Three Regents comprised the Illuminari Regency, one for each Tenet of the Light. They spoke for the missing Lightblessed, holding a ruling position in the Light, governing in their stead until their eventual return. As the Illuminari changed in the absence of the Lightblessed, the desperation of the Regents changed them as well.

Chapter 38

Trynneia felt uncomfortable sitting next to Regent Shingto and the newly arrived Regents Torvas and Alcumi. Lord Elanreu sat across from her, his mood dark and his stare darker. She pushed her food around, her appetite absent despite the grumble in her belly. The speckled colors floated milder today, closer to their objects, but the sussurating, unintelligible whispers filled her ears.

“...you haven’t even locked her up,” Regent Alcumi was saying as her attention drifted. A short stocky man, he projected a large aura, both literally and spiritually.

“What is there to understand, Alcumi? She’s Lightblessed,” Regent Shingto rebutted. “I have no more power over Her Grace than you do.”

“You can’t overlook the fact that she assaulted you and her servant with her abominable powers in the short time she’s been here,” Regent Torvas concurred with Alcumi. “A Lightblessed that does not follow the Tenets is not of the Illuminari.”

Trynneia shrunk into her chair, listening to them argue as if she were not present. Lord Elanreu cast a knowing smirk, and it irked her that he remained as a witness. She cast her eyes downward in an attempt to ignore the stirring colors around her.

“Her Grace has been through plenty since her unfortunate abduction, and-”

“Why do you seek to defend her, Shingto? The evidence is in the foundations of our baths, and the wreckage of her rooms. Imprison her,” Torvas cut in, raising his voice in exasperation. He looked across the table at her, rubbing his thumb along the tips of his fingers.

“The Purpose provides-”

“Nothing,” Alcumi interrupted her again. “There’s no precedent for this. Our place is to hold for the return of the Lightblessed. You have yourself rejected her. Why this farce?” He threw his hands up.

Regent Shingto sighed, and began again. “She’s flawed, I admit. But the Purpose provides that she be given the opportunity to speak for herself, and to be Judged under the Light.”

“You realize that’s blasphemy, Shingto,” Alcumi replied. “It is Her Grace’s position to proclaim the Judgment of the Light, not to be subject to it.”

Their voices tasted of lime, freshly reaped wheat, and rice, driving her to distraction. The fusion of her senses made her drum the table softly, keeping her eyes shut to the sounds.

“And there’s the other matter,” Regent Torvas said. “She harbors a corruption that spreads through her body. Who authorized blood magic to be used on a Lightblessed?”

Elanreu spoke up. “I authorized it for the apprehension of the rogue shaman. My man Modius interpreted my direction rather broadly.” A coughing fit shook Trynneia, and she struggled to suck in several breaths.

“Even you do not have direct authority for that, Lord Elanreu.” Regent Torvas looked across Trynneia to Shingto. “Did you know about the Lightblessed when you commissioned this, Shingto?”

“In conjunction with the Purpose, I requested Lord Elanreu’s services to apprehend the shaman and leave a message. The methods were left to him.” She sighed. “I told him no method was off the table.”

Regents Torvas and Alcumi shifted their gaze to the other man. Lord Elanreu smirked. “What message were you ordered to deliver, Lord?”

Trynneia stopped drumming her fingers and whispered, “Any who harbored a shaman were to be purged from the Light.” She looked to her left, and to her right, observing the three Regents who governed in the name of the Light. “Is that what you wished to convey, Regent Shingto?”

How she managed to keep her voice steady, though rasped by her coughs, she couldn't tell. Shingto blanched, her weak aura of white and gold shot through with deep reds that frittered themselves away with streaks of color into the air around her. She nodded, and tears streamed down both cheeks.

“Tell them, Lord Elanreu,” Trynneia commanded, her voice going stronger as the noise in her ears began to smell of sulfur and rot. “Tell them what they need to hear. What I need to hear.”

Elanreu scratched at his chin, looking from Regent to Regent before setting his dark eyes on Trynneia herself. “You don’t want to hear the tales I can tell, Oathbreaker,” he began. The three Regents bristled at his name for her. “But as Your Grace commands, so shall it be,” he mocked.

“It begins, of all things, with a totem.” Alcumi and Torvas looked at Shingto, who averted her gaze. “You have it still, I trust?” The woman nodded, and slowly drew it forth from her sash and put it on the table.

Guttural screams gnawed at Trynneia’s ears, piercing her mind and drawing her focus as a prismatic aura surged from the bundle of sticks. Every color she could perceive throbbed around it, streaking away from it singly and in waves. So many voices tore at her that it sapped her strength just trying to block them away. Elanreu reached across the table and grabbed it, and Trynneia’s attention followed.

“It was no ordinary totem, but a trap, blessed by a shaman of some renown in years past. No shaman could handle being in its presence afterward,” he indicated how Trynneia seemed overcome by it. Using a dinner knife, Elanreu sliced through the rope binding the four twigs together. Trynneia cried out, but he ignored her, setting them next to each other.

“While the Light blessed her, it did not have the same effect, but clearly we can all see that’s changed. Now, I’d been looking for someone for years, at the bequest of our esteemed Regent Shingto. A man I finally managed to track down.

“He wandered from village to village, much like his brother. By himself, he was nothing special, but my commission was for his brother. This man, worthless as he was, I needed for only one thing.”

