I pull my hand over my sweater. It’s no longer covered in a layer of dirt, blood and mud. I cannot feel the material against my fingertips nor the pain and exhaustion I had felt in Pýrgos. It didn’t change immediately; it took a few hours. It feels strange. The feelings and the pain had been strong close to the darkness, yet now I can’t feel anything.
We had arrived empty-handed to Vrana. Besides, I had pushed Clover against the Raven. A hope that it’d saved him – but I had literally seen the Raven walk out of the darkness. The same darkness that burned our backs, destroyed everything in its path and marked Sun – something we still hadn’t spoken of. Everyone had noticed the mark on the back of her hand. It’s no longer just a circle. It had grown. Five crooked lines extended themselves from the circle. No one had said anything. Not Sun, Nine nor Sage.
The mission they had sent us on ended with the mask and one of the soul wanderers lost, and another had been marked by the darkness, and none of us know what that means.
The white-clad skeleton leads us back to the meeting hall, it has the same straight posture as Cerberus. We’ve barely spoken a word to each other since we left Pýrgos, all we had done was answering the unending questions Vrana had for us. There wasn’t much to say until we got to the meeting hall. Where we – where I had to explain what I’d done and what we’d lost.
I’m mad that they sent us there without protection. That they didn’t explain how agonizing it was to get through a distorted world. In the end we lost almost everything for something we couldn’t even get our hands on.
The skeleton leads us deeper into the Citadel, until we reach the meeting hall clad in forest green. All of the guardians stand ready in their pulpits. As usual, their emotions are all too tangible. This time it’s worry, and it becomes worse once they realize we don’t have the mask nor Clover with us.
The skeleton stands aside, and we continue onto the platform. First scoffs as he notices we’re approaching.
“Would you look at that? The man suspected to have partnered with the Forsaken soul wanderer isn’t here. I can’t say I’m surprised,” he says with an arrogant smirk.
The familiar suffocating feeling makes itself known; my gaze slowly turns to Blomst. I remember how she had reacted at the suspicions about Clover. I have no idea how she’ll react to what I have to say.
“Where is he?” She asks. “Where is Clover?”
Vrana gives her a sympathetic look. She’s ignoring him with her gaze focused on us.
I ready myself to take the worst of this. It was after all I that knew what happened, and it was I that had made one of the worst things I could have done. Yet I’m not so sure the other choice would have been better. If he fell down with me, I’m not sure any of us would have gotten away from the darkness.
“And where is the mask?” Saturn asks.
“Where is he?” Blomst repeats.
“I don’t know,” I answer.
“You don’t know?” Blomst grip around the pulpit’s wall becomes tighter. “What happened?”
“Do you know what you sent us to?” I ask and keep my voice as steady as I can.
I can see the images the distorted creature sent me at the platform. Filled with blood and grotesque violence. How disgusting that hunger had felt within me. It’s nothing I’ll forget soon, if ever. The images are burnt into my mind.
“What we had to experience?”
They stare at me like they’re expecting me to shut out my anger. That I’ll be an obedient little girl and tell them what they want to hear. But I cannot, not until they explained why it was worth sending us to Pýrgos.
“Orchid,” Sun warns.
She’s tired. We all are, she likely wants me to say what is needed so we can all move on and leave it behind us. But considering how she has held her hand over the mark, hiding it in front of the guardians, I’m not so sure she can. I don’t think anyone of us can, not after what we witnessed or what the mirror had shown me. Not many of the memories I had seen made sense, but some of it had stood out, as well as what the distorted creature had said. I’m sorry. It was a punishment. A war. They knew what they did. I’ve repeated the words over and over again, studied them and tried to understand the whole meaning. The guardians are arrogant and carries on an unquenchable thirst for power. They’d betray and manipulate each other if they thought it would help them, and they would continue to use us as tools. The same way that Cerberus and Vrana had used me.
Cerberus had shown me a merciful side that I no longer knew if it was real, maybe he told me everything he did to make himself seem more human – so I’d open up and tell him what he wanted. I had lied to him in the end and hadn’t kept my part of the deal. And the moment he knew I had lied I wasn’t as useable, and that merciful side had disappeared.
Vrana wasn’t better. I cannot trust what he has told me. He must have had a reason why he didn’t tell the guardians about my connection with the dagger.
They’re playing a game against each other where we soul wanderers are only game pieces. I don’t have to see more memories to know they were somehow involved in what happened to Pýrgos. I don’t know how, but I’m confident of it.
Sun takes a step forward when she notices I won’t back down. She still holds her own hand and hides the black mark on the back of her hand. She takes a breath to prepare herself.
“What we are suspecting is that Clover was taken by the Raven.”
It’s not sun that is speaking, it’s Vrana. A fragile sound escapes Blomst’s lips.
