Page 53 of Light Locked #1

Alina seemed to sense his hesitation and did not vacate the body. Instead, she stared up at him, bored and then puzzled as she seemed to sense the change in Ryson’s expression. He felt the lightness in his chest differently, interpreted its signs differently than he had before.

Prince had witnessed everything, and spoke now with a truth he hadn’t shared before. His intentions became clear.

Alina glimpsed between Ryson’s changing expression and Prince’s vacant bodies.

“No,” she said in disbelief, and then laughed, throwing her hands to Ryson’s chest. “No! You’re serious? You? You gave your heart to that princess!” She exclaimed as she shook him.

I really quite like her. She saved his life twice. She even healed him, healed decades of wounds. No one has ever healed the Warlord of Shambelin. I suffer greatly that I wasn’t the Insednian to witness such a profound act of devotion, but I will say I was the first to hear of it happening.

“Be quiet, Prince!” Alina and Ryson both shouted again.

“That’s not possible,” Ryson whispered, lifting himself from the body Alina now inhabited.

She sat up from the dirt and howled at the dread on his expression, “Oh, I knew you saw something in her! When you brought her to me, it was so–so,” Alina threw her hands into the air.

“And the fact that she had the medallion draped around her neck. Oh, the scheming of it all! The poor girl never had a chance. You’re going to eat her alive!

” Alina leapt to her feet, throwing her arms in the air in celebration.

“Thank cien! By the saints! He never left us after all, Prince! He just needed a muse!” Alina shouted and laughed.

“I should have known that the Venennin of illusions would fool us one last time. I’m in awe.

Honestly. Honestly.” She kept pounding her heart and threw her hands back into the air. “I’m in awe!”

Ryson withdrew at her celebration, trying to understand the complexity of Alina’s reaction.

Alina ran to him, shaking him again. “You see. This is why we followed you in the end. Even despite yourself, you still manage to succeed.”

Ryson shook his head, shoving her back. “What are you talking about?”

Alina, in her male form, skipped back and threw an arm around one of Prince’s corpses and kissed it on the temple.

“Aww, look at him. Little puppet. I can’t tell if I’m proud of him or pity him.

Should I tell him?” Alina asked. “Or should you? You see it now, don’t you?

I was always annoyed when Alkerrai revealed one of his schemes to me, but to reveal one of his own schemes to himself, this is quite the opportunity!

You see it, don’t you Prince? You see?” Alina asked as she continued to jostle him.

I see.

“You say I am insane, Ryson, but look at Prince and I. Try and imagine the type of leader we might follow. If insanity is having no sense of the reality of things, I’d say of the three of us, you’ve been the most insane from the start.

You not only managed to fool us,” Alina said pointing the fingers of both hands to her chest, “but you fooled yourself! You know, I do feel bad for you. I feel bad for your human heart which you so cleverly manipulated. I feel bad for your body which you so easily puppeted. I feel bad for your mind, trying to put all the pieces together, but oh my, am I so impressed by your soul. The sheer essence of you.” She kissed her fingers, and then inspected her hands.

“Is this why you cut off my fingers? Did you somehow know I’d steal your soul?

” She looked over at Prince excitedly, “Did he? You think?”

I don’t know. When his soul returns, you can ask him.

“You think he really knows me so well? Knows me well enough to manipulate me so thoroughly.” She pulled on the corpse’s shirt beside her longingly and stroked his chest, “Oh, Prince. Tell me please. I would so love for someone to know me like that.”

“What are you talking about?” Ryson shouted, frustrated by her antics.

“You never came to Loda in order to kill me!” she shouted back, laughing still. “You showed up because you found her .”

“I found,” he started and then paused, fighting the assembly of an ugly picture.

You weren’t called to Loda from your slumber because of Alina. You were called to Loda by the medallion. The medallion hasn’t been exerting its influence over the princess. It’s been exerting its influence over you. The rest of it has been collateral damage .

“Can you put the pieces together yourself, or do you need me to?” Alina said.

“The Deadlock Medallion doesn’t exist,” Ryson whispered, withdrawing inwardly as his arms sunk down by his sides.

