Chapter 74: The Truth of Reincarnation

Toren Daen

My bond did not respond. A silence as quiet as death settled over the room, a strange mirror of everything I knew from my previous life. I had felt the decaying mana of the Vritra clan biting into my flesh, breaking down my mana and body into base components, then nothing at all. But the stillness that spread from our bond was more potent than the most powerful spell.

I turned slowly, taking my eyes away from the ancient mage with a broken mind. I felt our tether go dark, Lady Dawn receding into herself as she had before the attack on the Joans. Her simmering eyes were dim as coals, giving her face a hollow look.

She didn't meet my eyes. She kept her gaze trained on the decrepit djinn.

"How am I here?" I asked again, the headache in my skull demanding an answer. "What did this djinn mean? He called me Twinsoul. He said… said 'she took everything from me to bring me here.'" I swallowed, staring at the phoenix's face. It traced the graceful contours of her immaculate expression, the hardness from our first meeting returning in force. "What did he mean?"

The asura didn't answer. Instead, she walked toward one of the plush seats, sinking down into the leather as if it would swallow her whole. Her phantasmal body made no indentation, no pressure indicating that the chair was occupied.

"Do you want to ask this now?" the phoenix said. Her jaw was tight. "You're angry. Struggling to find direction after… after Mardeth. Are you–"

"Don't patronize me," I said, cutting her words off. "I've… I've had guesses for a long time. But I could ignore those. They were just that. Guesses. A leaf on the wind."

The ghostly breeze that always rustled Lady Dawn's feathered hair stilled, her locks falling across her face and covering her eyes.

I'd always known, on some deep, instinctual level, that the answer to my question would hurt me. It would open a wound I wouldn't know how to close. It was why I avoided the answer for so long. But I couldn't pretend anymore.

"You will not like the answer you seek," Lady Dawn said softly. I heard her words aloud only. Our link was an empty void, nothing transmitting over. "It will hurt you. It will bring you only rage and pain."

I swallowed. "I have a right to know."

Lady Dawn shifted in her seat uncomfortably. For the first time in this life, I felt distinctly above the asura. She had done something, and she knew it.

"Reincarnation… reincarnation is difficult to understand. You need… Anchors. Points to tie a soul to their new body. In essence, you fool a dead soul into believing it should still live. Repeating events create a symmetry, so the spirit can fit into a metaphysical… gap in the puzzle," the asura said. Her words were measured, yet I could feel the stone in them. "And between worlds, there are sometimes ties. Bleedover. The ideas and beliefs of one meld into another. And sometimes something more."

I thought of the word asura . Indra and Vritra were the names of Hindu gods in my previous life. We had words for mana and aether despite having no true concept of either. The languages between entire worlds were nearly identical.

"And sometimes, there are more significant parallels," the phoenix continued. "Reflections in the Edicts. Long have the phoenixes delved into the mysteries of the soul, trying to divine their Truths. And yet sometimes, there is a cosmic mirror."

The words came to me, bubbling up unbidden. Some part of me understood this. Knew it intrinsically, as a child knows to cry when facing the world for the first time. "Parallel souls," I said, drawing on a truth distilled in my blood. "Alternate selves. Soulmates." I paused, struggling to speak. "Twinsoul."

Norgan's body had been identical to my brother's from my previous life. I could spot no difference between Toren or my past self, either. Except for an age difference, it was as if I had simply woken up in my own body.

My blood went cold.

"When I cast myself out, severing my spirit from my body, my soul sought a symmetry. My spell was weaker than expected, so it pulled on something already present. It gravitated to an existing possibility," my bond said. Her words were detached, each syllable carefully selected.

I took a single step back.

"In one world, a burgeoning mage lost his brother," Lady Dawn said, her tone nearly dead. "A younger sibling was broken under the boots of undue might. Yet in another, both endured. The brothers lived together, pushing toward common goals. It was unaligned. The scales were unbalanced. And for my spell to pull from the weighted side, adjustments needed to be made."

"Adjustments," I hissed, all the pieces slotting together.

My memory of my death in my previous world had always been fragmented. It came in blurry pieces: a flash of a headlight here. The vague sense of imminent fear. A resounding emptiness; a void that defied even feeling . But the details leading up were foggy and distant. What had I been doing the night before? How had I gotten into the car? Where was I even driving to?

