Her family was conspiring against her.
Not in a paranoid delusion kind of way. It was neither paranoid nor delusional when it was a confirmed fact.
Her bonds, the traitorous things they were, had allied with the men in the house against her. She knew this was true because, while Polaris could keep secrets from her, Nemesis and certainly Lelantos could do no such thing. Liliana would feel betrayed and angry if she didn’t know it came from a place of love. It was all quite frustrating, regardless of intent, if she was honest.
She wasn’t allowed to be alone, and she couldn’t be sure if it was a precaution now that so many people understood the danger she was in, or if it was because they were worried about her mental health.
Liliana hadn’t even understood the true extent of the danger she was in, not until the alley. And even then, she hadn’t fully realized the danger she was still in. Danger was part of her life, something that had become so normal to her that she hadn’t registered she should be more concerned than she was. All her concern was wrapped up in the others that were now targets because of her.
Imogen had twisted her instincts, her perception of what was normal, what was safe, what was dangerous. Her life being in danger had been such a constant for almost a year, longer if she counted the memories she had lived through, that a new threat to it barely registered on her radar.
She had never gotten out of the habit of checking her food and drinks, always glancing at her ring to see if it had lit up to alert her to another assassination attempt. Her bonds slept in shifts, always had, just in case someone snuck in trying to kill her in her sleep. Instincts had been engraved in her, in her bonds, that even a year without a noticeable threat on her life hadn’t erased them. So this new threat, it required no changes in how Liliana acted in her life to accommodate it.
No, what had concerned her, what had filled her with terror and kept her awake at night, wasn’t that she was in danger. It was that someone, something, could slip in and rob her of the people she loved, the people she needed. It wasn’t concern for herself; she had spent so long fearing for herself that she had exhausted her emotional stores for such things.
And it wasn’t until everyone in her life, it seemed, conspired against her that she realized it wasn’t normal. That it was messed up, unacceptable, for her to be so used to such events that her own wellbeing didn’t factor into her mind during this newest grave threat.
It was made obvious that none of this was normal or acceptable when Silas had reached out to contacts he had in the capital guards to ensure there were always at least four on shift around their house. When Alistair sent a letter to Marianne, telling a very abridged version of what Liliana had told him, and royal guards were assigned to her to bolster the city guards.
When there was always someone in her room with her, one bond and one human. When she was moved to a larger room, with two twin beds so Alistair could spend the nights with her, so he could spring out of his bed when she woke up screaming in the middle of the night, and calm her down from the panic that strangled her throat and filled her blood with icy fear.
It all made it quite clear to her that to everyone else, what she had gone through, what she was still going through, wasn’t ordinary.
The worry etched in the faces of those she loved, not for themselves but for her, the regret swimming in their eyes, it all slowly wiped away the dust from the box she had hidden her worries for herself inside. It was a hard box to open because she had spent so long accepting imminent peril and murder attempts as just another facet of this new life she had, and she thought everyone should be far more concerned for themselves. They hadn’t made the mistakes she had, weren’t responsible for the danger they all faced now. She was. All these facts and hangups made it a monumental task to even crack that old, forgotten box open.
She was working on her self-blame as well.
Silas had demanded it, her seeing a Psyche healer. It did answer her question of if this world had therapists or not. The answer was ‘sort of, but actually no and it’s expensive’. Because there were two ways a Psyche healer could help her, they could enter her mind and forcibly reorganize it, erasing memories, adjusting reactions to stimuli and experiences. They could basically brainwash her into being healthy, but it could leave an impact.
Once something like that was done, it made one’s mind far weaker to any other Psyche affinity user, far easier to control, to manipulate. And it could make it so the person could handle no traumatic experience on their own, and at a worst it could mean they could handle no emotions at all, if enough ‘adjustments’ had to be made to the patient’s mind.
Typically, she was told, this method was used for patients who had only experienced one traumatic experience in their life that was impacting their everyday life. Not for someone whose entire life was a traumatic experience.
It was something Liliana had refused outright when the option was presented to her, and something the others agreed with her on. Especially when there was an enemy out there that quite obviously had a high level of mastery in the Psyche affinity.
The other option was that the Psyche healer could do a far less invasive intrusion in her mind. They could experience what the patient was feeling and walk them through processing the events, the emotions, and handling them. But ultimately it wouldn’t be the Psyche healer doing much more than watching and instructing, and the second option required the patient to either have a strong grasp of their own mind, or their own Psyche affinity to be able to adjust their own mind with magic.