“Then we’ve done something terrible, haven’t we?

” Ryson whispered to himself, to the pieces of himself, his wayward heart, mind and body, oblivious to the conspiracies of the soul that sat at his very core.

He never should have helped the medallion reach Loda. He never should have helped Clea.

Was it true?

All this time, had he been orchestrating the circumstances of his own revival?

He jolted from his thoughts, drawing up a hand with a curse and pulling rows of stone from the ground to cage Alina before hurling a dagger toward her. It struck hard, the host dying instantly.

He yanked the weapon from the corpse before climbing the stone wall that guided him up to another wall and then another until he had a clear view of the city.

You don’t believe us? Your cien has been silent in your head. You must know that it no longer challenges you as you’ve been acting in accordance with its will. It only challenged you when you separated yourself from the princess.

“I think you’re both playing games,” Ryson said, sliding down another roof and jumping into an alleyway. “To think my soul orchestrated all this, to think I manipulated myself– ”

Don’t we all fool ourselves? You, more than anyone else, was aware of that fact. I mastered death. Alina mastered fear, but you, you mastered illusions, perhaps most of all those that we create for our own ends.

Ryson grabbed the standing corpse of a girl and yanked her into an alley. Placing a hand on her shoulder, he closed his eyes firmly, tapping into reservoirs of new power and old knowledge, he crafted an unpracticed curse.

He didn’t like how easily the skills came to him. Beyond the campfires, he hadn’t crafted an illusion in years and still it came naturally. Life blinked anew into the girl’s eyes, and they filled with fear, before she ran off into the alley with a scream.

“I awoke to kill Alina and then disappear forever,” Ryson argued, following the girl as she wandered into alleyways and roads, screaming in hysterical terror. “That’s it.”

A figure leapt on top of him and he crashed into the earth and rolled, one of Alina’s broken hosts clawing into his chest. Whatever person it had once been, one could no longer tell.

Ghastly black teeth hovered over Ryson’s face, claws digging into his chest. Ryson’s dagger was already plunged into the creature’s side, blood pouring out over his hand, but Alina waited to vacate this body.

The girl still screamed nearby, toiling with mindless terror when she found herself in an alley with no exit.

“You’re so afraid that we’re right,” Alina hissed and laughed all at once, her breath reeking of death as she leaned over his face. Ryson strained against the weight as one of her claws cinched around his arm and prevented him from moving the dagger any deeper .

“Because if we are, as soon as your soul returns to this broken body, pulls all your pieces, power, and memory together, you’ll find the princess with the hunger that only a century of slumber could give you.

You’ll devour her like a man starving to death,” she hissed and laughed.

“You hate to admit it, but we know you better than anyone else. We know what you’ll do to her. ”

You mustn’t despair so deeply, Ryson. We both quite like her.

“Ha!” Alina’s beast roared. “I’ll like her so much more when you’ve twisted her into something more vile and sinister than me! I too, need a lover, Ryson. Please, share her.”

Ryson hurled Alina’s monster off of him, tearing her wound open and ripping the claws out of his chest. He ran at full force toward the screaming girl who darted from the alley, now lurching with Alina’s attempted possession.

Ryson tackled her with a killing blow, rolling with the body as Alina tried to manipulate it, managing a single claw at his throat before they crashed into the bottom of a ravine. Ryson’s wounds bled profusely as the girl heaved and twisted beside him, his cursed dagger plunged into her chest.

The body jolted and thrashed as the illusion lifted, returning the image of the corpse that Alina had mistakenly possessed, a corpse that could not protect her from harm’s way.

The girl’s shadow shuddered beside him, evidence that he’d landed a wounding blow to Alina’s soul. The shadow vanished into the earth and he collapsed back against the ravine, squinting into the heat of the sun .

“Did I kill her?” Ryson whispered.

Wounded her profoundly. Kill her? It is too soon to tell. She has arrested a fleeing host near the forest’s edge. It is unclear if she will make it to her body in time.

“It will have to be enough,” Ryson said, knowing he wouldn’t be able to catch her at this rate. His hand moved to cover a gash near his neck, the bloodiest of the lot though Alina had done her share of damage. His spirit felt the most wounded now.

