Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 108: Experimentation

Toren Daen

I leaned against a wall in the lobby of the Healer's Guild a day later. While the lobby always felt sterile and blank, it seemed to be coated in an aura of exhaustion today. The eyes of every nurse and doctor I saw were haunted and worn, dark circles stretching under their eyes.

Before I fulfilled my promises to Sevren Denoir, I needed a level of closure on what had happened to the people I'd rescued. Around the lobby, a few guards employed by Bloodstone Elixirs milled about, providing implicit protection against further Doctrination influence.

You've been very quiet since yesterday, I noted to my Bond.

Aurora was silent for a long moment. Our link wasn't empty and closed off as it had been before, but the phoenix was making clear efforts to contain her own thoughts and emotions on what I'd revealed to her. "What you revealed to me is taking time to process," she replied. "It was... very, very far from what I expected. I do not know how to..."

She trailed off uncertainly. My phoenix bond was deeply uncomfortable with admitting ignorance.

Or fear.

I hummed. What did you expect, exactly? I queried. I understood the source of my future knowledge wasn't an easy secret to digest. I'd told her everything I knew over the course of several hours, giving a broad overview of the events within The Beginning After the End.

"In this... novel you read, Arthur Leywin met my brother Mordain," the phoenix enunciated slowly over our link. "Or will meet. But it is worth noting that my elder brother is an adept user of aevum arts. During his decades in the Hearth, he learned to pull on the strings of Time to give himself glimpses of the near future." She halted in her words, her thought process stalling like a car engine. "Which I suppose you do know."

I snorted.

"I think... I suspected something similar. Cast adrift between worlds, your soul delved into knowledge beyond us. But every glimpse my brother made of the future was of the near future; of days or weeks in advance. Beyond that, his sight became hazy and unsure. But what you've revealed..."

It's incredibly detailed, I acknowledged. In the story, Rinia Darcassan was under similar constraints as your brother. But my own knowledge is exact down to facial expressions and the emotions each person expresses. I paused. Do you doubt the truth of what I told you?

Aurora was quiet for a long, long time. Then the Unseen World overtook my vision, casting everything in muted shade. "When I was in Agrona's dungeons," she started, staring at her hands, "I never expected to escape. Only hold out for as long as I could; protecting the home of my people. You were hesitant to tell me of my Fate. But the Legacy approached me in tow with Agrona, and I can reason out the rest."

I swallowed. I'd very blatantly glossed over Lady Dawn's fate at the hands of the Legacy, avoiding the gruesome depiction of her death. She'd been drained like a battery; her mana and power siphoned away like a withering rose. But the asura was far too intelligent to miss the implications.

"I think I was supposed to die there," she whispered. "There was something Fated to what you said. Something I should have experienced. My last gamble; casting my soul to the void to escape Agrona's clutches?" She shook her head. Her eyes were dim; shadowed by her hair. "It should not have worked. I find myself questioning why it did. What about your novel differs from reality? It's too succinct; too perfect to outright dismiss."

I don't think this world is simply a novel, I said after a moment. To say you were Fated to follow the words on a page does not do your will and struggle justice.