The Order of Elysia

Chapter 5- Suspicions

Three chairs stood in the center of the room, arranged in a perfect triangle, their placement deliberate, almost ritualistic. The rest of the chamber was bare: smooth stone floors, pale walls and no windows to mark the passage of time. On one of the chairs sat a young woman in her mid-twenties, with long black hair braided into a single plait. She looked serious when Lilly entered and her eyes hushed over Lilly’s broken arm, but she said nothing. Unlike the other chambers Lilly had passed through, this one held two exits, but neither was color-coded like the others had been.

Lilly strolled over and sat down on one of the empty chairs, which were facing each other and glanced over to the woman, who stared into the air as if something fascinating was floating there. They sat in silence for a minute or two, until curiosity became too much for Lilly.

"I’m Lilly.", she said to the striking woman cautiously.

The woman raised an eyebrow and for a moment Lilly thought she might not bother to reply, but then she spoke curtly:

"Raven."

"So, Raven, do you have any idea what we’re supposed to do here?", Lilly continued, letting her gaze sweep demonstratively around the room.

Raven shrugged and at that exact moment, the door opened and a third person entered. Both of their heads spun towards the man. He was of average height, with a goatee and with an expression that showed suspicion toward them.

He eyed the two women briefly, then stomped toward the center of the room and took the last empty seat. The very second he sat down and his backside touched the chair, a light flared to life in the space between the chairs and an hourglass materialized out of thin air.

The sand began to trickle through the hourglass’s narrow neck and fell steadily into its lower chamber. The man with the beard looked nervously from Lilly to Raven and back again, before asking:

"How much time do you think that is?”

He didn’t expect an answer and was surprised when Raven actually gave him one. "Fifteen minutes.”

Lilly’s heart started to race. Fifteen minutes? For what? And how did Raven know so precisely how much time they had? Mouth agape, Lilly stared at the woman questioningly and this time Raven was kind enough not to be as curt as she had been when sharing her name.

"When I came in here, I found this note.”, she said, holding up a crumpled piece of parchment.

The bearded candidate sprung up immediately and lunged at Raven to snatch the note from her hand, but she reacted quickly and pulled it back. The man huffed and Raven spat at him: "Don’t panic. I don’t intend to keep what's written on it to myself.”

She glanced over to Lilly and then began to read from the parchment:

"The left door leads to your next test, whilst the right door leads to your elimination. Only the one of you who leaves first shall proceed. You have fifteen minutes to decide.”

Before Lilly had a chance to collect her thoughts, the man jumped up once more and darted toward the left door, but again, Raven was faster, as she stuck out her leg and sent him crashing painfully to the floor. What reflexes that woman had! Lilly smirked; was that why Raven had chosen the chair closest to the doors? Then, Raven stood up, stepped toward the man, grabbed him by the collar and yanked him to his feet.

"Don’t try that again.”, she snarled at him and Lilly found her intimidating.

The man began to stammer and apologize, but it did little to quell Raven’s anger, as she shoved him toward the wall and pinned him against the bare surface. Lilly wasn’t sure whether Raven was about to punch him or not, but nevertheless she decided to intervene. She stood up and took two steps toward them.

"We only have fifteen minutes and I’m sure we’ve already wasted three because you’re not playing fair.”, she remarked, pointing at the bearded man.

Raven loosened her grip a little and finally let go of his shirt, but positioned herself in a way that left him no chance of bolting for the door again. The man got the message and trudged back to his chair. By the time all three were seated again, almost a third of the sand had already passed through the hourglass.

Lilly continued, trying to take on a mediating role in the situation whilst trying not to panic at the thought that she might be eliminated, "So, only one of us can move forward and we need to decide who that should be.”

Raven nodded and the man immediately began a speech, praising himself, explaining why he deserved it, how he’d dreamed of joining the Order his entire life, how he was worthy, how all his brothers wore glyphs... But Raven seemed to remain unimpressed and Lilly too had little sympathy left for him after his attempt to screw them over. Then, Raven cut him off and turned to Lilly:

"And why should you be the one to move forward?”

Lilly was at a loss of words. She couldn’t articulate what she was feeling. She didn’t want to move forward, didn’t want to join the Order, she didn’t want this life.

"I don’t want to die, nothing more.”, she murmured truthfully, her mind still too clouded and scrambled to explain her situation properly. The man with the goatee laughed as if Lilly had said something funny, but Raven gave her a look of understanding.

