The psychic chorus of terror and desperate hope from within the Canid Confederacy flooded Bolt's senses, a thousand fractured melodies of minds fighting for their very identities.
It was an overwhelming, heartbreaking symphony that resonated deeply with the core of the Ahna'sara. He stumbled back from the crystalline interface in the Aethelgardian observation dome, the Focusing Sphere growing intensely warm in his grip.
"So many," he gasped, his transformed body trembling not with weakness this time, but with the sheer empathic weight of the plea.
"They're… fighting him, Elara. From the inside. Valerius… his Dominion Sigil isn't being accepted passively. It's like he's trying to pour molten iron into living minds, and they're screaming."
Eva was instantly by his side, her hand on his arm, steadying him.
"Can you tell what they need, Bolt? What they're asking for?"
Elara listened intently as the Aethelgardian sensitives, their faces etched with concentration, confirmed Bolt's perception.
"The energy patterns are chaotic, Seed-Bearer," one reported, their moth-like wings fluttering.
"But there is a distinct counter-resonance to Valerius's dominant harmonic. It is… a song of dissent, fragmented yet fiercely resistant."
Bolt closed his eyes, using the Focusing Sphere to try and filter the cacophony, to find the clearest threads within the desperate call.
It wasn't a request for military intervention or physical rescue; these were minds trapped in a psychic war, isolated, terrified of being forcibly reshaped by Valerius's "Primal Mandate."
"They feel… alone," Bolt said, his voice thick with emotion.
"Valerius is trying to overwrite their individuality, to merge them into a single, controlled consciousness aligned with that Dominion Sigil."
"They're losing themselves. They need… an anchor. A reminder of what true connection, true Canid spirit, feels like. Hope."
A profound silence filled the dome. The implications were staggering. This wasn't just a power play by Valerius; it was a spiritual vivisection of a significant portion of his own people.
"To interfere directly in the internal psychic structuring of another sovereign power…" Elara began, her voice heavy with the weight of Aethelgardian protocol, "…is a line the Sanctuaries have not crossed in millennia, not since the darkest days of the Progenitor Schism."
She communicated silently, swiftly, with the unseen council of the Outer Sanctuaries, her opalescent eyes distant and troubled.
Eva, ever the pragmatist, voiced her fears.
"Bolt, you're still recovering from what happened at the Heart. And you nearly broke yourself trying to disrupt Krell's ship".
"How can you possibly project anything meaningful across light-years to thousands of minds, especially with Valerius actively trying to control them? What if he detects you? What if he targets you through that link?"
"She is right to caution, Seed-Bearer," Elara said, her attention returning to them.
"Valerius is no brute like Krell. His understanding of psychic energies and Progenitor arts is profound, albeit twisted. If he senses an external empathic signature attempting to counter his ritual, he would undoubtedly trace it. And his methods of… silencing dissent… are said to be terrifyingly effective."
Bolt looked from Eva's worried face to Elara's grave one. The Ahna'sara within him, however, was not silent.
It pulsed with a fierce, undeniable compassion for those struggling souls. He thought of Coria's lesson – "Project not what you fear, but what you hope for." And Lyren's words about the Seed finding many ways to blossom.
"I don't have to fight his power directly," Bolt reasoned, the Focusing Sphere warm and steady in his hand.
"I don't have to control them or lead them. But what if… what if I can send them a different song? A counter-melody? Not to dominate, but to remind them of their own strength, their own inner harmony?
" To show them they aren't alone, that there's an echo of true Canid spirit, the spirit of the Ahna'sara, still alive and resisting?"
He looked at Elara. "The Ahna'sara is about connection, empathy. If I can project its essence, pure and untainted by dominion, perhaps it can give them a focal point, a shield for their own minds, a way to find each other in the psychic storm Valerius has created."
Elara considered this for a long moment. The unseen council's silent debate seemed to conclude.
"What you propose, Bolt," she said finally, "is not an act of aggression, but an act of… resonant solidarity. It is still perilous. The risk of Valerius detecting your signature is high."
"But the potential cost of his success… that is a far greater peril to the balance we strive to protect."
She nodded slowly.
"The Outer Sanctuaries will shield this location to the best of our ability, to dampen any trace back. But the act itself, the projection… that must be yours alone, guided by the Ahna'sara and the Focusing Sphere."
"Eva gripped Bolt's arm tighter. "If you do this…"
"I have to, Eva," he said, his blue eyes meeting hers, filled with a calm resolve that mirrored the one she so often showed him".
"This is what the Ahna'sara is for."
He turned back to the crystalline interface, the Focusing Sphere held ready.
" The desperate, fearful chorus from the distant Canid worlds still echoed in his empathic senses".
He took a deep breath, filtering out all else, seeking that quiet core of stillness, of pure, unwavering compassion he had touched in Aethelgard.
Then, he began to sing his own song into the void. Not a howl of power or a shriek of fear, but a steady, luminous melody of hope, resilience, and the enduring strength of the individual spirit connected in true empathy.
"He poured into it the courage of Eva, the wisdom of Lyren and Coria, the ancient, life-affirming thrum of Aethelgard itself, and the deepest essence of the Seed of Hope".
The chapter would not end with a bang, but with a single, pure note, sent out across the light-years, a fragile beacon against an encroaching, manufactured darkness, its reception, and its consequences, hanging heavy in the starlit silence.