Trynneia clambered up into the wagon. She had no choice. Gadis prodded her with the blunt end of a staff, and she had grudgingly obliged. She inspected Ylane, but the other girl didn’t stir.
Looking at the runes glittering faintly on Ylane’s skin, she felt a sense of both wonder and shame. After everything she’d gone through alone or with Ditan, Ylane of all the people from home would have a similar…what? Malady? Curse?
She remembered the scorn Ylane had shown her that first day when her own powers manifested. They had never been friends. Momma always told me to play nice. Ylane’s parents tanned hides into leather, and their daughter bore the same damaged skin on her hands from helping.
Now however, Trynneia felt Ylane’s soft fingers. No hint of callouses or roughness, her perpetually cracked and dried skin turned supple and smooth. Trynneia’s runes glowed in response, and she guided the Light into the other girl.
Just as with Ditan, intuition showed her each injury and fault Ylane experienced. She cradled the girl’s head, brushing the light brown strands from bloody wounds that sealed shut and faded while she worked.
Ylane remained bound to the floor. Gadis watched the two of them while waiting for the Red to arrive. Trynneia wanted nothing to do with the strange Red, pulling and drawing the Light into Ylane so the Red would be useless when she arrived. She hoped Eilic would retrieve Ditan without harming him after summoning his mother.
Trynneia’s efforts ended quickly, her powers fading faster than expected. She trembled. The Light had lasted only moments, providing only superficial healing to Ylane before it failed her. Gadis raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Ylane slept through it all.
“So there are limits to what you can do,” Modius said as he peeked in. “Curious.”
The Warden cut an imposing figure to her, broad and grizzled, like a more worldly version of Chet. She couldn’t look at him without thinking how helpless she felt for them all. If Ylane could help, Trynneia thought they might figure out a way to escape at the very least.
“I’ve made a habit of studying you, though you didn’t know it at the time, girl.” He knelt next to her on the wooden floor of the wagon, his dusty boots scuffing lightly. “You are a Daughter of Light, aren’t you? What else can you do?”
“Right now all I can do is smell your disgusting boots.”
“Hrmph,” he sniffed. “I wager the Regency would pay a pretty coin for your head. Whether it’s still attached to your shoulders is your choice, of course. Hers will do just as nicely if needed.”
Trynneia didn’t need the reminder. She held Ylane close, feeling the girl’s shallow breathing in her arms and the warm slip of her frail body. The Warden haunted the two of them like a specter, observing them silently while he waited for the Red to arrive. She wanted nothing so much as to bolt, but felt responsible for both Ylane and Ditan, if he lived.
Other Sentinels arrived, pulling small carts loaded with crates behind them. Modius left the three women to their silence as the other men and women of the Vigil began transferring crates into their wagon. Even Gadis left, and Trynneia pulled Ylane as far back as her bonds would allow. They stacked crates six boxes to a side, two high and three deep, their catches bound by stout locks.
Trynneia didn’t care what was inside. The dwindling space remaining bothered her more. I’d rather be in here with her than out there with them, she reasoned. Through gaps in the fabric, she could see the others loading more crates into every wagon. That’s an awful amount of supplies. How large is the desert, anyway?
“Tryn?” Ylane woke, her voice tight and pained. “What happened? Where are we?”
“We’re with the Vigil,” she replied. “They banished me. How did they capture you?”
“The Vigil!” Ylane exclaimed, keeping her tone hushed. Her eyes darted wildly. “We can’t trust them, Tryn. The Warden-”
“Sssleepy head is awake,” Sariam hissed from the gate of the wagon. She slithered up, crawling on hands and knees toward them. Trynneia reached for the awl she dangled from her neck, then remembered they had taken everything from her. She wanted to prick her thumb and vow her obeisance to the Light in the face of the old woman.
Trynneia submitted to the Red. Sariam gripped her ears and jerked her head from side to side painfully before peering into her eyes. “Give me your hand,” Sariam said. Trynneia did, and the Red jabbed her palm and whispered under her breath, cackling softly. Blood dribbled free, warm and wet in the gloom of the wagon.
“What you are and what you’ll be mean little to me, girl,” Sariam whispered. Her crazed eyes refused to focus on any one thing, scarcely sparing her a glance. “It is your purity, your purity, your purity I seek.”
:For your ruin.:
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Why?” Trynneia tried pulling her hand free, but Sariam held it fast.
“I want it. It smells delightful. Delicious.” Sariam flicked her tongue across the wound. “You will please me.”
“She’s fine, Red. It’s the other girl that needs your attention,” Modius said, again looking on.
“They both do, I think,” Sariam said, looking from one to the other. Trynneia recoiled. Sariam turned to Ylane and began tracing her runes, Trynneia’s blood staining the younger girl’s flesh. She began to weep.
“Hush little child, we’ve done nothing to you at all. Nothing, nothing, nothing,” Sariam said, bobbing her head. “But we will.” Her grin crooked up from one side of her mouth. The other remained flat and lifeless, like a half-mask at a masquerade.
