Bard: Chapter 24

“What the fuck did you say to her?” Liam demanded without preamble.

“You must be the other friend,” the grandmaster said dismissively, lounging by the fire, unbothered that his door had been kicked in. “Exactly what I’d expect from someone who consorts with demons.”

“You assaulted my sister and said gods’ know what to my closest friend,” Liam shouted. “You’re lucky I’m not armed!”

“Blades won’t do you any good here, boy,” the grandmaster said, scowling.

“No you prefer fucking with people’s minds,” Liam snarled, kicking the door shut behind him.

“An interesting accusation, considering your friend.”

“Trista doesn’t use her power like that,” Liam snapped. “The only time she’s even used it on a human was to stop me getting my throat cut, and to fix what you did to my sister!”

“The only time you’ve seen.” The grandmaster’s patronizing sneer boiled Liam’s blood.

“Listen, you–” he took a step forward, but his feet stuck to the ground as if he’d been planted there. The forward motion staggered him, putting him awkwardly on his hands and knees. Liam glared at the grandmaster, but the man only frowned, pushing up out of his padded armchair to approach.

“I have certain precautions in place,” he droned. “For obvious reasons.”

Liam tried to push himself up and found his hands just as rooted to the floor as his feet. His knees wouldn’t budge either.

“Damn it,” he growled. “Let me up!”

“Not just yet, I think.” The mage moved forwards and Liam was forced back on his knees, his arms pulled towards the floor with undeniable force, his head drawn back until all he could see was the ceiling. He strained against the unseen force, but it was no use. He may as well have been encased in stone.

“What a-are you–” he choked out as even his throat locked up. His lungs still worked, he could still draw breath. Even so, panic gripped him like he was drowning. The master approached, and Liam struggled to speak, to curse at him or demand release, but all he could manage were gasping noises.

“I know what her kind do,” the grandmaster said, his voice hard and strained. “The only reason I haven’t had her arrested and executed is because she can so convincingly claim to bear no ill will, but I will be sure.” His hands clasped at the sides of Liam’s head. “I will be utterly certain, by whatever means.”

A pressure formed between Liam’s eyes, the slow creep of something reaching into him, probing at the edge of his mind.

He bucked against the incursion, and the mage cursed.

“This will be much easier, and go much faster, if you let it happen,” he grumbled.

The probe became a spike, and Liam grunted as a presence drove itself into his mind. Unbidden, thoughts and memories from recent days started to flit past, called to the surface, spread out like a mural.

He saw Trista, weeping inside their door, then sitting beside him in class, quiet and encouraging. She walked beside him, after dark, laughing and listening as they made their way home.

The ice dragon roared into his vision, immense and terrifying, sending frost into his bones. Liam hissed as the mage forced them further back. The pressure in his head intensified, turning into a steady, painful pulse as snow poured over his face, as Trista’s song saved them.

Time rushed back with a feeling akin to being pulled under in a raging river. Liam gasped, forcing himself to breathe, to remember he could breathe, even as his mind tried to convince him he was drowning.

“St-stop…” he rasped, not sure if he used his voice or only called out in his mind. The grandmaster ignored him regardless, pushing further and further back.

There was Trista, sitting on the floor of their flat, playing her violin. She was at their little table, smiling with a paper snowflake snagged on her horn. Playing to a dagger, enchanting it to be warm…

“Stop hiding,” the mage muttered, pushing further. The pressure grew, spreading through his head and down into his body. He could feel air passing into his lungs but no longer believed it. He was drowning. He’d drown in the open air.

Trista slept soundly on her bedroll, exhausted after working through the night. She sat across from him in a rickety coach, Laura leaning on her shoulder, asleep as they made their way into Everly. They shared breakfast on the floor of an inn in Ford, he could even smell the burned pancakes. Trista cowered in front of him as he nursed the brand, the guilt sharp and new.

She stood facing Vultan, scared and defiant, saving him.

Liam shouted in protest, the sound strangled in the tight muscles of his throat. He felt it but couldn’t hear it. He felt fear, bright and consuming as they strapped him to the table and heated the brand. The mage paid no mind, except to note derisively that Vultan was a demon as well. Liam strained against the bonds that held him down, in the vision and in the room, terrified as the crushing pressure grew and grew.