"Your spell killed me," I said with a breath. "Somehow. It pushed me toward that car. Or took control of me. Or something. "

The phoenix looked up at me with sad eyes. "No, Contractor. You survived your… crash. The details of my memory after casting my soul to Fate are… blanketed. Covered by an expansive mist. But you may have lived on after the collision, were it not for the actions of my spell. It intervened when your body was at its weakest. When your tethers of heartfire were frayed and tearing, the aether that tied your soul to your vessel coming undone."

I turned around, staring anywhere but the phoenix behind me. My eyes searched desperately for something to focus on. Anything I could use to distract myself from the cacophonous pounding headache that threatened to tear itself out of my skull.

I had dreams in my previous world. Things I wanted to be. I wanted to grow up. Fall in love with a woman who understood me. I would have a career in computers, working in the logistical areas I understood so well. Maybe I would one day have a family, passing my knowledge and experience on to my own children so they may do better than me. A legacy left behind. Something meaningful.

But I hadn't just lost those dreams. The djinn was right. They'd been taken from me.

But it was Lady Dawn who had torn them from my life. Our bond ran soul-deep, the welling extent of my spirit intertwined with hers. It was unbreakable and inexplicable, cutting deeper than an ocean trench. I knew we could never truly separate. I understood our connection somewhere, deep in my bones, just as I understood that my soul had been a parallel to Toren's.

I felt my knees tremble as I grasped the wall for support. I felt adrift and confused. What should I do? Where did I go from here?

Lady Dawn had been my pillar of support since arriving in this world. Whenever I was lost or confused, she was there with a word of stern advice and attempted comfort. When I anguished in the Clarwood Forest, she pushed me to train. When I nearly succumbed to despair in the platform zone, it was she alone who pushed me onward. She told me of her love of the stars. And her advice saw me through hell.

But did I live with my own murderer tied to my soul for the rest of my life?

"Contractor…" I heard my bond–my murderer– say behind me.

"Stop," I said with a choked snap. "Just, please. Leave me alone. Let me think! " I yelled, the house trembling slightly as my mana churned outward. Dust drifted from the ceiling, settling onto the wood-slatted floor.

My emotions raged, their touch a grim claw raking against my mind. My sense of the world became distant. I had just started to make sense of everything. The house around me–a sharp, searing reminder of my previous life–blurred to my senses.

I didn't see my bond disappear, but the Unseen World drew away from my eyes.

I sank into the couch beside the maddened djinn, exhaustion drawing at my bones. I felt lost. As if my one anchor had drawn itself up, leaving me to bob and drown in a storm. I was treading water in a hurricane. Dawn's mental tether–usually alight with a steady warmth–was dark and dim, like a campfire that had been dead for a year.

I grasped at my hair, tears growing at the edges of my eyes. My direction always seemed so clear. So purposeful. Get stronger. Cross over to the other continent. Kill Nico. There were a dozen intermediary steps, but I felt so much more unsure.

Did I even still try to prevent the reincarnation of the Legacy? It was what Lady Dawn tasked me to do. But the phoenix had slain me and drawn my soul to this world.

Did I even still try to complete her task?

"What should I do?" I asked the room. The pervading presence had returned, bearing down on my body from everywhere and nowhere at once. I had a guess as to what it was, now. A fringe guess.

After all, the Relictombs were said to have their own kind of sentience. And something was picking apart my mind. Did this sentient dungeon feel my anguish? Did it understand it? Could it tell me what I should do next, or was it enjoying another lesser falling to the hubris of the asura?

I got no reply.

—

I awoke in a heap. My headache had diminished, drifting back to an effervescent thrum. I turned to the side, blearily recalling the events of yesterday.

The djinn was gone. In his place, however, was a single orange feather as large as my forearm.

I recoiled, the mana radiating off of it dreadfully similar to the pulsing from my core.

I stared at it for a long time. The events from before I collapsed in a heap replayed in my mind, making my gut clench and overwhelming me with an urge to simply lie back down on the couch.

If I went to sleep, it would all eventually go away, wouldn't it? I wouldn't have to worry about the Legacy. Or about my previous life.

Or about East Fiachra.

