B2 Chapter 35: Private consultations

Caledon watched as Solastra’s banquet for them was being prepared in the heart of her court. He saw a well-built chef shouting orders with an easy air of confidence and command at the serving staff as they prepared the courtyard for their dinner.

“May I help you, Highlord Brimstone?”

Caledon nodded at Solastra’s secretary, who approached him with a practiced smile.

“I’m here to seek a private audience with the Highlady, prior to our dinner.”

“One for us as well, pretty please.”

Caledon started as he saw Shiver and Vale approach the courtyard, as well. Vale was pale-faced, and looked like something had thoroughly spooked her.

“Vale are you alright?”

“Triol tried to strangle her.”

Caledon stared at Shiver,  as she calmly relayed her reply, to which Vale affirmed with a small nod.

First… the hallucinations in the forest. Then Vale’s revenant tries to murder her? All of our Fears are getting worse… Only Shiver seems to have escaped her symptoms, and that’s most likely because her guide is torturing herself to hold it at bay.

The attendant nodded to them.

“You come with questions about your choice to descend further, do you not.”

Only Shiver did not betray her surprise at the attendant’s words.

“The Highlady is expecting you. She wishes to speak to you first, Caledon. She has brought your mother.”

The attendant’s words washed over him, and he felt dread well in his stomach.

Mother…

---

Appella Brimstone was seated next to Solastra, in the Highlady’s private chambers. They had been served tea, and they looked out upon the city of Viridian from the veranda where they were seated. It gave them an excellent view of the Dawntree and the sweeping vistas of the Dreadwood in all of its innumerable biomes beyond.

“Ah, Caledon. Welcome.”

Caledon’s eyes were fixed on his mother, as he took a seat. As he sat opposite her, he felt his Fear gnaw at him, and he was hypervigilant for even the slightest indication that his reality could not be trusted.

“Mother… Are you well?”

Appella stared at him, a tinge of annoyance betrayed along her furrowed brow.

“What is it, boy?”

Her voice was nasal, high pitched. Looking at her now, Caledon couldn’t help but see her as a child in the way she was acting. So far departed from the kind but harsh in her words, invested in their growth, as children.

The woman before her barely met his gaze, stirring her tea distractedly.

“Solastra, may I?’

“Excuse me, Appella you won’t mind if I speak to your son for a moment?”

His mother sighed, and rolled her eyes. Caledon watched her stare into the distance, his presence forgotten, even after everything that had happened with his father.

She would forget him so easily? Not even speak to me?

Solastra closed the doors leading to the balcony, leaving his mother outside in the spring wind.

“My mother. I believe she’s corrupted by Highlord Saravagan Dreamer.”

Solastra nodded along. He could not detect a hint of mockery in her expression. It was a small mercy.

“When I descended in Anhedonia, I realised that my memories were a lie. That I had a Fear of corruption, instead of comfort as I assumed. It revealed to me that my mother changed, after a visit to the Archcity of Dreams, after the Rampage.”

Caledon’s gaze drilled into Solastra’s own.

“I need to know if you can help me appeal to Saravagan to release his hold over her.”

Solastra smiled.

“I’m afraid he would never agree to it, Caledon.”

“Why?”

“He Fears you. You are a Fearshaper of corruption, just as he is. Of anyone in Elucidor, you pose the greatest threat to his web of corruption that he maintains. Your father, and Vetrian were both capable of resisting his Fearshaping. An unlikely coincidence, and one that spoke to the nature of their Fears.”

Caledon listened, stunned as the Highlady began to pace before him.

“Your father bonded with the phoenix. Immolation and regeneration – the phoenix is a being of purity. Any modicum of the substance would be burned away, leaving your father unaffected. You pose an even greater threat to him than your father did. He will not relinquish any means of controlling you.”

Solastra cast a glance towards his mother outside.

“I am keeping her… away from his influence. In the safest place in the Dreadwood. Even if he isn’t actively corrupting her, stealing her will, the lingering effects of his corruption remain – as you can tell. If Saravagan sends Fearshapers within her proximity, he will be able to re-establish his control, further worsening the… “symptoms”.”

Solastra met his eyes.

