The Regency governed the Illuminari Council, exerting its influence across the land. No shaman or Lightblessed was safe from their merciless persecution. Nonetheless, they adapted and hid, continuing to thrive under the Light in places where the Illuminari’s shadow did not reach. Hidden, but never forgotten.

Chapter 48

“So, here we are, Your Grace,” Regent Torvas said as the carriage began to lurch down the road, every rock and rut obvious once they’d left the well-tended grounds of Briarthorne Estate. Next to him, Shallin honed the blade she bore for Trynneia, the repetitive shik, shik rhythm of her whetstone across metal oddly soothing over the clatter of the wheels.

“Yes,” Trynneia agreed, turning her attention to the trails of color that flowed past her window, distracted now by the twisting patterns within patterns. Drawn by ethereal turbulence, she could taste each texture. Here, burred wood, and there, smooth as glass. It all felt odd, yet quite right to her, even as they evaporated into the sky above them.

“Shingto believes in part that you are a miracle. There have been no Lightblessed seen in a century. It has left her shaken. Alcumi fears your…other powers.” He paused, watching her stare out the window as if not listening. “You don’t even try to hide it anymore, do you?”

We are your heritage now, Trynneia. He seeks to get under your skin, to confuse you. There is no purity, only corruption in the Light now. -bite and gnash, tear a gash- Your mother raised you better, loved you more. Defy the Regency. -end them-

Most of the words seemed reasonable, while others did nothing but confuse her. Did she go deeper into a pit of evil now, unaccompanied by anyone except Shallin, who may not even know the full truth? Trynneia didn’t even know herself what was true and what was falsehood. So many narratives had assailed her now, she couldn’t pick out fact from fiction anymore. Trust in the Light.

“What are you trying to tell me,” she asked aloud, questioning the voices. “What is my heritage?” Colors that had been keeping pace with the carriage raced ahead, replaced by others. Rich brown and tan, tasting of mulch and cocoa, mixed with the scent of cinnamon, drifted lazily along, flowing through shimmering silver weaves laced with supple red undertones.

“You need to come to the Light, Your Grace. Reject these other powers. Because you harbor them, corruption has settled into your very flesh and sickened you.” Torvas leaned towards her. “Nature skews itself around you through your use of the elements. Your body fights against you. Before much longer, your illness will kill you if left untreated.”

“Would that be so bad, Regent Torvas? I am what I am. No one hates this more than me. There is no cure you could provide me that would make me be what you wish,” Trynneia traced the sill of her window, tantalized by the runic structure etched into her hands and forearms. Their reds and blacks contrasted harshly with the gray of her skin. Her nerves tingled. “”Pure under the Light. You don’t want me alive anyway. Isn’t that right?”

Torvas sat up, rubbing his palms on his thighs. “That man’s filled you with strange notions, hasn’t he?”

“The first Lightblessed in a hundred years, Torvas? Is that what you tell yourself? Is that what Shingto wants you to believe? Elanreu admitted to me that he hunted us by the Regency’s command.” Shallin snickered at Trynneia’s rebuttal. “Safe in your walls, you contract others to do this. Why? You run things now, you and your fellow Regents. You don’t want me to take your place. Or any others like me.”

“He does not kill Lightblessed, Your Grace,” Torvas tried to soothe her.

“That’s because they’re all gone, Regent. Or is that a lie too?” Trynneia glared at him. “You’ve all worked hard to kill anyone or anything that threatens your rule. And here I go into the lion’s den.”

“He, along with others, was commissioned to search for them. Locate them. Bring them home to us. That is what it means to hunt. We seek their return. Your return, Your Grace.”

The hunt ceased twenty years ago, Trynneia, when your mother evaded him. Her sacred duty continued, safely. An unfortunate crossing of paths made you the last. -lies, lies, death and demise- Please, deny him. Find your duty. Find your purpose.

“Regent Shingto knew who my mother was. How? Did you know?” She tugged her tunic away from her chest to keep it from sticking to and catching on the scabs there. “I deserve the truth.” Torvas’ aura seemed to swallow him whole, throbbing in time with her own pulse now. He began to sweat.

