Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 135: Of Horns and Strength

"Why do you not kneel, Toren Daen?" the man finally asked. Despite his monstrous appearance, his voice was smooth and even without deeper inflection. I found myself taken aback by how soft it nearly sounded.

My mouth felt as dry as cotton. Taking a breath of my bond's mental support, I worked up the courage to respond. Just one sentence. "Do you want me to kneel?"

Varadoth's face didn't twitch. He didn't furrow his brows. He didn't smile, or frown, or even change anything at all. His response was robotic. "When my horns began to curve toward my eyes, I felt fear. Every day I awoke, the first thing I witnessed was the encroaching spikes of my own body. As my power grew over the years, so too did my horns. They inched closer and closer to my eyes, those spikes a paranoia-inducing reminder."

If the Vritra-blooded high vicar still bore eyes, they would be boring into my own. Instead, a black tear splashed against the ground. In the still silence of the room, I could hear the impact like that of a rainstorm.

"And one day, they finally pierced my eyes. My innate mana arts tried to heal them over and over and over, turning my days into those of constant agony as my eyes attempted to reform around my horns. And still, they continued to grow despite my terror. Despite my pain. Despite my hate. And yet when they fully pierced my eyes, I experienced the greatest clarity any mage has ever enjoyed."

The High Vicar unclasped one hand from behind his back, then slowly and methodically wiped away the streaking black blood from the edges of his eyes. Sparks of black soulfire erupted over his fingers, burning the corruption to nothing.

"My emotions seeped away as if on the wind. The agony remained. The pain remained. But what truly entered my mind was not the tips of my horns. It was perspective. No longer did pain burden me. No longer did fear overwhelm me. I was stripped of those burdensome emotions, and I recognized the power of perception." He turned to observe the quaking highbloods, somehow able to see through his empty sockets. Wherever his head turned, men cowed in submission. The greatest politicians and the smallest servants alike.

"Through perception, power is leveraged. And through power, self is enforced," Varadoth's smooth voice echoed with the air of quotation. "This is the Second Doctrine of our lord god, and only when I was released of my emotion did I understand it. Your question, Toren Daen, is not the one you should be asking. What you must ask is what they believe I want."

I felt my jaw work in a mix of disgust, sympathy, and dripping uncertainty as the vicar completed his story. And as he spoke of his change, something equally horrifying revealed itself to me.

High Vicar Varadoth had been lobotomized by his own horns. His body broke his emotion.

"You refuse to kneel, Toren Daen, because you are strong. You believe–perceive–yourself strong enough to resist," the vicar said at last.

Internally, I acknowledged his point. Several months ago, I would have knelt in this man's presence, regardless of my principles. Survival was key.

And as the vicar told me his story, I felt a strange sort of emotion come over me. He wasn't acting hostile toward me. Far from it, in fact. While he did not speak as if we were friends, the way he spoke mirrored something else. I felt off guard. The first thought that had crossed my mind upon hearing Varadoth's name was that he wanted me dead. That those thundering heartbeats were my death toll; a bell signaling my execution. Yet instead of fighting, he was... questioning me? Questioning my principles?

"If everything is up to perception," I said, almost on instinct, feeling off-kilter from the unexpected speeches, "Then that means what you define as power isn't as simple as what spells you can leverage or the depth of your insight. It can be defined as nearly anything that uses strength."