Page 4 of Light Locked #1

“You’re lucky.” She allowed her words to hang on the tension between them.

“Life has become a bore. I’ll die with you, but now that I have you, I might as well make good use of you.

It would be a shame for me to not get a final laugh out of this dreary life before I kiss it goodbye.

” She watched him with a glint in her eyes. “How about I make you a deal?”

???

Clea sat on the edge of the straw bed, staring down at her bare feet in the dirt.

She combed her fingertips through her hair, pressing them against her scalp to restrain her wild flurry of thoughts.

She didn’t know where she was in the city, but it didn’t matter.

The familiar stench of rot and smoke filled her nostrils.

The blinding sunlight depressed her, flickering into the room as hot breezes waved the tattered rags nailed over the clay windows.

She’d been saved miraculously, but she wasn’t happy to be back in Virday. This place had become as much a prison as it had once been a home. In the wake of last night’s terrors, every sign of the city was only a reminder that today she’d have to try to escape all over again.

She winced as she turned on the bed, her back facing the door as she tested the mobility of her bandaged arm.

The claw marks would only be scars by the afternoon, and soon those would be gone too.

Rapid healing was a benefit of the energy in her blood, or ansra, as Veilin called it.

It was a miraculous thing, but a bit less miraculous now.

Her blunted energy had dramatically slowed her rate of healing .

Her hand felt for the silver chain around her neck, tracing it under the hem of her collared shirt until she clasped the cold medallion against her chest. Tendrils of darkness pulsed from it, eager to slip through her fingers.

Glancing back at the door, she pulled it out onto her palm, tracing the intricate silver designs of vines that framed a deep, black jewel.

It was the Deadlock Medallion, a scourge from centuries past. With mysterious origins but a deadly legacy, it was one of the few cien objects still in existence.

Cien was the perversion of the benevolent ansra energy that gave a Veilin’s skin its luminance and fueled their life force.

The two energies had manifested when forest beasts first appeared, and continued to fuel humanity’s struggle today.

Cien was what infected the forest. It accumulated around tragedy and suffering, whispered dark deeds to hurting people, and inspired violence and hatred.

Clea created a cage with her fingers, channeling ansra through her palms. A flickering orb of light manifested around it. The medallion levitated in her palm, repelled on all sides by the ansra she channeled to repair the seal on its influence.

She was already drained of energy, and the effort made her so lightheaded she caught herself against the bed, crumpling when her wounded arm buckled under her. The medallion slipped back into her shirt as she rubbed the sweat from her forehead and steadied her breathing.

She had to get it out of the city. Clea had not specialized in the art of sealing.

It had taken most of her energy to place a seal around it, and already it had broken down.

She didn’t have enough energy to repair it and her health was in shambles.

Feverish with the paranoia of her circumstances over the last few weeks, sleep and appetite had evaded her.

Sleeping felt like balancing on a fine and breakable string.

Food had been flavorless and painful in her stomach.

A girl’s voice sounded from the door as it opened. “Feeling any better?”

Clea pushed herself up to face her young caretaker. A new figure stood in the background, a shadow against the clay wall. Clea remembered that someone had carried her last night; she’d woken up just long enough from her exhaustion to recognize that she’d been saved. Had this man saved her?

Inspection of his appearance revealed little about him beyond the fact that he wanted little revealed.

A black hood shadowed his face, and a strip of cloth covered his eyes.

Ash-dusted bandages concealed his hands.

He appeared to be of a strong and nimble figure, judging by his shoulders, but she could scarcely tell beneath the ragged cloak he wore.

His clothes looked decayed, as if he’d taken them off a corpse.

Clea straightened, trying to look less like a wounded animal where she remained curled on the bed. “Thank you for saving me,” she replied, examining the dark-haired child who looked to be about the age of nine.

The girl was dainty and beautiful and perhaps in all traditional ways should have been delightful, but there was a strangeness about her Clea couldn’t place.

She gave Clea a polite smile and a curtsy as she picked up the edges of her sackcloth dress. “My name is Alina. I am pleased to make your acquaintance. What is your name? ”

“Clea.” She thought too late in the haze of her brain about the risks of giving her real name.

Veilin had a tendency to gain some celebrity in their respective cities.

In Loda, she’d been the youngest of six and hadn’t worried as much about such things.

She’d mostly kept to herself while in Virday as well, but that never stopped chatter.

“I don’t know what would have happened to me without your help,” Clea added, stealing another glance at the cloaked figure near the door.

“It is a Kalex’s honor to assist the Veilin warriors,” Alina said. “The survival of civilization does rest on your shoulders, they say. It’s a heavy burden.”

The acknowledgement of Clea’s duties as a Veilin felt strange and ill-fitting, especially since Alina also admitted to being a Kalex.

“Kalex” was generally a bucket term for anything that was close to human, and Veilin and Kalex had a history wrought with friction.

Kalex were illegal in Clea’s home city of Loda.

“I hope you don’t mind staying here for a short while,” Alina chirped, hands folded politely in front of her. “I know it’s filthy, but I will pass along news that you’re here. You deserve a better resting place.”

“No,” Clea said more forcefully than she’d intended. She regretted her tone of voice once she saw the shock register on Alina’s face. “I’ll do it myself.”

