Page 18 of Light Locked #1

She walked with her bag now clutched to her chest, no longer feeling so angry at herself, and no longer feeling as angry with him either. Now all that remained was a lingering awkwardness that she was sure she felt more than he did.

Surprisingly, her mood lifted as the hours pressed on. Ryson was keeping a measured distance from her, like he was afraid she might apologize again. The idea, true or not, lightened her perception of him. The silence was peaceful again.

That thought persisted until their trek ultimately led them uphill. Patches of snow grew in size as they progressed toward a snow-capped peak. Clea rushed through the snow with a renewed energy and stumbled to the peak before Ryson.

She widened her stance and placed her hands on her hips as her eyes scanned the valley below.

The snow across the land reflected the sun so perfectly that the area before them looked like a valley of clouds and light.

The pines were a deep, dark green, peppering the landscape in waves.

She leaned forward, squinting into the distance.

“This is absolutely amazing,” she said, now content to speak only to herself again. Well, at least for the time being.

She glanced over at Ryson as he stopped beside her. He watched the valley with critical, searching eyes until he focused on a single point in the distance. He proceeded down a path to the valley, steadying himself against a steep slope. “It seems a group of forest nomads has settled in the valley.”

“Forest nomads?” She frowned. Where had she heard the term before?

“They travel through the woodland. Mainly Kalex banned from human cities. Sometimes they harbor humans,” he said, sliding down a slushy slope with balanced ease. “We’re going to drop by and see if they’ll have you for the night.”

“How will we know if they’re friendly?” she asked, tottering after him with her arms out and knees bent.

“We find out ourselves.”

???

“ Find out ourselves ?” Clea repeated through her teeth, digging her feet into the snow. And what exactly would they do if the Kalex weren’t friendly?

Ryson nudged her forward as they approached the collection of Kalex tents. The sun would begin to set soon, and Clea saw fires and figures dancing and howling about them. The steady beat of drums reached her ears.

“Enough of your ansra has regenerated. If they’re friendly, they’ll welcome you.

If not, I’ll pull you out. Either way, I’m sure you’ll give them the clothes off your back since you apparently can’t tell the difference,” Ryson said, somehow content to walk behind her and not in front of her.

It was putting her newly renewed faith in him to the test.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Clea shot back.

“You’re Veilin royalty. Aren’t you supposed to be braver than this?” Despite how offensive the question was, he seemed to be asking with a genuine sense of wonder.

“Ryson, I have barely over a half of the ansra I might normally have,” she argued back as they reached the outskirts of the encampment.

She rubbed her bare arms before adding, “Why can’t I close the cloak?

And we’re in the open. No shade or shadows to worry about.

They won’t see your eyes. They look stark black in this light. ”

“They need to see your skin under the shade of the cloak. It will make the fact that you’re a Veilin easier to spot. That’s quite difficult considering you dress like a celibate priestess farmer.” She twisted back to give him a look that was both horrified, offended, and bewildered.

“Don’t Veilin in Loda worship the sun?” he asked, ignoring her expression as if he were now wondering aloud to himself.

“Isn’t it some kind of blessing or regular, holy practice to expose your skin to it?

I thought there was even a holiday in Loda essentially dedicated to sunbathing.

Other than your hands and face, you’re as pale as a sundried skeleton. ”

Clea locked her gaze forward as a burning blush rushed into her face and she pulled her sleeves farther down across the stark tanlines of her wrists and tugged her collar higher up along her neck again, almost to her jaw this time.

She wished she could completely shrink into her clothes, hoping Ryson’s line of thought would ferry him somewhere else.

She was suddenly grateful that he didn’t often voice his thoughts.

“Barely over a half of your ansra? That’s a very specific measurement.”

“I’m very specific when it comes to life and death, you know.

” She spoke in a rushed reply, eager to anchor them to that topic and avoid reverting back to any other observations about her clothes.

“It took everything I had to create that first seal on the medallion’s influence, and I’ve been struggling to recover ever since,” she said, stopping in her tracks when a woman and her child noticed them from in between two tents.

The girl, around the age of ten, broke out into a run toward Clea.

Clea retreated toward Ryson, moving faster as the child picked up her pace.

Ryson grabbed her arms as she slammed back into him.

The girl stopped before Clea, wide blue eyes staring through a matted mess of blonde curls.

The child said something in amazed Kaletik and then shouted it again back toward the encampment.

“Watch out. It looks like a killer,” Ryson whispered into her ear, alerting her as to how close he was. She squirmed out of his touch, leaping forward like he’d shocked her.

The girl became a quick escape from her embarrassment.

“What is your name?” Clea asked as she leaned toward her. The girl’s pointed ears and fingertips marked her as a Kalex. They were common mutations. The less fortunate could be born with a wing, hooves, or any assortment of deformity.

The girl spoke back in Kaletik, and the word Clea always recognized was the word illness.

Clea felt another tug on her sleeve. Surprised, she turned to see an older boy accompanied by two others farther behind him.