I knew that my asuran bond could not have left this feather. She was silent; quiet after her admission of guilt. The phoenix feather sat there, the pristine plumes radiating a soft red afterglow. The other conclusion was that it had been left by the maddened djinn. But where had he gotten it? What was the purpose of leaving it here?

I thought of my bond's words again.

Adjustments needed to be made.

I felt emotion streaming from my mind again, but I couldn't begin to decipher what emotion it was. Was I angry? Was I feeling betrayed? Was that sorrow wrapped up in it all? Or was I growing indifferent to everything in front of me?

I didn't know. And that only made everything burn brighter. I was so used to knowing what I felt.

I grasped the feather in my hand. The maddened djinn had left it behind, and I hoped it was a gift. I felt a swirl of mana, its density and expression outside my understanding.

I felt a temptation to drain the mana out of the feather; draw it into my core and let the thing disintegrate. I didn't want to look at anything birdlike for another millennium.

Instead, I drew the feather into my dimension ring, the enormous item vanishing in a whirl of mana. I stood up slowly, forcing my emotions into a little box. I imagined digging a deep, deep hole, throwing the box in, and burying it once more.

I sighed, my mind going carefully blank. I stood up, moving toward the refrigerator of the house. My mouth was as dry as the desert zone I had traversed before, and hunger clawed at my stomach. I needed to eat.

It was cold inside the fridge. Tiny little electric displays told me the internal temperature, a comfortable forty degrees. I wondered then how these worked. Did the Relictombs truly recreate electric components, down to capacitors and transistors? Or was the aether simulating the effect?

Peering behind the fridge for a moment, I saw a power outlet with a thick cable plugged in. I blinked. While interesting, it really didn't confirm anything. And my curiosity didn't extend to sticking a fork into the outlet to test if there was actually electricity running through it.

I sighed, my shoulders slumping as I returned my attention to the fridge. Inside were a variety of snacks and drinks. I had grown used to the Relictombs throwing familiar sights at me as I traversed them. I still hadn't quite expected to see a can of vanilla Coke.

I grabbed the cool aluminum can, pulled it out, and checked over the ingredients. Yup, the Relictombs said this had caffeine.

I popped the tab hesitantly, the sugary aroma of cola wafting into my nose. I felt that buried box of emotions stir in my mental backyard, but I closed my eyes and focused, shoving it deeper into the dirt.

I took a sip of the drink. The sparkling taste of carbonation popping against my tongue felt so alien after months apart, yet so familiar at once. The caramel-colored concoction poured down my throat as I greedily drank, savoring the vanilla and nostalgia. It tasted of summer days after school. Of cramming for exams on little sleep. Of late-night talks with my brother, conversing on philosophy and the psychology of the human person.

When I finished, my breathing was stilted. I threw away the can, grabbing the others in rapid haste. I pulled as many as I could into my dimension ring. When I realized I wouldn't have space for all my rations and the cans of sparkling soda, I hesitantly returned some to the shelf.

This entire place had modern amenities. The TV turned on, displaying options for inputs and satellite, though there was no connection to be had. The water ran and the oven functioned, and I had preheated my daily tube of protein paste in the microwave.

I left the house in a daze. I sighed as I turned around, looking at the suburban home. It was a living testament to my nostalgia, radiating warmth and hope for a past I would never have again.

My tether with my bond was deathly silent. That was good. I didn't want to hear her right now. I didn't think I could look at her right now. Too many conflicting emotions arose at the thought of my soul partner. So I shoved them away.

I looked up at the two portals at the end of the zone. One was an exit portal. It led to relative safety; the cold streets of East Fiachra. I wouldn't be hunted there as I would further on in the Relictombs. Mardeth may be waiting for me, but he was the devil I knew.

I turned to the other shimmering purple portal. It led further into the Relictombs, towards trials and tribulations.

I'd never gone beyond this point. I'd left after a few zones, content with my progress. But I looked at the brimming sheen of violet, I felt my emotions rise again.

I couldn't keep pushing them away. Not without something to drive me forward. To keep me occupied, allowing that little box buried in the dirt to stay buried in the dirt.

My hands gripped the hilts of Oath and Promise.

I knew my choice before I even took it. I stepped forward, sliding through the violet portal.