Chapter 153: A Speech

Seris Vritra

Toren Daen left the room shortly after his decision had been voiced. He nodded to Cylrit once, citing a need to prepare himself for what I'd proposed afterward.

My ever-vigilant Retainer approached quietly, standing near the chair where I still sat. I could sense his unease and uncertainty; his quiet question.

"You wish to speak your mind, Cylrit?" I asked, giving silent permission.

"Pardon me for the arrogance of my question," my Retainer said, "But why focus so much on this human? He is dangerous. His secrets are dangerous, and they threaten the foundation of all you have worked so hard for." He looked where Lord Daen had exited. "You yourself acknowledged that your first assumption was that he was a spy from Epheotus. And then again, you confided that you assumed him connected to that phoenix that was recently slain in the High Sovereign's dungeons."

I sipped at my tea, then felt a twinge of disappointment. It had cooled in the time I'd spoken with Toren, and without his handy freeform spell formation–the Dicathian way, of course–it would not be hot again any time soon.

I set the teacup down. "Your contentions are valid," I acknowledged. "And while I did inform our High Sovereign that I was keeping an eye on an undercover agent from Epheotus, we both know that Toren Daen can not be a spy."

I felt my thoughts drift toward my undercover agents and all they'd uncovered. One of Toren's ascending partners from the Unblooded Party, a sentry named Alandra, had given a vivid account of their trials and tribulations throughout the tombs, though it had taken a sizable purchase of expensive alcohol to draw the story from her reluctant lips.

The Unblooded Party had been trapped in the worst convergence zone they'd ever experienced, with little to no chance of escape.

Until Toren Daen entered the level. Only with his intervention did they manage to navigate through an endless city of steel, glass, and undead toward a final push to the exit.

And afterward, their leader–Darrin Ordin–had beaten Toren with his fists, blaming him for the existence of the zone. Alandra had lamented that Toren didn't deserve such a treatment. It was only through his actions that they'd all escaped, after all.

Except in the aftermath, Toren still allowed himself to bear a scar from said beating. And what was it that he had said to Lord Patamoor?

"In the process of earning this scar, I realized that every scar Darrin Ordin left in his wake was deserved."

After that event, Sevren Denoir–whose sole obsession was aether and the workings of the Relictombs–had clung to the young Lord Daen like a bodyguard, snapping his jaws at any that dared edge too close like an overprotective hound. What did that say about the truth of the matter?

The puzzle pieces fit together snugly.

"Toren Daen is one of the most honest people I have ever met," I said, voicing my thoughts as they came to me. I kept a finger under my jaw as I contemplated this puzzle. "I suspect this is partially due to the nature of his intent-based music. He cannot afford subterfuge or any sort of lie to so fully project his own emotion."

Unlike Sovereign Orlaeth, I thought darkly. I'd been able to quickly deduce the nature of Toren's empathic abilities when I'd met him. After all, I'd danced around one with a sight far deeper than Toren's emotional probing for decades.

I preferred not to think of Sovereign Orlaeth for too long. Too long, and I'd remember the darkness of Taegrin Caelum's dungeons where I'd been raised.

So instead, I flashed back to the first time I'd heard his music in the depths of the East Fiachra Healer's Guild. He'd been alone, the only stabilizing anchor for a little girl who had been through hell. And as he sang her a lullaby from the depths of his soul, I'd felt something in my heart surge in response.

Was that not my goal? To alleviate the suffering of every child under the yoke of our High Sovereign?

I felt my lips curl up slightly at the memories. "Even when he hides the truth, as he did today when I pressured him regarding his secrets, he does so with painfully obvious tells. It is as if his nature is incompatible with dishonesty."

Besides, I had a modicum of an idea as to the source of Toren's secrets. Nearly a year ago now, quiet rumors spread from the dungeons of Taegrin Caelum. A prisoner Agrona had long kept leashed–a phoenix of an unnamed clan–had died a gruesome end. They were relatively minor rumors. After all, the Lord of the Vritra kept many, many asuran prisoners over the years. It was not uncommon for them to expire in the wake of an experiment, different concoctions, tests, and cruel methods wearing away their lives.

I could not explain how, but my instincts told me that this was crucial in some way I did not understand. Toren was linked to that rumor in a way I didn't quite see.

I felt as my mind whirled with possibilities and my blood churned at the challenge. Few things engaged me quite like a wondrous puzzle.

I slowly stood, looking at my Retainer. "In the end, actions speak far louder than words, Cylrit," I said, moving to the window. "And perhaps the secrets that Toren Daen bears are beyond dangerous. But we will never move forward without many, many risks."