"And you?”, Lilly asked Raven in an attempt to steer the focus from herself.

"I don’t think I need to explain why I should move on when it’s clear we have someone here far more suited than either of us.”, she said, throwing Lilly a mischievous look that left her uncertain of its meaning and gestured toward the man. Had Raven lost her mind? That guy? More worthy than either of them? She couldn’t be serious. Lilly stared at Raven in disbelief, but the man nodded eagerly and threw his arms around Raven, who did not return the gesture.

"Thank you, thank you!”, he blurted. "I’ll never forget this! I’ll tell everyone what a noble sacrifice you have made for me!”

Lilly’s mouth hung open; she wanted to protest, but knew she couldn’t win against the two of them if they outvoted her. The man walked, no, practically skipped to the left door and vanished through it in a rush, before she knew it.

"Why- why did you do that?”, Lilly snapped at Raven, horrified. "You just signed our death sentence.”

Raven let out a short laugh before replying: "Don’t worry. You really shouldn’t believe everything you read on a slip of paper someone hands you- especially without questioning it first."

Lilly looked at her in confusion: "What exactly do you mean?”

"I was sure from the beginning that what was written on that slip was a lie.” Raven replied coolly, as if they weren’t standing on the edge of potential elimination. "It reminded me of that game, two lies, one truth. I just wasn’t certain which parts were the lies.”

"And you decided the information about the choice of door was false?”, Lilly asked, trying to keep up.

"No.” Raven said, her smirk returning. "I think the first two statements were lies and only the time-limit was true.”

Lilly’s eyes widened. "But that means he just…”, she trailed off and gestured toward the door the bearded man had disappeared through.

Raven’s expression didn’t change. "Maybe he’ll wake up in the next chamber, maybe he’s already on his way home, or maybe he’s gone. I guess that’s what happens when you try to save yourself before understanding the rules.”

Lilly stared at her, stunned. "You gambled with his life.”

"I gambled with a coward’s arrogance.”, Raven corrected, her voice low but firm. "He was never going to choose anyone but himself. People like him never do and if this test really is about who deserves to move forward, then let’s see if that gets rewarded.”

Ice-cold, Raven was ice-cold, just like her piercing ice-blue eyes were.

Lilly swallowed hard and slowly looked toward the remaining door. "What now?” she asked.

Raven shrugged. "Now we find out who was right.”

When they approached, the door on the right suddenly lit up in a deep black hue and Lilly understood: Raven hadn’t just solved the riddle, she had also helped Lilly move forward.

"Oh no, it's black”, she squeaked, her heart pounding against her ribs, whilst staring at the door in front of them. Raven turned to her, surprised. "Black? I see green.” She reached for the doorknob, but Lilly stopped her.

"Green? I’ve been to green already. Be careful, green’s an illusion. I think it shows you your desires, but it’s not real.” Lilly warned urgently.

Raven nodded in appreciation, stepped through it and Lilly followed only a few seconds later, still shaken and a little in awe.

Lilly now stood in complete darkness. It was so pitch-black she couldn’t even see her own hand in front of her face, but at least the obscurity dulled her nausea somewhat, since she no longer had to make sense of the blurry images and distorted shapes floating in her vision. She had feared that the black color of the door was a bad omen and had hoped to avoid those doors altogether, but she would not have figured that she would be facing such literal blackness behind them. Darkness rarely meant anything good, for in it lurked predators and worse, as her father had always said. Carefully, she put one foot in front of the other, not knowing where she was going, her uninjured arm stretched out in front of her so she wouldn’t bump into anything.

Despite her precautions, Lilly stumbled over something soft, about twenty steps into the darkness. What was that? She sank to her knees and began to feel around to identify what she’d just stepped on. Her hands found fabric- robes and then a body. Lilly let out another strangled cry, but it wasn’t wet, there was no blood. Desperately, she tried to find a pulse, a heartbeat, but there was nothing and the body was cold and stiff. Fear surged through her and it felt as though the air was being squeezed from her lungs once more.

"Hello?”, she called out, half-hoping no one would respond, but her wishes were in vain.

"Lilly?”, echoed the voice of her father, but not in that softened, idealized way she had heard in the earlier illusion.

"Father!”, she cried out.

"You shouldn’t be here.”, he huffed and her heart dropped to her knees at the urgency in his tone, but so far along in the trial, she already knew she couldn’t trust her perceptions. Although she had thrown up in the second chamber, purging some of the poison and the hallucinations that came with it, which had likely softened the Brugmansia’s effects, her mind was still clouded.

