In their crusade against the Darkness, the Illuminari council lost sight of what had granted their dominion. With their rejection of the Lightblessed, Darkness seeped in, a malignant concoction of passion and power whose embrace was accepted when the sanctity of the Eternal Light was needed the most.

Chapter 41

Trynneia slouched back in the middle of the Chapel of Light upon a throne of rock, vines and moss, hollowed and smoothed over the years by those who’d sought quiet contemplation there. For once, her mind felt quiet, undisturbed by the whispers that had plagued her waking moments. She wore a tight but well tailored low leather vest over a beige tunic. Her trousers ended halfway down her calves, but her crafted boots covered the gap.

Her pale yellow hair grazed just past her shoulders, and Trynneia grasped a bundle of sticks in her light gray hands. She sighed, looking out across the lane passing the front of the chapel to where her mother’s rectory stood. No doubt Rendrys was inside, conducting her business. The fringe of branches surrounding the upper layers of the trees around her framed the sunlight as it streamed down upon her. Someone tapped her shoulder and stepped into her view.

“Are you lost? You shouldn’t be here,” he said quietly, squatting before her and leaning on his staff. She’d forgotten how stringy his hair had been, how dingy his clothes.

“I wanted peace,” she replied, rolling the totem in her hands. Driver snorted with amusement.

“Do you truly seek peace, or is it a way to avoid your duty?” He scratched his beard. “You look well. But looks deceive, don’t they?”

Trynneia smiled. “I feel better than I have in a long time, truly. But never a moment’s rest until now.”

“Oh?” The old shaman drew a symbol in the dirt, and Trynneia watched the brown flecks peel away, floating up, up. Both of them followed the colors as they rose, together. “What you need to accept is what you cannot accept, and until you make an exception, what can you expect?”

“I don’t follow you, Driver. I rarely do,” she sighed.

“You have always come after, and so always follow, except when you don’t,” he nodded sagely. Trynneia closed her glowing yellow eyes, feeling the warmth of the sunlight on her skin.

“You’re the worst mentor ever, old man.” The click-click of the twigs rumbled imperfectly between her palms as she rolled them. “Can’t you just leave me in peace?” Her runes glowed faint white, laced at the edges with yellow, her contentment just shaded by a hint of irritation.

“What purpose do you propose, before I suppose you’ll reject my proposition?”

“I am lost, Driver. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“No one knows what they’re doing, that’s the fun of life.”

“Driver,” she said, exasperated.

“Trynneia,” he replied, amused. He stood, looking her over for just a moment before watching something rise from her chest, colors of red and green and sickly yellow. She cracked her eyes, and saw it too. The clicking stopped.

“I’m broken, aren’t I? I feel it here,” she said, tapping her chest. “I’ve been sick for a while now. Will I get better?”

“How am I supposed to know? Do you want to get better?” He reached out a hand, colors fluttering like dust whisked away by the wind instead falling to slowly land on her lap. Trynneia grasped his hand and he pulled her up. His eyes fell unmistakably to her other hand, where she gripped the totem.

“Is it a gift, or a curse?” she asked, following his gaze.

“A bit of both. Depending on your perspective. Or mine.” He looked away with tears in his eyes. Her hand grew warm, and when she looked down, sticky blood began to drip away into the dirt.

“I don’t…I don’t have a purpose in mind,” she explained. She unclenched her fist, holding the totem out to him. Her fingers clung together still.

“The gift is for you, the curse is for me. Find a purpose and cling to it, Trynneia Oathbreaker. Grip it tight as you grip that totem. Tighter. The blood of the land shall wash over you like the tide of light to scatter the darkness. But which shall it be, the blood or the light?” He poked her breastbone, which cracked and split apart to reveal the witch’s mark upon her, carved deep as festering runes. “Your purpose is your duty.”

“You haven’t told me what that is?” she questioned, uncertain what he meant.

“You haven’t told me what that is, dear girl,” he returned as his eyes wandered up once more, locking his sight on her glowing amber ones. She curled her nose.

“You need a bath, Driver,” she suggested, turning her face away. Driver looked genuinely shocked.

“Huh. You know, I can’t remember the last time I had one.” He leaned closer. “But your stench is more putrid and foul than mine.”

Her blood had mixed with the dirt, slowly becoming a muddy, brown mess. Trynneia’s runes dimmed, a weak orange of shame barely visible. Driver turned and began to walk away from her, deliberately scuffing his feet upon the ground to wipe off the bloody mud.

“Driver, wait!” she called to him, her heart pounding.

“Your purpose is your duty,” he repeated, turning onto the trail and leaving her sight.

***

-Your purpose is your duty- -No choice, your voice- -The duty is the love and the air and the life- Trynneia tossed and turned, unsettled dreams talking to her in her slumber. -The warmth of death, the caress of the uneased, the unfulfilled- -Use us, use us- Warmth crept over her body, and the suns rose almost as one, peeking through sumptuous silk curtains.

The voices faded to murmurs, whispering unintelligently to her as she stirred awake. She reached out from under her blankets, grabbing the totem next to her and pulling it close. Soon, even those whispers vanished. Light’s halo bathed her room, and at the same time she noticed the man sitting in the corner, she realized she wore only her underclothes, and had no recollection of going to bed.

“You’ve slept late, Oathbreaker. Not surprised after the way you nearly killed my Daughter last night.” Lord Elanreu sat in a chair, slowly putting down the book he’d been reading. “Hope you’re rested.”