Cylrit looked out at the weary people of Fiachra far below. His mask of indifference cracked slightly, his voice unsure. "Can Spellsong truly do anything to ease this city?" he said. "I saw the aftermath when we first arrived. It was as if a raging typhoon of plague had swept everything away. Even now, we keep the teleportation gates on lockdown and are forced to draw water from reserves for fear of the Sehz being contaminated. This cannot continue for long."

I moved to Cylrit's side, looking down at the exhausted populace. Many, even those who had not been directly injured in the event, bore signs of battleshock. The death toll was already absurdly high, easily in the thousands so far. And not all people had yet been accounted for.

"One of the lessons that Toren Daen has taught me is the power of community," I said. "A hundred men and women cannot hope to scratch the hems of an asura's robe. A hundred people apart cannot hope to weather a storm cast by an asura, either. But should that small hundred gather together, then they can weather any injustice. They can roll with each blow, so long as there is hope for something better."

—

Several hours later, I quietly left the gates of the Fiachra Ascender's Association. Behind me, Lord Daen walked like a soldier, with no visible trace of his earlier exhaustion. He followed in my wake as I cut a line through the large crowd of refugees.

As people noticed us, they moved out of the way, bowing and murmuring. My ears picked up a dozen different words. "Scythe Seris," some said. "Spellsong" and "Daen" were regular utterances. I'd long grown into reverent respect and fear afforded to me by nearly every man and woman in Alacrya, but from the set of Torens' shoulders–as if he were marching off to battle–I reckoned he was not.

As we continued to walk along the street, disheveled attendants set down their clipboards. Washerwomen, earlier so intent on wringing blood from their rags into the mighty Sehz, paused in their actions, instead joining the growing crowd as they trailed after us. Men hefting chunks of rubble quietly set down their loads, their deep-set haunted eyes joining the hundreds that sensed the change in the air.

I kept my gaze impassive as I walked, my hands clasped in front of my stomach. With every step I set forward, a path opened before me. As Lord Daen and I continued forward, that opening closed behind us as the people followed.

I saw that staunch East Fiachran woman, Greahd, at the head of her contingent of workers. They set down their bowls from where they were cultivating a stew en masse, instead joining us on our silent march. 

The steps of a thousand survivors followed in our wake, seeming to match my own noiseless footfalls.

They needed answers. They needed direction. And so they fell into my step, expecting those answers; that purpose.

As I reached the main thoroughfare of the Sehz River, I finally stopped. The wide channel–an undeniable artery for this City of Canals–had overflowed and flooded in many places throughout the city. From what I'd been able to gather, many of the tunnels that the twisting canals threaded through had collapsed under the attacks of the vicars, forcing these vessels of life to overflow and cause even more destruction.

Such an ironic twist, I thought, my eyes tracing the river to the walls far away. That these lifegiving streams could be used for such utter destruction.

It was always simpler to destroy rather than create. The Plaguefire Incursion lasted barely an entire night, and its effects would be felt by the stalwart citizens of Fiachra for decades to come.

And that is where I failed, I thought, looking at the slow-moving river. I expected Mardeth to think like me. To act like me, with a long-term goal in mind.

I banished those thoughts from my head, instead engaging my core. The ambient mana moved and twisted as I exerted influence over it, gradually rising into the air on unseen currents.

I looked down at the gathered crowd. Thousands of eyes stared up at me, silently imploring as I kept my power leashed.

Beyond wishing to keep my emotions and deepest intent masked from Lord Daen, flexing my magical might would do nothing but terrify these waiting people. There were so many problems solved better through the application of mind over mana.

"People of Fiachra," I said coolly, my voice echoing out over the large crowd. "For these past several days, you have reeled in the wake of disaster. You watched as your home was overrun by a rogue sect of the Doctrination, those you loved brutalized and broken by plague. You saw the mages you deemed strong being subsumed by this horrible fate, turned into wretched batteries for a monster. A monster named Mardeth, the Vicar of Plague."

I turned to observe the crowd. They shuffled uncertainly, some weeping anew as I pulled on their memories. Others glared at the ground, clenching their fists in quiet expression of powerlessness. Most averted their eyes from me in fear, the quiet indoctrination of their lives forcing their chins to lower in instinctual subservience as my gaze swept over them.

They fear me, I thought solemnly. As I've always pushed for. As is necessary for me to remain in power.

But there was one who didn't fear me. One who did not seem to care for the stations Alacryan society should have engrained into him from birth.

"But then it was over. In a flash of white fire that split the night sky, no longer did that horrible mist seek your mothers. Your brothers; your sisters. Your lovers and your children. Mardeth was dead. Slain in direct combat for the soul of Fiachra."

