Chapter 2-41

“No,” Sati scoffed in disbelief. “You can’t just awaken someone’s spirit that way.”

“You can,” I gave her an odd look. “Did Myta not tell you? Did you think we just stumbled on an entire company of the newly awakened?”

I hadn’t meant the questions to be adversarial, I was genuinely confused, but Sati clearly felt that I was insulting her. Her brow furrowed in anger, and I could feel her spirit stirring against me. Her wrath pressed down on me, and I crumpled in immediate agony. My spirit shivered, and I could feel the cracks spreading from around my heart node, from where we were bonded.

“Peace,” I gasped from where I had fallen to my knees. We were still on the stage of the apsara’s memory, a throne room of Ramana’s palace, and the rough stone floor scraped at my knees as I held up a placating hand. “I didn’t mean to taunt you, I thought you surely knew by now. We found a way, working together, to awaken almost anyone.”

Sati’s mind turned inward, and I felt her teetering between wrath, guilt, and grief. I watched the cracks in my anima slowly spread moment by moment as she struggled with herself, felt the ache of it screaming in my soul, but I didn’t try to push her. I knew that if I tried to **** her hand, her rage would focus on me. That would destroy me right now, and I suspected it would ruin her chance to heal and grow. Not that it would matter anyway, I reminded myself ruefully, she and Myta would die with me.

Finally Sati reached a breaking point, her emotions rose and swirled to such an extent that she just… stopped, and entered a state of desolate calm. Tears dripped from her eyes, but she seemed unaware of them as she stared at me blankly.

“I’m sorry, I just… My father must know this.”

“I can’t imagine that he doesn’t.” I nodded. “Would you like a hug?” I wasn’t sure what to do for her right now, what I could do, but she nodded at my offer.

I stood slowly, my damaged spirit translating into ‘physical’ pain in this vision, and wrapped her in my arms. I understood her grief, and hated that it was a good thing. Sati had buried her loss under a veneer of arrogance, embracing Ramana’s ideal that the unawakened were lesser, unworthy of care or respect. To find out that he might have effectively killed the woman she loved, just to prove a point, and that she had **** herself to accept it? It would shake anyone’s foundations.

“What happened to her?” I asked the question softly, wary of the answer, but knowing that it needed to be asked. Sati pressed her face into my shoulder, her oen shoulders hitching with emotion.

“Her spirit couldn’t handle the strain, she never recovered from her fugue. Or, that’s what father told me, and I believed him.” She was wracked with sobs, her shoulders shaking again, but I could feel her emotions slowly stirring and rising again, grief and rage forged together in a sharp blade. “I believed him!”

She leaned back in my embrace, turning her face towards me. Not pulling away, just standing on her own. Her eyes met mine, and for the first time I saw real steel in her gaze.

“What do you want?” I asked her. “What will you do?”

Her eyes clouded, not in doubt, but in furious thought.

“I want to hurt him,” she stated flatly. “I want to find out what really happened to her, but that was thirty years ago. What do you think I should do?”

“My advice? You need to find your own path, follow your own dream, and I can’t tell you what that should be. Still, our circumstances haven’t changed. We need to deal with the bond before you can be truly free. Then you can look for her safely. If she awakened back then it is possible that she’s alive, and in good health.

“But before anything else, I suggest you talk to Myta, tell her about this. I know the two of you are growing closer, so lean on her.”

“And us,” she gave me a considering look. “Aren’t we growing closer as well?”

“I will support you, however I can. I don’t think I care for you as much as Myta does, nor do I care for you as much as I do her. But yes, my affection for you is growing. I won’t compromise my own goals for you though.”

I thought she might be angry or hurt by my words, but she smiled instead, hugging me tighter, and resting her head back on my shoulder.

“The sign of a poor conniver is that they always agree with you,” she murmured. “They always tell you what they think you want to hear.”

“No worry of that with me,” I snorted. “Few people have ever wanted to hear what I have to say.”

She nodded against my shoulder. “I enjoy that about you. You could be an extremely proficient liar, I suppose, but I doubt it.”

“How did the Pure fool you?” I growled at myself, annoyed at my own lack of tact. “I meant that as a genuine question, not an insult. I just originally thought you were more naive, and in some ways you still seem to be. But then you make an observation like that and I remember that you grew up in a snake pit. I just can’t imagine you failing to spot their duplicity.”