It wasn’t like the therapy Liliana had experienced on Earth, something her parents had put her in when she got her diagnosis. That had required no magic, mostly talking about her feelings, her experiences, and developing healthy coping mechanisms. This world didn’t care much for coping mechanisms, even if they even knew what they were. This world had magic, and it used it to fix everything. From paper cuts to mental health issues.
It required her to relive her memories, the trauma from them, the emotions. Listen while some healer in her head told her why what was done to her was wrong, or why she wasn’t at fault, let go of the memory and place it in a book in her head with a lock on it, accept her emotions and then let them flow out of her. Forcing them out of her if she became trapped inside of them.
Then go over that she hadn’t done anything wrong until they tied it into her mind with magic and her Mana making it stick. Because it was her doing it, not someone else, not someone else’s Mana sticking in her mind and reorganizing it, it would actually strengthen her mind against foreign Psyche users as a side effect.
The second process was slower, held back by her own fear of her memories that she didn’t want to have to relive, by not wanting someone else to actually see and feel everything she had. Trust had never come easy to Liliana, and trusting a stranger was a herculean effort she could only submit to because Silas was so certain it was necessary. Her own low Psyche affinity also held progress back, as the affinity was something she rarely used.
Liliana wasn’t sure if it was the best thing to do, if it was correct, or even healthy. It was far different from Earth therapy. Instead of learning how to cope with the trauma, she learned how to experience it, accept it happened, and then lock it away, bound in Mana so it could not open at the worst times.
Whether or not it was good, whether or not it was healthy, it was the only option she had. And despite her many reservations, it did help. As more and more of her traumatic memories, and according to Healer Sybil, she had a lot of those, were processed, her nightmares slowly decreased. She found fear and anger overpowering her less and less as she learned how to release the emotions and to force them out with her own Mana when that didn’t work.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Her Psyche affinity was growing as an added benefit, and new skills were coming in as her sessions with Healer Sybil continued. Nothing effective for battle, but skills that made it easier and easier for her to control her own mind, to understand it, to turn it into a fortress of her own making, rather than a thorny labyrinth she was trapped inside of. Her mind stopped being a thing full of fear and demons and slowly became something closer to a sanctuary.
She was told, by Healer Sybil, that if she kept practicing her skills, they could eventually used on others. Most Psyche skills started by only affecting the user before they evolved to being able to affect others. Liliana shied away from the thought of invading someone else's mind and manipulating it, but she would admit it could be of use if she was desperate. She hoped she would never be that desperate, but experience told her it was an inevitable eventuality.
The general skill she got that seemed to tie into most of her new skills was [Mentiumancy], which made all mental arts easier. [Temperance] was one of the skills she got that assisted her with controlling her own mind. [Pathokinesis] helped her actually change and control her own emotions. [Mental Fortification] helped her both defend her mind from outsiders, and from her own inner demons.
She was advised very thoroughly by her healer to never force herself to feel good emotions, as it could quickly become addicting. It was one of the first things they did when she got the [Pathokinesis] skill, was to tie the warning to use it carefully in her mind with Mana.
Finally, the last skill she gained was at Healer Sybil’s suggestion, after the woman discovered Liliana had an easier time talking mentally with her bonds when in the middle of a panic attack, and, when they were terrible, it was the only communication she could hear. Liliana got [Telepathy] after days of working on the skill, using Mana manipulation and Healer Sybil’s guidance to gain it.
It wasn’t how Liliana thought she’d spend her summer vacation, but she could admit now that her mind was less jumbled, that it had been necessary. She hadn’t seen it before, hadn’t been brave enough to look that deeply into her own mind, but she had been fracturing.
The years of trauma, the many brushes with death and threats to her life, the loss and grief she had undergone, it had all piled up, shredding her mind and slowly poisoning it. Liliana had been one more traumatic event away from breaking beyond repair.
However, despite her progress, she was far from healed.
Even Healer Sybil said that they were only scratching the surface and it would take a long time before she was ‘better’. They had started with the most traumatic memories, the pendant, Imogen’s most recent and heinous actions, Astrid’s death.
But there were sixteen years of memories she had, all with their own share of trauma and pain attached to them, no matter than many weren’t even her original memories. She had still experienced them, lived through them, though it had been through her dreams. Those memories felt real to her, more clear than the memories she had of Earth more often than not as the days passed. That meant the trauma, the pain, the emotions were genuine, too.
But even if she wasn’t healed yet, even if the cracks and jagged fractures in her mind and heart weren’t yet closed up and scarred over, Liliana could admit she was getting better.
Her mind, day by day, was becoming clearer, less an enemy she was forced to endure, and slowly becoming an ally. It made it easier to accept the aid that the others were freely, willingly, and enthusiastically giving her. It made her nightmares less a constant, inevitable companion and something that no longer haunted her every night. It made the fear that had chilled her very body recede, allowing the frost coating her insides to thaw.
