Page 17 of Light Locked
She drank carefully a final time and then returned the leather to her bag. After she’d finished eating, she packed her things neatly and nestled them between the roots of the tree behindher. She removed her hair from her braid and rebraided it meticulously. The practice was a soothing ritual, and felt necessary despite how eager she was to sleep. Somehow, this ritualistic braid at the end of her day was the only consistency in her life, and tonight would be the safest night of their journey. As they ventured into the colder climates, the dangers would intensify with the setting of the sun. Free as she was tonight, new trials would begin tomorrow.
“Since we will be traveling with it, I feel it would be in our best interest for you to tell me what you do know about the medallion,” Ryson said, just as she finished tying her new braid.
Clea smoothed out her clothes and began clearing the area around her from twigs and leaves. “I know very little. My mother and I came to Virday following rumors of its existence.”
“Your mother came with you?” He issued the question with practiced analysis, like she was filling out a form. She made him wait for an answer, resenting his cold questioning in the wake of her exhaustion.
“It’s more like I came with her,” Clea replied. “Our convoy was attacked by a hoard of reaping shades on the way here three years ago. She sacrificed herself so that I could live.”
Ryson didn’t say anything for a moment. She half expected some sign of humanity.
“So, where did the medallion come from?” he asked.
His response grated at her. She adjusted her bag between thetree roots before lying down and resting her head on it. Ryson would be guarding her, and they were still on the outskirts of the forest where beasts were scarcer. She wanted to take advantage of the little rest she could get while she had the chance. She closed her eyes and recounted what she knew.
“Legend has it that the medallion is a prison for a large amount of cien that once threatened to destroy the world. The cien in the forest is plentiful, but it isn’t concentrated.” She took a moment to yawn, reciting a well-known description that took little effort to recall. “Its power is limited by its vast dispersion, and so it can do little more than try and draw humans into the forest. When the sun sets, the cien escapes from the trees but remains dispersed in the air. When it gets attached to a host and begins to collect, it becomes much more dangerous.”
“That I understand,” he replied, and she heard that nagging impatience in his voice again. He sounded impatient if he had to say more than a few words, impatient with the process of speaking itself. “But how and why was this much darkness sealed? You know nothing about its origins?”
“Nope.” Clea yawned again. It felt so good to see only darkness. She forgot Ryson’s question but kept talking anyway. “This medallion, the Deadlock Medallion, is unique,” she mumbled.
And one of the most powerful cien objects ever created.Her thought echoed her mother’s warnings, but she didn’t say them out loud.
Ryson didn’t ask any follow-up questions, and grateful for the silence, she meditated privately on thoughts of her room and her plants. She loved falling asleep to them, surrounded by reallife that reminded her how to persevere. She cradled her hands into the safety of her chest.
Those plants had all her secret, private thoughts and questions. When she’d been locked in her room in Loda, she’d spoken to those plants too. They’d been silent friends, but beautiful listeners, teaching more through their own existence and growth than commands, demands, and expectations. It never mattered what questions she asked, what ideas she challenged, they simply kept growing on beside her. Her eyes cracked open, reminding her that now there was nothing but dead trees, ash and a murky shape in the darkness behind the trees. She didn't startle at it. She knew what it was, and so acknowledging it, she closed her eyes again.
It was a totem. At least Lodain people called them that. They were often heaping masses of rock or steel, taking every shape and size, scattered all throughout the woods. Many claimed that they used to be buildings or machines, things with more meaning before they were broken beyond all comprehension. Now they were nothing but reminders of civilization that had once claimed every inch of the woods.
There was no life here. Not in the woods. Only ghosts of another world that had suffered a brutal end at the edge of a warlord's sword. The life she had was inside her, and she hoped that would be enough, trusting exhaustion to ferry her through her fears and into the dark den of sleep.
Chapter 7
The Journey
CLEA SHIVERED AS she rose from the quiet pond she’d purified. The sweat and dirt of the day before had felt like an intolerable cast upon waking up. She’d dismissed herself to this pool of water and dipped her hands through, watching the light bleed into the water and push away the toxic mire.
Blessings of healing and restoration required a specific focus in seeing the deepest potential in something. She had to imagine the water in a state of wholeness and clarity and create a path to that place. The water did the rest on its own. Everything, at its core, wanted to be whole again. Some Veilin were passionate about expulsion, enforcing and using weaponry, strengthening defenses, or creating seals. Healing wasn’t a very popular art for Veilin. Most healed quite well enough on their own and only basic skills were needed to heal common human ailments. Despite that, healing was the art she’d honed, at the risk of not developing the others quite as well. As the sixth of her siblings, she’d never expected to lead anyone, much less soldiers, and she’d fallen in love with her chosen art despite all urging otherwise. Even in Virday, she’d practiced healing rigorously until even the king consulted with her on the practice. Being an expert in healing didn’t seem that hard considering no one elsewas that interested in practicing it, but it still felt like something valuable to her.
The only downfall of it was that in trying to see the world in its potential wholeness, the pictures of how broken it truly was were darker and clearer. It often meant feeling either like the world was wonderful or feeling like it couldn’t be worse. There wasn’t much room in between.
This morning, she saw her journey for its potential. Searching through her bag, she hid her chest under the bundle of dirty clothes as she grabbed anything resembling clean clothes. She dressed behind a column-like totem that the forest's illusions had coated in a pleasant green moss. The clothes were looser on her than clothes had ever been. Her skin was dull, her hair lacking its vibrancy, but the morning was misty and beautiful, and Clea felt revived after her night of sleep. The claw marks had healed along with any scrapes and bruises, and in the absence of others, the medallion no longer felt like such a burden around her neck. The city of Virday was safe, at least for now.
She finished adjusting the rope belt of her pants, and with the straps of her bag in one hand and her boots in the other, she embarked back toward the campsite.
It didn’t take her long to reach Ryson. He’d already spread the ashes of their fire and hidden his armor. It appeared as if they’d never been there. He was leaning against a tree when she arrived. In the morning light, his eyes were black. His thick brows gave his expressions more weight, his coal black, near shoulder-length hair in complete disarray.
He looked like a cat someone had decided to pet backward, and she found herself wanting to comb his hair down. Maybe that would ease his temperament too.
She realized she’d been staring too long and should say something.
“I’ve never met a Kalex with eyes that change color based on the light,” she said as she sat across from him, releasing her bag so that she could ease the shoes onto her feet. Her stomach turned as it digested her breakfast from earlier that morning. The circular disks they had bought were filling but made meals less than enjoyable. “I feel like I’ve seen all colors and kinds, but never gray.”
“Silver,” he corrected.
Silver, she repeated snidely in her head as she wrestled her foot into her boot.
“They’re a bad omen. Most Kalex born with them are killed,” he added mechanically.