"You’re not real. This is just another illusion.” Lilly stated bitterly, trying to convince not only the voice, but also herself.

"Tell yourself whatever you need to, child. But you’re here because you’re guilty.”, her father’s voice accusingly responded.

"Guilty? Guilty of what?”

"You’re the reason I died lonely and cold. You didn’t look after me how you were supposed to.”

Lilly gasped, but he continued: "Do you remember last fall? I withdrew myself and you did not take care of me like you were supposed to.”

"I remember, but I was fulfilling other duties you were too weak to take on.”, Lilly replied, trying to suffocate her grief.

"I wasn’t weak. It was you who coddled me, who made me feel I had to stay home so you wouldn’t get hurt.”, he answered.

Lilly’s ears rang. How could he say that? Sure, he had always been afraid that something might happen to her, but it was him who had insisted on her company day in and day out. A part of her had noticed that something had changed in her father in the months before he was taken, as he had talked less with her, but when he did, he constantly rambled about ominous conspiracies. Lilly had gotten so used to them over the years that she did not think much of it at first. His decline was visible though, as his words had made less and less sense as the time passed.

"You let me retreat further into myself during the last months of my life. Don’t you remember?”, Lucar added.

"You buried yourself in your books and sat in that study of yours night after night. You shut me out.”, she shot back, desperately trying to defend her actions.

"If it makes you feel better to say that, then so be it, but we both know you enjoyed having an excuse not to spend time with me. Do you think I didn’t notice how easily you gave up when I refused to answer your questions?”

Lilly shuddered; he was telling the truth and she was deeply ashamed by it. She had left her father to himself so she could enjoy some of freedom, tending to her pleasures, like her garden and now the guilt began to claw its way up her throat like bitter vine. If she had taken better care of him, had more meaningful conversations with him, if she hadn’t grown weary of spending him company eight hours a day, maybe she could have counteracted the terrible fate he was forced to endure.

Lilly wondered if her father's voice was right, whether it was real or not. She felt as if she had let him down; she had been responsible for keeping him out of trouble and failed miserably. She fought back tears as she replied with unmistaken sorrow in her tone:

"I didn't want this. Please believe me."

"It doesn't matter. You should have prevented it, you should have stopped me from becoming a traitor.", the Baron's voice replied coolly.

A lump the size of an apple formed in her throat and no matter how hard she tried, she simply couldn't swallow it down. Lilly knew the voice had to be another illusion, because her father was dead and his spirit had most probably not been trapped on the Temple Isle, in the Chamber of Gods.

But if this was an illusion, how did the voice know everything; all the details of the memories that tormented Lilly so much? All the small moments in which she hadn't given her father the attention he had needed, filled up her mind. She had taken care of him, had set aside her own happiness to keep her confused father company and helped him govern Alenhold and the small province in which the Fortress was located and she had only taken brief moments for herself.

Lilly had been shocked by his mental decline in the months prior to his arrest, but his paranoia, his fear of unknown evils, had not been new. What had been new, however, was his obsession with poring over books and documents day and night. When Lilly had asked him what he was reading, he had only looked at her conspiratorially and shared nothing more, but Lilly had already been familiar with his incoherent claims and erratic tales that weren’t even remotely plausible enough to believe. Time and time again, he had insisted that Virel, the god of chaos had abducted Lilly’s mother, that the neighbor’s boy prayed to the devil and secretly devoured children at night, or that Parcival, his loyal, longtime servant, had been exchanged by an evil demon by the Emperor-King. So, when he increasingly turned her away at the door of his study, Lilly had secretly enjoyed, for once, not having to be near him all the time.

Her mind wandered along the dark path of guilt and loss; she might have been able to prevent his death, if only she hadn’t been so preoccupied with herself- if only she had taken better care of him. A woman’s scream tore Lilly from her thoughts. It sounded real, as if it came from a person only a few meters away. She spun in the direction the scream had come from, but she couldn’t see anything.

"Who’s there?”, she called into the darkness.

"No!”, the shouts echoed through the dark room, bloodcurdling and desperate. It was such a pleading, harrowing scream that it made Lilly’s skin crawl. Someone was in danger- perhaps being threatened by the same person who had caused the death of the corpse she’d stumbled over earlier in the dark.

She rushed frantically in the direction of the pleading voice. "Where are you?”, she cried out.