“Her abrupt change in personality. The way she twisted from the woman that raised you. Would you like to try to break her free? You’re certainly welcome to try?”

Bright yellow irises burned into his.

“Your very first invocation was [corrupt], was it not? Do you suppose you can surmount Saravagan’s grip on her? To ward her from it?”

Caledon’s chest began to rise and fall as he took deep breaths, trying to calm the adrenaline within him. The visceral grin on the Highlady’s face vanished, and he wasn’t certain if it was a product of his Fear.

Or reality.

“Try. Go on.”

“I…”

“It will be useless.”

Caledon’s gaze widened.

“Even if Saravagan does not have her under his active control, she has been tainted by his powers. You will need to descend, as a more powerful Fearshaper of corruption if you wish to protect her, and your family.”

The Highlady shot him a warm smile.

“That, is the solution that I propose to you.”

“No.”

Solastra’s eyes widened imperceptibly in surprise at his words, as if caught off guard.

From the very minute they entered the Dreadwood, Caledon couldn’t help but feel that he had been enmeshed in a trap by the Highaldy. She had made her intentions clear. She wanted them to descend, for some reason. Her words now, merely aligned with her stated intentions.

The revulsion in his gut churned, and nausea welled in his throat.

Caledon called his Fear.

[Corrupt]

The sensation, was not as intrusive as he thought. Rather than outright possession, as had occurred with Valeric Brimstone, he felt as if he could give her a simple order.

It was still as twisted, bending someone’s will to his own, twisting their reality. Even if it afforded him a degree of relief, he felt no less sick.

Return to normal, mother.

He was not met with the sea of corruption that he had glimpsed his grandfather enmeshed in. With the endless sea of Fearshapers that slumbered within.

He wasn’t met with… anything.

“Do you think the Highlord of Dreams’ hold could be broken so easily? You aren’t even capable of perceiving his presence.”

Caledon broke his hold over her, as he stared at the Highlady.

“You can’t break, what you can’t perceive. You think an invocation birthed from your Anhedonia would pose a threat to him?”

“Then why is he so afraid of me? How was I able to disrupt his hold over my grandfather?”

“A simple reason. Your potential. The only reason, you were able to perceive anything when you met with Valeric Brimstone, was because Saravagan was controlling him directly. Making his presence known, unequivocally. Then, you used his corruption to descend. You would not be able to replicate such a feat, to bring your mother any lasting reprieve.”

Caledon shivered.

Before his hands curled into fists.

This was well within what I expected. I knew, that the corruption around mother would not be easily removed… Especially when it awakened a Fear like mine, and changed her to such a degree.

“I have already presented you with the solution.”

“Descend. Perhaps, the true nature of Trepidation will afford you a degree of… hope.”

Caledon frowned at the Highlady’s cryptic words. He would not let her toy with his feelings. His single hope, in her Dreadwood had been the presence of the phoenixes, that may have been able to burn the Highlord’s corruption from him.

He Fear, was not compatible with them. His only alternative? To deepen his abilities of corruption to the point of usurping Saravagan’s own. The only surefire way to protect his family from the lord’s corrupting influence.

“Alright.”

Caledon sighed the route before him clear. He still distrusted the Highlady’s words, and her intentions, but he had assessed his mother for himself. Invoked his Fear, even as it repulsed him. He had not even been able to detect a sliver of the Highlord of Dreams’ corruption – it was far beyond his perception where he stood, in Trepidation.

“Good. Send Shiver in, next.”

Caledon gave his mother, a final glance, as he watched her cold gaze pass over him.

---

“Shiver!”

“Plant bitch!”

“Do take a seat. How can I help you?”

Caledon had left the room looking utterly dejected. It seemed as if there would not be a straightforward solution to his mother’s… condition.

“You want us to descend further.”

“I think that would best align with your goals, and my own, yes.”

Shiver’s lips twitched as the Highlady didn’t even bother to conceal the fact that she was invested in their descension.

Could any of them even trust her words?

“Explain to me, why I should descend further, when… Idriel, as you call it, tells me that I’m ready to descend. If I did, I would have Icey right here with me.”

