Beloved, Reven heard as thunder crashed and the waves blew water down into their hiding spot. Reven flinched more, shutting his eyes and shrinking into a smaller ball. He didn’t want to hear the voice, didn’t want to feel the crack of lightning and the rumble of thunder or the static on the air that was trying to tear him apart.
Please, Beloved, let me help you.
“No,” he breathed out. He felt dizzy and heavy. The room fell away from beneath him, replaced instead by hard-packed dirt roads and gothic granite buildings. People ran in a panic, screaming, crying. They fled from red-eyed shadows and terrifying shapes that reached out with sharp claws. On the horizon, a tall, white-marble tower stood tipped with a gem so large and bright, he swore it dwarfed the sun. The blue stone pulsed, each beat reverberating inside his skull until the entire tower crumbled, falling to the ground, engulfed in black flames that consumed the gem.
“…ven?”
The entire world spun out of control. He could not focus his eyes, feeling them roll in his head despite needing to focus on something. The world fell away for a second time, this time to a field of red poppies that stretched as far as the eye could see. He saw a boy standing there, but there was something wrong with him as if he were incomplete. Seeing him made Reven uneasy, especially when the boy looked directly at him. His eyes were pale, lifeless, but seemed to see right through the bard.
“What is wrong?” he heard Serai ask, feeling her cool, gentle hands on his chest and shoulders, dragging him from the field of poppies to the maelstrom on the sea.
“Dunno,” Liam replied. “S’like he’s got tremors or somethin’ without actually havin’ the tremors. Oi!” Liam snapped his fingers in front of Reven’s face, trying to help the bard focus, but it did little good. Reven still could not do much more than groan. Voices screamed inside his skull. Power undulated through his body in waves as tumultuous as the ones outside the tiny ship. He felt as if he were drowning, felt as if his mind might explode.
We are here, Reven… he finally heard. It was a voice that broke through all others, a voice that forced him to draw breath and choke on his own saliva. Serai. We are here.
Chapter Six
Jaysen watched the olven man walk through the Poppy Fields and frowned. He’d just met with Kaleo, reminding the avian boy to stay away from the Sea of Stars. Now this. The man suffered, gripping his head in pain as he stumbled along. It was not the pain that caught Jaysen’s attention, however. Rather, it was the sound. He heard it as clearly as he heard anything else. It was a plea spoken in many voices, many tones all mixing together in a discordant song. It was a broken song, one in desperate need of direction. But, as quickly as the man appeared, he vanished, leaving the fields in silence once again. That didn’t stop Jaysen from staring at the spot where the man had been, blinking curiously.
“Did I just imagine that, Tanis?” he asked. The young chimera lifted her head from the shin-high grass peppered in bright red flowers to regard him. Some things still confused him in the dream world despite his comfort within its boundaries.
No. I saw him too.
He frowned, focused on where the man was then took in a deep, calming breath…
… waking in the heavy darkness in which he existed. He felt the breeze on his face and rolled toward it. The scent of fresh rain on the earth filled his nose.
He could hear the sounds of the night creatures lurking about just outside his bedroom window and took a moment to imagine what they must be hunting for in the dark. Jaysen sighed and sat up slowly. He felt the cool tile beneath his bare feet in stark contrast to the warmth of Tanis’s body. She slept beside his bed, a furnace all unto herself. He felt her move in the dark, shifting until feeling her head against his middle. He grinned, nuzzling her face and rubbing behind her ears. She made a contented noise, resting her head in his lap.
“I need to go to Argento, Tanis,” he said to her.
The Node existed beneath Joricho City in what was now Cartha. At one point, the tywyll olve lived in the intricate cities beneath the whole of Asphondel. There was nothing left of the tywyll anymore. Even their cities had been destroyed, reduced to rubble or used for experiments that created more of the hell beasts that roamed the surface. Joricho Undercity, however, remained mostly intact, if eerily empty. Jaysen went down to its depths often, sitting in the presence of the Node or just wallowing in the blessed silence that echoed all around him when he was there. Much like it was now. He felt the undulating Power of the Node reverberating through the soles of his feet. It was the same resonance he heard inside the olven man’s head. He had to know, had to make that confirmation. If nothing else, he needed to know for Kaleo. He owed his friend that much. His father, after all, was the Node's Vessel.
***
Every sound echoed across the underground structure in which Jaysen stood. From tiny rocks to scuttling creatures, he heard it all. But, beneath all the noise was another sound. A song, almost, that churned with a gentle bubble that reached the surface from time to time. He inclined his head, listening carefully to that
