My memory, our memories. Gone. Broken? There are pieces, but so many are muddled. Like a dream, they come in sudden clarity, then fade just as quickly back to fractured thoughts shrouded in fog.

ARC 5 - PARACLETE

CHAPTER 2 - DEAD MEMORIES

The first day of freedom after half a season of confinement to the Citadel’s grounds following her incident with the Void Cult - and it was raining. Nothing could have been as fitting. The world had always done its best to dampen her spirits. Why should now be any different?

Tera shifted the cloak on her shoulders and pulled the hood further over her head so her bangs wouldn’t catch the drops pouring from its front. She walked swiftly, unconcerned that some of the puddles were a bit deeper than the others. There were other people about, though they scurried to and fro in a futile effort to keep themselves dry. Horses shook the water from their coats as they pulled wagons through muddy ruts in the streets and Elysium’s market district thrummed quietly along despite the dreary weather. Tera was merely a passerby, however, and she ignored each merchant's call as she headed on the quickest route to the Church.

For just over a fortnight she’d deliberated, arguing with herself in her room until the wee hours of the morning. This was not a thing to be brought up even to the closest of friends, but something that must be decided alone - and decided she had.

The library was empty save for a single Oracle half-asleep in the center of a circular desk and three women along the far wall. One of three was exactly who Tera had hoped to find. She marched hard past the Oracle, ignoring his jerking movement as her booted footfalls roused him and left a string of drool linking mouth to arm. The Angels continued their hushed conversation until she was all but upon them. She hadn’t truly known that all three were, in fact, the Divine’s Chosen, but it was a fair assumption. The other two bore the same refined beauty that graced Harut’s face, though they did look considerably younger. The brunette of the two turned to look at her and blinked absently, then smiled. The blonde, however, gave no indication she cared for Tera’s presence.

“Well, hello,” the brunette said. “You must be Tera. Harut’s mentioned you.”

Tera swallowed, but kept her face still. Regardless of her being a topic of discussion between Angels, she’d come for a singular purpose.

“I’d like to speak to her,” Tera said with her eyes dead-set on the Angel of Sorcery. Harut seemed keen to let things play out without any of her own involvement, choosing to idly flip through the pages of a book at the far end of the table.

“But of course,” the brunette said. “Come, let’s give them some space.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Tera saw the look of judgment the blonde Angel gave her. Perhaps the conversation prior to her arrival hadn’t been strictly positive. And maybe it had been about her. She threw the thought away to the outer reaches of her mind and continued to stare at Harut.

“Can I help you, child?” Harut asked once the others had left the library.

“I’ll take it.”

“What, a book on Elysian history?” the Angel said, regarding the book’s cover with a curious frown. “I don’t think you’ll find anything—”

“You know what I mean,” Tera snapped. A bit too harsh, perhaps. She almost said sorry, but forbade herself from the follow-up after opening her mouth. It was time to be deliberate. If she couldn’t show conviction now, when would she?

Her jaw clacked shut and she folded her arms beneath across her chest.

“Yes,” Harut agreed and slowly set the book on the table. “I do. I also know that I told you not to grasp blindly for power. You don’t even know what it is I’m offering.”

“I’m not blindly asking.” Tera stepped around the table, closing in on the Angel to better impose her will. “I can’t fight as I am now. I’m useless to my friends. And I’m not stupid, I can guess at what you can teach me.”

Harut turned to face her and the Angel’s eyes bore the same grim look the clouds held outside. “Guessing is not enough,” she said sternly. “You would sacrifice your ability to manifest the Light for a desire to fight? You will never summon a barrier again. Your natural gift cast aside. Forever. And if you take what I have to give, the world will never look at you the same.”

“You weren’t there!” Tera pleaded. “You didn’t see how I failed! What good are barriers if the enemy can just beat them down?”

“You’re not answering the question.”

Tera forced back the hiccup in her throat. Her voice might weigh heavy with sorrow and guilt, but it would be resolute.

“Yes,” she answered. “I would. I would sacrifice anything to fight as my sister can. I want to fight alongside my friends. I don’t want to be left behind.”

“The first thing you must learn is that knowledge comes at a price,” Harut said and rounded on her.

Tera froze in place. She was no deeper than two steps into what she guessed was a bedroom converted into an overcrowded study and the Angel was already setting the terms. “I—” she began, but was overwhelmed by the stacks of books stacked sloppily throughout the room and every flat surface covered in handwritten notes scattered between dozens of vials and small chests holding Heaven-knows-what. “I didn’t come for knowledge,” she managed, her eyes never settling on one place. “I came for power.”

