every inch of the rising beast, the thing that arose nearly fifty feet tall in less than a fraction of an instant.

I stared up at something that I had fought nearly a decade ago, deep in a corrupted dungeon. The centaur-like amalgamation of vines and roaring, impossible mana bristled with verdant energy as nature mana erupted from it in a proclamation of impossible power.

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An Elderwood Guardian—crowned in a tiara of silver roses and alight with more power than the one I'd killed so long ago—roared in tune with the thunder high above.

This. This was the core of Tessia's plan. To use her newest ability, honed within the lurking shadows of the Elshire Forest, to bring the monsters to light and into our trap.

"Willow!" it roared with primordial strength, the entire forest trembling. "Break!"

Nico had shaken off his initial surprise, shock, and fury with the skill of a trained soldier. He growled as he flew backward toward the trees, outlined in a nimbus of black fire. He waved his hand, conjuring another storm of bloodiron spikes, before letting them surge toward the colossal creature.

They struck, each sinking deep into the vines and igniting the over-S-class mana beast with hellish soulfire. It didn't care. It just rose like a living tide, an uncountable number of vines trying to swallow him like a whale eats a fish.

But Nico wasn't to be underestimated. He yelled, a veritable plume of black fire tearing out from him like a concentrated storm. Wherever the water droplets hit it, they were subsumed and decayed by the agitated black-red mana particles.

The nimbus of soulfire slammed into the rising Elderwood Guardian with enough force to destroy a building and leave nothing left. The massive monster roared, stumbling back as it dug furrows in the earth and tore at the ground. Its tendrils burnt to ash as that Vritra deviant of mana ate away at its vines.

And in the meantime, I was busy with the utter rain of black spikes that sought my blood. I engaged waterborne, feeling one with the falling rain as I weaved around and redirected every dark lance that came my way. They gleamed, each one of them wider than my arm as they sought to run me through. But the water mana guided me along unseen currents, pulling me away from danger with casual ease. I was a minnow in a slipstream of my own making as I weaved away from every single one of Nico's conjured attacks, my thoughts cool and tranquil.

"Grey!" Nico screamed as he hurtled toward me. "These tricks won't save you from me!"

He ignored the Elderwood Guardian as it severed the limbs burning from soulfire with an angry rumble a ways behind him. It wasn't fast enough to keep up with the Scythe as he tried to return to his pointless vengeance.

"This was what you wanted, Nico," I said to myself, the world of water guiding my thoughts. "You wanted the fight."

A shadow of black wings intercepted him before he could go too far.

Sylvie surged from the trees, her nightfeathered wings spread wide as the rain of the storm streaked off of them like a curtain. She roared in a draconic bellow, her powerful muscles flexing in the stormwinds as she intercepted the Scythe.

Nico twisted, his eyes wild as his trembling hands tried to reorient. A little barrier of soulfire erected itself around him.

Barely fast enough.

Sylvie reared back, embracing her bloodright. And she breathed black fire, unrelenting in its constant stream.

The energy slammed into his makeshift shield, overpowering it in nearly an instant. Nico streaked backward through the sky like a dark comet as he tried desperately to hold the soulfire at bay. I could see how he turned every inch of his focus, every inch of his will, toward halting my bond's unstoppable torrent of hellfire from ripping him apart atom by atom.

And so he didn't notice when I raised a hand of translucent blue, calling on the water around me. Through the acclorite in my blood and my bond with Regis, I asserted my will over the aether in the world. Those particles of purple coalesced around the water mana as a tentacle formed from the very rain in the atmosphere, leading right back to my arm.

That tendril darted up into the sky, strengthened by the aether imbued along it. It ignored the sputtering attempts of Nico's bloodiron spikes to tear it apart, allowing each of those black javelins to fire right through.

And then it wrapped around his foot, cinching shut like a noose.

Nico only had a moment to look back down at me, his mouth open for one more retort as he desperately tried to keep his barrier up against Sylvie.

I looked him in the eyes, and then engaged Burst Strike.

My arm snapped downward as mana fired in precise timings across my shoulder, triceps, and forearms. The tendril of water in my grip stretched like a rubber band at the absurd acceleration, the loose and fluid stream suddenly growing taut.

