Chương 101: Mixed results

What did the same as always mean? To Vera, it was obvious. It meant endless corridors of ink-black obsidian, with nothing else in sight. It meant a silver sea of changing faces lifting one by one to peer at her. It meant winter laid across the bones of the world, cold whitening the roots of her teeth and sinking past marrow. It meant a furnace throat where she knew every shade of searing heat down to the nerve. That, and much, much more. To her, it was obvious. But it shouldn't have been to anyone else.

Because the same thing that kept them trapped as her dreams was the same thing that meant they couldn't—or shouldn't—be known outside them. There wasn't a point in locking the fire in one room if smoke could leak under the door.

"Have I told you about the dreams?" she asked. For a moment, she considered holding back. Being careful. Acting like she couldn't possibly have forgotten these things. Because even if the connection between her and Yria couldn't be denied, Vera didn't feel like she knew this woman the way she knew Elaria or Syl. But screw that. She wanted to learn. Yria's eyes narrowed. For several long seconds, she only sat there, the shadowed lines of her face seeming to deepen. Stupid question, she signed. Vera frowned.

"It's not." You should know the answer.

"I don't." Yria's fingers curled, then loosened. The next sign came slower. Why? Vera hesitated. She almost backed out and gave the easier answer anyway. Something vague. Something that didn't put her…

'weakness' directly into Yria's hands. But what was the point of that? What was she trying to protect, other than some half-formed scrap of pride?

"Because I don't remember," she said. Something tightened around Yria's mouth. Her hand went to the chain at her wrist. She touched one link with her thumb, then another, moving slowly over them. For a second, Vera thought it was concern that she was seeing. That Yria was troubled by her admission. But when she searched the woman's expression closely, she realized that couldn't be it. That wasn't the face of someone troubled. If anything, Yria looked annoyed. Annoyed, but not surprised.

"What's the real reason you wanted to come with me?" Vera pressed.

"You don't actually have anything that you need to do up north, do you?" Yria's hand stopped on the chain, holding still for a second too long. Then she looked past Vera, toward the dark beyond the firelight. Vera waited. Finally, Yria let go. The chain fell into her lap as her hands moved again, forming a question. What was Mother Pale's real name? Vera's thoughts stumbled.

"What?" Yria's silence sharpened. What did you steal from me during the Ashwane when we first met?

"Wait, I don't—" What did you see in the Crucible of Echoes? Vera stopped. Yria didn't give her anywhere to go. For a few more seconds, her hands stayed still. Then she shaped one final word. Idiot. Vera drew in a breath to answer. It came in too sharp. I told you this would break you eventually, Yria signed. Why couldn't you listen?

"…I don't remember you telling me that." Because you're an idiot. The word hit worse the second time. Vera's jaw set.

"Don't call me that." You were an idiot then, and you're an idiot now. Something in Vera shoved past the part of her that knew better.

"Look who's having to sign just to talk to me! Look at what you've got chained to your own wrist. Who's the real idiot—?" She caught herself. Yria didn't move.

"…Why?" Vera asked, forcing the edge out of her voice.

"Why am I an idiot? Tell me what I did." For a moment, Yria gave her nothing. Then her fingers flexed, joints cracking softly. You let them make you their Chosen.

"I… let them?" Something about that phrasing snagged at Vera, but it took a second for her to understand why.

"I didn't let them make me Chosen," she said.

"I chose it myself." Could she know that for sure? No. But there was no doubt in her mind despite that. Yria's hands moved in sharper gestures. That's why you're an idiot. Vera pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose, trying not to let her temper answer first.

"You know what happens if there's not a Chosen of Hollow, don't you?" Yria didn't respond this time.

"You know that's why Silence is invading," Vera continued. Yria's hand found the chain again. For a second, Vera thought she wasn't going to answer at all. Then she lifted one finger. Yes. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Then how am I the idiot for trying to stop that from happening?" Because I could have done it instead. The Resonance nearly tore through Vera's mind like a bell that had been struck inside her skull. The Kindlehearth Ember's fire flickered next to them. Yria's Resonance gradually receded until there was nothing left but the firelight, the thick dark of the gorge around them, and the wind threading across stone. Yria's glare held her there for another breath. Her knuckles had gone pale around the chain.

