The Lenaris Cycle
Chapter 7: Shashonna, Mistress of Shadows
There was no resistance left in me as I hung limply in the metal that bound me to whatever device I was connected to. Her eyes had cut into me like a knife and there was no pulling that knife from the wound. Now blinking was no longer a desire I could never hope for. Blinking would destroy me, and I knew it. That rush of clarity I had received before I had come to my senses, it, it . . . it was becoming more clear, and I was afraid. What was she going to do to my soul, to my mind? What was her poison to do on it's own?
"Now, my little general, I begin to explain your crimes. You will receive punishment, and then you will be released to beg forgiveness, and to beg for a part in the one nation that will overthrow all those standing. Every last island of Hutien will bow before our work will be over. In the end, the nation that was destroyed in a blaze of shadow will become the nation that will control this world."
What could I say? What could I do? Everything she said echoed and smashed around in my head as if to pave a way for itself. The truths I held dear before seemed to be shattering, breaking apart under the weight of the new truths. Before, had I truly asked those questions to stall? If so, who had I hoped would rescue me? my cries could not even be heard by the goddess whose daughter and I bared a similarity of names. Even the goddess of retribution and justice could not hear my cries. Whether this was because of the bonds, or because of the fact that I could not make a whisper, much less a cry, I have no clue.
Regardless, I was rather alone besides the depths of her eyes that had become my truth.
Vaguely I could tell the motion the swirling made indicated she was raising her eyebrows. "But before we begin, I will allow my dear Lenaris, poor Lenaris, to make any pleas that come to her lips, bidden by good sense or not. Now is the time for your last witticism, your first apology, or you shall simply begin the lesson of silence sooner than most. Please, do not disappoint me dear, give me something other than your complacence. I would expect that from your sister, but not from you."
If she was trying to get a rise out of me, it certainly worked. Of course I couldn't bring myself to be truly angry with her. She was right, after all. My sister would just be stoic, or just compliant. She had been raised as royalty where I had been raised as a warrior. She knew nothing of true fear. There is a difference between being a victim when you have no training to defend yourself, and the fear that arises when your odds seem low and you know your training, your entire life's work, will soon have a good chance of equaling up to your own defeat... I would take the feeling of helplessness she related to me over our parent's deaths many times over before that feeling.
"I want order from chaos... but... The Knighthood and Delonna's methods... are flawed..." It still hurt to talk, it was like wrestling myself away from something many times over stronger than I was, but she had asked for it, and that made it easier marginally.
"Oh, they were, dearling. Delonna himself was flawed but he opened a righteous path. The closest that anyone else using the shadow came to such a path were the Acolytes of Salcom, those who wish to restore his reign on our world. But such a thing is pure foolishness. Though Akela violated her place in this world and disrupted order, this is now the way our world is meant to be." Something soft and smooth caressed both of my cheeks, and it felt like the clouds, it was so perfect. "And now we begin."
What were we even beginning again? My mind was running so slowly, and the clouds were cupping my cheeks like magic. Oh, they were magic, but those touches, those must have been her hands. It was so hard to think straight.
Maybe I wasn't anymore.
Maybe I never had.
"Your crimes, Warrior of Akela, are as follows..." A slow luxurious pause, and the tingles that those clouds sent whenever she spoke made me squirm in ways I never had before. "You have represented a goddess as though she were higher than mortal. You have defended corrupt Queendoms and supported corrupt political positions. You have insulted me simply for accident of birth. You abducted the throne to a weak queen. You could have prevented your parent's deaths. And above all, your most heinous crime, is that you have resisted the allure of who you really are." The back of a hand, I could tell what it was this time, smashed into my cheek hard.
Each little knuckle seemed to send it's own jolt of pain. It repeated on the other side of my face. Oddly though, it seemed my eyes were not loosing their position and neither were hers. She was such a pro. She was so right. Those were my crimes. She continued, a backhand followed by another and if I were human I would have looked like a "clumsy" bar wench.
It seemed endless. She repeated my crimes, and then delivered more backhands. It seemed to all just melt into a puddle of pain and guilt, though I was too deep in it to feel guilt. "And now, Lenaris, now Is the moment of truth. Now, you beg for forgiveness, I grant you your new name, and we begin your training. All you have to do, is whisper a single word. A single word will help you submit. A single word will cleanse you of your guilt."
Could I truly resist such an offer? She was offering me atonement. She was offering me the one thing that no Warrior of Akela is ever fully granted except in death. I had suffered for my own sins and I no longer needed to suffer for other's? I was no longer to martyr myself for any cause that called to me? She was granting me a path that would allow me to cleanse my land and the land of all others. If I refused, would it matter? Would she not find something else to tempt me with? Did she not have a much bigger trump card than I could dare give her credit for? My sister would be an easy target. Without a queen, Selaria would fall to ruin.
Just one word, and this would all be over.
"That's it dear, I can see it swirling in your eyes. Say it, and be cleansed. Say it. Say it before it grows too heavy a weight to bare. Do it now!" The insistence of her words seemed to make that funnel spiral tighter, as if it was working to burrow ever so deeper, as if it could or as if i could sink any deeper into it. There was not else for me but that yellow.
Shay was daughter of Delonna and a Warrior of Akela. She was a princess by blood of two lands. If Selaria and Shay'dar could be again united, under a new legion of knights . . . Even she said Delonna's methods were flawed!
Our world could finally know peace in unity!
"Please..." My lips felt heavier than the whole world, and that lone word on them was heavier still. For a moment, the whole world went skin tone olive, and I was afraid I would scream at the shock. She had blinked, and it was the most pronounced blink I had ever noticed. Lips pressed to mine, and I felt that yellow burn so deep. It was in her, it was her very gift, it was who and what she was, stronger than I could have imagined, and I could feel it cleansing through me like the magma that it was.
When she finally pulled back, my shackles opened and I fell into her arms like a limp child's doll. "Now you, my dear, shall be known forever more as Shashonna, the Mistress of Shadows... and together... you and I shall bring this world to it's knees."
The idea alone sounded so sweet, as her hands stroked so lovingly over my face. Shashonna.
It was a name that people would soon learn to fear.
