Chapter 124: Veins

Toren Daen

I trudged through the second layer of the Relictombs, my feet dragging behind me. Every eye seemed to hold shadows as they spotted me, but I was too tired to care.

My heartfire pumped weakly in my chest; the excess energy wrung dry by my dangerous use of it not long ago. I'd changed into some clothes that were more fit for ascents; namely some loose gray pants and a tight-fitting maroon shirt.

After all, I couldn't walk around drenched in my own blood.

Aurora's relic had reverted to its brooch state and was pinned to my shirt. I'd needed to retrieve the lifeforce I'd imbued there for a measure of relief. My aches weren't as bad now, at least.

The Unseen World clouded my vision. As I walked, Lady Dawn kept a steadying hand on my shoulder, making sure I wouldn't fall. "It was foolish of you to invest so much of yourself into that confrontation," she said hotly. "You narrowly started down a path of no return."

But I didn't, I thought back. And it was necessary.

Aurora huffed, then carefully maneuvered me away from a dip in the road. "You are weak and sickly from the stress. But if you had not undergone the First Sculpting; if part of you were not of the phoenix, this may very well have been a death knell. Your heartfire will recover from this; but you must be thankful that it will."

I groaned as I stumbled around the dip, the movement pulling something that really didn't want to move anymore. What do you mean? I asked internally.

Lady Dawn's lips came to a pursed line. "Once someone's baseline of heartfire is affected outside of natural aging, it is rare that they can recover fully. Though the phoenix is different, as our lifespans are mutable. Shifting and uncertain. But for a lesser, merely touching the edge can spell a downward spiral. But theoretically, you shall recover with a stronger flame than before."

Like wearing out a muscle, I thought tiredly. Good to know.

I spotted Sevren not far ahead. The Fiachran Ascender's Association loomed over both of us, the lines of intricate statues boldly announcing their legacies. When he saw my weary approach, he looked both ways, and then hustled over to me.

"What in the Vritra's name happened to you, Toren?" he asked, scanning me up and down. "Were you attacked?"

I chuckled weakly. "I'll be fine," I said, waving away his concern. "What gave it away? The bags under my eyes?"

Sevren scoffed. "You look like a stiff breeze could knock you over. Who attacked you? Was it that Rat fellow?"

My vision flashed to the Rat's broken mask. His fury-burnt eyes. And how something in him had shifted as he ran.

"I'll be fine," I said again with a little more bite. My fight with the Rat meant more than just a battle between two men. It was symbolic of my own will to preserve the barebones peace of East Fiachra, as well as my own promises for the future. My oaths.

Sevren was not convinced. He was tapping his finger on his bicep with a look that showed he was clearly worried about me. It was a look painfully reminiscent of Norgan's.

I felt Aurora's steadying hand on my shoulder. Her disapproving stare. I took a deep breath in, letting my lungs fill with air. Then I exhaled, imagining my anxiety misting on the wind like steam. If I wanted to keep my oaths, I needed to be in the right state to follow through on my word. "No. You're right, Sevren. I'm not in fighting shape right now."

It stung to admit that. Especially as I'd grown stronger, I'd taken solace in the surety of my combat abilities. Admitting any sort of weakness was like ripping off a scab that would never heal.

"I can change the destination of the ascension portals before we enter to somewhere familiar if you don't think you can fight at your regular ability," Sevren said quietly. "Or we can do this again another day."

I let my shoulders slump. "No. I need something to keep my mind occupied right now. If there's a time for me to test this strange connection you have with the portals, it's now."

The Denoir heir looked unsure, but he nodded. "I understand."

And from the expression on his face, I realized I believed him. I didn't know much of the white-haired striker, but I had the feeling we were more alike than either of us realized.

—

The town zone, for the first time I'd entered it, was unchanged from my last visit. Rows of suburban homes sat contentedly aside Alacryan apartments, all looking serenely into the endless expanse of rolling hills.

Sevren had covertly activated his spellform before we'd entered the Relictombs, changing our destination and avoiding fighting through any sort of zone.

I traced the asphalt road in front of me, watching as it wound far into the distance. Sevren Denoir stepped up beside me, looking at that same endless black line.

"I won't let myself become what you were," I'd told the Rat. "I won't let my principles break under the weight of this world."

