The Bane of Light

Blackouts

"I am the bad daughter, the freedom fighter, the shaper of death masks. I am the snake, I am the crone"
- Barbara Jane Reys, Aswang

∞

I remembered little of the trial. I did remember fragments of what happened before it though; my Ascension to magic, my mothers horror after she discovered a lifeless Cypress, and her fear as my magic turned to her. She never came to my room before, but she had heard his screams that night. She had heard the screams of the two maids that came after him, too. And she had eventually heard her own screams, when my shadows turned on her.

I watched the split second change in her eyes. I watched her horror with astute clarity, my new found ability to see in the dark aiding me in this, and I watched that horror switch to terror, as she observed the child before her. The child swaddled in darkness, belonging to night. A child that should not exist. A child that was a scion of Nyx, despite coming from a long, pure line of Light Practitioners. I drunk in her horror as she realized that the hum of power in the air belonged to me, and that the hum was no weak one.

I remember turning my magic to her. I remember wishing to turn it upon everybody in this house, to smother them in my darkness, and I would have, had she not stopped me. I remember her throwing her arms up against the blade of shadow that I aimed at her throat, and I remember the shadows cutting deep into her arms and her cheekbone, blood splattering on the carpet, but going no further.

I could have won, but I was already on my third kill, and growing tired, for I had been merely a child of six, freshly borne into her magic, and Wilhemine had been a grown witch, centuries old. She overpowered me easily after my initial attack failed. I no longer had the aspect of surprise on my side, as I did with Cypress. As I did with the two other maids.

Wilhemine's blood pooled on the carpet, mixing with Cypresses, as she restrained me. As she sedated me, blinking out the light.

I still do not know if it was me that night, thirsting for blood, or if it was my magic, thirsting for payment. Magic demanded sacrifice, and I had provided three life sources for it, and received my shadows in return. Yet I did not know if this was true. I was not sure of it. Magic worked in mysterious ways, and my magic was unheard of. I still did not know if it was my own heart calling out for payment that night, or my new magic, thrumming through me, its desire for vengeance absorbing me.

I remembered even less of the trial. I remember hard, calloused hands on me, dragging me forward as I was blindfolded, and being shocked by the feel of them. Cypresses touch had been the only one I was used to at that point, and I had just rid of him. I had worked so hard to be rid of this feeling, and was devastated to find my effort so quickly undone. I remember fighting, screaming, thrashing, refusing to replace those set of hands with new ones quite so soon.

I remember thinking that I would not have cared if it had occurred later down the line. If I had at least gotten a little bit of peace, before the new hands fell upon me again. I was angry that they had not even given me that. So very angry.

It seemed these thoughts were what saved me during the trial, because the Council had not expected them. They had not expected for me to have such thoughts, when my mother had done so well cleansing my mind of anything incriminating, just before the trial began.

It took me years to realize how she managed to do it. How she managed to erase my memories so thoroughly. It took me years to remember her hugging me for the first time in my life, just before the trials began. It took me years to remember how I clung to her, terrified to let go. And it took me years more to remember that invasive magic required skin to skin contact to work, and that I had only made it worse by holding her so tight. By refusing to let her go. In my own desperation to be loved, I aided her in destroying my mind. I aided her in hiding what she had allowed to be done to me.