Alina smiled. “Oh, please, it’s no trouble. Ryson can have the king’s soldiers here in minutes.” She turned to the man near the door. “Ryson! ”

“No, please!” Clea pleaded.

Alina spun toward her, startled. “The royal families are all Veilin, aren’t they? I’m sure you’ve been acquainted. It isn’t good for you to associate with those of bad birth. We’re forbidden to ask about your business, but based on your journey last night, you must be in need of help.”

Bad birth. Clea paused at the term. It was typically used as a derogatory term for Kalex, based on the superstition that they were tainted by evils done around the time and place of their birth.

Kalex could be human born, but such births only happened around a death or tragedy.

Higher rates of poverty, theft, and murder in Virday meant that one in every six children born to a human couple had the chance of having a Kaletik mutation.

The rates would be at risk of increasing even further if The Decline continued.

That said, Kalex never referred to themselves as “badly born.” Veilin had created that term decades ago, an unfortunate abuse of their religion that believed Veilin blood a blessing, and blood in general the element that connected all life.

“It’s…” Clea hesitated, getting the sense that this girl was toying with her, but unsure why.

“It’s complicated.” The nagging feelings of Alina’s strangeness evolved, and every second changed Alina more from a little girl to something like a puppet or marionette, with lifeless movement.

She found herself convinced that she was watching the performance of an object, and continued to sift through the feelings, searching for a threat.

“I see.” Alina’s voice jerked Clea back from the thought. “Your accent is Lodain. You were running away from Virday. Do you need to go back to Loda?”

Clea nodded, trying to pull herself back to normalcy. The more she tried to tap into her Veilin senses, the more her head throbbed. Not only was Clea drained of ansra, but the medallion seemed to be interfering with her ability to recover. She lifted a hand to her temple.

Alina continued on as if she hadn’t noticed the change in Clea’s demeanor, smoothing out a ripple in her cheek as she brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. A ripple in her cheek? It was as if something beneath her skin were moving.

No. No. That wasn’t right. She must be seeing things.

Clea pressed her eyes closed in a long, concentrated blink.

“Then we can help you,” Alina said, swaying back and forth with her hands in her lap. “We will return you to Loda.”

Clea’s thoughts lapsed entirely at the girl’s proposal. It took her a moment to recognize that she wasn’t being mocked. Her eyes flickered from Alina to Ryson, and she released any struggles to interpret her senses and centered her thoughts on the offer.

Watching this little girl now, moving and breathing with a timid expectancy in her eyes, Clea questioned her own sanity.

How could she compare a young Kalex to something lifeless and malicious?

A pang of guilt shot through her, and she wondered if her old Lodain biases were rearing their head again.

She’d been raised to fear Kalex. The Veilin religion was often called the religion of blood, even the word Veilin tracing its origins to ancient iterations of the word vein.

Veilin were carriers of the life blood, and should resist infection that could spread to others.

Kalex, she’d been told, had inborn character deficits.

They were carriers of cien, of the infection.

Her experiences in Virday had shown her prejudices to be entirely false.

Now, these two Kalex were offering to help.

Their intentions would need to be her target of speculation next.

They had managed to rescue her once and bring her all the way back here.

Kalex had been known to venture out into the woods, less likely to be hunted by beasts than their human counterparts, but still.

What were they doing all the way out there in the first place?

“How?” Clea asked, pressing up against her temple to pause her thoughts. She tried not to sound incredulous in her tone.

Alina thrust an eager finger in Ryson’s direction. “Ryson will take you! He knows the woodlands better than any soldier. He is the one who saved you from it and was just on his way back from transporting someone else safely.”

That confirmed Clea’s suspicion that Ryson had saved her. She examined him and got the sensation that he was doing the same despite his bandages. So, they were smugglers? It would explain how he managed to get her back into the city so easily, likely using some secret underpass.

It was clear that Ryson knew the forests, but she would have to be insane to agree to such a proposal with what little she knew.

Then again, was this even a risk in comparison to the first attempt she’d braved?

She was desperate and she sensed nothing malicious from either of them.

Veilin could sense the cien that evil intentions invited.

They both appeared to possess none, despite how unsettling Alina seemed.

“Of course, you would have to pay us in return.” Alina interrupted her thoughts again.

“I don’t have money,” Clea replied. No money, no security, and no way back to Loda. She tried to avoid swimming in the desperation that felt like it was pouring steadily into the room.

“Ryson can handle the costs when you arrive in Loda. I’m sure it won’t be a problem then,” Alina said, allowing her eyes to linger on Clea’s tattoo.

Clea turned her wrist over in her lap, realizing the mark was exposed.

It was another clumsy mistake. Her name, her brand, she might as well tell them her reason for running.

In the ensuing silence, Alina added, “It is a game of trust. You can go with him, or you can go alone.”

Clea nodded but didn’t respond.

Alina brushed off her sackcloth dress. “Ryson will take you to the market for supplies. You can sort your thoughts there.”

The door closed. Ryson was gone.

Alina approached a small wooden table in the corner of the room. She retrieved a second set of clothes and rested them on Clea’s lap before leaving the cottage.

Clea watched the door in the ensuing silence, ignoring the chill that fought to shiver down her spine.