Chapter 548: Scion
Drops of wine rose from the glasses of everyone present in the main hall. The wine fell upwards, scarlet snow dancing to a silent melody. A blizzard of red flowed through the main hall like a storm, and at its center stood Stryg, eyes burning with an inner light.
Everyone stood still in a mixture of awe and fear until a scream rang amongst the guests. Confusion broke out as nobles stumbled back and trampled over each other trying to run. The guards rushed to the Katag family’s side and formed a protective wall. Lynette hurried to Elise’s side and shielded her ward with her own body.
“Stryg!” Plum yelled through the noise, but her voice fell on deaf ears.
Stryg could hear nothing save the thumping heartbeat in his ears. He opened his mouth to breathe but his lungs drew no air. He couldn’t breathe. A searing pain stretched across his chest. He doubled over and grimaced. Tauri slipped off his shoulder. He caught her as she fell and laid her carefully on the ground. It was all he could do before the icy pain took him.
A storm of orange sparks exploded in the hall. Melantha and Holo landed atop one of the tables. Melantha dashed at Stryg in a blur. She tackled him and slammed her hand over his chest. Blue mana flowed inside his body and splintered the searing cold.
“I’ve got him, go!” yelled Melantha.
Holo Flickered behind the two, grabbed them by the shoulders, and Flickered away in a burst of sparks. The wine fell in a cascade of scarlet rain. Krall rushed to his daughter’s side and cradled Tauri in his arms.
“What the fuck was that…?” Elise muttered shakily.
“Lady Veres.” Evelyn wiped the wine from her face. “A word, if you please.”
Elise stepped out from behind Lynette and broke into a confident smile. “Gladly.”
~~~
The world blurred past Stryg in flashes of orange light. Building after building faded in a haphazard display as Holo flickered him through the city. All the while Melantha kept her hand over his chest, channeling Blue into his heart.
Stryg clenched his eyes shut and tried his best to bear the pain stretching across his body. Ice was burning through his veins. Needles were stabbing his lungs. Suddenly, the world froze. He crashed into the ground. Grass tickled his skin.
Stryg opened his eyes. He was looking up at the night sky. The stars seemed a blur, swirling together and forming an incomprehensible pattern. Stryg slowly reached his hand out towards the stars, he could almost touch them.
Then Melantha was in front of him. “Breathe, little brother. Just breathe.”
Her voice sounded distant but he could make out the words. He parted his lips and took in a soft breath. Wind rushed into his burning lungs and he flinched in pain.
“Breathe, good, keep breathing,” she said steadily.
He didn’t want to, but he did so anyway. It hurt. It felt liberating. The thrumming in his ears faded away and the cool wind flowed into his aching lungs. The light in his eyes went dark.
Melantha sighed in relief and sat back. “We made it.”
“Somehow.” Holo laughed shakily and fell back on the grass.
Stryg blinked several times and sat up slowly, every breath sent was like breathing in ice water. He glanced around, they were on a grassy hill. The pale walls of Hollow Shade sat in the distance.
“I didn’t think your clarity magic would work,” Holo admitted dryly.
“It almost didn’t.” Melantha turned to Stryg sitting next to her. “You were lucky, had we gotten to you a little later— Even now, we barely stopped your light before it ignited.”
“My light…?” Stryg coughed. “Ugh.” He fell back on the grass and groaned. “Why do I feel like this? What’s happening to me…?”
“The Astral Light. You could have killed hundreds of innocent people if not more had we not stopped it from igniting within you. How do you not know this?” Melantha glared at her sister, “Holo!”
She threw her hands up, “I offered to speak with him, but he didn’t want to. I thought it best to give him some time, respect his wishes. Let him come to grips with it all. A different approach than the one I had with you. I didn’t think he’d up and ignite himself.”
Melantha frowned. “Clearly, he almost did. There is no time to coddle him. He needs to learn.”
“I don’t understand anything you’re talking about,” mumbled Stryg, though he refused to sit up. His muscles ached with every breath.
“Divine Aspects,” said Holo. “Titan gods have at least one, it’s our connection with the natural world. Our father has several Aspects, each with their own divine abilities. The most destructive ability by far is his Astral Light. It’s dangerous.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Dangerous to everyone, including you, Stryg,” noted Melantha.
Holo nodded grimly. “Few of Death’s scions have ever inherited the Astral Light. Their bodies couldn’t handle its destructive force. They were incinerated from the inside out.”
“They died and killed countless others in the explosion. The fact that you survived your own obliteration against the dragonbane is a miracle.” Melantha tapped him on the chest.
Stryg jerked at the painful touch.
“Judging from your wounds, if we hadn’t arrived when we did, you’d already be dead,” said Melantha. “If the Astral Light had ignited there would have been nothing we could have done to stop it, short of killing you.”
“You lost complete control, Stryg,” said Holo.
He didn’t respond and simply stared at the sky. The stars had returned to their usual appearance. He should have felt relieved to still be alive, but all he could think was of Plum and Tauri. “...You’re saying I could have accidentally killed everyone in that manor…?”