As if sensing it, Prince spoke in the depths of the silence.

You are not so horrid, Ryson. You wanted to live.

You wanted inspiration to live. Something in your soul sensed something in hers.

Your love is true. Did you not assure her of the same?

Warn her about the risks of your intentions.

She made her choices too. We all have weaknesses.

You just baited Alina with that illusion’s screams of terror.

Alina baited me with the promise of the dead.

Can you blame us for succumbing to our loves when they are what bring us the most joy?

“I'll only use her. We aren't capable of anything else. She'll be a pawn,” Ryson hissed, closing his eyes against the beating of the hot sun and words that burned just as bright as his wounds.

A pawn? No. She is a centerpiece. If you only understood the larger picture, you’d know it was a perfect match. Ryson, you do not remember your own vice when all along it’s been right in front of you.

“And what is my vice?” Ryson whispered, his eyes cracking open as he stared into the brilliance of the sun. It was so bright that it stung, so bright that it blinded him from everything else, and yet he didn’t want to look away.

It hasn’t changed, not since before you were a Venennin, he replied, not since before you were a Veilin. It lies at the heart of your power, the heart of illusion.

Ryson knew before he asked the question again, recognizing his own intentions now with a painful clarity. The campfires. The moon. The princess. In the end they were all different versions of the same thing.

His weakness had always been the same and he’d never stopped pursuing it.

His weakness had always been the light.

He’d been so blinded by it that he hadn’t seen the scheme unfolding right in front of him, pretending that he was restraining himself, when all along it was the opposite. The princess had indeed inspired him back to life, awakening needs he’d thought innocent in the moment.

He'd initially found Clea caught in the shades of fire and moonlight and been unable to leave her behind.

He'd taken the medallion from the throne, seduced by the scheme at play.

He had known. Standing in that throne room in Virday, he'd looked out at the city and sensed the end of it all.

He'd held the key to death's door in the palm of his hand. He had known.

In your cien-mired state, you gave her your very soul to carry. Your vice is that you ache for the light, the divine, salvation. Alina and I are easily satisfied, but your vice destroys worlds. It has its own divinity, for true destruction is an act of worship .

Ryson saw the events in the castle with new clarity, Prince celebrating it as love when Ryson saw them as something else entirely.

Does Alina not worship her terrified prey? Prince asked. Do you not see the care with which I treat my dead? Is there anything more dedicated and gentle in us than our obsessions?

“Prey is unwilling and so are the dead,” Ryson breathed, fearing the mindset that would arrest him should his soul ever be released.

Now, he could say with confidence that his heart cared for Clea, cared enough to demand that he never see her again.

His love for her was indeed true, but Prince’s words resurrected another true reality that he dreaded to his core.

Why are you so quick to belittle them? Alina’s prey do not need to succumb to their terror, but they do.

My dear dead, most times, put themselves in conditions that they know might kill them.

Their fates are ingrained in their very nature, in their very choices, and we are all happy together in the end, happy in the truest, most honest sense of the term.

Ryson felt sick to his stomach, shutting his eyes against the sun again.

She will heal for you. You will kill for her. The killing will allow the healing and the healing will allow the killing. Beautiful poetry. Neither of you will hate it so much in the end. I dare say, you’ll both find such an arrangement irresistible.

Ryson felt suffering in the words, aching for silence. He hoped The Haunt would at last let him die. Ryson closed his eyes, and released his hand from his neck, wondering why he’d tried to stop the bleeding in the first place .

This is what he wanted, wasn’t it? To die.

He kept his eyes closed, and exhaled, relaxing his body until Prince’s words injected themselves uneasily into the quietness of his mind.

I’ll ask you again when you’re truly awake.

I’m sure you’ll see the beauty in the picture I paint, for it is only a picture you’ve painted yourself.

Soon, it will be just like it was then when the world was rife with war, Prince whispered, and his voice echoed across the city possessed as a crowd gathered around Ryson.

The three of us. The dead villagers of Virday chanted in unison as if in his joy, Prince had lost all restraint on the control of his voice, Together again.