Page 6 of Light Locked #1

“That important, is it?” He sounded genuinely interested. “So, you did betray the king?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Ah, but Princess, you did not deny it.” There was a delicate purr in his voice, like he’d constructed the entire conversation as a funnel to this phrase.

His hand reached out and grazed the wall they were walking along.

Something about their interaction seemed to spur him to interact with the world.

Clea searched for his eyes beneath the bandage, trying to find his humanity, dodging a couple of young boys that ran past with bundles of candles.

“I don’t know why you so readily doubt me, but I abide by a code, Ryson.

It is an honorable code to protect my fellow man and remain noble in my duties.

I have been gifted with power, and I will strive to do my best for this world. ”

The corner of his mouth twitched, and his hand dropped back by his side. Her words seemed to have drained the life out of him. He exhaled through his teeth. “You’re one of those,” he hissed. “I should have left you in the woods.”

“Excuse me?” She watched him in horror.

“Why didn’t you just pay smugglers to get you out in the first place?” he asked.

“Well, it’s illegal. I don’t know what sorts of people smuggle,” she replied, and resisted the urge to jolt as light jumped off a metal surface in a coming crowd. If Ryson replied, she was too distracted to notice.

She forgot their conversation as she scanned each person within the crowd, searching for armor, and was relieved to find that it had just been a metal plate.

“So, to summarize, you’ve turned your only allies against you. You’re at risk of losing your life, and yet you hesitate to hire smugglers because it’s illegal?” Ryson asked, looking at her now as if the answer to this question required that he see her face.

Clea blinked, searching what she could of his face as she tried to understand why he found it all so unbelievable. “What? ”

He stopped walking, and she dodged another person who passed behind her. Ryson acted like the crowd didn’t exist, and people skirted around him, bumping her in the front and back like she was invisible.

“I don’t know what kind of unsavory characters do smuggling,” Clea reasoned before someone knocked into her shoulder.

Ryson kept walking again.

“People can be worse than beasts, you know,” she said after him. “You think I’m unreasonable?”

“I think your parents kept you locked in your room for most of your life, spoon feeding you ideas, and you barely have any idea what you’re saying, much less what you’re doing,” he shot back, and the insult had a surprising sting.

She’d never been insulted so specifically by a stranger, and the accuracy of it struck her with a silence that drove her into her own thoughts as she followed after him again.

She’d fought hard to come to Virday. She’d fought harder than she’d ever fought for anything else. At last, she’d been sentenced to a week of complete solitude, but she hadn’t listened that time.

On the night of her mother’s departure to Virday, Clea sneaked into her carriage.

Her mother didn’t find her hiding until it was too late and was forced to bring her along.

A pang of guilt surfaced as memories of the journey and its tragic end ensued.

A reaping shade horde attacked them and their guards when they were nearly to the walls of Virday.

Their deaths had haunted her for a long time, but she’d grown tired of defending her actions and challenging her grief.

She’d changed immensely in the last three years and had worked hard to resolve those things in herself.

Ryson’s comment threw her, but she collected herself after a few minutes.

She was relieved when the commotion of the market grew loud enough to drown out any risk of her mulling over the events any further.

The market was comforting in that Clea felt like she completely blended in. Stands, vendors, and hordes of townspeople filled the roads with distractions, and the faint luminance of her skin was completely outshined by the sun.

As they reached the first stand, he said, “I must hide my eyes. They charge more for Kalex, so you will have to collect the purchases for our journey. I’m a blinded soldier, formerly a part of the Virdain guard. You’re someone who I have hired to assist me.” He dropped coins into her palm.

She gripped the coins by her side as she approached the first stand. Ryson put his hand on her shoulder, and she rolled it back as a reflex, looking back at him.

“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, still seething from his insult.

“I’m blind, you idiot,” he shot back as she rolled her shoulder again.

“You could at least ask permission like any decent human being,” she mumbled, walking under the veranda of the stand.

