Page 22 of Light Locked #1

“To your question, Clea,” Althala replied. “Insednians who aren’t civil make very quick work of Veilin. That, I can guarantee. Your pain, in many ways, is too irresistible for them to delay. The fact that you’re still alive speaks volumes.”

“Comforting,” Clea replied uneasily. “But thank you, Althala.” She clasped one of the old woman’s hands. “You’ve done more than you know.”

Althala seemed to accept her gratitude with great warmth, and their discussion continued on several more minutes until they prepared to rest for the night.

By the end of their talk, Clea was relieved to lay down on her cot and sleep, surprised at how tired she was after the healings.

She’d treated many people, but certainly not enough to warrant her level of exhaustion .

As she closed her eyes to the tent ceiling in the darkness, she ushered her worries away. One good night of rest and she’d be fine tomorrow.

No nightmares waited for her. Her dreams were void of terrors but altogether strange.

In them, she traveled down through the legs of the cot into the earth and roots of the forest. From there, the roots all connected, speaking, whispering, reaching out to the rest of the woods that seemed to extend on for eternity.

In a single burst, signals traveled through the network, meticulously choosing their path.

Hello , the roots said, I’m here.

???

Ryson sat in the woods before a fire. He found shapes in the flames like one would in clouds, but somehow, he felt flames fit him better.

Clouds always appeared to be light until angered into a storm.

Clea now seemed like a cloud to him, perhaps when she was at her best. She was light and airy, and her mood only darkened when the earth needed rain.

Throughout the day, he couldn’t help but notice the contrasts between them.

He’d seen her soil her hands with blood as she healed the Kalex.

The red color that had long haunted him had darkened her fragile fingers.

She soiled her hands to heal, and he’d soiled his to kill.

Yet her hand had found his so gently among the crowd, and she’d asked him to stay with her.

He wondered how she would treat him if she knew how different they truly were.

What would she do if she discovered how many lives he’d destroyed?

Ryson was not a cloud, but a flame, enchanting from afar, but the scorching heat spared nothing that touched it. He had always thought it interesting how flames did not judge. There was no good and evil. It all burned.

Would you put the campfire out for once?

His likeness appeared in the darkness across the fire.

The light burns. Clea’s ansra burns too. Please don’t tell me that you truly intend on retrieving her.

“A promise is a promise.”

It threw its arms into the air.

Just because your cien-infested soul was sealed away doesn’t mean you get your life back.

“And your point is?”

My point is that you’re wasting your time with all this.

I am trying to stop you from gallivanting off down your own pointless avenues.

Your soul is gone and you can’t absorb more cien without it!

When I run out, you die! I bet Alina sent you with the princess because she knew the girl’s ansra would slowly destroy me.

Leave the princess. Leave Alina. Search for the object in which your soul was sealed!

“I will continue as planned,” Ryson replied, ignoring his cien’s demands and finding himself even further entrenched in his convictions .

If we don’t die off during this venture, then the princess will kill you when she discovers what we are.

She may have little energy right now, but you saw how many people she healed today, even then.

She’s spent her narrow, little life solely to cultivate ansra.

You saw how quickly she picked up on your pain.

“So what? Understanding other people’s hurts is part of their training.”

Alina has planned all this to orchestrate your death. She’s not insane. She’s conniving!

His cien waited for a response, but silence settled over the campground. Ryson found solace in the gentle crackling of the flames. He hoped in vain that his cien would remain silent. Refusing to tend to the flames, he watched them die as the night drew on.

Alina isn’t the only thing holding you back now, is it? Something with the princess is too?

“She tries to wear so many falsities, and yet I can’t help but sense there is something genuinely good in her that reaches past all that despite her.”

We both know where your interest leads. Everything in you will want to challenge the things she stands for. You’ll break and ruin her. You know you will. You’ll enjoy doing it. You’re bored.

Ryson grimaced. The idea wasn’t foreign, but hearing it articulated repulsed him. Worse yet, he couldn’t completely deny it. He had two natures. One felt out of his control. He had always been drawn to people who claimed to offer hope and salvation. He’d tested them all. He’d broken them down.

Silence fell between them, and Ryson looked down at his bandaged hands as the fire crackled. His determination wavered.

In the silence, he rested a few fingers on his wrist and tugged at the bandages. If he needed a reminder of who he was, he had only to remove them. It was a ritual that gave him direction.