“When you come to me, they are one in the same,” Harut informed her. “Now, what do you have that would be of value to me?”

Tera’s hand absently went to the small coin purse on her belt as her eyes continued to survey the room. She didn’t even realize the Highlord’s manor was still livable, but as they’d entered the large residence she’d found it was immaculately clean on the inside, almost as if some amount of staff had maintained the spacious residence despite Highlord Orgeron’s refusal to occupy it. Maintained most of it, anyway. This room hadn't been touched by a feather duster in quite some time.

“Gold and silver mean nothing to me, Child,” the Angel said. Tera looked up and found Harut leaning forward, a few strands of faded golden hair slipping free from behind the Angel’s ear as she waited for something worth whatever power she had to offer.

“What about this?” Tera asked meekly and pulled a small white gemstone from a pocket on her short tunic. Raegn had taken it off the dead cultist some days ago and given it to her as some sort of gift, or perhaps a trophy, but it didn’t hold the same sentiment as the clip she still wore in her hair. She doubted he’d mind if it was used in a trade - especially if that trade let her be at his side the next time the Void reared its ugly head.

The Angel’s eyes lit up and she snatched the gem from Tera’s palm. She held it up to the light of one of the candles nearby and studied it some, then shoved it into her robes.

“Yes, that will do. Now, on to your first lesson.”

Harut glided over to a group of smaller vials stacked atop a dresser on one side of the room and began to rummage through a few of them, inspecting each before casting it aside. After half a dozen or so, she found the one she’d been looking for.

“Drink this,” the Angel ordered and held out her hand.

Tera took the small vial and studied the milky liquid. “What is it?”

“Does it matter?” Harut asked. “I thought you said you’d sacrifice anything?”

With narrowed eyes, Tera popped the tiny cork from the vial and threw back the liquid in a single gulp. It tasted…bitter? It was gone so fast she could hardly tell. There was no lingering aftertaste on her tongue and it didn’t even feel like it had reached her stomach; more like her body had absorbed it before it could get that far.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Stand here,” Harut said with a point at the floor near the center of the room. Tera complied and a moment later the Angel pulled a small cage from behind a row of waist-high shelves. The legs of the bedside table Harut drug to a position a few feet in front of her made a horrible screech across the floor and Tera did her best not to wince at the sound. The container was set atop the small surface and she bent over slightly to see the mouse inside.

“I want you to tell me when you can see the Light that gives this creature life,” Harut instructed.

Tera frowned. See the Light? If she couldn’t manifest the Light beyond a barrier there wasn’t a chance a mouse could do anything visible with it.

“How am I supposed to—”

“Have you tried anything?” Harut said as she took a graceful seat behind a small desk in the corner of the room. A carefully selected location, it seemed, for it would have been well illuminated by a window if the skies hadn’t been so gray. When all Tera could answer with was a blank stare, the Angel gave a disappointed tisk of her tongue, then began to write.

Tera balled her fists. Was it too much to ask for things to be explained? It could hardly be considered being taught something if she had to figure it out entirely for herself. With frustration dripping from her face, she turned her attention to the mouse that wandered its small cage. It stuck its nose between the bars here and there, always sniffing, always searching for a way out; and did absolutely zero things that could be considered a use of the Light.

Still, Tera tried. She stared so hard her vision eventually blurred and she was forced to blink and realize how bad her eyes burned from drying out. She tried again, this time focusing on the smallest of details. Every hair on its body, how dexterous its small feet were, the twitch of every whisker…and still nothing that could resemble the Light.

Three more tries and what was probably half an hour later earned her nothing better.

“I don’t think I can,” Tera grumbled, more discouraged than angry.

“Giving up already?”

“No!” she said defiantly. “I just—I don’t understand. A mouse can’t manifest the Light. What am I supposed to see?”

“Perhaps see is the wrong term,” Harut said, still scribbling away at her desk. “Feel might be more accurate. Close your eyes.”

Tera let her eyelids fall and with them her frustrations. Her shoulders slumped, relaxing from tension she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

“Focus on it now,” Harut’s voice said in the distance. “Can you smell it? Hear it?”

Tera tried, but all she smelled was the musky odor from old books. The scratching from the Angel’s quill was deafening compared to any noise the small mouse might make, so much so that she could count its every stroke against the paper.

“No…” she admitted. “It might help if you stop writing.”

“A pitiful excuse. Focus. You know the mouse is there. You know the Light gives it life. Find the point between what you can see with your eyes and what can only be seen with faith.”