"Please no, no!”

Lilly was now just a few steps away; the woman’s voice sounded so close she could almost touch it.

"Leave her alone!” Lilly forced out, not knowing who she was speaking to, or what was lurking in the pitch-blackness, but all she could hear in response was the woman’s whimpering. Lilly felt her way forward until her uninjured hand touched something. A trembling shape crouched on the ground, whimpering, crying and as it felt her hand, the whimpering twisted into panicked pleading and screaming.

"No! Don’t hurt me, I’ll be a good girl, I promise!”, the woman cried out and Lilly noticed that something about the voice sounded familiar.

"I won’t hurt you. What’s happening?”, Lilly asked, trying to keep her voice calm and reassuring, but judging by the reaction, she only seemed to throw the woman further into panic.

"Please don’t hurt me. I didn’t mean to break the jug, it was an accident.”

Lilly realized it was no use speaking to her; the woman was clearly a victim of some hallucination herself and she was obviously terrified of the person she believed she was talking to. Lilly found the woman’s arm and pulled her to her feet, hoping to jolt her out of the illusion or at least to get her to follow Lilly in the search of an exit and didn’t even notice that the darkness around her was slowly becoming more transparent.

"No! Please, mother. NO. Not into the smoke chamber. PLEASE.”, the woman now screamed, writhing under Lilly’s grip. She tried to break free, but it seemed all strength had left her body.

Suddenly, Lilly could slowly make out faint shapes- her surroundings began to take form again, although she still couldn’t see much. She tried to pull the woman with her, but the resistance grew stronger, until the woman shoved her and a stabbing throb shot through Lilly’s already broken arm.

She let go instantly, her fingers slipping from the woman’s arm as a jolt of pain tore through her own. It was sudden, raw, as if her nerves had caught fire and Lilly doubled over, gasping, her chest heaving. God, that hurt.

For a heartbeat, all she could feel was the throb, echoing through every fibre of her being, overwhelming her thoughts and breaths, but then, slowly, it began to recede, not vanishing entirely, but fading just enough to let her mind resurface through the fog.

Lilly blinked, when the world around her sharpened, as if someone had wiped a film from her eyes. The dull shadows lifted and the air no longer pressed down on her like a weight. Then, just a few steps ahead, something glowed, soft at first, then stronger, blooming gold in the corner of her vision.

Lilly squinted, her pupils still narrowing in adjustment and tried to make out the shape through the brightness. It took her a few moments to process it, to believe it, but there it was. A door, but it was not just any door, it was a tall, golden one, radiant and warm, as though it had been waiting for her.

Her heart skipped a beat- that had to be the exit! She needed to leave. Now. She almost rushed toward it, when the whimpering beside her surfaced in Lilly’s conscience again. She turned and saw that it was the blonde woman with the pixie-cut she had talked to on the ship. She also realized that they were located in the far right corner of the room and the woman was still crouching there, begging for mercy.

Lilly shuddered at the thought that the woman was speaking to her mother but she was clearly terrified of her, terrified that she would hurt her. Lilly blinked, she couldn’t just leave her there, but the woman neither noticed that the darkness had lifted, nor that the end of the trial was potentially in reach.

She toyed with the idea of lifting the woman to her feet once more, but her arm was still throbbing painfully from the shove and she wasn’t sure if she could endure that again. Then, an idea started to form in her mind. It was risky, maybe even a little bit ruthless, but Lilly had nothing better and after a brief moment of consideration, she made up her mind. It was worth a try, but Lilly just hoped her attempt wouldn’t make the situation worse or intensify the woman’s panic.

"You’re grounded.”, she said in a firm, commanding tone.

The blonde woman’s eyes widened and for a brief moment, a glimmer of hope flashed across them, but she didn’t seem convinced yet.

"Get up, I’m taking you to your room as a punishment.”, Lilly continued.

"But mother…”, the woman stammered fearfully, though already a bit calmer than before.

"NOW!”, Lilly ordered in a strict voice that left little room for argument. "Or would you prefer I take you to the smoke chamber?”, she added forcefully.

The blonde woman flinched, but took a deep breath and slowly began to rise, her posture defensive, her arms raised protectively over her head. Lilly grabbed the young woman’s arm again and this time she met only minimal resistance as they moved together toward the end of the room where the door was located. Lilly hoped fervently that no further trial lay beyond the door and that the initiation would, in fact, be completed once they stepped through it.