Chapter 16 - Talking Mist
July
When the wall behind me begins to rumble and shake, I do not pay it much attention because my mind is filled with memories of the day I met Roden for the first time. That lucky day, he sensed me—one of his many children—and brought me to Libera.
Nearly twenty-two years have passed, and his face remains unchanged.
The shade of his eyes is still that of a blue sky, sometimes darkened by passing clouds.
I cannot forget that he is the saviour who sacrificed his very soul to create the beating essence of Libera, a realm of freedom for his people.
A confined kingdom where he can keep an eye on all of us.
His kingdom and his prison—because he and Libera are tethered to each other.
“My child, if you don’t step aside, I’m afraid we’ll reach an impasse,” Roden states, with the same simplicity he’s explained to me the meaning of the dozens of screens flickering in front of me.
He gently pulls me to my feet, spins me around and frees my wrists. My mind floats empty and light under his touch. A heavy piece of black rope falls to the floor with a thump like a dead, beautiful butterfly.
But my knees shake as if my body is trying to reject that connection.
“Have I done something wrong? Why am I here?” A thought is nagging in my mind, but it keeps slipping away whenever Roden speaks, blinks, or taps his cane on the floor.
But this is real. The pain in my wrists is real. The pounding in my head. The bitter tang in my mouth mixed with blood.
Roden clucks his tongue. “The punishment for a wrong action would mean stripping you of your precious talent and chucking you amongst the Rogues as if you were never trained to be a Harvester.” He cocks his head, sliding his icy glare from one side of my face to the other.
I hold my breath and, even if my lungs begin to burn, I don’t seem to remember how to exhale.
“But then I would need to quickly find someone else as skilled as you to separate your body from your useless, rotting soul. And—destroy it forever.” He sighs as if talking about a domestic, annoying chore.
I swallow a lump of dread as he caresses my cheek with the back of his hand, brushing a lock of hair off my face, incapable of deciding if it’s fear making me shake or if the floor is vibrating under my feet.
Roden’s breath is like a wintry gust against my ear when he whispers, “Tell me, child, have you done anything to deserve such a treatment?”
Did I? I open my mouth, hoping the correct answer is waiting on my tongue, ready to come out, when the shaking halts.
Roden clutches my shoulder and gently - my body doesn’t feel like resisting anyway - pulls me away from the wall. “Ah,” he looks up at the ceiling. “The Chapter is here, and they’re waiting for you.”
I have met Roden many times, and each time, it was just to receive an assignment, and only if that concerned a Rogue, never a simple Nistares.
He briefs me on where to find the Rogue, and I empty their bodies as quickly as possible so that Galen and his team can collect the vessels while I return to Libera with a vial full of black powder.
Nothing like the purple glow of the Nistarei’s souls, who keep fighting for freedom, even hours after my passage, flapping against the glass like trapped fireflies.
Stolen…
…glowing red…
An invisible, electric thread runs from my left temple to the right. “A wandering mind killed the cat. Not curiosity, I say.” The tip of Roden’s finger is like a needle slowly drilling into my head.
“I don’t…” Is this even my voice I hear?
His hold on my shoulders tightens to the point I fear for my bones. “Now, now. We don’t want to make them wait. Some of them can be very unpleasant to deal with if the person they want to see is late. Especially if they had to wake up on short notice at dawn.”
As if activated by Roden’s voice, the whole building rumbles beneath me, and a thin line appears on the wall opposite me, splitting into giant sliding doors.
When Roden slides his hands off me and extends them towards a lift that wasn’t there until a moment ago, my world starts rotating again.
“After you.” An order—not an invitation.
The light inside the huge lift is warm but unnatural because it comes from…
I step inside it, mesmerised by its golden glow. “Nowhere,” I mutter.
“Marvellous, isn’t it?” Roden comments, sauntering behind me. “The creation of a great mind.”
I slowly turn and stare at Roden, agape, as he fills the entire space of the entrance. I’m probably too weak and tired to judge reality, but he seems to have grown taller within the few seconds I walked in front of him. His shoulders are larger and imposing.
A line forms between his eyebrows as he admires the inside of the lift, nodding his head.
“Such a young, talented mind.” His cane hits the metal floor so hard I jump back.
“Why, what a pity it was, having to turn it off. He didn’t bend, didn’t break.
Not even in front of his weeping, annoying children… ”
My heart gasps.
For a split second, Roden forgets about me, and he stands alone inside the lift while I’m just like a ghost watching him, agape, with teary eyes.
Something starts bubbling inside me, and all the thoughts, so far pushed underwater by an invisible force, begin to fight their way to the surface.
But just when I’m about to lift my head above the water, something pushes me back.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Wait, what was I thinking…?
Roden is staring at me like a statue framed by the warm light of the lift. He is immobile except for his right wrist, which flicks his walking stick against the metal wall.
I exhale, my entire body deflates, and every word in my head loses importance.
“What’s happening to me?”
“It’s just your soul, child. It’s resounding with mine.” He explains as if I’m supposed to understand. And oddly—I feel safe.
But you kept me here like a pris—
He flashes a cold smile at me, and my chaotic thoughts go silent again.
But this time, some sort of recognition lingers; even if I’m drowning, Roden will always allow me one big breath before I get too dangerously close to death.
We sigh simultaneously.
Our chests rise and fall in unison.
“I think you are ready now.” He turns and touches his fingers to the side wall. “To the Chapter, please”.
“Roden?”
He hums in response and taps the floor twice with the end of his golden-crowned cane. The doors slide shut without a sound, and the lift starts upwards.
“Yes, July?”
Not ‘his child’ anymore?
I hesitate, studying the tip of my shoes as though I’ve just discovered I have feet. “Will I remember these last few hours after the Chapter has finished with me?” I wait for that familiar and dreadful sense of forgetfulness to embrace me again. But it doesn’t come.
When I look up, Roden is studying me the way adults do when children ask, ‘Why doesn’t the sun fall, and can frogs fly?’
“That depends on you, of course.”
The lift seems to ascend endlessly until it abruptly halts, its doors open, and white light envelops me with wisps of smoke that curl around my legs and waist. Within its milky mist, I hear voices - talking, singing, crying - but their words are unintelligible.
“Earlier, you saw their faces. This is how I listen to them.” Roden’s voice is smooth and calm.
“Nistarei.” My lips barely move, and I can’t stop staring at the light.
Within the compact misty mass are minuscule floating dots of brighter light, so shiny and inviting that I can’t stop myself from stretching a hand towards them. But all I experience is a sharp pain when Roden hits my fingers with his cane.
“Curiosity is not just the cat’s enemy, Miss Crimson. We are not there yet. Be patient because up-up-up we go again,” he croons, and his voice trails while he repeats that line a few more times.
Once more, the thoughts in my head turn light and thin because they do not matter.
I don’t matter unless Roden allows it.