I turned my head slightly down, quietly signaling the young head of Named Blood Daen. He closed his eyes, visibly taking a deep breath, before opening them once more. Half a dozen white spots of churning mana appeared around him like stilts, before he slowly rose into the sky.

I allowed myself to lower slightly, putting myself slightly behind Toren to allow him center stage. Whereas so many averted their eyes in fear under my own gaze, the crowd seemed poised to surge forward as the one they dubbed Spellsong hovered before their eyes. Muttering and quiet prayers to the Vritra peppered the entire crowd as an uncertain wave traveled through them all.

Many now looked up without hidden terror, their quiet questions roiling underneath the surface. No longer was my silent pressure forcing them to stay quiet. Here was a man who was one of them. Who could understand them.

I could not see Toren's face as he scanned the crowd. He took a deep breath and then began to speak. "All of you have been taught of the Second Doctrine at some point in your lives," he said, his voice echoing out further under the effect of his sound spell. He snorted lightly. "Through perception, power is leveraged. And through power, self is enforced," he said with the air of quotation.

Toren looked down at his hands. "Perhaps there is a modicum of truth in that Doctrine," he muttered. "That one can only grasp their future through strength. Strength to ensure peace. Strength to ensure safety. But even the highest of vicars forgets something in their act of preaching."

"I killed the Vicar of Plague," Toren said, hovering a bit higher. "It was through personal strength. We met blades, and I proved his better. I left a broken husk in my wake. But all I did was put down a rabid dog."

The Daen man's hands clenched. "But what did I accomplish?!" he yelled, sounding suddenly angry. The crowd flinched back almost as one with the outburst, the mana around him warping. "I ended a threat! Proved myself through power! But that was not enough, was it? That personal strength that the vicars hold above all else? It did not stop our canals from overflowing! It did not stop the plague from spreading! It did not stop those I loved from sacrificing themselves!"

"But do you know what this city has proved in the wake of this disaster?" Toren demanded, his arm snapping to the side. "That no matter how powerful one person may grow, it is not enough! I did not sift through the rubble to pull my neighbors from their collapsed homes! I did not swim through the flood to bring my daughter to shore! I did not brave the plague to help my fellow Fiachrans!"

Toren gestured with his hand as his voice quieted, the ire draining from his tone. "Every single one of you did," he said simply. The quiet of a grave settled over the crowd as Toren lowered slightly in the sky. "If the Second Doctrine were all this city lived by, I would have killed Mardeth and been left with an empty home. But it is not. Every single one of you showed strength greater than anything Mardeth or his rabid vicars could understand. They only understood the strong crushing the weak. But you?"

The crowd of thousands resonated with an unseen force, pulled along by the words this mage said. How many times had they simply been told that they were worthless because of their low strength? How many of the nonmages among them had been ridiculed all their lives for their lack of strength?

I could hear the tired smirk in Toren's voice. "Mage and nonmage worked together, and you refused to be crushed. When you were faced with a storm, you all braced against it together. And while this tragedy will stay with us long into the future, take solace in the fact that you can do something about it. That you–we–are not weak."

As Toren's words settled, someone shouted out into the din. "For Fiachra!"

A dozen more picked up the chorus after. The grief was not banished from their eyes. No, a raging fury still surged in the faces of those who had lost their loved ones. But no longer was it directionless.

"Fiachra! Fiachra! Fiachra," the chant continued, spreading exponentially through the milling people even as Toren and I lowered back toward the ground.

I watched as the young man stepped with purpose into the crowd, making a beeline for the medical tents. He took up the chant, leveraging his magic to make every voice echo with a sound like thunder. Some of the voices were wracked with grief. Others blazed with fiery anger. And still, more didn't seem to know where this would take them. 

I felt a smile stretch over my lips as I watched Toren go, the people managing to completely forget about my presence for this barest instant.

"Through perception, power is leveraged," I whispered, the sound drowned out by the hundreds of people crying their shared experience to the world above. The perception of the people had been changed. No longer was it only a tragedy they had endured. It was a tragedy they'd endured together. This speech had not banished their grief or washed away their blame. But it had done something just as important.

I closed my eyes, feeling the warm sunlight caressing my skin. 

This is what my cause has always been missing, I thought absently, feeling as the breeze carried chants and cries from a city decimated by malevolent plague. A voice for the people. One who is truly of them.

I would have to alter my plans. Toren wished to be used as a symbol only one time. But there were loopholes I could exploit to push him as I needed; manipulate his place on the great board.

Because Spellsong brought unity, connecting the hearts of the scattered and tragedy-stricken.