Shauna didn’t want to marvel at the golden robe, and when she had stepped out of the house in Fairlow, she treated it with disdain. Yet the more she wore it, the more fitting it felt to her. The gentle material caressed her skin even more so than her black sari from before. Her skin seemed to unite with the color of the robe, and she couldn’t help but appreciate the gift even though it was tainted with the disgust of treachery. She figured that she would change what it meant to her. She would not just be gilded or glossed over, polished with a golden outside. She would be like Caleb. She would be infused with gold from the inside out.
She tugged on the seams, and she kept brushing off little flecks of dust that were determined to tarnish the sari. Even though it stopped above her ankles, she was conscious of the hem touching the ground.
“You really like the robe, huh?” Uriel asked. The tattoo of the necklace around her neck was not only visible from the front but also from the sides.
“I do. It feels lighter, not weighty like the black.”
“Looks good.”
Shauna nodded without responding, and then she looked ahead at the route that set itself off from the road. They walked alongside the street down a small hill where their heads were at the same level as the road. Only a few towering trees separated them from the path.
Still walking, feet kicking dead leaves, Shauna forced herself to release the weight that had lodged itself in her heart. “I think I’m starting to forget what the sunlight looks like,” she said.
“The Hellstate is getting worse,” Uriel replied dryly. “No matter how much you try to fight it, the more you use it, the more it’ll eat you alive.”
“I used to be able to control it. I’d see darkness for a while, but then the sun would eventually come back. It’s been days since I’ve seen Shahrach, and I’m starting to feel desperate.”
“Have the night fights started yet?”
“The night fights?”
Uriel massaged her scar where the tattoo necklace connected. “Those were the worse. It’s when the spirits decide that they are tired of being controlled, and they creep in to torture you. Sometimes it lasts for days.”
“Not yet,” said Shauna. She touched the bruise on the side of her forehead. She could feel herself fading out of consciousness, but she focused on Caleb’s spirit, and it helped her to regain herself.
“It’ll come. Either stop using the Hellstate, or it’s only going to get worse.”
“What was it like for you?”
“The Hellstate? When I was in it, I couldn’t feel any pain, but we never left the Hellstate. We didn't want to. That’s what we said we’d do. We being the Triage, you know. The longer you stay in it, the more powerful you become. We worked with Wex for years investing in the darkness.”
“I was asking about the night fights. What were they like?”
“Oh those. I hate to even remember. I could disappear in and out of the spiritual plane…just like I was a spirit. But during the night fights, I’d feel every cell in my body being torn off of me, and then it felt like each one was burned back onto me with a fire that was hotter than the flames used to temper swords. It was awful. Most of the time I couldn’t even scream, because the spirits would tear my throat apart. But that’s we chose to do, so I fought through it.”
“Why would you put yourself through that? You could have gotten out at any time if you wanted to.”
“It was because of Ignatyus, my brother. I was ten, so I was allowed to train, but Ignatyus was still too young. Somehow he convinced Wex to start the training at the ripe old age of seven. My parents were against it. Ignatyus did it anyway. He would sneak out at night and find time to connect with the spirits, and then he’d show up before sunrise so that Mother and Father wouldn’t know about it.”
“How was he able to do his apprenticeship work with as little sleep as he was getting, especially since your Father was a scribe? It seems that Fray would have needed to be fully awake to do that.”
“Ignatyus was no idiot. He could read and write by the time he was six, so when he wasn’t training to become a member of the Triage, he was thinking about his trade work. Our father didn’t even know.”
Shauna brushed off a few leaves that fell onto her shoulder, but she kept her eyes forward, pushing through a few vines that dangled to the ground. “Seems kind of hard for a seven year-old to live two lives.”
“Hard’s not the word for it. Try impossible. Ignatyus knew he couldn’t keep up, and he used to come to me crying telling me that he didn’t want to let Wex down, that he couldn’t train with Wex anymore.”