And then the cascading effect asserted itself, and my water tendril rebounded like a rubber band that had been stretched too far and then released. The sound barrier broke as the tentacle cracked downward faster than a whip, Nico's body dragged along with it.

The Scythe slammed into the earth, making a crater large enough to fit a few houses. The tremors from the impact traveled beneath my waterborne feet, dust and debris erupting into the air from the cataclysmic blow.

I opened my fist, allowing the water tendril to drift away. Slowly, I released my hold on my waterborne form, remembering what it was like to be a human once again.

Sylvie landed a moment later, still in her full draconic glory. Her amber eyes glinted as they glared at the nearby crater, motes of black fire jumping from between her teeth.

"He isn't dead, Arthur," she thought to me, still wary. "Don't let your guard down."

I know, I thought darkly, the rain dripping past my eyelashes. I can still sense him.

Willow—or one of her clones, or whatever it was—trundled over, blotting out the sky with its massive bulk. It rumbled something, the collage of verdant vines and silver roses entirely unintelligible to people who weren't Tess.

"Stay here," I ordered, my voice cool and impassive as I stared out at the crater. "Both of you."

And then I began to walk.

There was a kind of power to footsteps. Depending on how one placed their feet and moved their body, the world would seem to bend around them, focusing on each of their movements. Confidence could be felt in the subtlest of things. Power could be conveyed in every inflection of the body, an art as old as war itself.

Yet as I strode down the edges of the massive crater Nico's body had made, my boots sinking into the mud, I didn't care anymore about the sound of my footsteps. The mud clawed at the edges of my boots, seeking to haul me down into the abyss of the underworld.

And in lockstep, Regis marched. The mud did not hold his plated greaves. The rain did not cling to his face. He seemed separated from it all as he marched with the precision of a king, mirroring my every stride as we approached an old friend.

Nico lay broken at the bottom of the crater. His body was twisted at all the wrong angles, his limbs splayed out like broken tree branches. The hammering water stole the blood leaking from his body as he coughed, the sound wet and ragged. The mud clawed at his hair like the skeletal limbs of the damned pulling him down—down to the same place we both belonged to.

Black motes of corrupted fire mana sparkled and popped around him, little embers of soulfire trying to heal his body. I could almost see how they pulled and twisted his lifeforce, drawing on it to mend the broken sack of meat and shattered bones he'd become. But the impact had dazed him and rattled his core. He couldn't muster the willpower to use whatever healing arts he had to their full efficiency.

Dawn's Ballad reflected the lightning far ahead, my fingers clenching around the matte-black hilt as I slowly loped forward. I could feel Grey slowly clawing at my emotions, ripping and tearing them away in an effort to avoid the pain and misery. Things so full of color started to lose their saturation, the rain washing the paint of life from each and every aspect of my vision.

Lightning flashed down from the sky overhead like the lance of an angry god, the voltaic fury seeking to halt me in my forward march. With a casual backhand, I parried the ionized fury of the storm with Dawn's Ballad, turning it aside without a single breath lost. The brilliant white light might have blinded me before, when I could see color and warmth.

The tendrils of lightning carved smoking furrows into the crater as the bolt shattered, a screaming hum drowning out all other sounds. And still I marched, even as the smoke rose from the scorched and electrified earth.

I reached the Scythe before long. He coughed blood, spittle falling down his cheek as he stared up at me.

"Grey," he wheezed, his ribs rattling inside his chest, "you don't… don't get to do this."

My fingers slowly tightened around my blade. I felt Regis' judgment on my back, his eyes peering through my very soul.

I remained silent, my eyes dull as I stared down at the broken body at my feet. This was a threat to all I'd cared for. Everything I'd known. Grey would demand I end his life right here, right now.

"It's not… fair," he breathed, still angry. It was like it was all the broken wretch that had once been my friend could feel as he tried to regain control of his mana. "You don't get to be this… monster again, Grey. It's not right. I'll—"

"My name isn't Grey," I said, my voice as devoid of inflection as Regis' had been. "My name is Arthur, Nico. Grey died years ago, alone in his bed. He died when Cecilia let him kill her to escape the fate of being controlled."