With a growl of annoyance, he replied, “It’s a shoulder, not your— ”

“If you don’t have the coin, put your heels to the road,” an old woman hissed from the stand. Her face was scrunched in every way and browned like an apple left in the sun too long.

“I’m going to buy something,” Clea snapped back. Ryson squeezed her shoulder in a way that inflamed her pride. She was perfectly capable of being civil without his help. She was an expert at civility.

“Get thirty,” he said over her shoulder.

Clea paid and collected her purchase. They shopped for some time, and she soon discovered that Ryson was picky with his purchases.

He made sure that she chose one thing over the other, even though both appeared to be the same.

She found it more annoying with each stand, never wanting to bite someone’s hand so badly, and relieved when he finally freed her shoulder for a moment to draw out coins for the final payments.

As she waited for Ryson to pay the vendor for a water skin, her eyes looked over the collection of wares spread along the stand.

Much of it looked like trash picked up from the street, but she noticed a small vial buried in it.

She picked through the pile of bottles, old leather, and rusted armor delicately, drawing out the vial with her fingertips and inspecting it as dread and sadness filled her stomach.

She swallowed as she cupped the vial in her palm and held it close to her body with both hands.

“Hey, pay for that!” the gruff vendor barked. This seemed to catch Ryson’s attention as he neared her back, perhaps to look over her shoulder .

Clea didn’t know what to say, cradling the glass vial close as she watched the milky substance churn slowly inside. Typically, they were a bright blue, but this one had been trapped for too long. Releasing it wouldn’t do anyone any good now, but she still wanted it.

She swallowed to fill the crack in her voice before she said, “How much is it?”

“Twenty-seven notes,” the vendor said sternly. The price was ridiculous and no doubt he’d increased it just now seeing the expression on her face. She’d been a fool to show she cared at all.

“What is it?” Ryson asked, though she knew he could see it.

“It’s someone’s mind,” Clea said and Ryson paused as if reasoning out for himself why she might have grabbed it, perhaps sensing the sadness in her voice. He didn’t react for a moment.

He must think her insane, but ever since learning that people’s pieces could be extracted and sold like this, she’d been unable to stomach the practice.

Each exposure to it only seemed to make it more potent, and she’d never dared to ask how the extractions were done.

It was clear no one had wanted to tell her either.

A person’s heart, mind, body and soul were vital parts of them.

The idea of splitting those parts and profiting off them made her sick.

Furthermore, the idea of someone consuming another’s mind to get smarter, or stealing another’s heart to gain control of them were completely unfathomable to her.

Rare as it was, it didn’t make it less horrible .

“Let me see it,” Ryson demanded, extending his hand.

She dropped the vial in his hand and without a second thought, he popped the top off with his bandaged thumb and the substance inside evaporated.

Clea jolted toward the burly vendor in shock.

The man’s face purpled with rage. “You!” he started to shout.

Ryson replied with a simple coldness. “What?”

His nonchalance seemed to take the man off guard as Ryson closed the top again and offered the vial back to the vendor.

“I’m giving you back the only thing of real value.

Take it. You expect someone to purchase a decrepit mind?

Any Dark Market vendor worth their salt would never pay for a useless mind, and anyone else would avoid the purchase out of pure superstition. You’ll get more for the vial alone.”

He dropped the vial, the vendor scrambling to catch it before Ryson walked off, pulling Clea with him. Clea glanced back at the man who seemed stunned into inaction, looking down at the vial as if considering if he should still get angry or not.

She heard Ryson mutter under his breath, “I'll sell your bleeding heart.”

“Thank you,” she whispered back to him, ignoring the comment entirely.

He didn’t respond, and his mood seemed even darker for the rest of the afternoon.

Clea was relieved when they finished their errands and paused to take a break.

She eased down on an old crate in the shade as Ryson sorted through their remaining currency.

She stared ahead at the road, wondering what made Ryson so bitter about the event with the vendor but thinking it better not to ask.

His feelings aside, they’d freed someone’s mind.

That’s what she cared about and knew it had been a good thing.

One mind freed.

Perhaps ten more were stolen and sold on the Dark Market every day. Oh well.