She sat up, but rubbing the sleep from her eyes didn’t squish away the darkened halo surrounding him. For the first time in ages, she felt a tingle from her Light runes, but no glow followed.

“Strange way to be greeted,” she said, yawning. “Sorry about the girl,” she offered, not quite remembering what happened.

“Desi was impressed, child. Shallin is one our most skilled…hunters. How did it feel to take control for once?”

“I didn’t want her to hurt me,” Trynneia explained, reaching behind to feel where the dagger had pierced her skin. She felt nothing but unblemished skin as marigold and cyan dots floated around her vision. “She surprised me.”

“You’ve been an easy mark, Oathbreaker. She snuck up on you even as my servant trailed your steps. Had she not been toying with you…” He trailed off, looking at her. “How’s your hand?”

She flexed her fingers and began unraveling the bandage. Scars criss-crossed her palm, remnants of her grip on the totem. No scabs.

“I still don’t understand how you landed on that thing and managed to hurt yourself, thin as you are. But no matter.” He scratched at his chin. “Desdemona runs a school out of my estate.”

-Purpose- filtered into her thoughts. “You train children to kill people like me.”

Elanreu smirked. “Of course.”

“That’s why she-”

“Shallin.”

“Shallin. That’s why Shallin attacked. Did she think I was a threat?” Trynneia held up her atrophied arms. “I’m not exactly an imposing figure.”

Lord Elanreu walked over and sat on the edge of her bed, and trailed his fingers down the runes on the side of her face, her arms, her ribs. “These are your marks. You stand out to everyone, but especially to us. Desi. Myself. My children. You are born to be something we will never be. Can never be.”

“Lightblessed,” she whispered.

“Lightblessed,” he concurred. “But there’s also this,” he continued, pressing his hand onto the bloody runes upon her chest. She winced as the scabs broke open and dribbled down her body to stain her sheets. “Blood calls to blood, Trynneia. It has brought you to my home.”

“You’re not my family,” she spat through her tears of anguish. He released his hold.

“I’m no great father figure,” he conceded, “But I’ve seen how you’ve grown these past weeks. I’ve watched you battle your demons.”

“Demons I wouldn’t battle if it weren’t for you,” she muttered.

“Perhaps. I think you fight more demons than you realize, and not all of them are my fault.”

-Take his light- -Blood calls to blood- -Your purpose is your duty- -Oathbreaker, oathbreaker, oathbreaker!- -The pail, the pale, so strong, so frail!- -Call us, let us act- She scrunched her eyes shut and her brow furrowed. Trynneia covered her ears with her hands as her blankets slipped down.

“How do they trust you to keep me? They…they paid you to kill my mother. Why don’t they expect you to kill me?”

“Oh I have no idea what’s going on in their silly heads at this point. I don’t care. The Lightblessed were well known, and had been hunted. Your mother was the last. They didn’t expect you. They didn’t expect me to bring you to them alive. The damned Illuminari Regency questions my motives and worry about what to do with you, and what you represent.”

“What is that?” She watched his aura pass through blood red, sunrise orange, and daffodil yellow. Lord Elanreu kissed her lightly on the forehead.

“Possibility.” His lips smelled of saffron, tasted of thyme and dirt, but left her skin tingling. She touched the spot where his moisture lingered. “Modius tried to help you to understand the threat your friend imposed? And those like him? They are darkness.” -Darkness devours the light, make it right, do not fight- “The Light wards off the dark, and every shaman calls into question the domain of the Light.”

“That woman said I was a shaman myself. Shingto.”

He ruffled her short hair. “It’s all a game to them, and Shingto’s the leader of it, Oathbreaker. She fears what you can do because you are still, at your core, Lightblessed, and it is something she can never be. She orders you all snuffed out, as the other Regents agreed. You are a possibility that threatens her power. She can’t stand that thought. None of them can.

“So she makes you start to question yourself. You’re one of them. The enemy. A shaman. Perverted Light, corrupted to darkness. You’re halfway there already, playing their game exactly as they wish. For a fucking religion, they’ve tried hard to take your faith.”

“I never really had much to begin with,” she sighed. “Momma never really held me to it, and my teachers just repeated my mother’s sermon’s. I doubt they believed in the Light either.”

“What do you believe, Trynneia?”

She fidgeted with the totem. Shivering on her bed, she leaned next to Lord Elanreu, and he wrapped his arms around her nearly naked flesh.

“I was afraid of him, at the end. Ditan. He couldn’t control himself. He’d gone crazy,” she explained. “Dangerous. They all get like that?”

Lord Elanreu nodded. “Once the sky touches them, they’re lost. Unpredictable. We have ways to somewhat negate their potency to put them down, but it’s imperfect. Praxoenn itself was shattered by a rogue shaman an age ago. The Regency has hunted them ever since.”

“I still hate him. Why couldn’t I just let him die, Elanreu?” She sobbed into his shoulder.

“I think the Light needed you to see the threat that a shaman can become.”

She deserved the pain of punishing him, of hurting him. -his pain was your pleasure- -bloody him more- The memories still haunted her, his abuse, much of it by her hand, to serve as her own punishment. -What were you punished for?- “I don’t know,” she acknowledged.

“Think about it, Oathbreaker. The Light hasn’t abandoned you, but brought you to my school. You know what they can do now. Who better to stop them? Who better to help train my children than you?”

“I am not a shaman,” she denied.

“You are Lightblessed,” he said softly into her hair. She began to cough, clutching his arm and staining his sleeve with her blood.