“I’ve tended her, Red. She doesn’t need you.” Trynneia tried to protect the younger girl.
“What do you know, child!?” Sariam’s demeanor snapped into one of intense fervor. “You all have purposes, purposes, purposes,” she hissed. “You will serve the Light, or be made to serve.”
“I serve better than you,” Trynneia retorted. Sariam slapped her, and Modius laughed.
“You are too far astray, girl.” The Red bared her teeth. Several gaps bounded by jagged remnants of teeth complemented her terrifying countenance. “You must learn humility in order to serve the Light.” She cackled.
“Sariam doesn’t like to be told she’s unnecessary, Trynneia. Come, we shall find you other accommodations.” Modius reached in to grab her hand.
“I don’t want to,” she replied. “I’m staying with Ylane.”
“I see. Well, I do not appreciate disobedience,” Modius said, gripping her sleeve and tugging her until it tore free, exposing her left side. “Do not make me try again. Come out, now!”
He’s quick to anger too. They’re all dangerous folk here. The best plan to survive is to obey, she realized.
-Obediance is a virtue.-
:Subservience:
She stretched out her hand and he took it, pulling her out. Trynneia spared a look at Ylane, but Sariam’s crooked grin blocked out any view before she could cast an apologetic glance. They mean to separate us and keep us that way. Was that some sort of test? Her palm throbbed in Modius’ grip.
They walked between several wagons, winding their way to the end where the newest ones had tied up. Each reeked of smoke. In the distance she could see the fires belching up their soot into the sky. She wondered how much of Lidoria burned, and why the Vigil had torched it. What few friends she still had there would have lost their homes.
“Yes, I brought you here for a reason, Trynneia. I want you to see your hopes die. Your Magistrate had different hopes for you. He defied me and I took you anyway. He pays now for his decisions. Do not cross me.”
He led her to the rear-most wagon and pulled down the gate. She saw it contained the same number of crates as Ylane’s wagon. The pungency of smoke within overwhelmed her.
“This one was the last to leave. It passed through the longest stretch of the fires. The Red is right, of course. Your mother led you too far astray. I can taste it in your blood.”
What does that mean?
“Get in,” he said.
“I don’t want to. Take me back to Ylane or Ditan. I want to talk to them.”
“That’s if your dirty goblin friend still lives. Eilic has defied me plenty of times in the past. Hopefully he’s obeyed my orders concerning him. But I digress. Why would I return you to your friends? Each of you will fulfill my needs individually or not at all.” He gripped her tunic through the tear in its side and slammed her painfully against the lowered gate of the wagon. “Get in. Don’t make me tell you a third time.”
Trynneia searched his face, confronting his cruelty. “Take me to my friends,” she said stubbornly. He backhanded her and she staggered, collapsing against the gate. She hadn’t seen it coming.
Modius lifted her, his rough hands digging into the exposed flesh of her arms as he thrust her into the wagon. “I was hoping you’d just go along with things, but you had to be willful.” He pulled some coiled rope off one of the boxes and tied a constrictive knot around her hands. In her dazed state she could not resist.
“We have a long journey ahead,” he said as he looped the rope onto a hook above them meant to hang canvas bags. Several hung across the centerline. In moments she felt her hands go numb as they took the brunt of her weight. Suspended, Trynneia could barely skim the floor with her toes. “If bandits attack, they go for the wagons at the rear. I’ll leave them behind if I need to. I have others. If you want to find yourself somewhere safer, near the center of my group, you’ll perhaps consider being less of a bitch.”
He bent to tie her feet and then hauled her ankles up on another hook. She dangled, suspended by her limbs from the roof of the wagon, unable to do more than sway side to side. After Modius tied her off, he plucked the rope to test its tautness.
“Consider this solitary confinement.”
“Why?”
“I’ll let you think on that, Trynneia. Why would you be here, amongst the Vigil, the Sentinels of Eluvan, servants of Elerion, in the midst of the Light?” He departed. Somewhere distant, Ylane screamed. She hadn’t even seen Ditan and didn’t know if Eilic had brought him back.
The Light needs to Illuminate their path. They have strayed from it.
She blinked, her head still fuzzy both from the blow and the strange sensation that filled her when the Sentinels came near. Trynneia craned her neck, taking in her surroundings. Nothing drew her attention more than the thin canvas that covered the wagon snapping erratically against the wind.
Sariam’s aura had glowed black and red. Black had surrounded Modius. She didn’t need intuition to understand their moods. Trynneia’s runes gave off a weak, sickly glow in the relative gloom of the wagon, but gave her nothing in return. Her mood soured as the gravity of their predicament set in.
Don’t get sad. Think. Plan. I need to get us out of here. Of the three of them, she felt responsible for their captivity, sham trial or not. Ylane didn’t even belong there. She needed to talk to her. When had this happened to her? She thought she had been alone, and now she had someone she could - at least in theory - talk to about it.
Her head grew heavy and her neck ached as much as her wrists and ankles. Trynneia’s partial inversion left her mind looping in circles as she thought of her next attempt at freedom.