"I can make it stop," he said again. "I just need one word from you, Eskara. Just one word, and you don't have to go back down there. I'll send men in to pull out Josef too. Just one word and you can see the sky again."
He had me and we both knew it. He was offering everything I wanted. A way out. A reprieve from the constant fear and pain. The sky, my freedom. He was offering too much. He knew too much. How did he know to entice me with the sky? The horizon I longed to see again. The reward I had promised myself for getting out of the Pit. I had never told him that, it was a secret I kept to myself, uttered only in stolen whispers as we slept.
"What word?" I asked through swollen lips. I could almost see the light, natural light. The sun shining down from the sky. I could almost taste it. I don't think I have ever wanted anything so much in all my life.
"Yes." The overseer smiled. "I just need you to say yes."
I could have said it then. Looking back, I wonder how different the world might be now if I had just agreed then and there. Maybe it would be a better place. Maybe the friends I've lost would still be alive. Maybe my children would never have come to be. I'm certain the world would be a better placed without Sirileth, yet I love her despite all she has done.
"To what?" I asked. Exhausted and broken as I was, I still couldn't agree without knowing the terms.
"To serve the Terrelan Empire," said the overseer, making it sound like the most reasonable price in the world. As if it wasn't a betrayal of everything I had been raised to believe. "You are the last living Orran Sourcerer to agree, Eskara. Join us and both you and Josef can be free. You can have all the luxuries you learned to enjoy from your old life. You can have that life back again, only without the war. Just say yes, and the Pit will be a distant memory you can forget."
Sometimes I curse my defiant nature. There I was with the rescue I had hoped for and dreamed of right in front of me, and all I had to do was ask for it. Some prices are too heavy to pay no matter the reward.
"Never." I tried to spit at the overseer. You should never try to spit with swollen lips, all you'll end up doing is dribbling on yourself.
The fake smile slipped from his face, replaced by a deep frown. "I can't guarantee your safety anymore, Eskara," he said. "Nor Josef's. Refuse me now and I'm done with you. No more protection. No more offers. This is your last chance, Eskara."
I leaned forward and sniffed, treating the overseer to the iciest, fuck you stare I could manage with a beaten, swollen face. "I've been done with you since the first time we met."
The overseer stood and shook his head. He pulled open the door and waved to the soldiers outside. "Throw her back into the Pit and make sure she doesn't return. I never want to see her again."
He got his wish. For all the good it did him.
Chapter 12
I was a wilful child at the academy, in trouble as often as I earned praise. I was regarded as a bad influence on Josef, who was always much more obedient than I. Doing as I was told was never any fun, adventures always start off the beaten path. We were just one year into our training when I made it through the first of the locked doors that were forbidden to us.
The length of time each Sourcerer can hold a Source in their stomach varies. Even a Source they are attuned to will eventually start to damage them from the inside. I didn't know why, when I was a child, and the tutors at the academy didn't either. It wasn't until I involved myself with the Rand that I learned the truth behind the Sources and behind us Sourcerers too. But that's getting ahead of myself.
A vital part of our training was to learn our limits. Unfortunately, limits are affected not just by the type of Source but also by number of Sources and the frequency of use. I should point out that much of a Sourcerer's training is trial and error. Painful trials with potentially fatal errors.
There are two types of Source that no Sourcerer is advised to sleep with inside their stomachs. Empamancy is the control and manipulation of thoughts and emotions. I thought it a weak school of magic at first, until Lesray Alderson very nearly convinced me to kill myself. I hate Empamancy! A sleeping Sourcerer with an Empamancy Source inside of them cannot control their magic. There are stories told in the annals of the Orran Academy. Stories of Castle Uoping and of the Sourcerer who forgot to retch up their Source one night. A madness gripped hold of the castle. The few survivors told of walls bleeding in the night and spectres wailing for their lost lives. Men and women went crazy, hacking at themselves with knives or murdering their own kin. The Sourcerer woke to find their mistake writ full. Hundreds dead, and only a handful of survivors all broken beyond repair. It's a lesson well worth learning.
The other Source is Impomancy, the school of summoning and binding monsters from the Other World. It is said that nightmares stalk that world and dreaming of them while holding an Impomancy Source will give them a way to cross over, unbound and uncontrollable.
One of the first things the tutors at the academy pressed upon us was to respect the magic that Sources granted us.
The first Source I tested my limits with was a Portamancy Source. A fairly powerful school for those well-trained in its arts and able to fully utilise the true abilities it offers. I was not well-trained in those arts and have never been. It remains, to this day, one of my weakest attunements.
Most of that first year was spent learning to control our breathing and being drilled with the theory of Source use rather than the practice. It was maddening to be given tastes of power and then kept away from it for so long.
I could create portals, but they were small things, about as large as a fist, and I could project them only a couple of meters at best. It was a far cry from those who could use Portamancy to cross hundreds of miles with a single step. But I was young. My control of portals these days is somewhat more advanced. I once trapped a man in a portal loop, endlessly falling the same couple of meters. There have been times in my life where I have been forced to improvise with methods of torture. I imagine it was as unpleasant as the poor bastard made it sound.
Our tutors had long since stopped trying to keep Josef and I from each other. We were assigned to different dorms, but that was as far as their token attempts went. They knew once we were fully trained we would be almost unstoppable so long as we were side by side.
It was late at night and we had just suffered through a full of day training. Tutor Inilass used to say we were moulding both our minds and our bodies into something strong, but not rigid. A Sourcerer needs to be strong enough to contain powers beyond them, but malleable enough that those same powers don't break them. Looking back now, I think that Tutor Inilass was a fool who barely understood the magic she was teaching us to use. Most of the tutors were fools. Maybe not the Iron Legion, but Prince Loran was something of a special case. I think maybe he understood the Sources better than anyone. Maybe he knew the truth, even then.
Josef groaned as I shook him awake. He was never a quick one to come around from sleep and I gave him a minute to collect himself. I whispered my plan in his ear and he shook his head. What I was planning was against the rules and the tutors indicated that dangers were locked away behind the forbidden doors. Danger just made it all the more exciting. Ignoring Josef, I slipped from the bed and padded across the floor on silent feet towards the dormitory door. No sooner had I opened the door and peered out, then Josef was by my side. He might not agree with my plan, but I knew full well he wouldn't let me go it alone.