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“Often after severe loss,” Ryson replied. “You lose a limb, it offers you a body that always heals. You want knowledge, it offers you secrets of the world beyond you. You’re heartbroken? It offers you freedom from emotion. The problem is that cien always takes more than it gives. When Venennin are hurt, the pain does not fade. It lasts forever. When you let cien into your mind, it can hang on every thought you have, like another person living in your brain. Let it into your heart and you won’t feel loss, but you will crave destruction unceasingly. It leverages one piece to reach the others. No one ever enters into a contract with cien with an accurate idea of what it will cost them in the end. Some manage to keep at least one part of themselves untainted by cien so they can stay in control. They’ve been branded as venomous or poisoned ones, but most people know them as Venennin.”
As she thought of the pieces of the self, she realized at last how extractions of peoples’ inner parts happened. They had to be curses, the result of dark power, channeled with intent toremove a mind or steal a body. The Dark Market was a Venennin’s market.
The signs of their existence had been all around her. She’d likely even heard the name already without the context to understand and recall it. Even now, it sounded familiar.
“How can anyone tolerate a life like that?” Clea asked, still unable to hide a sharp edge. She asked him as if she were angry at him, but she felt the emotion so fully, she wasn’t even sure who she was angry at anymore. Her body shook with another violent shiver, and she clutched her knees tighter against the cold, her frazzled braid warming the nape of her neck.
She saw something akin to pain reflected in Ryson’s eyes as he watched her. He didn’t continue for a moment, as if tempted to invite her back to him. She thought about how warm it felt against his chest, how comfortable, if only for a moment, but she couldn’t return to that now. She had too much pride to embrace any warmth, especially in his arms. She wanted to feel the cold. She felt deserving of it.
She was such a profound fool.
“There are two ways to maintain the life of a Venennin,” Ryson said. “The first is by purchasing the services of Veilin who can heal our wounds properly and free us from the pain. That is why you’d be sold.”
“And the other?” she pushed.
“Is very uncommon.”
“What is it?”
Ryson sighed. “If pain never fades from a wound, and it can’t be healed, then the only alternative is to normalize it by pushing any feelings of relief from your body. Some would set themselves on fire, others consented to a group beating. Once the wounds healed, the Venennin’s entire body was in pain and thus they’d forget what relief felt like. It allowed them to function. The experience drove some of them mad, and they suffered in vain to save their sanity. There are many names for it. Insednians call it sifting.”
Clea wrestled her scattered thoughts and questions into something resembling understanding.
Ryson had been sifted. She knew that now without a doubt.
“How are you half Venennin?”
“I didn’t know how else to tell you what I am. My soul was sealed, and my heart is my single human piece. Being separated from my soul cuts me off from absorbing more cien, and so I’m extremely weak. My mind isn’t as sharp and I don’t remember most of my life as a Venennin. My body isn’t as strong and doesn’t heal well, but I don’t really feel the constant pain anymore.”
His apparent honesty felt like a salve, and her muscles relaxed in the slightest way. She reflected back on the experience of healing him. The vacancy she’d witnessed in his soul now made sense. “So your heart was the piece you decided to preserve from cien?”
“Hearts are the most unruly of the four. It’s easy to lose a heart or have it run off pursuing something you denied it. It’s often the first thing a Venennin gives up due to the burden of its temperament. The other pieces have different vulnerabilities aswell. Veilin and Venennin often employ strategies to target these pieces in each other to gain advantages in warfare. In my weakness, I can barely remember my past or who I was. I can’t say I fully understand why I kept mine.”
She absorbed the explanation but didn’t acknowledge it. They rode along in silence for a few more minutes.
“Princess,” he said, noting another violent shiver. “You can’t expect to get any rest in the cold. If you want to have any chance of survival, you need to sleep and try and replenish any ansra you can.”
She ignored the invite, returning only with another question, “Venennin who haven’t been sifted use Veilin to medicate their pain. What about sifted Venennin?”
He didn’t object to her question.
“Sifted Venennin avoid touching Veilin at all costs. Your touch reverses what they have strived to do. It reminds parts of their bodies what relief feels like, and that they are in pain. Some Veilin try to touch a Venennin if he or she is sifted. If they do, the Venennin could descend into a state of agony. Sifted Venennin kill Veilin instantly. You are nothing but a threat to them. Luckily, there are very few of them left. This is an advantage for you. Wherever we are going,” he continued, turning their conversation very intentionally back to the situation at hand, “you will be well taken care of but heavily guarded,” he said. “They won’t sell you when you’re this weak. You regenerate and escape at least three days before they sell you. Any earlier and the forest will be too crowded with Venennin and Kalex gathering for the event and it’s too likely you’ll be captured.”
“Ryson, if I recover too much, the medallion will no longer hide my presence,” she argued back, frustrated that he made the situation sound so simple. “And how am I supposed to escape?”
“You will be prepared to fight anything that comes your way,” he finished with assuredness and finality, as if delivering a command. “I will try and find you as soon as I can. In the simplest version of this, I’ll help you escape, but do not wait for me.”
Clea digested his words, and as she sat there, she felt a greater sense of comfort in having something like a plan, but knew that breaking into the woods on her own would be a daunting task. As she was now, and in the wake of her recent humiliations, she wasn’t sure if she was up for the challenge. Had she known even the most basic facts about Venennin, she wouldn’t be here right now. Granted, she might also be dead in the forest outside of Virday, but she wouldn’t be quite as responsible for that mess.
“Now, come back,” Ryson urged her, her entire body shaking so consistently and so obviously that it was starting to feel silly to object. It was much warmer than it had been in the snowy clearing, an indication that they were heading to warmer climates, but her body felt weak and incapable of producing heat. She searched her mind for questions, any other questions.
“What happens if a Venennin gives every part of themselves to cien?” she asked.
Ryson sighed at her obvious reluctance, but didn’t ask again. Instead, he replied, “Where do you think forest creatures camefrom?”
“Forest creatures were human?” She said, distracted momentarily by her anger with the awe of such a revelation.
“That’s why they eat people,” he replied. “Forest beasts don’t just kill. They have to eat their victims. It’s a desperate scramble to regain their humanity, a drive they all have, one separate from that of their cien. They especially crave Veilin blood since it reminds them of being alive and will at last grant them death. As beasts, it’s unlikely they recognize this, but we do. All Venennin see it, understanding it as the inevitable fruit of our choices.”