Trista followed behind Laura as they made their way through the trees. Her voice resounded as she ordered the bandits to cut him loose. She knelt on the damp leaves, begging for mercy while Laura stood over her with daggers raised.

She was a wide-eyed wayward girl, looking for help at an inn…

Liam groaned, waiting for release from whatever hold the mage had on him, but it didn’t come. Instead, the grandmaster delved deeper, pulling through the memories again, almost haphazardly, desperately, looking for something he might have missed. He pushed further back. Liam saw himself, huddled in a muddy ditch in the dark, silent and scared as Vultan’s trackers combed the area for him. He slammed against a wall, pinned and beaten by a man twice his size. He sat across from Ollie in her silk robe, smirking at him. His sword slid through the belly of a boy his own age, as easily as cutting through water. He curled on his side on a cold stone floor, locked out in the winter. He hung over the raging river.

“Stop!” he choked. “Sh-she’s n-not there!”

It started over, the mage digging and digging, clawing through his memories like a man crazed. The visions came faster, changed abruptly. He didn’t know what he would see or when he would be. The fear, the pain, the peace, and shame, and safety hit him like one brick after another.

“Stop…please…” The pressure was immense. Forget drowning, he was being crushed, ground into the earth in a dozen pieces. His skull should be splintering.

Then, a sudden relief. The pressure lifted off him, and the visions were replaced with the present, the room swimming back into view. Liam swayed dangerously on his knees. Someone caught him by the shoulder, steadying him, and he reached up to clutch at their hand for support.

The grandmaster was trembling, backing away with his strange eyes fixed over Liam’s shoulder. Liam swiveled his head, the room spinning, so he could see who had saved him. He shouldn’t have been surprised.

“I’m a monster?” Trista hissed, glaring at the grandmaster with enough fire to burn the city down.

“He came in here–” the old man started, haughty and defensive, but Trista snarled.

“Shut up!”

The man’s jaws snapped shut so hard his teeth clacked. His eyes went wide with horror as strangled cries sounded from his throat. Trista took a heaving breath, and helped Liam to his feet, draping his limp arm over her shoulder so he could lean on her, which he did. His knees felt like they were made of jelly, and his legs had forgotten how to hold him up.

“I feel wrong,” he murmured into her hair, unable to keep his head up.

“You’ll be alright,” Trista said gently, twisting her head so she could look him in the eyes. “I’ll fix it when we’re home. You’ll be alright.”

He groaned, pressing his face into her shoulder. The memory of the pressure loomed like a storm cloud. The mage grunted, but Trista ignored him, and he didn’t dare come closer. She shifted so he could hang on her shoulders, and walked out of the grandmaster’s office with him.

Laura was right outside, taking hold of one of his arms and pulling him partly over her shoulders as well.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” she demanded the moment they were away from the office. Liam only groaned in response. “You’re worried about Trista coming over here, when she’s got magic, but you think you’re going to walk in and tell off a mage?”

“I’m sorry,” he managed weakly.

“Don’t be sorry,” Laura snapped. “Just don’t do something that stupid again.”

It had been stupid. That was clear enough now. He couldn't just sit and watch Trista sob like that though, not with Laura barely holding back tears herself. Not when the bastard had hurt his sister and his best friend, all in the same day.

Night air washed over him like a cleansing breath, and he drew it in, long and deep, savoring the feeling of breathing again. Relief flooded every part of his body. He could feel himself weighing down on Trista and Laura, but couldn’t get his limbs to work properly. Even when he managed to move his legs in some semblance of walking, his toes dragged the ground.

“I’m heavy…” he mumbled.

“We’re almost home,” Trista said reassuringly. “Then I’ll help you feel better.”

“No…” he sighed into her shoulder. “Heavy on you.”

“You’re fine,” she said gently.

“Do you n-need to reach in?” he asked. “To fix me?”

“Yes,” Trista replied.

“Will you–will you see…everything he did?”

Laura turned her head towards him, and Liam pointedly did not meet her eyes. Trista considered for a moment, her grip on his hand tightening, then nodded.

“I will,” she said quietly. “But I won’t look closely.”

Liam sagged. The thought of having someone else looking around in his head felt like a vice over his chest, but if it had to be anyone…Trista was the only person he could bear to have in there.

“Alright,” he sighed heavily. “I trust you.”