“What did you say to him, because he obviously didn’t quit?”
“The training was killing him. I told him that he should stop and focus on being a scribe. I assured him that Wex wasn’t a hard man, but Ignatyus didn’t believe me. He wanted to impress Wex so badly that he kept up with the training. I didn’t say much more because I liked the idea of having my brother around.”
“What changed him though, because this does not sound like the Fray I knew? I never even knew him as Ignatyus.”
“The spirits changed him. He told me that there was one spirit whom he became friends with. That spirit would come and talk to him at night. Whenever he was crying, it would listen to him. He never would tell me the spirit's name, but he said that it always followed him. Shortly after, he stopped going by Ignatyus. That spirit told him to start calling himself by our end name, and so everyone called him Fray except for me, my parents, and Wex.”
Shauna pushed her hair back from over her eyes. “You think that’ll happen to me?”
“Probably.”
Shauna’s heart sunk. She hoped that Uriel would answer her with some thread of hope that she could latch onto, but she didn’t, and now Shauna was left with the notion that this could be her life forever. Could she really live like this? “Is this going to be the fate of our people?”
“I don't doubt it,” Uriel answered, shredding Shauna's heart even more.
“How can you be so sure?”
“The Darkened Temptation is too strong. The people would have to be taught how to resist it. Who’s going to do that? You? You can barely withstand it yourself.”
“I can try,” said Shauna, voice high and pitchy.
“Trying is lying. There’s no way. I tried it too, but the more that I fought against it, the more the spirits wanted control. Eventually, even Wex would have crumbled to his Hellstate.”
“So even if we can get the Naturalists to help, there’s still no hope for our people?” Shauna asked, dreading the answer to her question.
“No.”
Shauna faded in and out of the Hellstate, wrestling against the urge to give in, but she could feel it strengthening within her even more powerfully than just a few moments ago.
Uriel clapped her hands in front of Shauna’s face. “Snap out of it! I only told you that there was no answer so that you could feel how hopeless the Spiritualists are about their Hellstates. You need to see that their worlds are crumbling. They need someone stable enough to pull them out of it. If you keep swooning every time you have an emotional reaction to something, there’ll be nothing you can do about it.”
Shauna blinked hard, jerking out of the trance. Uriel was right. She needed to stop allowing herself to fade in and out, and she needed to fight against it if she was ever going to do anything for her people. She rubbed her eyes and kept on towards Kyhelm.
The night was closing in on them as the sun was setting. Even as she resisted the urge to fall into the Hellstate, the power of the spirits engulfed her as she heard the sound of scraping footsteps on the road next to them. Shauna’s eyes rolled into the back of her head, but Uriel shook her awake. “Focus!” Uriel whispered, as she pressed on Shauna’s shoulder so that she would lower her head down a bit from the level of the road.
Shauna approached the side of the street and pressed herself in the dirt, trying to keep the twigs from breaking beneath her. The sari wa
s getting dirty, but her life was more valuable than a piece of clothing. “Do you see anything?” she whispered to Uriel.
“Nothing.”
Shauna pointed to the place were the road bended, and several figures appeared around the corner. “Over there, look.”
“I see them.”
The sound of screams cut through the canopy. These weren’t spirits yelling. These were people. The figures charged in Shauna’s direction, and Shauna’s eyes rolled into her head.
“Don’t do it!” Uriel hollered in a whisper.
Shauna jumped out of it and darted away down the trail from where she had come. Uriel followed after her. The footsteps from the road got closer. The screams got louder, and Shauna could hear the snapping sounds of the vines behind her. The screams turned to growls, and the growls turned to sobs...and the sobs...turned to cries. Cries for help. “Shauna…please…help.”
Shauna stopped, panicking. Where was Uriel? She glanced around, and Uriel was standing next to her. Who was calling for her? Shauna eased back up the trail, keeping a hand out so that Uriel would stay behind her.