"Liar!" Nico wheezed, trying to lunge at me. He fell back pitifully to the mud, the souls of the damned pulled him back to the ground. His words were becoming more certain, more controlled. His healing was beginning to mend the internal injuries he'd suffered. "You think you can run from the emptiness I see in your eyes? You're just as emotionless as—"

"I don't want to look at you like this, old friend," I replied evenly, cutting through his words. "I don't want to look at you and feel the pain and pity about what Agrona has twisted you into becoming. So I put it aside, when I can be with those I love."

I leaned over, perfectly in control as I stared deep into Nico's bloodshot eyes. "When this is over, I'll return to them. Tessia, my parents, Ellie, Sylvie… And I'll let this mask fall. I'll feel everything I couldn't afford right now, and they will help me bear that burden. But right now, I will not look at you and let your hatred hurt me, too. I won't let my past drag me down into the pit."

I didn't know what it was in my words. Something about the emotionless inflection and steadiness of it stole the life from my oldest friend's cheeks.

For the first time, I thought I could see my words sinking in. Landing somewhere deep in his soul as he gritted his teeth, his disfigured body a bundle of broken matchsticks. For a moment, there wasn't the rolling of thunder or the flashes of lightning.

For a moment, we were children again, running through the rain in Earth's long-forgotten alleys. We were boys who didn't know anything about the world, each of us scrounging up whatever we could find and sell to keep Headmaster Wilbeck's orphanage afloat.

Nico's mouth opened, his lips nearly as pale as his corpse-stretched skin. I wondered what he was going to say, then. I wondered if he'd turn it all aside. He could take my hand. Things could be better.

And then a heartbeat passed, and whatever it was that I had grasped slipped from my fingers. If I had not walled myself off with Grey, it might have brought me to tears as it escaped like sand seeping through an hourglass. Time tore it away, as it tore all things away.

"Tessia isn't here," he seethed, still unable to move. "I'm going to beat the information from you, Grey. Agrona promised me—"

I sighed, releasing some hope I'd held deep in my soul.

And then I turned away from Nico's broken body, my movements mechanical and precise. I started to walk away, looking up at where Sylvie's massive draconic body loomed over the edge of the crater. I could sense her amber eyes on me as her emotions wrapped me in subtle mourning.

"Attack me again, and I will kill you," I said simply, allowing my deadened voice to carry through the downpour. My oldest friend had risen to unsteady feet, a snarl on his lips and his mana surging again. "I don't want to kill another friend, Nico. I don't want fate to repeat itself. Don't force my hand."

For all the rage imbued in Nico's soul, it seemed a modicum of reason was returning to him. I could sense him coiling like a serpent ready to strike, wanting desperately to attack my unguarded back.

"Grey!" he yelled, his aura fluctuating as he vented his rage. "You don't get to walk away from me! You don't just get to walk away!"

I continued to move, maintaining my steady breathing. In, and out. In, and out. Behind me, I could hear the man who had once been my best friend in both lives break out into a furious ranting fit for a child. Bloodiron erupted around him, carried on nimbuses of soulfire. He demanded I turn back around. He demanded I face him. He demanded that I own up for all that I had done.

But he didn't understand. He didn't see, blindsided and broken as he was by his rage, that I had been doing what he'd demanded of me all along.

The steps I took as I climbed the edge of the crater were rejuvenating, in a way. I wondered if this was what Dante Alighieri had felt as he'd descended into the depths of Hell, before ascending along the pathway of Purgatorio. I didn't feel lighter. Not really. But I felt right.

And then the pulse of aether came.

It traveled over my senses like the world's loudest gong, the reverberations shaking even my corded steel bond with Regis. I could sense it rising through my feet and into my brain, like an earthquake's tremor.

I knew that aether. I had sensed it before, fought in it, and been reborn in it. The mana signature that accompanied it a moment later pulsed in the rhythm of a star, flinging flame and power about in a controlled corona of invisible aura.

I felt my mask of Grey crack slightly as I turned around again, hearing the fluttering of crystalline wings over the sound of the storm.