Molars ground together and fingernails found the soft palm of the hand as Tera bore the small insult, but with a deep breath she let them fade. She wanted what the Angel had to offer. Needed it. She absorbed the instruction and made it a part of her. She could, if she paid enough attention, hear a soft squeak or the faint scrape of a paw against the cage between the scratches of the quill. The longer she listened to those delicate sounds, the easier it became to pick them out, almost as if she was honing in on the tiny creature. It was only an arm’s length away, she could remember its position even with her eyes closed. She knew exactly how far it was from the ground, her, and even Harut.

And then, somewhere between one of her deep breaths, she connected. The mouse came clearly to her mind’s eye, not just a guess of where it was, but its exact movements. It glowed faintly, each portion of its body made up of thousands of tiny strands of pure-white string, all interconnected and wound as if it was some sort of child’s toy, though infinitely more intricate.

Tera smiled.

“Do you see them now?” she heard a distant voice ask.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Tear them apart.”

She winced at the words. “Won’t that kill it?”

“It’s a mouse, Child. Hardly worth the worry. Still, be quick about it. If you do not break enough of the threads at once the creature will suffer.”

Tera pressed her eyes shut even harder and reached out with her soul. Like two hands grasping fistfuls of string, her Light took hold of that of the creature and she pulled with all her might. The threads snapped and the mouse exploded in a flash of white. Tera’s mind reeled, then when blank.

When she woke, she was on the floor with Harut leaning over her, the Angel wearing a quizzical frown. She forced herself upright and felt a thick drip of something that was a bit too heavy to be liquid fall from her cheek and land somewhere on her chest.

“What the—” Tera wiped her face and her hand came back red. Beyond it her eyes found bits of pink goop splattered across her clothes. “Fuck!” she finished the thought as her brain caught up to what she’d seen the moment before she passed out. “What happened?!”

“You broke apart its soul,” Harut said as she straightened and returned to her desk. “The body is but a host. A shell, if you will. What did you think would happen?”

“Not that!” Tera shouted. “Why would you make me do that?!”

Harut scowled at her for a moment, then picked up her quill and began to write. “Because you need experience,” she said plainly. “If you want to have power you must first learn the rules that bind it.”

“Well, what was I supposed to learn by killing a mouse?” Tera asked, waving a hand angrily in the direction of where the small creature had been as she stood.

“You learned what you know as Heaven’s Law, but what is truly a rule of creation.”

She paused from wiping the guts from her shirt and looked at the Angel questioningly. Harut sighed, but set down her quill and clasped her hands together atop the small desk.

“Why humanity always feels the need to put words to things is baffling, especially when they do it incorrectly,” the Angel said. “You know Heaven’s Law as ‘not using the Light to harm another’, yet there are all sorts of stipulations, as if inflicting no lasting harm or not maiming somehow bypasses the law. Ridiculous,” she scoffed. “The Light is an entity, Child, but not as you would ever be able to understand. It is a god in the truest sense, though I am aware that many refer to the Archangels as such, too. It makes some sense, considering the Archangels created humanity and all life, but they did so using the Light’s power…”

Harut trailed off, her eyes falling downward as much as her words. They snapped upward, suddenly, and she picked up as though she were righting the course of a ship.

“Humanity alone was given free will, yet we are still connected to all life. The Light would not wish to harm itself. When you tried to kill the mouse, the Light rebelled against your will. The stronger you are the harder you can push - and the more you can do without killing yourself in return.”

“You’re saying that, were I strong enough, I could do that to another person?” Tera clarified.

“Yes.”

Well, that was both reassuring and completely terrifying at the same time. Were someone truly evil it would be prudent to end a fight before it ever began. If it was only a matter of strength, though, that left the possibility that anyone could do the same to her.

“Are you?” she asked. “Strong enough?”

Harut did not answer. The Angel picked up her quill and went back to her writing while affording Tera nothing more than an absent voice.

“Your next lesson relates to the history of the Order. Do you know why the Justicar were formed?”

Tera studied the Angel, trying to discern if ignoring her question was equivalent to confirmation or not. If anyone could obliterate someone’s soul, an Angel surely could. The question was if she could do it now, or if it required her to ascend again first. Weeping heavens, the question burned in Tera’s mind so badly she had to bite her lip to keep from asking. Harut had yet to give in unless it was under the Angel’s terms, though, so pressing any further wasn’t liable to work.

“To uphold the Light’s justice,” Tera answered, allowing the previous lesson to end in an incomplete and thoroughly unsatisfying manner.

