Lightblessed work the will of the Light. Ever champions against the Void, they have long filled the roles of healers, guides, and councillors. As often as they could be found at the right hand of royalty, they could be found as spiritual leaders of rural villages. But the Light shines on many things, and the Lightblessed fulfilled a deeper purpose.

Chapter 8

“Can we bury what we can of her?” Trynneia asked, once she spied the suspicious head-shaped bundle that had been placed out of view.

“Yes, absolutely. If that’s what you want.”

She went over and picked it up, taking care to leave the wrapping in place. “Thank you, for doing this much.”

“I didn’t want you to have to see her like that again.”

“I know.” She carried it over to the rubble of their home and placed it down in the middle. “Can you do what you did to the house, with her?” Ditan nodded. “Okay, just give me a moment.”

Trynneia sat down beside the bundle, and rubbed her eyes, losing the battle against her tears. “Mom, I don’t know why all this happened. You didn’t deserve this. No one did. I can only tell you that I’ve avenged you,” she whispered. “We don’t think it’s random. I can’t believe it was. I need answers.” As she talked, her runes began to glow softly with yellow light. “I haven’t had time to properly miss you yet. I wish there were more I could have done. I’m sorry. I’ll try to learn how to use the Light without you. I need you so much! I love you mom…” She stood up. “Goodbye, momma.”

Wiping tears from her face, she walked back towards the goblin and nodded. When Trynneia was far enough back, Ditan raised one fist, made a grasping motion, and pulled down. The rubble shifted around, drawing the bundle beneath the ground out of sight, out of the Light. Trynneia buried her face in her hands, overcome.

“Are you okay?” he asked. He openly wept as well, but felt an urgency to leave. “They’ll come. We should go.” They departed, and never looked back.

They walked east for several hours. The twin suns passed their zenith as the friends crossed several outlying farms, avoiding people where they could.

“Do you know where he is? Or are we relying on feelings again?” she asked to break the silence between them.

“What do you think?” he replied.

Trynneia let out an exasperated sigh. “I still don’t know how far I can trust your powers.”

“You’ve seemed to rely on them well enough so far. You can try that Light of yours if your god has decided to trust you now.”

“I’ve told you before, the Light isn’t a god. It’s just...the Light. I swear you paid even less attention in Miss Jessmyn’s class than I did.”

“Well, half the time I was thinking of ways to acquire money, and the other half I was distracted by whispers that I tried to ignore. Excuuuse me.” Both tried to lighten their somber mood with a bit of levity, but it continued to fall flat. Still, the comfort of their friendship helped make things more bearable.

“Fine, we’ll follow your spirits.” She looked behind to see if anyone trailed them, but saw nothing but farmland in the midst of planting season. “So you still think we can’t go back?”

“I don’t think it’s a matter of ‘we’ so much as ‘you.’ I mean, I can’t go back because there’s no place for me, but I think you’re in danger. I’m just gonna stick it out with you.”

“Because you saved my ass last night? Thanks,” she said, a bit more bitterly than she meant. “I’m sorry, I know it wasn’t your fault.”

“Well somehow you got your powers goin’ so it can’t be all that bad. You just needed a push!”

“Light, Ditan, I don’t think a life-and-death struggle is the push I wanted.”

The little goblin shrugged. “But it worked.”

Trynneia lost herself in thoughts, wondering how she would convince Driver to help her. Through implication, she knew he would. She also knew he would not make it easy. Now she had this concern of a vague threat that Ditan refused to describe, if he even knew what it was. It didn’t make her feel any better about killing two people in self defense, if it only heightened her danger.

Her conscience weighed her down, burdened by guilt over taking a life, worry for her own safety, and despair that she hadn’t been able to save her mother. She felt propelled by a hand in her fate that she could not perceive. Was this all the will of the Light? She wiped away tears as her pace slowed. Ditan paused to look back at her.

“You know what? I can’t remember the last time I ate. You wanna eat? I’ve got something to eat.”

Trynneia had to admit her stomach felt hollow. By her recollection it had been almost two whole days since the last time she ate anything substantial, and she was running on less than empty. Ditan probably at least may have nicked something during his night in the village.

“I snagged some dried beef sticks, totally forgot about ‘em,” he offered. She laughed.

“Are you sure you can’t read minds, Ditan?”

“Hey, I was already a fugitive, figured I’d help myself.”

She shook her head. “Only a fugitive from your family. Well, I’m glad you’re with me. I don’t think a shoplifter and petty thief would make a respectable banker anyhow. Ohla should have worried about your influence on me, rather than the other way around.”

“Yeah, probably,” he replied mournfully.

“Oh Light!” she exclaimed. “I left the totem back there. It would have made a decent peace offering,” Trynneia reflected. “I think he said it had belonged to his brother. The first victim.”

