Under the Dawn's Light (Book 5)

Chapter 20

Apathy.

Yuven hooked his finger in the air and pointed at him. "Hard to imagine you singing any terrible song," he forced out through a trembled laugh. "Your magicks woven into your voice is... far more intense than theirs, Miesero."

"Yet... I still could not get them to listen to it," Neven said and put a hand on his shoulder to squeeze it. "I'm okay, I am recovering."

Yuven studied him and imagined the worst case scenarios, of Neven beaten and bloody, surrounded by black spheres of swirling mass. "Did they get anything out of you?" he questioned. "I know Aurus magick is hard to resist when you're under duress."

Neven raised an eyebrow into the tired creases in his brow. "What do you refer to? I was not interrogated using an Aurus." He hiked his blankets over his knees and shook out his feathers. "It was a burning rune circle overfilled with ice and fire." He brushed his fingers over his arms with a physical shudder. "I gave them nothing but your name — because for Avaerilians who screamed their song, they forgot the vital component of it." His fingers dug deep and tented his skin when small plumes of mist left through his nose in stressful waves. "Maria told me the searing on my aura will heal, but-why do you ask if an Aurus did this to me?" Thoughts scattered, Yuven flinched when Neven swung his head to him. "Does Fenrer think that? I know I must've caused him some pain in shoving him out but I didn't want him to be branded from my memories."

"I ask because of what happened to me in Volaris, stolen away just moments from coming home," Yuven forced out while manacles tied him down to the chair and the icy floor below. "One dug deep into my memories where not even Fenrer dared tread... and they used you and Maria against me to make me compliant." It dripped off his chest as Neven widened his eyes. "So, I ask because how else would they have done it?" Venom dripped off his tongue, and Fenrer's tears mixed with his own. "Miesero, I've made a mistake."

"That's what happened?" Neven asked, strangled by his hypocrisy with a fury to shake his feathers. "You were taken to Volaris against your will as I was, and imprisoned to get your memories torn out of you by force?"

Yuven nodded and waved his hands. "Ever since then, I keep having nightmares. I keep thinking — wondering if maybe Fenrer can—If he's treading the darkness inside of me. Don't you get it?" He threw himself upwards. "Look at what this situation has done... Miesero, in front of Fenrer, my Oathbound, the one person who only ever used his abilities for good — I said the law doesn't stop Aurus from manipulation, from using people's deepest secrets and darkest emotions against them." He gave Neven no time to react or process, unloading his shame onto his lap. "When Fenrer refused to dive back into your mind, I snapped at him, asking him why that's stopping him when it hasn't stopped anyone else? I said his abilities were a curse that stole away someone's dignity and peace of mind—" Tears slipped down his cheeks. "And I've done just that to him... with my voice alone. Now... whose apathetic song am I singing?"

Neven's torment washed out into disbelief. "Yuven... is that why Fenrer hasn't come around?" His voice trembled with righteous, parental fury as a hiss expelled out of his nose. "He's been avoiding you? Has he been blaming himself for what happened to me? Have you?" Yuven held his ground when Neven swung himself out of the bed with a rattle to his long, golden feathers. "What happened to you wasn't right! Of course not!" He hauled himself out of the bed with tightened, violet pupils. "How could it be? There's no forgiving that, whether they bent the law or not." Neven swung out his arms, branded with unseen runes. "Why do it to Fenrer who you are bound to by the soul? Any pain you do unto him, you do to yourself. You know that. You were told that when you became Oathbound. You know Fenrer's power lies not in his eyes, but in the fact that he is an incredible empath. Any emotions you feel, any spite, rage, or apathy you throw at him, how can you not expect him to intake it into his own soul?"