"What you told the djinn about your tutor," I said blankly, remembering what Sevren had said while kneeling at the last ancient Watcher's feet, "about her being taken away for the Vritra's experiments? How did you discover that was why she was taken?"

The white-haired striker was quiet for a long time. "Her name was Abigale. A wizened, cranky old woman who refused to budge on even the barest of things. It was she who taught me about Alacryan history. About politics. And about the Relictombs." The man was quiet for another second. A soft breeze blew through the area, carrying the deep green scents of freshly cut grass and morning-after dew. "When I was little, I rarely saw my parents. It was only Abigale and a small room where I was grilled on everything."

Sevren clenched and unclenched his hands. "Then they came for her one day. I remember it. The sun overhead might be fake, but it shone all the same. Not a cloud in the sky. A dozen of Taegrin Caelum's researchers knocked on our door. My mother, Lenora, brought them in for tea. As was my duty as heir, I watched. I was supposed to observe and learn. The talk was simple at first. They asked how our finances were doing. What we aimed for in the future. And through it all, my mother was a master politician. She deflected their questions. Buried their avenues of attack under layers of subterfuge, all with a kindly smile on her face. The researchers were left thinking they'd won each and every exchange, only for my mother to have swindled them out of what I knew was far more valuable information."

The Denoir heir ran a hand through his brilliant white hair. It was an unkempt, wind-swept mop, and though he wore it well, I could tell it wasn't cared for in the same manner as other highbloods I'd seen. For the first time, I noticed the bags under his eyes. The stubble along his jaw seemed a bit more untamed than usual. "But then the researchers asked for a single thing. A person."

"Abigale," I exhaled. "They wanted your tutor."

"I don't even know what they wanted her for," Sevren said sorrowfully. "But you know what the kicker was? Where before my mother had fought tooth and nail with her wordplay; when the researchers asked for my tutor, who was practically a member of the family? My mother gave her up without a beat of hesitation."

I felt Sevren's emotion through the ambient mana. His intent leaked in slow, undulating waves. The effects of long-held scars imposed themselves on the world. I felt my own emotions rise in tandem; an inverse to the effect of my magical music. Someone had been taken from me unjustly too, hadn't they? A brother.

"I still remember the look on Abigale's face as they shackled her," Sevren said quietly. "Not of betrayal. Or disgust. Or terror. Just broken acceptance. Like she knew it was going to happen to her. All while Mother and I watched."

Sevren turned to look at me directly. "That's why I hate our politics so much. Only so far as the direct family can stay in power will we exert ourselves. But the moment something is deemed worthy of discarding; no matter their contributions? They'll be thrown to our gods as a sacrifice."

The air was still for a long, pregnant pause. I found myself staring at the small, quaint grave Sevren and I had dug for J'ntarion. It was a sad, empty resting place for the last remnant of such an affluent civilization.

"I'm sorry that happened to you. And to her," I said. I knew it was an empty gesture. My sympathy changed nothing. But I knew how impactful having a shoulder to lean on could be.

"It happened over a decade ago," Sevren said quietly. "I've long accepted it. But I feel as if I'm no closer to stopping it from happening again. If this were to happen to Caera, what could I even do to stop it?"

Those words hung in the air. It seemed to me that the Denoir heir was desperately trying to keep his younger sister from the truths of this world. How would he feel if he realized she knew them already?

At last, I spoke. "I'm going to ruin one of the High Sovereign's greatest plans. He desires to take someone–someone from a land far, far away from here–and use them as a wildcard to break his stalemate with Lord Indrath. And there's someone I need to kill to make that impossible." I turned to look the Denoir heir in the eyes. "But I can't afford to become what I fight. I need to know the actions of those I face. So I can compare them to my own and know myself."

"If you ever start to become like them," Sevren promised, a hand on my shoulder, "I'll be the first to tell you."

I felt Aurora's mind brush my own. "He will not be the first, no matter what he desires," she assured me. "Know that I will always be a guiding light on your shoulder."

"Thank you," I said to both the Denoir heir and my bond. I pulled myself to my full height, pushing past the exhaustion seeping into my every cell. "Let's see if I can figure out that spellform of yours now. Before we get too weepy."

