Page 34 of Light Locked
Ryson was not a cloud, but a flame, enchanting from afar, but the scorching heat spared nothing that touched it. He had always thought it interesting how flames did not judge. There was no good and evil. It all burned.
Would you put the campfire out for once?
His likeness appeared in the darkness across the fire.
The light burns. Clea’s ansra burns too. Please don’t tell me that you truly intend on retrieving her.
“A promise is a promise.”
It threw its arms into the air.
Just because your cien-infested soul was sealed away doesn’t mean you get your life back.
“And your point is?”
My point is that you’re wasting your time with all this. I am trying to stop you from gallivanting off down your own pointless avenues. Your soul is gone and you can’t absorb more cien without it! When I run out, you die! I bet Alina sent you with the princess because she knew the girl’s ansra would slowly destroy me. Leave the princess. Leave Alina. Search for the object in which your soul was sealed!
“I will continue as planned,” Ryson replied, ignoring his cien’s demands and finding himself even further entrenched in his convictions.
If we don’t die off during this venture, then the princess will kill you when she discovers what we are. She may have little energy right now, but you saw how many people she healed today, even then. She’s spent her narrow, little life solely to cultivate ansra. You saw how quickly she picked up on your pain.
“So what? Understanding other people’s hurts is part of their training.”
Alina has planned all this to orchestrate your death. She’s not insane. She’s conniving!
His cien waited for a response, but silence settled over the campground. Ryson found solace in the gentle crackling of the flames. He hoped in vain that his cien would remain silent. Refusing to tend to the flames, he watched them die as the night drew on.
Alina isn’t the only thing holding you back now, is it? Something with the princess is too?
“She tries to wear so many falsities, and yet I can’t help but sense there is something genuinely good in her that reaches past all that despite her.”
We both know where your interest leads. Everything in you will want to challenge the things she stands for. You’ll break and ruin her. You know you will. You’ll enjoy doing it. You’re bored.
Ryson grimaced. The idea wasn’t foreign, but hearing it articulated repulsed him. Worse yet, he couldn’t completely deny it. He had two natures. One felt out of his control. He hadalways been drawn to people who claimed to offer hope and salvation. He’d tested them all. He’d broken them down.
Silence fell between them, and Ryson looked down at his bandaged hands as the fire crackled. His determination wavered.
In the silence, he rested a few fingers on his wrist and tugged at the bandages. If he needed a reminder of who he was, he had only to remove them. It was a ritual that gave him direction.
The bandages slipped from his hand, and he stared at his bare skin, riddled with scars. If every one of his scars told a story, his body was a novel, written by the point of a knife.
He clenched his fist.
But you can’t remove the pages of your life,his cien said.You can’t conceal your shame behind a cover. Your wrongs are written in ink.It guided his thoughts.Your fate is already sealed.
It didn’t matter which path he took. The result would be the same in the end. He couldn’t cry out for salvation. He’d been damned.
His cien vanished and appeared over his shoulder.Because you are like a book, and the words of books are silent.
Salvation was a teaching tool taught to children. Reality never guaranteed it.
You know the ending. It will always be there, waiting for you on the final page. You were always meant to be a beast. Lookaround.It gestured past him to the trees on the other side of the fire.
Ryson’s eyes scanned the polished eyes of curious predators that watched him from the surrounding woods. They’d gathered in awe of what they’d found.
A beast, his cien repeated before vanishing and then appearing to his right, its lips set near his ear.
All in all, the campfire was merely an illusion that divided him from them. In complete darkness, what was he but another forest monster? He could only try to fool himself, and he did. That was precisely why he lit fires every night, precisely why his cien hated them. The light, as it often did, created an illusion.