“The Raven? Well, that’s enough proof of our suspicions, no?”
“Taken, First,” Vrana corrects him, “he didn’t go with him willingly.”
“What happened?” Blomst asks, her voice isn’t quite holding together.
I take a step forward. I don’t want to tell them what we’ve gone through and what we have seen. The anger in me is focused entirely on the guardians and what they have exposed us to.
“We made our way to a city built of spear-like towers.” My voice is crystal clear, empty of emotions like I’m not speaking of the worst experiences I’ve had the misery to endure. “We split up. Nine and Sage, and my group consisted of me, Sun and Clover. We had to leave her to move forward.”
“Did you find the mask?” Saturn asks.
I glare at him. “Yes. It was on a grotesque monster that had eaten half of its body, and it wanted to tear us apart. And it would have succeeded had the darkness not moved.”
The guardians don’t look surprised. Neither had Vrana when I told him everything outside of the gate. Like they had expected that something might have worn the mask.
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“When the darkness moved it broke tower after tower, one of them crushed the creature and Clover took the mask.” I take a deep breath. “I think you know what happened after that.
“Little girl, be careful who you speak with that tone of yours, or what you’re suggesting we’ve done,” First hisses.
“Shall I believe you knew nothing? That you were ignorant of your own world, and you didn’t willingly send us to a dangerous place? That you didn’t know what was waiting or what the mask did?”
“It was worth sending you. We couldn’t let go of this chance and we were hoping the mask was asleep,” Cerberus says.
Asleep. It seemed to be just as alive as the rest of us – in one way or another. They had known exactly what it was capable of. They practically sacrificed us for an artifact.
“You sent us there without weapons nor protection! How the hell did you think it would end?!”
“We thought that all you would have to deal with was the darkness, we weren’t expecting a being to still be there two thousand years later, or that it would have awoken it,” Liria said.
Nine grabs my arm and whispers, “that’s enough.”
Blomst leans over the pulpits. “Did he put the mask on?”
“Yes,” Nine answers and lets go of my arm.
“And you left him there?”
“I didn’t have much choice,” I say and prepare to tell them what I’ve been avoiding. “I saw the Raven coming out of the darkness.”
“What are you talking about?” Couleur asks.
The guardians exchange looks, all of them worried. It feels suffocating.
“I didn’t have much choice,” I repeat. “The platform we had been standing on had been crushed by a tower. The darkness was moving and devouring everything it was touching and… I was exhausted. I knew that if Clover fell none of us would get out.”
Blomst scoffs. “So, you left him there, with the Raven?”
“I pushed him.”
“You pushed him?” Liria asks.
“Yes, towards the Raven. He was the only one who could help him. It was the only thing I could do.”
Couleur shakes her head. “Hold on, you saw him walking out of the darkness and you decide that there is no other choice but that?”
I try to swallow the anger that is building up within me, like a wild uncontrollable storm. They hadn’t been there and seen what we had. No matter the decision the end results was never something I wanted. If there somehow was a way to save Clover I would have chosen that. But no matter how much I was thinking of it, I couldn’t find a way that would lead to that. The only way of him surviving was if the Raven brought him with him.
“It was that or let him die.”
Blomst shakes her head, while frowning her entire face. “How can you know that your foolish choice doesn’t lead to his extinction… or worse?”
The wrath and frustration in the air is suffocating me. It’s too mixed and too much to know who most of it comes from.
“I wouldn’t know that,” I say as self-assured as I can make it sound, “but it was the only thing I could do.”
Blomst makes a hand gesture and lets out a frustrated sound, her pale face is twisted into an expression of chilling wrath. Before she can say something, Vrana raises his hand and I automatically take a step back.
“Orchid did what she could in the situation she was put in,” he says and lowers his hand, “and she chose the most favorable decision.”
I don’t trust him, I cannot trust him.
“How could you say that?!” Blomst snarls.
First gives her a haughty look. “Because the mask wasn’t devoured by the darkness. We have a chance to get it back, with or without Clover.”
“Exactly,” Vrana adds.
Cerberus stares at Vrana and First. “The mask is in the wrong hands, dangerous hands! How could you be seeing this as a favorable situation?”
“It’s better than it being lost,” Liria answers.
The suffocating feeling of frustration and wrath dies out, it’s only Blomst’s sorrow that fills the entire hall. The dark expression tells me she cannot see anything positive with this.
“Blomst, there is still a large possibility that Clover is still with us,” Liria says.
