Soulburned: The School of Souls

Chapter 35: The Shadow of Violence

Lyra's hands burned as she scrubbed the hardwood floors of her Father's Estate. Her Estate.

There was an incessant pounding on the wooden double doors that led out to the grounds. Its tempo was erratic and incomprehensible.

She ignored the pounding and continued to scrub.

Why won't it come off!? She screamed at herself in frustration.

She pulled her fingers away from the wood and flexed her hand. Her wrist was beginning to swell as the tendons and muscles strained to perform the foreign work.

Her eyes began to burn. She blinked away the slowly forming tears. She pretended that they were the result of the harsh alchemical mixture she was using, and not the echo of what her father had said... of what she had done.

It's just a spill. She lied to herself. Just some wine. Nothing a little elbow grease can't fix.

The red liquid had grown sticky as it sat, and even the harsh potion wasn't removing the stain it had deposited into the fibers of the wood.

She scrubbed harder, focusing on only the floorboard in front of her. She had yet to allow herself to look at the rest of the mess.

"Such an odd choice." A man said from behind her. "Most people would seek shelter in a happy memory...not this."

Lyra whirled, sending chemicals flying in an arc.

A young man leaned against the wooden archway at the end of the corridor. He had long-unkempt black hair that managed to only partially conceal the ruined Logos mark on his forehead. The deep etchings of the Mark were scratched over with recently healed scarring. It looked like he had clawed them fresh gouges in with his fingernails.

Lyra tensed even further as she took in the Thymos Mark embroidered onto the chest of the fabric. The man was a sorcerer! Worse, the Logos Glyph on his forehead marked him as an Enchanter.

The air seemed to shimmer, and then the young man was suddenly standing next to her. He nonchalantly leaned over the mess Lyra had made on the floor. Lyra still couldn't bring herself to look at it.

"You didn't actually do this, did you?" the stranger asked, "You don't seem the type..." His voice was soft and melodic.

Lyra's mind balked at the question.

"It was- It was just an accident..." She said. "A spill."

"No... I don't think it was an accident, and it's certainly no spill." The man said, then started to walk around pooling red liquid. The tackiness of the coagulating fluid caused his boots to squelch unpleasantly as he circled the scene. "But why are you showing me this? Is this a nightmare you had?"

He looked at her then, and his gaze seemed to pierce into her very soul.

"I don't..." She started, then trailed off.

Lyra stared at the man. His very presence seemed to soothe. Her hands, which had been shaking quite violently, stilled. If Lyra had had the ability to sense her Thymos, should would have noticed it had grown quiet as she met his gaze. She let out a shuddering breath of relief.

"No... This isn't a nightmare. This is a dream!" He said, shaking his head in disbelief, "It's what you wish had happened." his voice had quieted to almost a whisper and his eyes softened. "He must have been truly monstrous."

Lyra finally let her gaze fall to the corpse of her father.

His skull had been cracked open by a large stone club, the pestle to a cauldron-sized morter that was shoved into the corner of the room. A gaudy reminder of their family's source of wealth. It now lay next to its victim's shattered skull.

"Yes." She said, "He was."

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"Who are you?" she asked, now unable to tear her eyes away from the bludgeoned body.

"I am Empathy." The young man said.

The name made Lyra's head spin. There was a power in the words he spoke that disoriented her.

"Can you tell me what happened here?" He said quietly.

"Am I in trouble?" Lyra asked.

Empathy chuckled.

"Not from me, child. Please, tell me what you remember."

"I-I killed him."

"No. You didn't." Empathy said flatly. "This is a vision that your mind has built to protect you from the truth. A fairy tale you've told yourself to make the reality of your situation less... uncomfortable. Again, I find it a strange fable in which to seek refuge."

The man sat. A chair appeared underneath him as he did, conjured from nothing.

"What?" Lyra asked. What is happening?

"Your Soul is under attack." The man said.

As he said it, Lyra once again became aware of the incessant pounding at the end of the corridor.

The body of her father vanished, and then the rest of the scene shattered and fragmented, leaving Lyra alone with Empathy in a plain white room. Identical to the one she had met Entity.

Entity.

Lyra blinked. Pressure began to mount behind her forehead. She reached up to rub her suddenly aching head and was surprised to find her own Logos Mark etched there. She blinked again in surprise, then swallowed the lump growing in her throat.

"Where am I?" Lyra asked Empathy.

"You're in the Void." He said.

It all rushed back to Lyra in an instant. The Iris, The Trial. Entity's theft of her body. Lyra's fists shook with rage as she clenched them.Entity had trapped her in the Void. Lyra's consciousness had faded from existence. She had fragmented.

Empathy was smiling at her, still seated at the chair he had summoned from the ether.

"Am I dead?" Lyra asked.

Empathy's smile vanished as he pursed his lips in thought.

"Perhaps." He said, "It's a grey area. Your current state certainly resembles death... yet your body lives."

The sound of pounding continued, despite there no longer being a door.

"I-I disappeared." Lyra said, "I was pulled into the Void... I think. I can't quite remember it. I... I saw-"

"Don't try to remember it all at once." Empathy interrupted, "You'll go mad. Trust me." the young man snickered to himself as if he had made a joke that only he understood.

Lyra shuddered.

"It was so cold." She said.

Empathy nodded.

"I'm sure it was. You were pulled into the Void, after all." Empathy said, "But I pulled you out."

Lyra sat, and a chair materialized under her as she did. She looked at it in surprise.

Empathy nodded in approval.

"This is your mind Lyra." He said. "You can furnish it however you like. Do whatever you like, take us anywhere you need to."

Suddenly, Lyra and Empathy were sat in the pub where she had last visited Declan. In another blink, they were sitting cross-legged inside the Summoner Hall's common room.

The pounding sound never ceased as they continued to phase through the set pieces of Lyra's life.

"Calm, Lyra." Empathy said.

And then she was. The pounding slowed but didn't cease.

"I didn't kill him?" Lyra asked quietly.

They were back in the corridor of her estate, thier surroundings having finally stabilized as Lyra regained some sense of serenity. There was no corpse or spreading pool of blood. The large pestle had been returned to its morter.

"No, but it seems that you wish you had." Empathy said.

Lyra breathed a sigh of relief.

"This was the day I left." She said, "The day I decided to follow Declan to the Iris."

Empathy nodded but said nothing, content only to listen.

Her father burst through one of the rooms that connected to this hallway and began to berate her. Loudly. Violently.

The words didn't matter. His meaning was clear.

She was worthless to him. Their family had been destroyed, and he blamed her. He was drunk, and he blamed her. He was worthless, and he blamed her.

She had stood and left. She had walked out of that manor without saying a word and had never returned.

The shadow of her father disappeared.

The pounding stopped.

Lyra and Empathy sat in the silence for several long moments. Lyra couldn't explain what exactly had just transpired, but somthing had shifted. The air seemed lighter, the world less dark.

"What was that?"

"It was the that thing from Beyond." Empathy said. "Like I said before, your Soul is under siege. I'm afraid your Trial is just beginning."