Toren Daen descended from the clouds like an angel from heaven itself. The rain did not touch him. His hair remained dry and his clothes unbothered by the downpour, as if he too were set apart from it all. Instead, the liquid streamed off of a translucent, reflective shroud of mana as his conjured wings turned aside the rain. His eyes glowed the bright orange of a funeral pyre as he descended into the pit.

We stared at each other for a moment. My hands tensed around Dawn's Ballad as he, too, descended the steps of hell from somewhere above.

Spellsong landed beside Nico with barely a sound, something haunted and shadowed to his features. He didn't say anything, just stared silently at the Scythe.

Nico's reaction was not so muted. His teeth flashed in a snarl as he whirled on the phoenix-bound mage, his anger finally finding a new outlet to vent to. "Spellsong!" he snarled, marching toward the man with murder in his eyes. "You took too fucking long! I demanded your presence ages ago! And only now you show up?"

Toren's eyes swept along the rims of the massive crater, that pyre within darkening to something dull. "I'm here now, Nico," he said after a moment, his voice soft. "What were you doing here? What's happened?"

My aura tightened as I called on my mana, my jaw working. Sylvie had told me about her conversations with Toren Daen. He wasn't hostile to her. He'd tried to help her, using knowledge of some far-gone future. And then he'd fought Taci Thyestes, and won.

Could I beat him in a fight if it came down to it? I wondered, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. If he and Nico try to fight Sylv, the Elderwood Guardian, and me, will we be able to make it through?

I wasn't sure. But as Toren stood down there, listening to Nico rant and rave and make demands, I realized something else.

This mage wanted to prevent the descent of the Legacy, didn't he? And what was it that he had said when we'd fought? When he'd finally released his restraints, what had he bellowed into the dark?

"I only need to kill one. One anchor."

Nico jabbed a finger in my direction like a spear. "You need to fight him, Daen!" he sneered, trying to puff himself up and make himself look bigger. "That's the only chance there is. That's the only hope there is! He knows where Tess is. And if you break that Lance tether, things can be made right."

Toren didn't respond for a moment, his crystalline wings shuddering as he looked at Nico. "That's your only hope?" he echoed, his voice sounding strained. Around him the ambient mana warped in a way I couldn't understand, particles rising and falling with his breath. His intent.

Nico growled, and for the second time, something tore free from the all-consuming rage. "Do you want me to say it, huh? Like the last fucking time? Is that what it's going to take for you to do the right thing?"

I watched, feeling some part of my mask of Grey crack further as sadness and resignation welled up from my soul. Nico thrust his finger at me again, accusing me. "He's gone and done everything wrong again! Being a king, acting for himself, all of it! And Cecilia is dead."

Nico's hand lashed out, and he grabbed at the crystalline shroud around Spellsong as his grief tore its way from his very soul, his mana resonating in some strange way with Toren's. The Vritra-blooded mage's voice shook with the contained weight of decades of pain. "She's gone, Daen. And he killed her. And you're my only hope that she can have a life again."

Tears, I realized with a start. Tears were streaking down Nico's face, before the rain swallowed them whole. "Is that what you want me to say? Do you want me to get on my knees and beg? I have nothing else left. There's nothing else in this shitty world worth fighting for."

Toren's eyes focused on the Scythe in front of him. I thought his shoulders might have trembled. "You can make something," he said, his voice almost shaking. "You can make something else in this world that's worthwhile. This 'Cecilia' is gone, but there's… There's so much more to life than just—"

"Just make it better, damn you!" Nico cried, slamming a weak fist against Toren's face. It didn't even crater his shroud. "That's your job! You're the only one who can. I just want her back. I want us to be happy, together. That's all I've ever wanted. Everything can be fixed, right now!"

Spellsong hadn't been struck by Nico's punch, but his face contorted as if a knife had been rammed into his heart. He worked his jaw, his eyes shaking. "Nico, don't you see?" he whispered, hoarse. "She can't come back. Her power will only lead to her own enslavement. That's… that's why she let herself die in the first place. Trayden, Etharia, and now Agrona. Let her rest, for your own sake."