She then grabbed her sword and stood, crossing to the opposite side of the fire, its light carving hard lines into her face as she turned back to Vera. I always warned you this day would come. The day you paid for it. And I told you that I wouldn't stand there when it did, watching whatever was left of you rot because you waited too long. The fire worked at the wood between them, eating through a log until it split with a soft, brittle crack. Vera's attention was drawn by the sound. Yria's wasn't.

She only stood there with the sword caught tight in her fist. Vera looked back at her.

"…Did I ever ask you to?" she heard herself say. She wasn't sure why she said it. Yria remained there long enough that Vera started to regret it. Then the woman turned and walked toward the tent.

"Hey, hey, wait—" Yria stopped, though she didn't quite face her. Vera swallowed.

"I—" she hesitated, then forced herself through it.

"You couldn't have done it, you know. Become the Chosen. Erelsethtold me herself that no one but me could." Yria went very still. Finally, her hands cut through the air. You can have your shift. We leave at first light. She crossed the last few steps to the tent, shoved the flap aside, and disappeared inside. Vera was left alone with the fire. The split log sagged inward, collapsing on itself in a low rush of sparks. For a moment, she watched them climb into the dark and vanish one by one. A tired breath left her.

It's funny how a trip with an already silent travel companion could somehow feel more silent when you added some awkwardness into the mix. Vera had always thought she was decent at small talk.

It was a skill she'd picked up after too many years of growing up with a mother who kept presenting her to the children of friends, colleagues, and random people in the salon who had made the mistake of sitting still too long, all in the apparent hope that a tiny Vera would become sociable by exposure and stop treating every new person as a threat assessment.

The rest had come during her first year of college, over a probably unhealthy number of nights spent trying to keep up with the social side of life before she realized she might be better off leaving alcohol out of social situations entirely, and that she didn't actually care enough about fitting in to keep pretending otherwise. That said, she couldn't work wonders.

And the old, gamer-obsessed recluse part of herself had always cringed extra hard whenever she found herself in a situation where the usual lines didn't get the usual results. Which, combined with Yria's stone-faced decision to become not just nonverbal but mostly nonresponsive in general, made for a thoroughly uncomfortable journey north. Vera had tried talking to her after their conversation. After all, they were both grown adults. Or at least adult enough to carry swords and topple half a mountain or two.

And even if they had established some differences, Vera was fairly sure they both had questions they wanted answered. Awkward as it had been, she really had tried approaching Yria reasonably. But Yria just wasn't having any of it. At most, the woman gave her a flat look, brow faintly furrowed, before turning away and pretending Vera didn't exist. Of course, that alone wasn't enough to deter Vera.

She might even have pushed a little too hard in an effort to force the woman to talk, but she ended up having to pull back when it became clear that Yria was seriously prepared to fight her outright if she pressed much further. Before, Vera hadn't been against the idea of fighting Yria. At least not in a sparring sort of way.

But there was a difference between crossing blades with someone and hounding them until they snapped, and as tempting as it was to be petty about the whole thing, actually driving Yria into a real fight sat badly with her. So Vera had little choice but to stop, keep moving, and grumble from the sidelines as their 'lovely' little journey continued. At the very least, Yria had the decency not to ditch her in the middle of the wilderness.

That might have been one of the things that surprised Vera the most after their argument, actually. Yria kept guiding the way north, same as before, using Hollow Reach on her own and signaling for Vera to do the same whenever it would speed their progress. It almost made Vera think that her suspicion about Yria having lied about business up north was wrong. Except her gut told her that couldn't be the case. But who knew how much she could trust that thing?

By the second day of travel, they had made it well past Kestrel Gorge and into the higher reaches of the Ashen Spine, where the mountains rose in jagged folds around them and narrow valleys cut through the stone, sheltering a surprising variety of biomes and wildlife. Most valleys were small enough that they barely had to bother passing through them, but without even half a conversation partner to distract her, Vera ended up spending a good amount of focus on the sights instead.

The pale moss clinging to strangely black rock. The thin streams flashing silver between lakes of boulders. The curious packs of goat-like animals that appeared where they had no business appearing, then vanished just as quickly. She tried to commit as much of it to memory as she could, just in case she ever wanted to put it to canvas. She hadn't really painted anything properly big in over three years, and she had been thinking about what her first real work in this world should be.