Blomst grimaces and leaves the hall through the door behind her. When it closes the guardians keep talking between each other, like she never left the hall to begin with. It’s the same thing over and over again. Endless bickering about what they’ll do with the news we came with. What they should do about me. None of them seems to know if what I did was considered a crime or not. They never get to a solution of sorts, and eventually they ask us to leave so they can discuss it between themselves. I’m allowed to move freely around the realm. Sun, Sage and Nine says nothing. Nothing about what I’ve done, not about the Raven and Clover, nor about Sun’s visible mark. They don’t share if they think I’m guilty or what they would have done in my situation. Nothing gets said between us. Just a feeble goodbye once we leave the Citadel. Sun and Nine stays in Arkaros, while me and Sage head to the entry gate. He goes back to his world, Mauve, and gives me the same feeble goodbye as the rest.
I stand in the corridor a while before I decide to not head back to the Eleven. I cannot handle being stuck in my room now, not when I’m unsure if I’ll end up in a prison somewhere. Imprisoned for years, an eternity. I’m not sure how prisons work here. If they’ll just let me rot in some hole until I’m ready for my own funeral.
I stare up at the gate of wood. It feels like an eternity since I was here last, when everything was okay between me and Clover, it was also then everything went to hell. It’s easy to pretend, to fool yourself that everything is okay and that you feel fine. But, just like Clover had said, eventually it will spill over.
I need to speak to someone who hasn’t seen what I have. But still someone who knew him well.
I open the door that leads to the Oak and when I step into the beautiful forest world I feel like crying. I’m able to keep it inside but I cannot force a smile or pretend I hadn’t seen what I had. I have to put all my energy on the burning tears building up in my eyes. I cannot let them fall.
When I arrive at the Viking it looks just as cozy as it had been the first time I was here. A few creatures sit at the tables – not as many as when I and Clover were here – and drinks from the mugs that looks like tree trunks. Mort and Moria are standing behind the bar counter. They lay their dark eyes on me. At first, they smile but soon their joyous expression fades.
Mort nods at Moria, she quickly picks a mug off the shelves.
"Well, if it isn’t Orchid," Mort say as I reach the bar.
I sit down on one of the barstools and give them the faintest smile I can muster. I’m happy they remember me. I wouldn’t want to explain to them who I was and that I had been here before, not now.
“Give her a Balder,” Mort says to Moria.
Moria leaves the room and Mort looks at me with friendly black eyes.
“Thank you,” I mumble.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’ve been better.”
Moria comes back with the mug; it’s filled to the top with a white and shining foam. She carefully places it on the bar counter and wipes her hand on the brown apron.
“Balder, one of the most loving drinks,” she says with a small sympathetic smile.
“Loving?” I ask.
“You’ll understand once you drink it.”
I take a sip of the drink; I only get foam in my mouth until I feel the silky-smooth liquid wash over my tongue. My entire body fills with a warm harmony – one I’m not so sure I deserve. I cannot keep my tears back, so I let them silently spill over.
They’re patient and let me collect myself and my thoughts before I can tell them what happened. I hide away the grotesque details about the creature, about the hunger I had felt and the picture it had sent me. No one needed those details. It’s a part I’ll be carrying, one I’ll never fully be able to speak out loud about again. I tell them about the Raven, that he walked out of the darkness. The worry they both show in their eyes makes me regret it, I should never have added that detail. I tell them about the mask, that I had to make a choice. They let me continue until I’ve spilled out all the details I can stomach.
I take the last sip of the drink that has filled me entirely of harmony. There are no longer any tears coming from my eyes. Mort leans forward and puts his toad-like hands on the counter. He looks at me, openly and vulnerable. Even he is suffering.
”Orchid, if I know anything about the Raven then it’s that he’d do everything to take Clover to safety, he’d take care of him. He wouldn’t let him suffer. You did the only right decision,” Mort says.
Moria is staring at me, while leaning over the bar counter with her hand resting against her cheek. “It’s interesting,” she begins absent-mindedly, “that he walked through the darkness.”
“But that doesn’t mean it’s something negative,” Mort adds.
“I never said that.” Moria shakes her head. “I’ve never heard about anyone that walked through the darkness and wasn’t destroyed by it. No beings nor soul wanderers. And Guardians speed the process of it with their presence.”
She frowns.
“There’s no point trying to figure this mystery out, Moria,” Mort says gently. “None of us should be able to go through it.”
Her face softens and she looks at Mort for a long time before she turns back to me again. She gives me a smile, the same sympathetic smile as before.
“If Clover is with the Raven, then he’s safe.”
Safe. I should be content with that and trust what they say. But if the guardians were correct, if it leads to his death or something worse… I’m not so sure I could live with myself.
I stare down into the empty mug. The harmony embraces my entire body and touches every part of me. Inside and outside. Yet it feels foreign, like it’s not mine.
I know I have to make myself ready to go back to the Eleven again. But I’ll take advantage of the last hours here, until the train of light on the hill burns out.