Holo nodded.
“I don’t want this…” Stryg muttered.
Melantha laughed incredulously. “This has nothing to do with what you ‘want.’ Don’t you get it? It is you. You are a creature of chaos, it’s a part of you as much as your hands or feet. The chaos flowing within your veins reacted to you.”
“But I didn’t want to hurt anyone, especially not Plum, Tauri, or her family.”
Melantha looked at him carefully, “What about when you fought the dragonbane?”
“I… I don’t know what happened that night. It didn’t feel like this.”
“That’s because you had a purpose back then,” said Holo. “You were filled with rage, you wanted vengeance for your mother. The chaos within you reacted to your emotions.”
“My emotions? Like a botched spell?” asked Stryg.
“No, chaos magic is not a spell. You don’t cast chaos, there are no spell weaves. Like many elemental powers, chaos expresses itself through magical abilities, like a siren’s song or a root bison’s touch. The power of chaos comes naturally, it reacts to you. Your emotions, your mental state, your instinct. Like Nel said, this isn’t about wanting or not wanting chaos, chaos is quite literally you.”
Melantha sighed loudly, “But since you’re trying to reject your own power, in other words yourself, the chaos reacted accordingly and you guessed it, rejected you. I’m guessing you probably lost more than just control over your powers, right?”
Stryg licked his dry lips, “I… I felt like I was drunk, but it was worse. I didn’t feel like myself. I wanted to hurt people. I wanted to kill them. All of them. But they’re Tauri’s family. She’d hate me… Why? Why would I even want to hurt them? What wrong have they done to me?” He clenched his eyes shut and mumbled, “How do I stop this…? I don’t want to feel like this.”
Holo touched his shoulder, “For starters, you have to stop running away from who you are. You have to accept the truth.”
“What truth?” he asked bitterly.
“I think you know.”
He sighed. “That Stjerne is my father.”
“And you are his son. Whether you like it or not, you are an extension of all death, just like him. Our relationship with death as a concept is tangible, we are drawn to it as much as we are part of it. You need to stop thinking of yourself as just a goblin, you are a titan of death.”
“I don’t want to be,” he mumbled.
“It doesn’t matter what you want, little brother,” said Melantha. “If you’re not careful, the people you care about could die. If you really are a chieftain of a tribe, then you should know that a leader is nothing without his people. You need to start learning how to accept help from those around you. Stop trying to carry the burden of all of this on your own.”
Stryg glanced down at his trembling hand, blue as the sea. “They wouldn’t understand…”
Melantha cocked her eyebrow. “They? I’m not talking about mortals. You think you’re the only one who wasn’t ecstatic about being a child of Death?”
“We’re not your enemies Stryg, we’re your family. And we can help you, if you let us,” said Holo.
Stryg looked at her uncertainly. “If you're my sister then why didn’t you tell me the first time we met?”
Holo pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin between them. “Names are sacred among titan kind. Not the names we use every day, but the names given to us by our parents when we come of age. To give someone that name is to expose your truest self to them. It is only given to the closest of lovers and friends, or family.” She looked at Stryg and smiled softly, “I have many names stretched across the realms, but my true name— is Seren.”
“My name is Melantha, it is the only name I carry, it was given to me by my birth mother the day I was born… the day she died. I rejected the name our father gave me, as I think Holo should have, but she is far older than you or I. Holo is from a time when such traditions mattered far more.”
Holo clicked her tongue, “Traditions always mattered, Nel.”
Stryg smiled wryly, “I take it you don’t like Stjerne, Melantha?”
She sighed, “It isn’t about liking or disliking. The day you meet Father you’ll understand, nothing is simple with Death.”
“There were once many of us, almost twenty,” said Holo. “The immortal children of Death. We led the Mortem Order in the pursuit of knowledge. We helped Father create the beast-kin. He would have used them to wage war against the entire world. Nel and I disagreed, as did a few others. …War broke out and in the end, most of our family perished.”
“Everyone died?” Stryg whispered.
“The Mortem castle, the grounds, and its people no longer exist. Ruins are all that remain.” Holo glanced at Stryg, “So when I met you, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Either you hadn’t met Father, which at first seemed possible, since your chaotic aura was so dim; Father usually rejects his mortal children and lets them live out their finite lives. Or, you were an agent of Father sent to spy on me. After all, what were the chances we just coincidentally met?”
“I’d say just enough since it was by chance,” Stryg replied defensively. “If you suspected me, why not just kill me?”
“Kill a potential innocent? A little brother, albeit a mortal one, who knew nothing? After we lost so much of our family? How could I? Our father is cunning, I wouldn’t put it past him to use someone like you. It’s why I asked you for your true name, but you refused to tell me.”
“Because I don’t have any other name! If I didn’t know anything, how could I even know about some second name?”
Holo nodded. “You’re right, if you hadn’t met Father then you wouldn’t have been given one either way. However, I knew you had met him, or at least I thought you had.”
He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”