Sevren smiled sadly. "Sounds like a plan."

The portals, as ever, were just at the end of the road. The shimmering panes of purple beckoned us both forward.

I traced the familiar runes along the edges of the stone frame with my eyes. Absently, I fiddled with the signet ring on my finger. When I changed the sigil of Named Blood Daen, I'd naturally had the ring altered to suit.

Sevren stood in front of the portal, giving me a look. "I need to visualize the zone I want to go to," he said. "Give me a moment," he added, laying a palm on the portal frame.

I pushed away my other senses, narrowing my focus on the Denoir heir in front of me as he engaged his spellform. The rune on his chest–which was usually invisible–lit up with a silverish light, which shifted to strange shades of purple. The portal didn't visibly change as silver motes flowed down Sevren's arm, but I hadn't expected it to.

I walked forward slowly, focusing intently on the man. "Do you see anything?" he asked, his voice slightly strained. "Keeping this active is… tiring. In a strange way."

I furrowed my brow. "No, I can't see anything. But there's… something off. I can't explain it."

It was true. The sense that I was being watched had returned; the overbearing presence that had always accompanied me in this zone. It had vanished after the death of the djinn, but somehow Sevren's spellform had pulled it back. But beyond that, there was something different about this attention. I wasn't the focus. The focus was…

"Hold on," I said, backing away. "I need to test something."

On a hunch, I walked a ways away from the portal. Sevren was visibly straining, but he held on remarkably as I tested the distance.

"As you suspected," Aurora affirmed. "The presence around us changes in proximity to the Artificer."

And what did J'ntarion call that presence? I thought, wracking my brain. The Collective?

I walked back to the Denoir heir, who was visibly sweating at this point. He panted lightly, the exertion from keeping this spellform active more than anticipated. I needed to change my tactics.

I fell into the First Phase of my Phoenix Will. Soothing warmth ran along my mana channels as untapped knowledge seeped into my brain. The chain on my arm glowed a deep red, superimposing itself over my clothes.

And the heartfire of myself and Sevren became visible. My own chest flashed with orange and purple, while the heart of the white-haired striker pulsed a deep red. But something else became visible to me, too.

A line of burnished red heartfire trailed from Sevren's spellform. Not to the portal, as I'd expected, but up into the sky. It seemed to become indistinct and formless the higher it went, yet I had the distinct impression it was connected somewhere else.

An anchor? I thought, stepping forward. It flared and pulsed in tune with the Denoir heir's heartbeat. No, I thought, remembering the barest insight I'd gained while fighting Karsien. That moment where I'd brushed Aurora's puppet strings flashed in my mind. This is similar. It's not just a tether, I thought, brushing my hands through the strings. The indistinct red energy seemed to welcome my touch.

I got flashes of images. A ravaged zone of tall towers and broken architecture. Images of scaled aether beasts and many-legged flying creatures darting through a void. And a strange creature that detached its tail, and then used it as a telekinetic weapon. What?

Then the images winked out. I blinked, trying to figure out what went wrong. Had I snapped the tether? Was I simply not picking it up anymore?

"Sorry," Sevren said, heaving for breath. "Couldn't keep it up. It's… it's too straining. I can try again soon." His hand was no longer on the portal frame; instead resting on his knee as he bent over. His spellform was deactivated.

I exhaled a bit of steam. Not just strings, I thought. Veins. Highways for knowledge.

"Were you thinking of a zone with broken towers?" I asked on a whim, letting my Acquire Phase settle back into my core. "With aether beasts that could detach their tails and–"

"Use them as weapons from afar?" Sevren asked, his brow raised. He took a deep breath, then appeared to settle himself. "Yeah. It's where I got the materials I needed to make the aetheric tether for my old tracking device." He squinted at me. "You figured something out."

I looked at my hands as I opened and closed a fist. "My sense for lifeforce wasn't attuned enough until I utilized my Phoenix Will," I said, still processing the event. "But when you engage that spellform, it creates a sort of vein connecting you to what I think is the Relictombs itself. I can touch that vein and get a bit of information about what you're conveying. It's similar to what my Bond does to control the puppet relic."

Sevren quickly withdrew a notebook from his dimension ring and began furiously scribbling notes as I spoke. "Were you able to influence the energy at all?" he asked, "Besides just receiving information. Could you change that 'highway?'"

