Page 52 of Light Locked
“Are you sure?” he asked as if she were speaking out of tired delirium, and for a moment she had to retrace her words and make sure she hadn’t said anything bizarre or untrue. She watched the cracks in the carriage boards to assure herselfshe hadn’t drifted off to sleep and started speaking nonsense.
“Yes. Silver eyes.”
Ryson shifted back against the wall of the carriage as it shook. To her surprise, he moved on to another topic entirely, but his voice sounded grave and stern. “I’m going to explain what is going to happen so that you can prepare yourself.”
Clea didn’t respond, eyes pinching tightly together as if the gesture might sweep her back into sleep. She shifted in his arms, growing more rigid in the silence as she waited for words that would deliver the sentence of her fate.
“They are going to try and sell you to other Venennin at auction,” he said and the revelation entered her gut like a hot iron.
She struggled to follow the explanation that ensued.
“The body of a Venennin heals instantly, but the pain of a cien healed wound never fades. The only way we can rid ourselves of the pain is for a Veilin to heal us properly. If there is nothing to heal, then even the ansra in your touch lifts the weight of cien from our bodies and allows us to feel human. A Veilin’s touch is the only drug for bodies that reject everything but suffering. You can deduce the rest.”
An array of emotions swam through her the more she crawled toward understanding the implications of the statement. She felt horror, doubt, fear, and frustration at having to learn all this now. Her humiliation on the battlefield resurfaced, and Ryson’s explanations landed like alcohol on a fresh wound.
She tried to untangle herself from him, slipping out from under his arms and scooting away from his legs before she found the opposite wall of the carriage. The brisk air stung her, but a burning core of rage kept her pressed firmly against the back of the carriage. She clasped her shackled hands to her chest, palms, arms and some of her chest and face still bloodstained from healing him.
“I should have known all this from the start,” she whispered, glaring at an invisible enemy etched into the floorboards between them.
“You don’t think someone cursed you? Took this knowledge from you somehow?” Ryson asked as she got the first full glimpse of him. He was healed, but his hair and clothes were still bloodied and ragged. His belted jacket was gone, and the black shirt beneath still bore claw marks that exposed his bare chest to the cold. His chest was free of scars. Her work. Her healing. The aftermath of it still devastated her body. Her soul still felt completely closed off from all energy. It was an eerie numbness.
They both looked like they’d stumbled off a battlefield.
“No,” she replied firmly and curled her knees up against her. Another wave of exhaustion hit and she took a deep breath, waiting for the cold to give her some semblance of energy.
“I thought the reason you didn’t recognize me was because of my own weakness or at least because you were wearing the medallion,” he said as if with little regard for the comment’s implications.
“What?” her grip on her knees loosened.
“Ever since Virday, the medallion has hindered your ability to sense cien,” he elaborated but remained even and composed. He seemed carefully vacant in his posture, intentional in conveying nothing as if to better gauge her reactions.
She digested the comment bitterly. That explained more than she liked. So, Ryson, Alina, the Venennin, the beast at the Kalex village, all of it could have been painted in cien. She had been surrounded by darkness, lies, and deceit from the start.
“I had no idea your parents never even told you about what I was. I don’t think you understand how important this is. Every great villain in history was a Venennin,” he continued, but she wanted him to stop.
The uncomfortable silence returned, and with it, a clear picture that Clea felt ashamed for not seeing sooner. She watched him, ragged but relaxed against the carriage. He looked natural in the wake of devastation, another hint, perhaps, about his identity. She watched his eyes, glowing under a broken veil of coal black hair, and the mystery of him lifted like a curtain.
“You and Alina aren’t really smugglers, are you?” Clea asked.
“No.” He replied without pause.
They watched each other, the carriage hitting a variety of roots on the path. Clea didn’t know which of the million questions she would ask next. In her mind, she replayed the entirety of their journey with a new lens. More than the lie, she saw his stark honesty. He hadn’t been self-deprecating, evasive, or callous for the sake of making her uncomfortable. He was being honest, so honest, in fact, any normal person would have questioned the larger lie within minutes of talking with him.He’d made little to no effort to maintain it.
“Has all of this been some elaborate game? Were we even going to Loda?” The coolness of her words hid a scream.
“We are going to Loda, and it was Alina’s boredom or maybe her conniving. I’m still not sure,” Ryson replied with a firmness that seemed intent on cutting off more speculation. “If I get you back to Loda, she’s going to let me kill her.”
“What kind of deal is that?” Clea exclaimed, and then reminded herself to restrain the anger in her words. She wasn’t completely sure the Venennin outside weren’t listening to them.
“I’m not sure yet,” Ryson replied. “Alina is a monster and I was at her mercy, so here we are. It’s not as strange a deal as you might think among Venennin. Death and suffering aren’t exactly subjects we avoid. Killing a Venennin you’ve known for a long time is sometimes considered a sacred rite.”
“Tell me about them. All about them. Everything.” Clea raised her voice again with every demand, jerking at her shackles as she shivered violently again. Anger from the battle with the Vennenin, Myken’s sharp words, the pain of her own recovery surged through her.
He seemed to digest her angry demand thoughtfully, perhaps still with some measure of disbelief that she even needed to ask. He shook his head in the slightest way, like he was going to say no, but then replied, “I don’t know what Veilin teach other Veilin about us, which apparently is nothing these days.”
Instead of answering her question directly, he stared ahead,seemingly organizing and gathering his thoughts before launching off into a crafted explanation. “As you know, humans have a heart, mind, body, and soul, each with their own properties and behaviors. Our soul is how we channel ansra and cien from the world around us. You Veilin open your souls to ansra. It empowers the rest of you completely, connecting all the parts together. Cien is more like an infection that starts in the soul and spreads to the rest of you, piece by piece. You can’t let it take all of you and so you naturally divide the pieces of yourself to protect some from the others.”
“How does it happen? How does a piece of someone get infected with cien?” she demanded, tightening her grip on her shackles as she clenched her teeth.