Toren ignored Nico's rage, ignored his brittle, trembling anger. Instead, he took the young man by the shoulders, looking my oldest friend deep in the eyes. "Your core. It's warping you, changing you, hurting you. I can fix it, maybe. I healed Viessa… It's not the same, but close. You needn't be a slave. And without her… You aren't alone. You wouldn't believe me, but I promise… I promise that I can under—"

Nico's tears fell in tune with the rain, but an unnerving, uneasy steadiness came to his chest, his breathing sure in a way that seemed to defy the mana itself. For all the rage he'd shown, the calm that seemed to suffuse him left a sense of hollowness. He looked up at Toren Daen like a drowned soul staring up at the sky from beneath the water, eyes too wide to be truly alive.

"You don't get it, do you, Spellsong? You never got it," he whispered, hardly audible. "Better slaves together than a slave alone."

Toren flinched.

Nico let out a trembling breath. "I'm so sick of talking. Will you do your job, now? Fix this mess?" the Scythe demanded quietly. "Or do I need to command you like a dog?"

Toren's fingers tensed, then they fell away from Nico's shoulders. Hesitantly, as if letting go of something that might return a moment later. "Alright," he finally said. "Okay. I'll fix it."

I felt my shoulders loosen as I stared dully down at the interaction. My eyes met Toren's for that brief moment as Dawn's Ballad shimmered away. He had always been this strange sort of enigma, an ally and enemy both that could never be fully understood.

But as I stared into the windows to his soul, I saw something in there both hardening and cracking at the same time.

Nico heaved for breath, slumping as Toren's words reached him. That aura of calm broke away like a Grey mask, the strength it demanded burdening him more than anything before. He looked like he was on the verge of sobbing, all that rage and unnatural anger finally spilling over into the true grief it tried to mask. The grief of a man who had never been allowed to move on. The grief of someone who had never been given a second chance to see the world with all its color and light, and clung only to what he thought he knew.

The grief of a man whose heart had been turned Grey by the death of the woman he'd loved. Shifted to something else.

A tear rolled down my cheek as I watched from above, before that too became one with the rain.

Nico pulled himself back to his full height, heaving as he turned to glare at me. Around him, bloodiron spikes rose like ghastly spears along a battle's front. "Are you ready, Grey?" he taunted, composed once more. "It's about time we—"

Toren's hand settled onto Nico's shoulder, shrouded in talons of reflective crystal mana. Nico seemed to register it belatedly as Spellsong turned him back around with a simple motion. The phoenix-borne mage looked him in the face, in the soul.

The conjured dagger didn't make a single noise as it slid beneath Nico's ribs, through his flesh, and into his heart in a little flicker of aether. The sound of flesh shearing and the spraying of blood was absorbed by the storm.

But I could sense it, in my own little way. I knew what it sounded like. I knew what it felt like, to kill someone so intimately. I'd done so once before, as Cecilia had allowed herself to die.

My oldest friend didn't say anything as he stared up at Spellsong. His hands tried to clutch at the phoenix mage again, incomprehension, confusion, and so much more flashing across his familiar features. He let out a little wheeze of pain.

Toren held onto his shrouded dagger, wrapping an arm around Nico's shoulders as the Scythe began to crumble. Spellsong knelt slowly, almost tenderly, as he laid the Scythe down, never looking away from his eyes. Blood streamed between them, raw and red and unmistakable.

Nico didn't say anything more. His mouth remained open as he stared up at Spellsong, fear warring inside of him as thunder flashed and his body failed.

And then he was gone, taken by the aether to who-knew-where. Nico's core slowly evaporated as he died, his eyes losing color and leaching to an empty grey. He hadn't struggled in death. His body lay limply in Toren's arms, like a broken sinner cradled by an angel.

I stared down at the scene as my mask of Grey finally shattered. Toren's shroud misted away as the rain began to soak him to the bone, clinging to his hair and reminding him of his mortality. His otherworldly wings evaporated as he cradled Nico's unseeing corpse, holding it gently. Rocking it back and forth like a child that might wake again.

And then he began to weep.