“Shauna...please….” The voice shrieked, and then it squealed, and then it sobbed, and then it pleaded.
Shauna kept up the trail. Hidden in the bushes was one woman. Her violet emblem was scratched and parts of it were chipped off. Her hair was pasted together from what looked like weeks of dirt and clay. Her clothes were shredded, and behind the streaming tears was a beautiful dark face that was filled with pain. The footsteps that pursued Shauna had stopped, and the entire region stood still. “Please...SHAUNA!” The voice escalated, and then it retreated back into tenderness.
Holding her trembling hand out towards the woman, Shauna called in all the spirits that surrounded the lady, absorbing them in her palm. The woman’s voice returned to normal, and the lady put her arms over her stomach, bawling, her voice echoing through the now darkened canopy.
“P-Please don’t let them come back. Please don’t let them hurt me anymore.” Her words were enclosed in gut-wrenching screams that spewed from her soul. The woman was in so much pain, but the grief seemed to be emotional. There were no bruises on her, except probably the bruise on her heart that not even Shauna could touch.
“What happened?” Shauna asked.
“Those...those Polarists….They took my baby. My little boy. They took him. He’s all I got, and they took him. He’s only a few days old, and they took him.” She was leaning forward, sobbing, tears tangling in the knots of her filthy hair.
“Where’s the boy? What are they doing with him?” Shauna asked, trying to keep the woman’s attention.
“They are going to infuse him with their emblem.” The woman looked at Shauna, and Shauna looked away, refusing to let herself cry from the woman’s agony. “Their emblem…not ours but theirs. They are going to make my baby boy a Polarist. What am I going to do?”
“You said you didn’t want them to hurt you anymore. What were you talking about?” Shauna asked.
“The spirits,” said Uriel blankly. “She’s talking about the spirits.” The woman kept tilting herself forward, nodding her head to agree with Uriel.
“What were the spirits doing to her?” Shauna asked.
“Multiplying her. They were hacking off chunks of her flesh and incarnating them. That’s why we heard so many footsteps. They all belonged to her.”
Shauna kneeled down in front of the woman with no concern for the dirt that was muddying up sari. “Where did these Polarists go? And how long has it been?”
“They snatched him about an hour ago, and they are probably taking him to Arenn,” she said, pointing northeast. “I’ve been fleeing from them for weeks, and they finally found me, and they just took him.” Her tear mixed words ended faintly.
Uriel rested her hand on her belt. “Arenn? That’s right at the border of Kyhelm. Why’d they take him there I wonder? There’s nothing in Arenn but markets and inns.”
“My baby boy. I just want him back,” the woman cried, shaking her head and sobbing, saliva lines connecting her tongue to the roof of her mouth.
Shauna stood to her feet, eyes hazing, but she fought the urge to give in. She set her gaze northeast towards Arenn, and she started that way. Uriel picked the woman up by the arm and had her follow.
“What’s your name?” Shauna asked.
“Aly.”
“Aly, you think you’d recognize your son?” Shauna asked not even looking back.
“As sure as the night comes. But please don’t let the spirits come back. I don’t want them near me or my baby.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible. Once I let them go, then they are going to flock back to you.”
“That’s not exactly true,” said Uriel, easing her words in.
“Then what is exactly true?” Shauna asked.
“The spirits of the Hellstate only connect with the spirit of the person, not the person herself. So if you use your Hellstate, then maybe you could command the sprits to connect with your spirit instead of hers.”
Shauna sighed, grunting. This meant that she’d have to give into the Hellstate that she’d be resisting. Could she handle it? What if she fell in and she couldn’t come back out? What if she…. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and her body collapsed onto the ground. She grabbed Aly's spirit, commanding her to submit. She felt the woman’s pain, and she heard the woman’s silent cries from within. Aly didn’t need to live with this. If Shauna could get her son back, then she’d do it. Shauna focused on all the spirits of the Hellstate that she had snatched from this woman, and then she drew them into herself, demanding that each one follow her instead of the lady.