The bandages slipped from his hand, and he stared at his bare skin, riddled with scars. If every one of his scars told a story, his body was a novel, written by the point of a knife.

He clenched his fist.

But you can’t remove the pages of your life , his cien said. You can’t conceal your shame behind a cover. Your wrongs are written in ink. It guided his thoughts. Your fate is already sealed.

It didn’t matter which path he took. The result would be the same in the end. He couldn’t cry out for salvation. He’d been damned.

His cien vanished and appeared over his shoulder. Because you are like a book, and the words of books are silent.

Salvation was a teaching tool taught to children. Reality never guaranteed it.

You know the ending. It will always be there, waiting for you on the final page. You were always meant to be a beast. Look around. It gestured past him to the trees on the other side of the fire.

Ryson’s eyes scanned the polished eyes of curious predators that watched him from the surrounding woods. They’d gathered in awe of what they’d found.

A beast , his cien repeated before vanishing and then appearing to his right, its lips set near his ear.

All in all, the campfire was merely an illusion that divided him from them.

In complete darkness, what was he but another forest monster?

He could only try to fool himself, and he did.

That was precisely why he lit fires every night, precisely why his cien hated them.

The light, as it often did, created an illusion.

You can only try and fool yourself , his cien echoed. Turn from the girl. Find your soul. It’s your fate.

“My fate,” he whispered as he leaned back against a dead pine and watched the moon through the haze of his fleeting winter breaths. He took note of its waning fullness and marveled at the beautiful regality with which it governed such ugly, dark nights.

It’s your ruler too. Let it rule you. Your fate. His cien’s voice echoed as its image faded away.

Ryson stared at the moon, and like a stream of light in the night, he sensed a glimpse of Clea’s presence in the distance.

He closed his eyes and imagined her heartbeat among the sea of sounds.

The sound was so fragile and gentle, a reflection of life.

She was naive and she was innocent. One of those things he couldn’t stand, but the other he’d come to cherish for what it did for the rest of the world.

Or what it does for you? his cien purred with an insinuating edge, making every matter a thing of lust, fear or wanting. He couldn’t deny it, especially not after today.

As she healed others, she became a different person.

She wasn’t careful about her clothes, her hair or her things.

Adults with dirtied, bloodied hands and wounds gripped at her.

Small children clung to her, one toddler pulling strands of hair loose from her braid as she held the little girl on her hip.

She didn’t notice or care when the meticulous braid came loose, didn’t notice or care when the child stained her clothes, when the little girl’s hand moved and groped tirelessly, exploring the warmth of the skin beneath the hem of Clea’s collar and shirt.

Clea didn’t control them, but simply by enjoying them, she had a way with the crowds around her.

It was hypnotic, glowing life, and she’d grabbed his hand as if he were simply a part of it.

She’d laughed at them, laughter rich with joy and pleasure.

In stark contrast to Alina, Clea too had laughed, bloodstained in the sunset, replacing such a horrid memory with something unique and ill fitting in the landscape of his mind.

In her innocence, or perhaps her naivety, Clea saw something trustworthy in him. The irony is that if she’d distrusted him, he’d be harmless, but having her trust was seductive in ways he could hardly explain. In her eyes, he saw more than just the ways he could ruin her.

It was hard not to imagine tracing the path that the asking hands of her patients had taken today, to imagine pulling her long hair free from that constant, toiling braid.

No doubt she believed in the power of touch, but he sensed she didn’t know half of it, not like he did.

She wouldn’t laugh for him, but he could tailor her voice to a myriad of other sounds as rich and full of life as laughter.

His true nature lurked in the dark, eager to play out this performance. In the end, it would burn into ash like every other fantasy, consuming the stage with all its players. He would love the play. He would love the fire even more.

She has no idea who she is. She’s foolish. She’s weak. His cien hurled another insult, perhaps sensing the direction of his thoughts.

“Neither do I. So am I,” Ryson replied simply.

In a second of clarity, Ryson arrested his own intentions vividly, and knew that at least in that one moment, all he genuinely wanted was to see another glimpse of the world through her eyes.

“Cursed fate,” he whispered, repeating the phrase he’d uttered the night he’d found her, feeling then that it had cursed him, and cursing it now in return.

He would make his own choices.

His cien was silent for the rest of the night.