Faceless No More #3
It tears out of her, raw and unrestrained, a sound of grief too large to stay contained any longer.
Pain pours out of her in that cry—years of it, locked away and denied.
She screams until there’s nothing left to give, until her voice drains away and tears flood her eyes, spilling freely down her cheeks.
When she finally goes quiet, spent and shaking, the memory unfolds.
I open my mind fully to Orán.
We see it together.
Her small hands were aching with pain from the work in the field. The wheat was irritating her skin. The ties were burning as they constantly slipped from her grip. The ache in her shoulders. Her, as a small child, begging an older woman for a brief rest from her long day of labor.
Rows of women, bent beneath the sun, toiling the day away.
Then the road.
Eridessa, as a small child, crouched low, watching an insect crawl and hop across an old dirt road, fascinated by the grasshopper's persistence in trying to fly. And she tries her best to mimic him.
And then—
The portal opens.
We emerge not as four separate beings but a force of God-given divinity to end the world she’s a part of.
We watch it through her eyes. Feel her emotions as she relives it. Feel her terror, her certainty of death. How she hides from us, just a small girl witnessing the four of us tearing into her reality to end life as she knows it.
Our power never touched her.
Never marked her.
There has to be a reason for that.
For her survival. For her presence at that moment. For her rising afterward, untouched, to face the devastation we left behind.
Just a small child who hid from us, left behind, terrified and alone, until a priest called her name and took her to safety.
“There,” Orán says softly, tension coiling through him. “Who is that?”
Eridessa stills.
“Grand… Minister Judiah,” she whispers.
The name unlocks more memories. Too much.
“Show us who he was to you,” I murmur, guiding her mind deeper. I draw on more power than I should—careful, controlled—but even so, I feel the strain. I fear what she may become once this is done. Or what she may feel toward me.
The memories spill.
Nights of pleasure.
Private lessons.
The real lessons.
Forbidden texts.
Special studies conducted in shadow and silence.
Rewards.
Punishments.
And then the memory that chills me most, the night of the worst punishment. A caning for breaking into his room to read from a book he kept locked away.
“Wait. Do you see that, at the beginning?” Orán steps closer.
“Eri. Go back to before he came back.”
She fights me. Thrashes and refuses to comply, so I play those previous moments for us all.”
I was too focused on her to see it the first time.
Her Grand Minister walking not through a wall or doorway, but a portal.
The faceless man from her dreams of sanctity and sin is faceless no longer. He stands revealed, unchanged by time, while she has grown older beneath his influence. The same youth. The same beauty. The same authority wrapped in false holiness.
I freeze the image of him and share a look with Orán.
A dark, thunderous expression settles over his face.
“In all the time you knew him,” I ask carefully, “did he always appear this way? Youthful and untouched by age?”
“Yes,” she answers faintly. “Always.”
Who is he? Orán asks me mind to mind.
Not of this world, I reply. That much is certain.
Why her? Orán presses. Why create the Order? Why single her out?
That question burns just as fiercely within me.
But I have pushed her far enough. Any further, and I fear she will fracture or come to hate me beyond repair.
Orán senses it too. After a moment, he nods.
“That’s enough for now, little one,” I say gently, easing my grip on her mind. “Rest. You are safe. We will see you home.”
I persuade her toward sleep, guiding her thoughts toward quiet and stillness. I tell her she will remember, but not now. For now, she is held. For now, she is protected.
Her body goes slack.
Orán withdraws the branches and vines encasing her, and I catch her before she falls, gathering her into my arms. She is light—far too light for all she has carried. I cradle her against my chest, feeling the fragile steadiness of her breath.
Neither Orán nor I speaks.
We have seen only fragments of her life, but even those glimpses are enough to leave us shaken. Enough to understand how much she has endured in such a short span of years.
There is still so much we do not know.
But this much is certain: whoever that man is—whatever immortal hides behind that stolen reverence—he will never come near her again.
Whatever doctrine, authority, or false divinity he used to bind her will be unraveled. Piece by piece. Thought by thought.
She is ours now.
And we will mend what he broke long ago.
I carry her through the forest and back into her home. I lay her gently on her bed, tucking her in as though she were something sacred because she is.
When I should leave, I do not.
I lie down beside her instead.
Orán takes his place on her other side, silent and watchful.
And together, we guard her sleep.