The growls and the snarls rumbled in the night. The spirits’ moans echoed off the trees. Broughtonhaven was alive with spiritual activity. Shauna directed each spirit simultaneously to connect with her spirit instead of the woman’s. Then Shauna left the woman’s body and rose out of the Hellstate. She could hear the voices and the screams of all the spirits she had just called upon herself. It was formidable and empowering.
The woman gathered her strength, and she caressed her emblem. “I don’t know what you did, but it worked. I can’t hear them calling my name anymore.”
“I know,” Shauna said, hair flicking in the wind. “Because they’re calling mine.”
They headed to the large town of Arenn. The houses were mostly made of stone, and many travelers went to the city for merchandise or lodging. The town was well lit, and Polarist guards lined the outside of the city like statues. Before they had arrived, the night was mildly cool, but with the Polarists' occupation of the town, the entire location was freezing. Shauna wondered how much of her powers she’d be able to use since the Polarists were Dominating.
Tiny bumps formed on her skin from the chill of the breeze, and she shivered from the icy gusts. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she pushed herself to reenter the Hellstate, but the temperature was too low. The spirits could not surface in fullness, and she couldn't connect with them as easily.
“Stay here,” Shauna whispered to Aly. “Uriel and I will get your boy back.”
Uriel ripped her dagger from her belt and clenched the hilt in her hand. “Let's do it.”
The moon monitored their every step as it hovered over them from above. The crisp air invaded Arenn from the power of the Polarists. The blocked city was walled having only three entrances which were broad and gated shut, and the guards were only allowing a few Polarists to enter at a time. The wooded area ended about fifty paces from the city walls and the moonlight beamed onto the town since it was unobstructed by the canopy.
“How do you want to do this?” Uriel asked.
“Those two guards go first.” Shauna pointed to her right towards the front gate. The guards were talking and laughing with each other. “We'll go in from the side. Follow me.”
They both inched towards the edge of the underbrush, leaving Aly sitting on the ground behind them. Shauna concent
rated to make the spirits surface, but only faint moans could be heard. She stayed low, crossing the gap between the trees and the stone walls with Uriel following behind her.
Shauna flushed herself against the side of the building, her hair dangling in her face. The golden sari snaked in the wind. Motioning to Uriel, Shauna eased towards the guards. Their voices were louder and more clear as she approached them. Peeking around the corner, she could see their flashing blue emblems indicating that they were maintaining The Deficit, but they were too far away to reach. Shauna pulled her head back and pressed it against the wall. “They're too far away,” she whispered.
“Charge them?” Uriel asked.
Shauna shook her head. “Lure them over here, and I'll kill them both.”
Uriel nodded and let out a quick breath as she set herself to start the diversion. She pushed back her fiery hair, exposing the scar on her upper chest for the guards to see that she was a Wanderer.
“You better do this right,” Shauna said.
“I'll do my part, you just do yours!”
Uriel stood to her feet, her hands and body shivering from the cold. She let out another sigh, and she moped around the building, trying to show herself as a feeble Wanderer. The road to her right curved around into the entrance of the barricaded gate, and she could see that these two guards were the only two outside. Her tension eased a bit, but one wrong move, and they would be alerted to the trap.
“Can you guys spare any extra food? I've been out here all night, and I'm starving,” Uriel said.
Shauna turned to face the corner so that she could be ready for anything. Uriel disappeared around the edge as she walked towards the two guards.
“Extra food? There's nothing extra for beggars like you. Now get!”
“A piece of bread or anything? Just something?”
“Don't let me have to tell you again. Get on, I said!”
“You're going to hurt a poor helpless woman? I've never seen the likes of pigs like you.”
“Pigs? That's it, lady.”
“Please. Please don't hurt me. I didn't mean anything by it.”
Infused (Book 2 of The Pioneers Saga) Page 19