Trynneia began to tremble, staring at the twigs and their coats of paint. -Remember- a voice smelled of blood and death. She picked at the bandage on her right hand, which itself clutched at the festering witches mark on her chest, where the blood runes began to seep through once more.

“Just a man with a goat,” she whispered. “The goat didn’t do anything wrong.” -Why the goat, why the man?- “Leave him alone, he didn’t deserve it. He missed his brother. Where is his brother?” -Where is his brother? Who is his brother?-

“Sounds about right, Your Grace. Just an innocent man, in the wrong place, with the right relative,” Lord Elanreu paraphrased, idly rolling the twigs about and watching for Trynneia’s response. Her bandaged hand began to claw into the flesh beneath her dress, digging into the rot and ruining her outfit anew.

She remembered the alley way as she and Ditan raced into it, coming across the headless corpses where they lay forgotten. Flies buzzing about, maggoty flesh beginning to turn putrid…This very same totem remained bundled up nearby.

“He received this gift, and recognized it for what it was,” he continued, looking from Trynneia to Regent Shinto. Trynneia re-lived her memories, unable to prevent herself from retching bile and blood onto the table once the reflex started, followed by more coughing as another fit took her. “As expected, he went to deliver it to his brother.” Disgusted, Torvas and Alcumi stood and backed away, while Shingto sighed and attempted to comfort Trynneia. She stared daggers at the Lord.

“My men followed him to track down his brother, a man known to be a shaman working the outskirtting farms of a particular village. We just didn’t know which. My men grew impatient and murdered him to draw the brother out, once they decided he seemed comfortable and at ease.”

“Driver,” Trynneia muttered between gasping coughs. Regent Shingto slumped back into her seat.

“This is what you authorized, Shingto? Madness!” Alcumi turned on his fellow Regent, shouting.

“You’d never understand, that’s why I did it without the two of you,” Shingto said, looking up at them.

“Your vengeance will be the end of us,” Torvas spat. He looked at Lord Elanreu. “It is done then?” The Lord nodded.

“As Her Grace herself, the Oathbreaker, has attested, my men delivered a message in full.” Elanreu sat back in his chair, a smug grin on his face.

Each Regent’s auras shot dark blood red, laced with black that visibly dimmed the light in Trynneia’s sight, striving to pull her attention from the violated totem across from her. A piercing whine accompanied the shift, and she covered her ears.

-Lies or Truth, Truth or Lies? Where are those you most despise? Follow suit to the root, for your pain to bear fruit. Fruit or flies, do you surmise?-

“I don’t want fruit, or flies, just be quiet!” Trynneia yelled. -The candle light- “It shines so bright.” -To keep darkness at bay-

The Regents looked from one to another, confusion and horror dawning on each of their faces as Trynneia began to ramble.

-The darkness steals- “What Light reveals,” she continued, lowering her voice to a shallow rasp. -To all at top of day- Her eyes looked up, and colors began to separate from the ceiling and swirl about her vision.

Lord Elanreu fingered the twigs, rolling them back together again and tying them up with the severed hemp rope. Trynneia continued onward, listening to words only she could hear, and filling in where she would.

-When light does fade- “All debts are paid,” she said, reaching for the colors, straining to touch them and taste their glory. -And fate takes all away- Trynneia began to pull at the colors, feeling their glorious scents as they began to drift down and drape around her body.

-Now darkness comes- “To blot the suns,” she whispered, the flesh at her chest oozing freely, and her cratered runes began to drain as if a black ink had manifested itself to siphon away the Light. -And nothing shall remain-

“Abomination,” muttered Alcumi, while Torvas knelt in fevered prayer. Regent Shingto continued to weep, hands bunched at her mouth, striving to hold in her cries.

“This is what you’ve wrought, Regent Shingto,” gloated Lord Elanreu as he casually tossed the bundle back at the woman. Trynneia caught the totem in mid air, pulling it close. The voices calmed, and a warm aura of yellow and light orange surrounded Elanreu. He smiled.

“I ask that you remand the girl to my care, since you’re clearly powerless to do anything about her,” he mocked. “What do you say, Oathbreaker?”

Trynneia gripped the totem with her bandaged right hand and looked at her shaking left palm still held above her, savoring every sensation. She’d forgotten where she was as so many voices struggled to gain her attention. His voice called her back, like a strange anchor, a hint of the familiar.

The totem thrummed with power in her hand, warm and ready, a comfort to her mind and a tie back to her friend. Lord Elanreu waited patiently for her. Lowering her hand to her waist, she felt the dagger there in its sheath, just as he had gifted it to her. It pulsed with its aura, flowing a taste of welcome, soothing tea with a hint of desert sand.

“I will return her to your care once you’ve sorted yourselves out. Or do you doubt my motives?” He waited for their response.

-To run, to flee, to stay, to be- She stood, weak and weary, and walked around the table to Lord Elanreu, one hand upon her dagger and the other clutching the totem. He smiled at her approach.

“I can’t stay here, Lord Elanreu. I’m not ready for the Light.”

“You cannot go, Your Grace,” Regent Torvas cautioned, equal measures of rage and reverence in his voice. “Only here can we prepare you for the Light.”

“When I’m ready, you can prepare me,” she whispered, empty and hollow, before grabbing Lord Elanreu’s hand and departing.