Another voice distracted Clea, calling from afar.

She turned and spotted a woman rushing toward her, and then another.

In minutes, she had gathered a throng of Kalex, all requesting that she heal wounds and sickness.

Clea noticed that the crowd was nudging Ryson away.

He started to step back from the frenzy, and pleadingly, she reached out and grabbed his hand.

He flinched, as if it hurt. Clea was surprised by her own impulse to reach for him, but also by the subtle jolt in his reaction.

Clea pulled him toward her through the people, but lost his gaze as more Kalex tugged on her sleeves.

“Stay,” she said more softly than she’d meant to.

Then she knelt among the people and released his hand.

“I might need your help,” she added, almost too forcefully to counteract her previous softness.

She received a toddler from a persistent mother, and inspected his bandaged arm.

The toddler wailed, and Clea stroked his hair and whispered a few words of comfort as her other hand radiated light over the injury.

He stopped crying as she healed his ailment.

Clea searched for the mother as others grabbed for her attention.

Kalex tugged at her clothes; patients gathered in the masses.

Though she scanned the crowd frantically, she failed to find the child’s mother in the crowd.

In a rush, she thrust the boy into Ryson’s hands. “Hold him!” Clea said before kneeling.

“I don’t like children,” he said.

“You’ll be fine, Ryson,” Clea replied, healing the broken leg of an adolescent girl as other Kalex carried their sick to her feet.

“What am I supposed to do with it?” he asked.

Clea turned around to see him holding the toddler upside down by the leg. The child’s lips formed an ugly frown, right before he choked into another fit of crying.

“Ryson!” She tried to stand, but another patient grabbed her sleeve again. “Don’t hold him like that! Hold him close to your chest, with both arms!”

Ryson thrust his arm out farther, like he was disgusted by the idea, and Clea saw the mother appear from the crowd and grab her child. Shouting in a foreign language, she proceeded to beat Ryson with her free hand. He withdrew, dodging her fist as she yelled at him.

He stumbled over a child behind him in an attempt to escape. The mother marched off angrily with her toddler. Ryson scrambled to his feet. Clea’s muffled laugh escaped in a brief snort. She pursed her lips to hide her smile as his eyes locked onto her in sheer spite.

“Never mind the children, you can help me with something else,” she said, still fighting her grin. Clearly unconvinced, Ryson kept his distance.

“I promise you won’t hate it.” Clea beckoned him to kneel beside her, and as he did so, she offered him the leg of a patient who now lay on the ground.

The leg had a fresh wound. “Hold the bottom of his calf like this.” She guided his hands to where hers had once been.

She then placed her hand upon the bloodied gash on the person’s shin.

The older man cried out, but settled down as she healed him.

Clea felt the warmth under her palm, felt the flesh and the skin stitch back together as her ansra burned away any infection.

Feeling the flesh and blood shift under her palm was a reminder that despite the beauty of it in theory, healing wasn’t for the faint of heart.

It involved a deep confrontation with ugliness and violence.

Her eyes flickered to Ryson at the thought. He was watching the process with a composed but focused interest, and she wondered if he’d seen healings performed before.

“It’s fine now; you can let go,” Clea said, using the snow to wash the blood from her hands.

Ryson released the patient’s leg, and they watched as he stood and danced jubilantly.

He ran off as Clea healed another patient that came to her.

They approached with all sorts of wounds and illnesses, the young and the old.

Finally, before Clea could move on to the next patient, Ryson pulled her off her knees.

The remaining crowd dispersed at Ryson’s intervention, as if they possessed as much of a natural aversion to him as they were drawn to her. His interruption left a single Kalex woman who waited beyond the rest with her hands folded in front of her.

“You need to rest,” Ryson said. “They’re going to take you in for the night. There is a human here. That woman will take you to the human so that you can sleep. I’m going to stay in the woods tonight.”

Clea looked over at the woman with a curious and lingering gaze and then turned back to Ryson, but he was gone. She watched the place where he’d been standing before the woman circled around her and beckoned for her to follow .

One night out of the woods.

Clea was less than disappointed.

She’d hardly noticed her own exhaustion until now.

It felt so energizing to heal, to be around people and see laughter, relief and joy.

Physical exhaustion was a burden, but she hadn’t realized how long she’d been aching to freely give herself to the world, to dissolve into it completely, to feed their joy.

These people had needs, but they didn’t look at her with the wild hunger of the Virdain mobs, or crave her like the forest beasts.

They didn’t reach to tear clothes or hair or skin.

She didn’t feel like a target anymore and somehow, she felt like she’d give these people all those things if they asked.

She’d share her soul, her mind, her heart, her body, and somehow be more whole in surrendering it all.

She noticed for the first time how her greatest fear of being devoured and her greatest desire entangled each other. In both her most hellish nightmare and her most divine fantasy, she dissolved completely into the world.

Looking beyond the valley, out into the woods, she wondered what the difference was, if the result was all the same.