18: Note of Fate

Liran found herself walking a flat crystal floor, which met a cloudless blue sky with a clean and straight horizon. The landscape felt surreal and unnatural.

"Where am I?" She scratched her head as she searched the area.

A frown creased her forehead when she saw a lone pavilion with a pitched roof at the center. Seated on one of the two wrought iron chairs before a table was a man in a white mage robe around her age. His fine white hair was long, betraying brown strands. His black eyes were lowered to his small cup and a pot.

He meticulously poured tea into two cups then sat back.

"Child, you are an interesting one."

Liran boldly walked up to the only other chair before the table and confidently sat down. She stared at the man with mixed curiosity and caution.

"Are you real?"

The man chuckled as he pushed the other tea cup toward her.

Liran went to catch it and felt her hand almost shatter at the bone. The clear tea shook like a stormy sea before going still and calm.

"What is real, what is fake? We believe we see real but carry fake lives. Just like the life you live: pretending to be free when your mind is trapped in a past guilt."

Liran observed the man, then the tea, realizing that she was within her mind or some internal landscape at least. It was something Grayman had once said bards were capable of achieving if forced into an intense focus and a semi coma. She must've passed out after unleashing her powers. But she was surprised to see another entity. It felt foreign yet familiar, and she was still deciding if he was real or fake.

"If I decide that you're real, what life would you live that is fake?"

"A comfortable one before it becomes bitter."

She sighed and sang, "A man lives a fake life to find real meaning; all illusions return to him."

The man snapped upright and clapped with glee. "Lived a fake life to see real meaning. Brilliant!" He relaxed and regarded her carefully. "As a bard, I'm sure you'll appreciate this tale."

Liran felt her body pulled into a motion and saw images from her surroundings.

In one of the images was one of the high king's knights frantically riding on horseback across a glade and belt of woods. He was being chased by a relentless ronin who had orders to capture him. As the knight's horse entered a brook, its hoof tripped on a rock. Having been on the run for many days and nights, such a stumble caused it to fall. The knight was thrown off its back to land in a brook, spilling out his treasures. One was a common dark grimoire, which spat out a black pebble. But the knight only saw the grimoire as he regathered his belongings and ditched the horse to escape on foot, headed away from Fern Town. Meanwhile, the black pebble was regathering lingxi from the book's waters and waiting, then she stumbled upon it.

Liran's heart raced with warning. "Coincidence."

The man chuckled. "You of all people should know that coincidence is a note of fate." He rose as he added. "Want to see more?"

Liran's mind was bombarded with faces and memories involving the current royal family, her friends, and a legacy that shouldn't exist: The Alchemist's return to enslave all of Ki as soulless.

"NO. This is not reality!"

"Then live your fake life to find the meaning to the truth that is coming." His demeanor dropped the courtesy as his true intentions showed. "The truth is the end."

Liran shook her head. Her heart raced with beats, carrying feelings of all that she valued in her life. Her friends, new and old and the son she couldn't save. What would it mean to have affected so much life with song if all were to be destroyed? No, she didn't believe in the end.

"Fine. The end is your truth, but mine..." Her mind began to focus on the living and her voice carrying her song with a realized truth. "I'll fight you for the living... Morningstar."

She rose, grabbed the teacup, and tipped it upside down to empty the contents. She then used her sound magic to shatter the porcelain into dust. As she did so, she broke out of her dreamscape loop and woke up to reality.