At first, she'd been leaning toward a simple portrait of Serel like the sketches she'd done before, but that felt like something meant more for her than for the girl. She wanted something Serel could enjoy for herself. Something pretty, preferably. Maybe even a little impressive. What fit better as a reunion gift than a painting of the sights Vera had seen while she was gone? There was no doubt in her mind that Serel would like that. The bigger issue was when Vera would actually find the time to sit down and paint.

It wasn't like Yria was leaving her much room for leisurely artistic indulgence during the day, what with the relentless northern march and all, and while she did have plenty of time left over at night, it was too dark to work on anything properly. As rusty as her skills had gotten, she could still do simple sketches and studies just fine, but if she was going to make an actual painting, she felt like she needed a proper reference. Her memory wasn't terrible, but even then, it had a way of lying to you.

Her thoughts generally drifted between what she might paint, when she might paint it, and the ongoing cold war—or whatever it was—that was going on with Yria. Time passed with the changing landscape, and soon enough, they'd reached the morning of the fourth day, when they finally left the Ashen Spine behind and descended through a sweep of broken foothills into the Darnelle Lowlands stretching north. The Ashen Spine itself bent northwest from where they were now.

You could continue following it if you wanted to get even closer to Darnelle, but the Thryne Passes were farther east, where the darker ridges of the Thrynewall mountain range rose like a sibling chain to the Spine. Together, the two mountain ranges formed a natural passage connecting the northern roads toward Darnelle and the other cities beyond to the lands in the south and southeast. Compared to the Ashen Spine, the Cindervale Lowlands ahead of them were relatively safe.

At least from what Vera remembered of Ashen Legacy. She and Yria hadn't really run into any real threats during their time in the Spine, but that had more to do with how fast they were traveling and the fact that most creatures dangerous and quick enough to keep up with them were smart enough to also avoid them. Probably. Here in the lowlands, though, it was basically nothing but low-level nuisances until you reached the Thryne Passes themselves.

Vera had heard from Elaria that the Covenant had a large number of forces gathered on one side of the pass, but they'd been stuck there for months, unable to advance because of the ice storms raging through the mountains for some unknown reason. To make things even more inconvenient, Ashmark communication with Darnelle was unreliable because the Silence's influence had spread through the region, even though the Unraveling hadn't fully reached this far yet.

Mira had supposedly gone to investigate the ice storms, but Caer Virell hadn't heard from her in a while. Technically, Vera was only here for Mira herself. But she had promised Elaria that she would look into the overall situation while she was here, so that was what she was going to do. The sun was nearing its highest point in the sky when Vera and Yria crossed a stretch of woodland cut through by a narrow stream, heading toward the distant teeth of the Thryne Passes rising against the horizon.

They stopped beside the water for a short breather, with Vera leaning her shoulder against the trunk of a wind-bent tree and draining the last few drops from her waterskin before shaking it upside down. That was when she caught a flicker of movement at the corner of her eye. Her head snapped over just in time to catch the first words Yria had given her in more than two days. Find your own way from here. I'm heading to Darnelle. Vera blinked.

Yria knelt to fill her own waterskin from the stream, capped it, and let it disappear into a Vaultring.

"You're actually leaving?" Vera asked. Yes. Yria drew her plain sword and cut a Hollow Reach into the air in front of her.

"Why?" I have things to deal with. The woman stepped up to the tear, then stopped. She looked at Vera, frowning slightly. Then she gestured, sword still in hand. I'll stay there for at least four days. That was all she added before disappearing through the tear, leaving Vera standing by the stream. Vera couldn't help but stare. The tree creaked behind her. She kept looking at the spot where Yria had been only a moment earlier. There were a lot of murky, annoying feelings moving around inside her.

The brief thought of opening a Hollow Reach of her own and following the woman in order to punch her straight in the mouth surfaced, but she pushed it down. Her thoughts went to those final words. Why had Yria bothered telling her how long she would be staying in Darnelle? … Could she be expecting Vera to find her after finishing her business? Vera considered that for a few seconds before eventually shaking her head and forcing her thoughts elsewhere. Her gaze moved back to the mountains in the distance. Whatever.

It wasn't as if she needed help from here. She could think about that whole mess later. Right now, it wasn't far to her destination at all.