Nethron had been unaware of the precise time that the Battle of the Nehal River was to take place as he was then far to the northwest in a staggeringly beautiful woodland of trees that glowed a bright mossy green in the moonlight. His acolytes, led by Galdrehln and Renkyk, had followed along, proselytizing on the road while Nethron chose to keep his own presence subdued. He did not wish to draw Forynda’s attention, nor did he wish to be tracked down by Omonrel and his cohorts. While Forynda was certainly a greater threat, he had come to so strongly distrust Omonel’s motivations that he wanted no part of his attention, either.

Eager to cultivate a great knowledge of the Silver Aura for himself, Nethron focused his attentions on monitoring the souls of the recently deceased all over the world. His growing command of the Silver Aura, while incomplete and well short of what he intended from those efforts, had nonetheless given him a view into the patterns of passing souls. Their circuitous path to Ceuna always baffled him. They could depart the mortal world in an instant and become one with the Communion of Souls in Ceuna. Yet they did not. They followed twisting and meandering paths around the world, often for days and weeks before departing. Some lingered still longer.

That day, floating atop one of the forest’s largest trees, he was isolated from his acolytes practicing their auras on the forest floor below. He felt the ordinary sporadic deaths of the several thousand who would die every day, spread evenly throughout the morning hours. Around midday, he sensed something he had never observed previously, never to that extent in any event. The Aura Liberator had certainly known of battles between various warring factions of mortals before, but he had never been so keenly attuned to observe their effects as he was now. A deluge of souls separated from their bodies from the direction of the Nehal River. Their anguish and pain reverberated through the Auras, roiling Nethron.

When he thought the calamity was passed during a brief cessation in the carnage, it roared back in even more horrific fashion. Souls by the thousand, by the tens of thousands, were cast wayward from their bodies, the bodies of almost uniformly young men. Some of those souls carried great troubles that Nethron could only observe at a distance and they vaulted toward Ceuna without any hesitation. He reasoned that they had been praying for death for some time. Battle gave it to them.

For the great majority, however, they remained on the battlefield. Almost every one of them appeared stunned that this inglorious end had been theirs. Nethron shared that despair. When mortals’ fates had been a far more abstract conception, he would not have cared. Time and experience had shattered that prior view and he could feel the palpable desire of most mortals to remain alive and return to their families’ loving embrace.

He kept his attention focused on the ever-growing swirling mass of souls even as he could hear Galdrehln’s sonorous voice calling for him. He could sense he was on the cusp of understanding qualities to the Silver Aura he had heretofore been entirely ignorant of. No protests of a living mortal could prove meritorious enough to distract from that. His mind became lost in a swirl of argent strands all twisting toward Ceuna. While each strand led to the amorphous and indescribable mass that was the Communion of Souls, those strands were never entirely severed. No matter how many millions or billions of mortals would join their predecessors, their strands back to the mortal realm remained.

His most immediate concern, however, were the well over one-hundred sixty thousand souls that were to join them after the slaughter at the Nehal River that day. The vast bulk of those spirits called out to any who would listen. It was in no language mortals would understand. Nethron scarcely understood it despite having encountered this wordless language before. What he did recognize depressed him deeply.

As he listened, Elaous’s presence manifested behind him.

“Do not even consider it, Nethron,” Elaous said as his physical form manifested next to Nethron. “I know what you are thinking.”

“Thinking… No, I was not thinking of anything in particular,” Nethron joked. “Should you not have been attempting to prevent the slaughter?”

“Forynda forbade interference beyond preventing Omonrel and his clan from slaughtering the mortals,” Elaous said glumly.

“Oh, well that was enlightened of her,” Nethron quipped. “Of course, talking the mortals out of slaughtering each other was far too much to expect of…”

“Nethron, be serious for a moment,” Elaous curtly interrupted with a low rumble. “Should you pursue your Silver Aura, Forynda will never relent until you are destroyed.”

“Destroyed…” Nethron pondered aloud. “So that is what you are here for? You are concerned about me? I am flattered, truly.”

The Guardian of Ceuna scowled deeply at him.

“Please, heed my warnings. I will not tell Forynda where you are, or how I tracked you, but I cannot restrain her forever.”

“How did you find me? I was genuinely curious.”

“Your Silver Aura. Your studies of it told me precisely where you were, when I knew what to look for.”

“Ah. You are very good at what you do. Forynda would be lost without you. Well, I will try to hide that better in the future,” Nethron quipped. “Not because I do not enjoy your presence, but I worry our dear Forynda may discover what you have done. Or what you have not done, rather.”

Elaous sighed deeply, folding his arms.

“I am doing what I can to protect you. Now you make me wonder why,” he fumed in palpable frustration. “Will no one understand restraint?”

The Aura Liberator found Elaous lamentations pitiable. Elaous was, as far as Nethron was concerned, Forynda’s most unflinching and joyless servant. Cyrona was zealous and actually enjoyed her tasks performed on Forynda’s behalf. Elaous simply followed her commands because they were her commands. Nethron wondered if Elaous had ever questioned himself of the merits of the High Angels edicts.

“We are long past that juncture, my friend,” Nethron jabbed Elaous. “These are not sober hours. Restraint, as you call it, is in short supply. Now, did you intend to take me with you by force?”

“No, I will not force the issue. I encourage you to surrender to Forynda, but that must come from your own free will. However, you must know that prolonging this conflict will only lead to far greater losses for the mortals you claim to aid. Have you thought of that?”

Nethron chuckled at the question.

“You speak of this as though bloodshed can be avoided. If there has been one thing that has become plain to me is that this conflict needs to happen in some capacity or another. When opinion within the mortal realms becomes divided enough, compromise can no longer be had. Only total victory or total defeat can resolve this.”

Ceuna’s Guardian met that grim declaration with a measure of scorn, but the Aura Liberator suspected that he, in fact, agreed with virtually every word. At the very least, Elaous must have recognized the truth of what Nethron said.

“I will not aid you in your own destruction,” Elaous grumbled, his head hanging.

“I appreciate that,” Nethron laughed.

“Is there nothing I can do to dissuade you?”

“Dissuade… from what, exactly?”

“Deepening our doom with this Silver Aura of yours.”

Lightly shaking his head, Nethron gave Elaous the answer the Guardian had likely feared.

“For my own peace, I must leave you,” Elaous said, his words falling heavy with the despair they carried.

“I understand,” Nethron replied, his own tone becoming more serious. “Please, do look after yourself. You may be the only one of our brethren who still is in command of their senses.”

Elaous languidly turned away from Nethron and vanished in a whir of light. Not wishing to delay his studies any further, the Aura Liberator immediately began conjuring argent tendrils representing the Silver Aura and grasped them tightly. His mind was focused singularly on learning all of the Silver Aura’s secrets. With his eyes closed, he entirely ignored the mortal world while his soul twisted and turned in the ethereal realm of the Auras. Though the Auras existed in a domain seemingly beyond time, Nethron knew that time’s inexorable march would not wait for him. He had to master the Silver Aura soon or that blessed chance would be lost.