“Yes! You certainly would.”

Solastra smiled at her in contentment, as she sipped her tea. Shiver looked down at her own, to see a winterlily flower perched elegantly at the side of her cup.

“Well? Aren’t you going to descend?”

Shiver spat to the side.

“Tell me what the catch is.”

Solastra laughed, waving her hand at Shiver in merriment that the girl was far from sharing. 

“You’ll forgive me my fun. Shiver, if you descended as you were now, Icey would return, for a moment.”

Solastra’s eyes flashed.

“And then, your Fearcore would implode upon itself, and drive you to Insanity.”

Shiver watched the Highlady in silence, as she took her sweet time sipping her tea.

“All of you bonded with guides with a [mythic] or greater burden, did you not?”

“Who is to say?”

Shiver’s face did not betray a single expression.

How does she know that?  

“You are an exception. You have…”

Solastra smiled like a devil of vine and root.

“An [unquantifiable] guide.”

Shiver struggled to steady her breathing, to keep up the façade of nonchalance that she was so dedicated towards.

“If your friend Vale, were to descend as she was, she would survive. Perhaps, she would be stunted in her growth, bearing a [mythic] guide of her own, which would prevent her from reaching Serenity. But she would survive.”

“But Idriel says-“

“That you’re “READY TO DESCEND”.”

Solastra laughed at her expression.

“You are an exception, my girl. Haven’t you wondered, how you were able to bypass the limiters of the Academy of Anhedonia? Your guide, possesses a significant burden. One that was imposed on you, without your choice in it.”

This time, Shiver’s façade cracked, and she stumbled.

How did she-

“Tell me what you know.”

“To any Fearshaper with even a [mythic] guide, the Singer’s words are true, to an extent. It is not calibrated to a Fearcore of your scope. Even then, the Singer’s words do not guide Fearshapers to the heights of what Trepidation offers. Vale and Caledon will be able to attain far more invocations than they have, with scope of their Fearcores, even if Idriel reflects their readiness for their descent.”

Solastra sat, entirely at ease.

“Let me give you a single piece of advice, Shiver. Use the Singer’s words as a guide, but not your sole source of information. Even guides, are only equipped with the most basic of information to assist in your descent, as you will find out with Trepidation, soon enough.”

Shiver frowned.

“Why would someone ever design such a barebones system? A “Singer” that does not assist Fearshaperes in optimising their descent… Guides equipped only with the barest of knowledge. What is the point in it all?”

Then, Solastra’s smile did not waver.

“That, is for you to discern. As for why that burden was imposed on you, against your will? Ask you guide, when you reclaim her. Now, do you have any other questions for me?”

Shiver just stared, before turning on her heel and leaving Solastra’s chambers.

“Do call in your Revenant friend on your way out!”

---

Vale stared at Highlady Solastra, as she smiled at her.

“Ah! My final guest before dinner. Do you have something to speak to me about?”

“Just a simple request. Please lock my brother away.”

Highlady raised an eyebrow at her.

“Triol?”

Vale nodded.

“He tried to strangle me. It must be the worsening of my Fear in Trepidation.”

“Not a problem. Is there anything more?”

Vale stared at her, before she sat with a sigh.

“You knew my father, best. Is there really nothing you can tell me of his motives? You seemed to suggest that I was wrong, about him wanting to endow his undead with Fearshaping.”

Solastra met her gaze, her bright yellow eyes shining softly in the evening light.

“Do you know why, your father is unable to create undead incapable of Fearshaping?”

Vale shook her head.

“Over the centuries, the knowledge of Fearshaping has diminished. Whittled away by wars of control, urges to censure information about the descent, so that opposing noble houses would be stifled in their Fearshaping as they progressed through the realms of Fear.”

Solastra smiled.

“In your father’s hastiness to descend, he narrowed his Fearshaping to that of mundane undead. Your own proclivity with revenants, is beyond him. If you truly wish to end your father…”

Solastra’s smile widened.

“Do not limit yourself as he did.”

Vale paled at the Highaldy’s expression, before she broke into soft laughter.

“But I will tell you all about how to avoid doing so over dinner. Now, would you care to join me?”