It made her smiles come easier, even if they were still rarer than they had been before summer. It made her laugh burst out of her in the most unexpected moments, filling her with warmth and happiness. It made the others look at her as herself, once more, rather than a delicate porcelain doll, already cracked and one touch away from shattering.
So the her last week of vacation, when she had spent weeks healing, taming her own mind, she was not surprised by the answer she gave to a forlorn request made to her.
“Miss Lili?” Flint asked, uncharacteristically quiet, from the doorway to her and Alistair’s room. Alistair was sitting behind her in the bed, braiding her hair as Liliana read a book on beasts Jason had gotten her, one of many gifts she’d received from everyone as they tried to cheer her up.
“What is it, Flint?” Liliana asked, her voice soft.
She was healing, yes, but she had yet to fully regain her voice. She was working back up to being the more confident self she had used as a mask for all her broken and bleeding parts. But for now, she was quiet, ever since she had bled her heart out to Alistair, Jason, and Silas.
Quiet was alright, Healer Sybil said, as long as she was communicating.
Healer Sybil didn’t just mean speaking, though, she meant letting someone else know her feelings when she felt them. When she was scared, when she needed a hug or comfort, when she was angry and why.
That part was hard.
Talking alone was easy, but revealing her weakness was a trial.
“You said we could play more games, and I was wondering if we could play games now?” Flint asked, his tail drooping behind him, but his ears perked up and eyes shining with hope.
A few weeks before, right after everything had happened, after her illusion of a happy life had been ripped away, she would have said no. She wouldn’t have accepted spending time around the people she loved, knowing the danger she had put them in. She wouldn’t have allowed herself the chance to feel happy, to feel loved.
But that was weeks ago, before Healer Sybil, before she started healing.
Now, she remembered the words Healer Sybil had told her, time and again, during their daily sessions. ‘You’re allowed to be happy, Liliana. You deserve to be happy’.
That had been hard to accept too, when Liliana felt she should be punished for her mistakes. This wasn’t the same as forgetting her homework or cheating on a test. She had put people’s lives in danger. But Healer Sybil had worked with her for weeks on that, on slowly understanding while she had made some bad choices. None of this was her fault.
She had been a scared, vulnerable child and even older, wiser, and stronger people had fallen prey to master Psyche users. Healer Sybil was confident whatever was behind the pendant had a mastery of that affinity, along with several others. That reassurance had done more than the healer knew to release some of the guilt that had been weighing Liliana down.
“Do you want to, Ali?” Liliana sent the thought to her brother.
She had begun to switch freely between telepathic communications and vocal. Telepathic was more useful than vocal at times, as she could talk to someone who wasn’t even in the same room, though she couldn’t hear them respond unless they also had a [Telepathy] skill.
Alistair had gotten a Soul affinity unlocked two days after Liliana gained [Telepathy], hoping to get the Psyche affinity so he could get the skill one day, too.
“Yea,” Alistair responded vocally, and Liliana nodded. She had expected as much.
“We’ll play a game, then.” Liliana said with a smile at Flint, whose mouth broke out into a wide grin before he whooped and took off down the hallway, presumably to gather the others.
“I’m so, so proud of you, Lili.” Alistair whispered as he tied off her braid.
He wasn’t all that good at braiding, but he had been watching Clover. Liliana thought it was his way of taking care of her. His mothering had only increased since she revealed the events with the pendant, never leaving her alone. She didn’t mind it most of the time. Liliana found a great deal of comfort in physical touch after being starved of it for so many years from anyone but Astrid.
She knew, too, it was because Alistair felt helpless to help her in any other way. He couldn’t fight this enemy. They both had to trust that to Silas, who had been meeting with the capital guards constantly as they searched for the man who had attacked Liliana.
So Alistair did everything he could to help Liliana how he could. By staying with her, by offering her comfort, a shoulder to cry on, hands to grasp when the nightmares she still had, even if they were decreased, woke her up. By ensuring that she ate, that she took care of herself and when she couldn’t, he would do it for her.
He was at times a brother, and at other times something closer to a parent. Liliana hoped soon he would resume being just a brother when she healed enough that she didn’t need him to be a parent.
“Thank you,” Liliana said as she fingered the braid, shooting her brother a grateful smile before they both followed Flint.
Liliana let herself enjoy the game night. Liliana let herself be happy, to smile, and laugh, and joke with the people she held most dear to her heart. And even if she wasn’t healed yet, she thought she was closer to being whole and healthy than she had ever been in either life.