Where Smoke and Light Collide - ONC 2022

Rebels and spies

The dank cellar sent a chill over Anya's body. Haphazard slabs of wood covered the few windows and the light that spilled through them barely cut through the dark. She called for Letti and for Calek...she even called for Kieran. Silence was her answer.

She paced the small confines of her cell until her feet hurt; the boots Tati had procured squeezed her toes as if a fist held them in a tight hold. And Anya didn't dare sit on the flimsy bench, it looked like a sneeze might dismantle it.

Raising her hand, she concentrated the Lumen to her. The energy warmed her skin and produced an invisible weight on her hand. She dragged it, enclosing it with her fingers until a small white sphere surged at the center of her palm. Tossing the sphere into the air, it hung in the middle of the room like her own personal light bulb.

Cobwebs draped the barrel-vaulted ceiling and a thick layer of dust covered the floor from corner to corner. From her peripheral view, she caught sight of a gray animal scurrying from under the bench—a rather large fat rat. 

Would she have to eat fat rats if nobody came to her rescue? She shivered at the thought.

"It's curious, isn't it?" Kieran said.

Anya whirled around to find him standing in the room. She hadn't heard footsteps on the creaky stairs, he seemed to have simply appeared. He's like a ghost, Tati's words came to haunt her.

"What's curious?" Anya asked, studying Kieran closely. Gone was the boy she'd once known, replaced by a tall confident man dressed in black.

"That we're back in a cellar-like the night we first met." He said.

"Yes," she agreed bitterly, "and again it's because of you."

He came closer until the bars brought him short, his dark eyes raking over Anya's body. "In these five years, you've grown into a lovely...lady? Should I call you that, My Lady?"

"And should I call you Kieran, leader of the rebels?" She said, unscathed by the accusing tone of his remarks.

His lips upturned to the semblance of a smile, the same he'd given her as a child. Her heart ached suddenly. 

"It is you, the same sassy Anya I remember."

She grabbed at the bars. "If you don't doubt who I am, why am I still in a cell?"

Kieran's eyes flicked between the glowing sphere and her face. "I don't know if you're dangerous. I mean your powers are quite impressive. Did you know you had them before the lords tested you?"

Anya shook her head. "I learned that day."

He pressed his forehead against the bars and whispered. "Are you sure? Weren't there voices somewhere in your head telling you to surrender? Perhaps voices you never dared to listen to before."

A vivid image came to mind, of the day the fight took place in the yards, how Kieran's eyes had turned entirely black, void of humanity. The truth dawned on her like a bucket of cold water. "You have powers too. You're magicae—like me."

Instead of answering, his entire body blurred into a thick shadow of black swirling smoke. The human silhouette was still there; legs, torso, arms, head—but it crossed the bars like any other wisp of smoke would. She backed away until the bench brought her short, watching how the swirling shadow turned back into Kieran's solid body, now standing inside the cell.

"What are you?" She heard herself ask.

"I am Tenebris. In fact, the records show there hasn't been another Tenebris in more than a hundred years." He took a step closer, towering over her like a dark statue. "And you're the only Lumen I could find record of. Seems we're unique, you and I." His smile turned bitter. "Also, I learned that you were adopted by the Lord and Lady De Vous. Your name is now Anya De Vous, did I pronounce it right?"