“She had her suspicions,” he began, rubbing his chin. “It was Rendrys?” he asked, his tone one of curiosity. Trynneia’s heart dropped. “This changes many things,” he muttered. “Many things.” Shallin’s honing stopped.

“She was your mother? Light,” Shallin murmured. “Your Grace, I-” Torvas raised a hand, and she stopped.

He grabbed Trynneia’s chin, and sat forward on the edge of his bench, pulling her close. “Your eyes don’t lie, Your Grace,” he said, looking into her amber irises. She tried to look in any other direction but at him, striving to break free from his grip. His brown eyes were dotted with specks of red and striations of green, almost imperceptible. “The nose is wrong,” he continued, turning her from side to side before releasing her. She rubbed her jaw.

Satisfied, he sat back. “No, you wouldn’t know, would you? Of course not.”

“Know what?” She asked quietly, a slowly growing dread filling her. -drink his blood your fill his death- Your mother served the Light faithfully for years, helping the downtrodden and sick. -purge the Light the blood the life- You are her glorious legacy, born to fulfill her purpose. Listen, and learn. -reject it destroy them-

“The Thief,” Shallin whispered, staring at the floor. Torvas’ face contorted in anger, and he clenched his hands. Trynneia watched black vapors settle about his shoulders like a weight, and he slouched as he wrestled with his emotions.

“What thief? What was taken?” Trynneia asked, confused. Shallin leaned the sword against the door, its etched blade shimmering as it bounced along with the carriage, catching the light of the twin suns.

“There are rumors of a Thief that stole something sacred from the Illuminari, then vanished.” Shallin explained. “I’ve heard her name before, named as the thief.” Torvas turned and slapped her hard.

“Unsubstantiated rumors. Get a hold of yourself, girl.” He looked at Trynneia. “They’re just rumors.”

“If that were so, Regent, why slap her?” Trynneia retorted. Return to the Right, Trynneia. Our powers are yours despite yourself. Why reject them? -reject yourself- -abomination- -murderer- You do not seek absolution, you seek certainty. “What truth are you afraid of?” Trynneia watched Shallin seethe, rubbing her face.

“There are certain undeniable truths, Your Grace.” He tapped the fabric of her nondescript tunic, the dark dampness slicking through. “Many of them are uncomfortable. Powers were used against you that shouldn’t have been. Our people lost so much sight of who they pursued that they tainted you this way.” Torvas sighed. “We failed you.”

Trynneia chuckled, unable to prevent herself. “You let them do this.” The skin around her oldest runes cracked and began to bleed. “You encouraged them.”

“Against shaman, Your Grace. When it suits the Purpose.”

“The Purpose? My mother never spoke of a “Purpose” under the Light.” Trynneia’s anger grew, and red tinted her vision. -eviscerate him- The Light provides answers whether you listen or ignore. -take his head, take his mind- Light IS the purpose of life. We serve both, and are from both. “What purpose was there to murdering my mother? The people of my town? In what world does that make sense?”

“What happened to you and your people was unfortunate, but we intend to make it right.” She saw through Torvas’ hollow lie. Nothing would return her to the world she had known. Nothing would return the people she’d lost, the love she’d known. As blood filled each runic crevasse on her body, she tasted his pulse throbbing, and sucked at her tongue as he continued.

“You came for Light’s Judgment, and through it you can be renewed. Purged of the sicknesses that you struggle against.” Torvas seemed so earnest. -do not entreat, he earns defeat- You are one with us, Trynneia. You are natural and beautiful. -they steal you, blight you- What you are cannot be taken away. -embrace his life and take it- The voices spoke more truth to her than did the Regent. “I hate to see you flail so. Let us help you.”

“I’ve already chosen to receive Light’s Judgment. Why are you trying to convince me? What more is it you seek, Regent?” -absolution- “Absolution? -atonement- “Atonement? I think the Regency needs to reconsider its position. Its purpose.”

“Your Grace,” Shallin cut in, her tone low and calm, though trembling. “Would you change the Illuminari itself?” She flexed her hands and retrieved the sword, beginning to hone it again. “The Light shines everywhere.”

“I don’t know,” Trynneia admitted. “I just feel how wrong this all is. I’ve felt like a prisoner for months. A slave to powers I don’t understand. Made to feel worthless, to hate my friends.” She leveled her eyes at Torvas. “Made to kill my friends. I hate myself.”