“I’m not sure he worries about things like peace offerings. Honestly I’m not even sure that he cared that his brother died. If that was even his brother,” Ditan mused. “I’m already starting to look at things funkily since I started listening. He’s way further gone than I am.”

“Doesn’t that worry you, though? I don’t want to see you...become like him. It might be like losing the only friend I have.”

“Tryn, I’m not gonna lie to you. It’s a constant barrage of whispers and feelings. Trying to tame them enough to maintain my sanity takes a lot of my focus,” he explained. “There’s so much eagerness, and they have so much happiness that I can hear them, and understand them. Nature is excited to bend to my wishes.”

“There isn’t going to be a happy trade off between power and sanity, is there?” she asked.

“At this point, I’m happy I can still have a conversation with you at all,” he lamented. “I hope to control it, but I have no idea. If we can convince Driver to teach me as well, maybe…”

“Because he’s so in control of himself? I don’t think so.”

Ditan scratched his head. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Enjoy me while you can, before I slip off to crazy land,” he joked.

They fell silent again for a while. Trynneia watched her friend walking ahead of her, and kept her pace slow to stay behind. She perceived a warmth about him that she hadn’t before, separate and distinct. It was like the halos in her visions, but different. She could almost make out disturbances in the field around him, but nothing discrete.

“How long did you keep your powers a secret?” From me, she implied. “Actually, why did you reveal them to me now?”

“It’s been a few years now, Tryn. It was getting too hard to keep them secret from everyone. I needed to at least let someone know. I trusted you the most. Telling you split the burden, and made it easier for me to accept myself.”

“All that time, you never found out about Driver, or looked for someone to teach you?”

“It never crossed my mind to look. I thought I was special, and that I needed to figure it out for myself. I guess the other reason I told you is because...I could tell you should have this power too. That it bothered you that you didn’t. I wanted to help you learn.”

Tears spilled forth from her eyes, and she stopped walking. Her shame at her unrealized heritage; he had recognized that in her. Trynneia’s fervent need to find him a mentor nearly was the same as his need to mentor her. Her runes glowed deep metallic yellow.

“Did I say something wrong?” he asked.

“No, that’s just the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard, Ditan. Seriously, I didn’t know you cared so much. You saw my struggle and wanted to help.”

Ditan’s cheeks turned brown. “Well, you tried to do the same for me.”

“We’re two peas in a pod, aren’t we?” she laughed.

A few hours later and they neared the end of the lands they were familiar with. At the top of verdant hill, they saw a poorly maintained shack. Even from a distance, they could see the roof was in disrepair, and what passed for windows looked boarded up.

“You’re sure that’s where we need to go?” Trynneia sounded skeptical.

“Ayup. By the Light I hope that’s where he is. I’m tired of keeping up with you.”

“I’ve been following you, you make it sound like it's my fault. Look, when we get there we’ll be able to rest.”

“Yeah yeah.” Ditan shrugged. “Looks like no one’s home anyway.”

“He does travel around to the nearby farms, he may not spend much time here after all.”

The goblin looked up at her, “Maybe we’ll have a little bit of quiet too. After the past couple of days, I want my mind to settle.”

“Yeah, me too,” Trynneia replied sadly.

The friends began to ascend the hill, and realized not all was as it seemed. They reached a point where the air began to twist and swirl, not with wind, but felt like a physical barrier. Light bent and curved, distorting their vision. For Trynneia, her runes blazed their deepest metallic gold sheen, and Ditan’s eyes jumped everywhere as he perceived the elements about them.

“What is this?” the girl asked. She pressed it with her hands and it transitioned to searing heat. She yanked her hand back, looking to see if she’d been burned. “I’ve never seen something like this. This aura is incredible.”

Ditan shut his eyes and covered his ears, his face scrunched in pain. The goblin crouched, curling up in a defensive posture, making himself even smaller than he already was.

“Ican’tdothisIcan’tdothisIcan’tdothis” he repeated over and over, mushing his words incoherently. Trynneia looked at her friend, terrified at what the barrier was doing to him, even though she was the one closer to it.

“Ditan. Ditan!” she called, trying to get his attention. He continued gibbering. Trynneia was exhausted, and all she wanted was to reach the shack and rest. “I’m going to try to go through.” She looked around them and saw no one. The first sunset would be soon. “I’ll be right back.”

Squaring herself, Trynneia reached out with both her hands, her grey skin luminescent with the light of her runes, and walked into the barrier. Heat surged as the air resisted her press. “Light, what is this?” Her hands sunk deeper and the burning intensified as it traveled up her arms. Her elbows passed through, and suddenly she felt the sensations in her hands change. She grew hopeful as the feeling seemed to stay in the same spot relative to her limbs as she penetrated the wall.

When her chest touched the barrier, she held her breath, shut her eyes, and walked through.