Shadows Bleed

Gabriel's Account

Gabriel's Account

She was lying. Of that much Gabriel was certain. For the sake of deceiving the scribe, and in pursuit of protecting the Isles and her friends there, she weaved an intricate lie. She spoke truthfully of the events leading up to reaching the Stormwall. After that, however, she began to lie, an elaborate mistruth that completely neglected any mention of the Csyirean Isles and the people there. Gabriel knew parts of what truly happened but wondered at the inner workings of Aeriae's mind, of whether or not she was recalling the events as they really happened even while she lied to him and Brealor.

"So, after you left Haven," Gabriel began, reiterating her own account, testing her familiarity with the fabrication. "You headed for the Stormwall, at the urging of the shards."

"Yes," she scowled at him. "From there, our way barred by the sea and skies, we turned towards Isvartia."

Gabriel nodded slowly, feigning deliberation for Brealor, furthering Aeriae's attempts to keep the scribe in the dark. Theatre had appealed to him at a young age and, while he never saw fulfilment in that field, he still liked to think he had a knack for acting.

"What are you doing?" Brealor asked, taking his eyes off the parchment to look at Gabriel.

"I'm thinking," Gabriel answered.

"You look like you're about to sneeze."

"Shut up Vemrel," Gabriel snapped back, Brealor muttering defensively under his breath. "What did you find in Isvartia?"

"Why does it matter?" Aeriae rubbed her eyes in frustration.

"It matters for you own future," Gabriel replied.

"Is that so?" she looked at the Inquisitor with a raised eyebrow, cynical. "Do tell me, Gabriel Tor, how it is exactly that my past will influence what is to come?"

"What happened to you, the things you did, has everything to do with your future," he said, "and, also, with who will shape it."

"Who are we really going to see?" she asked, though Gabriel suspected the answer was already known to her.

"I'm not under authority to divulge that information. Let's just say someone important wishes an audience with you."

"So I'm not being arrested, I'm not being taken to rot in Vul'rün?"

"That remains to be seen. I'll ask again; what happened in Isvartia?"

"Very well," she droned and, upon realising that Gabriel harboured no intentions of backing down, continued. "While I was buying supplies in the markets, the shards directed me towards an alleyway. There a woman was being beaten by two men. I–"

"You killed them?" Gabriel interrupted.

"No," she stared daggers at him. "I had little reason to help her and was going to keep walking, were it not for the throb of the shards bidding me to intervene. I disabled the two men, I did not kill them."

"Surprising," Brealor murmured and continued writing. Aeriae shifted her hateful stare from Gabriel to Brealor, though the scribe's attention was limited solely on the parchment before him.

"The woman belonged to a local clan of roving hunters. Having saved one of theirs, they were grateful and hospitable, even offering me a place in their clan. The shards commended this path. So I lived with them for three months before returning to the harbour. The shards had begun to urge me return to the Imperium and free my family."

"Interesting, to say the least" Gabriel said, content with the soundness of the falsehood. There was no one who could disprove it and, while he would have liked for her to repeat it once more, cementing the details in her own mind, he would have to trust her to remember.