Harut actually laughed at that. “And what is the Light’s justice, Child? Just another folly of human creation.” The Angel continued to giggle some, a sound Tera wouldn’t have imagined such ageless beauty could make. “You’re not entirely wrong, though,” she said once she'd settled a bit. “They were created to protect the Light, it just happened to coincide with justice.”

Harut paused while dipping her quill in the inkwell, her hand steady and the tip still drowning in the black liquid. Tera had just finished pulling off her tunic to better clean it and now felt more than a bit awkward given the sudden focus placed upon her with just an undershirt on. She tried not to squirm away from Harut’s fierce eyes while she waited for the Angel to continue.

“They were created to kill mages.”

Tera swallowed. Harut's voice was...cold. She’d done some additional reading after first meeting the Angel of Sorcery, so she knew that behind that small desk sat one of the strongest mages the Realm had known - and that was before she was chosen by the Heavens. Harut must have been immensely confident in her strength even in her current state. She had to be, if she were to sit within the Citadel’s walls, surrounded by the ones who had killed her brothers and sisters.

“The Church admits that the Justicar performed the Cleansing, but I didn’t know they were made for it,” Tera said timidly. “You told me before that you remember history differently than the way it’s written. Could this be one of your broken memories?”

“No. Some things I must re-learn each day, for those memories are fractured and piecemeal, but this…” the Angel’s lips pursed and her eyes were downcast. “The Cleansing is a dead memory.”

“What does that mean?”

“Some things carry on through time,” Harut said quietly, “Many of the scars from battles fought in the Void War are still around today, but they are hard to see and you must look deep enough. Even then, they are just that - scars. Many perished, but bloodlines persisted. Fields were burned and the land drowned in blood, but seeds were eventually resown. The Cleansing, however, is permanent in the same fashion as death. It cannot be forgotten. Cannot be unwritten.”

Tera turned her focus to the soiled tunic in her hands. This seemed a thin line to walk. If Harut hated the Order because of the past, the topic would be entirely impossible to navigate. “Does that mean you hold a grudge against the Justicar?” she asked cautiously.

“No. We deserved what happened. Most of us, anyway.”

“What?” Tera replied, failing to mask any of her shock at the admission of guilt.

“The markings I bear on my skin are a method for turning the Light into something else,” Harut said. She pulled one sleeve of her loose robe up to the shoulder to reveal the sweeping lines of blue that formed connecting symbols covering the limb. “It is a transmutation of one type of power into another, with the soul as the catalyst. A constant source of power, but one not just anyone can use. Do you know what many mages used in my day?”

“Soulstones,” Tera answered. “But there aren’t any left.”

Harut scoffed. “Do you not have any idea what the gem you traded to me was, Child?” Tera’s eyes widened as the Angel plucked the translucent gem from somewhere within her robes and held it up between her fingers. Dexterous fingers turned it back and forth, hazel eyes studying it some as she continued, “Regardless, they are aptly named, for they are a literal soul - the remnants of a fallen Lightborne.”

That did make some sense, Tera reasoned. The first mages were storied to have learned their craft prior to the start of the Void War, so they must have been able to perform magic without the soulstones. But that meant that The Cleansing occurred after the Void War began, once the Lightborne had come to the Realm with the Archangels and countless scores of them killed in battles that stretched beyond what the eye could see. That part of the timeline didn’t match, though. Nearly all written work told of the Realm’s surprise at any mage’s willingness to fight against the Void because there were so few of them left and they risked exposing themselves. Would that not require The Cleansing to have occurred prior to the war?

“So the Justicar killed mages because they used soulstones for magic?” she asked. If that much were true, at least it meant there was a specific reason the Church hunted them down.

“It was a topic of great debate, but their use alone was not the reason,” Harut said. “It was how they were used.”

Tera waited for the rest of the explanation, but in the prolonged silence found that the Angel’s eyes were looking past the gem - at her. There must have been an implied question somewhere in the statement. Or was Harut testing her? She considered the information again. If all things were connected by the Light, it made sense that mages could draw power from something else. If the fact that such power coming from the remnant of a lesser Divine wasn’t the issue that drove the Cleansing, then what type of magic would have been so bad—

The realization hit, hard, the moment she made the connection between the two lessons she’d been taught.

“They used them to violate Heaven’s Law,” Tera whispered in horror.

“Yes, Child,” Harut confirmed with a curt nod. “In my time, many mages used the souls of the lesser Divine to kill with no risk to themselves. For that, the Justicar showed them no mercy.”