Shallin and Torvas watched in disbelief as her eyes began to glow blood-orange as she spoke. “Something is in me,” she continued, beating at her chest with her palm, “that tortures me. Torments me.” Do not hate what you’ve become. It is what you already were. -blind them, kill them- Feel the air as it presses upon you. -heavy is the fate- “There’s blood on my hands,” she said as it wicked through the patterns etched in her fingers. Her metaphor became reality, marking her tunic with bloodied imprints from her hand.

“So much blood,” Shallin whispered.

“They press upon me,” she wondered aloud. “I want them to stop, want it all to stop.” Blood red flooded the glow of her eyes, casting a crimson aura upon Shallin and Torvas. Trynneia felt Shallin’s pulse rise with her growing terror as Torvas’ own beat steadily on, nonplussed.

“The Light provides a means to help that,” Torvas acknowledged. “You’ve chosen-” -destroy him, destroy them- Fire can consume the soul like tinder and wood. Certain temptations- -burn and char, fight him, kill him- cannot be overcome with- -his pain is your salvation- baser instincts. You need to -end this- maintain calm. His remaining comment was lost in the torrent of voices.

Trynneia swallowed, then began coughing and crying, blood streaming down her face even as she coughed more up from her raw throat. “Go back. Go back to the whispers, I could tolerate those,” she wept, tortured by the voices, hating the treacherous reminder of her other powers.

All she could feel as she wept was pain slivering through her open wounds, pores leaking blood as her body failed. She stopped talking to her two companions, in part to spare Shallin further distress, and in part to kill the conversation with Torvas. Already she teetered, feeling dangerous in her own right. Calm, Trynneia, like the butterfly. -or the rotting leaf- Do not lose yourself. -you are already lost-

“I lose so much blood, but never die,” she stated numbly. “How is that?” Her fingers touched a small pool of it that congealed near her. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but it reached for her, oddly warm when it should have been cool. She smiled, forgetting the others as she dabbed her fingers playfully. Just enough to be sticky, a morbidly fascinating sensation that she lost herself in. Calm.

Around her she felt a warm caress as greens and blues flooded in from the window, alighting upon her flesh. She shut her eyes and drew in a shuddering breath. Trynneia didn’t need to see the colors or taste their savory flavors as they delved ever so lightly into her skin, closing her wounds and sustaining her. Instead, she lost herself in ecstasy even as she lost herself to the voices that strove to claim her.

Weakness is not the way. -burn it all to the ground- You will be whole and perfect. -ruined, broken, shattered- Embrace what you are. -primal destruction- The Light is your gift, but we are the tools you use. -Abomination- You are strong. -weak-

“Show me,” she whispered.

Shallin exchanged seats, sitting next to Trynneia. “Your Grace?” she asked helplessly. The other girl was lost in her mind as Shallin attempted to wipe away the bloody smudges with the scant items available to her. All she did was succeed in making a mess. Trynneia remained oblivious.

“It’s more serious than I thought. Should never have just let her go with him,” Torvas swore angrily. “She’s very unstable.”

“She needs a focus, Regent. Anything to keep her from being lost like this,” Shallin explained. “The elements are a distraction, they break her reality. It’s how a shaman becomes Skytouched. Her mind is shifting between different forms of perception.” She spit on the corner of her shirt and wiped the blood from Trynneia’s eyes, their reddish glow undiminished. “I’ve never seen a shaman in such a state like this,”she admitted.

Torvas eased forward. “You’ve no reason to be here, girl. Why did you come? You treat her with equal parts love and fear. Even…hatred? She’s no friend to you.”

“She’s hurt and abandoned. I see something of myself in her. Lord Regent, if I can present myself as a friend to her, does that not serve the Light?” Shallin asked him.

“There is nothing left in her that serves the Light. If she ever did. You would do well to remember that.” Torvas sat back, and stared out the window. Shallin continued to wipe away blood.

Your friends are your salvation, Trynneia. -abandon them- We are your friends. Warmth flushed her skin, yet fresh and cool like a breeze. The Light and the Life and the Love are within you. Let us welcome you.

-murder is within you- -let us welcome them-

Trynneia turned her face to the window and let the voices fill her.