I exhaled through my nose. "I didn't get a chance to try," I said honestly. Could I influence that tether? And if I could, what would be the results? "But Sevren, there's something more important I need to tell you."

He looked up from his notebook, his brow furrowed. He no doubt sensed the seriousness in my tone. "What is it?"

"Whenever you activate that spellform, it draws a little bit of that innate aether from your heartfire," I said slowly. With the attuned senses of my Acquire Phase, I'd been able to make out the source of that red tether easily enough. "That's why you tire so quickly even if the rune doesn't use mana. But your rune is a shortcut. I have the control I need to avoid affecting my baseline of lifeforce, but yours…" I looked at the Denoir heir. His ragged appearance. His deep-set cheeks. And eyes that were far too old for him. "Every time you use this rune, it shaves away your lifespan."

I expected Sevren to say something. Certainly to acknowledge my statement. Maybe to ask me how I was able to keep such control. What I did not expect was for him to simply jot down more notes in his journal.

"Is there anything else you discovered?" he asked, his voice irritatingly curious. Nonchalant.

I blinked, then felt myself flush. "Sevren," I said with an irritated voice, "I just told you that you're burning away your lifeforce with every activation of that rune. Is that all you have to say?"

Sevren sighed, then shut his notebook with a click. He twirled his pen through his fingers. "Toren, I stole a relic from the Relictombs," he said quietly. "I smuggled it right past the inquirers and began carrying out research outside the purview of the High Sovereign. That was high treason." The sharpness in his teal eyes bore a deeper edge than any blade I'd wielded. "That didn't just endanger myself. It put my entire Blood in jeopardy. If Agrona were to catch a hint of what I'd done, Highblood Denoir would be ground under his boot, and our ashes would salt the earth of our estate."

Sevren held his notebook up. "I'm reckless, true. I take risks. I followed you, a stranger, through the Relicotmbs. But every risk is calculated. And if I thought my investigation of aether was worth jeopardizing everyone I know and love, then my own lifespan is inconsequential in comparison."

I swallowed, the brevity and bare admittance of the Denoir heir striking something in my soul. He truly didn't view his own life as something worth protecting. Something worth valuing.

I opened my mouth, but I found myself unable to speak. Sevren was unphased, flipping his notebook open again. "We're going to have to perform more tests with this. To see the limits of both your abilities and my own."

I steeled myself. "Not right now," I said, putting my metaphorical foot down. "I could see your heartfire, Sevren. And the more you push it at one time, the more you damage yourself. Give yourself a week or two to recover, then we can do this again. When you aren't dragging your feet."

"That's pretty hypocritical of you, Toren," Sevren said with a hint of amusement. "Considering the state you're in yourself."

"I think we can both agree that we value others over our own well-being," I countered, a slight frown on my face. The Denoir heir wasn't treating this with the seriousness it deserved. "Deal?"

Sevren rolled his eyes. "Okay. I haven't known you to break a promise so far." He paused. "Though I am going to Aensgar with you."

That caused my shoulders to tense. "You shouldn't," I advised. "I'm tracking–"

"Mardeth. I know," Sevren said. "But this entire thing reeks of a setup. First, you discover that the Vicar of Plague's base along the Redwater. Then Renea Shorn sets you up in Aensgar, the closest city along the Redwater. She's guiding you toward Mardeth, and I'm not going to let you dive headfirst into a trap."

I exhaled through my nose. "It's still unwise," I cautioned.

Sevren patted me on the back. "Besides, you can't deny that having me around is helpful," he said pointedly. "How else would you have evaded Renea Shorn's questions about the relic?"

I massaged the bridge of my nose. He made a fair point. I was only going to embroil myself in politics more, and the Denoir heir was a convenient meatshield for questions I didn't want to answer. "If I tell you to leave, though, you leave, " I said, cementing my position. "Mardeth is still stronger than me for now. If I cross paths with him, you'll only be a liability."

The Denoir heir stowed away his notebook. "I've tiptoed around Scythe Seris Vritra for half my life," he said with an exhale. "You should have more faith in me."

That wasn't as much of a statement as he thought it was, considering Seris' true allegiances. I could only hope things wouldn't go south.