“It’s not as though I didn’t know they would betray me,” she sounded surly, but not angry at me specifically, just generally annoyed. “I just, thought I understood what they wanted. I thought when they turned on me I would see it coming. I considered looking into their plans more deeply but it never seemed worth the effort. I was certain I’d just handle any issues with them when the time came.”

“So, you were blinded by your arrogance?” Sati heard something in my tone that made her look

up and meet my gaze. “Were you often prone to underestimating your rivals? In Ramana’s court, I mean.”

“No, I don’t think so anyway.” Her eyes narrowed at me. “Are you implying that the Pure clouded my mind, from the very beginning?”

“They have been fostering and manipulating soul sickness for years,” I nodded. “If they found a way to subvert your spirit, it could explain your disregard. They formed that seal in you spirit somehow, so it’s evident that they had some method of affecting you. Your father left you damaged, wounded, and I’d wager that the took advantage of that.”

“My father, and the Pure.” Sati curled her hands into fists, her long nails scoring my skin. “Both of them weakened and betrayed me. You hate them, don’t you? They are your enemies?”

“I try not to.” I chuckled without mirth. “Hate is a poison too, but yes the Pure are my enemy and Ramana… he destroyed my home. Or helped to destroy it, at least. I still don’t know why, and I don’t have the power to consider myself his enemy, but he’s certainly no friend.”

“Close enough.” Sati stared into my eyes for a moment, and then laid her head on my shoulder again. I almost asked what it was close enough for, but then I thought better of it. I’d pushed her enough for now.

“Is there any way to tell what the pure did to me? Will I ever know?” She mumbled the words, while idly tracing a pattern on my chest with her fingertips, and I could tell that she didn’t expect an answer, but I had one for her.

“We could try tracing the vines. They could lead us to a clue.”

“Vines?” She arched a brow at me.

“Can you not see them?” The flowering vines in your sanctum clearly represent your sickness, they’re how I bypassed your defenses the first time I visited you here.”

“No. I have no idea what you’re talking about, which should be impossible, of course.”

I nodded, nothing could be in her sanctum that she herself had not created, or at least that was what I had thought. The more I learned about the Radiant Sea however, the less certain I was of my knowledge.

In silent accord, we pushed ourselves completely free of the memory, and I guided Sati back along the path of the aggressive vines. We confirmed that she was completely unable to perceive them, and I cursed my own stupidity at not having mentioned them when I’d first breached her sanctum. I’d thought I was being clever, forcing her to confront and uncover her own flaws, and instead I’d just left her **** in her ignorance. Exactly the kind of behavior I had hated in my own teachers.

It took some doing to trace the vines to their source. The ones we followed led back to her well of mana, and I was pleased to see that many of the small creepers were already beginning to wither and die. Her well of mana was a nexus, however, with more of the verdant invaders sprawling in every direction. I thought at first that this meant the sabotage was in her spirit body, but then I noticed that the thorns on the vines pointed in the direction they were growing. And one braided rope of greenery was pushing its way into the well, rather than out of it.

It wasn’t long after that when we found the true source, a gilded throne of polished dark wood, with an elegant silk robe tossed carelessly across the seat. I raised my own brow at Sati.

“My father’s teachings, I might have known.” She pulled aside the robe, revealing a malignant rune, which warped up out of the wood like a twisted tumor just beneath the skin. “This is a working, a spell that Ramana casts on each of his children to teach us how to use his aspect. It doles out new knowledge whenever it decides that we are ’worthy’.”

I examined the rune, brushing my fingers across it despite my intense revulsion. Just that light touch could have overwhelmed another, but I had spent years exercising my self restraint. I felt the weight of the symbol, felt it resonating with Ramana’s lingering will and arrogance. No wonder Sati hadn’t been able to see or resist its lure. She was too young, too unsure, to leash that kind of power. If I could shift this spell over to my own spirit, I could contain it, as I contained the corrupted mana. Perhaps put it to better use.

I jerked back my hand, feeling the urge to vomit. The rune had been more subtle and pervasive that I was prepared for. Only the sheer idiocy of attempting to manipulate the spell of a god, while my spirit was broken, had made me realize how quickly and completely it subverted my thoughts. The pure had clearly focused this rune on the blindness of hubris, and then introduced it to Sati’s sanctum, where it had taken root. It had resonated with Ramana’s spell, fit perfectly into the wound in her heart. It was so well aligned with her soul that her defenses might have actively drawn it in.

“Well, here is the issue, a curse that the Pure laid on you. But I haven’t the faintest idea how to fix it.”