Veya's Private Thoughts, Part 3

Original media : TES Online

A Voice in the Dark

By Veya Releth

We're nearing the end of our journey to Summerset, and I swear I'm going insane. It started when I noticed that some of the other passengers never strayed from the shadows. They kept to the lower levels and the darkest corners of the vessel. After I noticed them, they noticed me. They started talking to me. Telling me to listen to the darkness all around me. To hear the voice of the Mother of Shadows.

I have half a mind to put my blade through their creepy hooded heads and dump their bodies into the ocean. At least I know I'd sleep better at night. Something has stayed my hand, though. Maybe they're starting to grow on me. Or I've been more lonely than I thought so that even creepy, crazy shadow crawlers are beginning to make good companions. I suppose they have their uses. But this new thing? A voice in the darkness? That's really starting to disturb me.

Now, it's not like I'm actually hearing voices. Not exactly. But I do find myself talking to myself. And sometimes it feels like someone is listening to me. And, as weird as it is to write this down, sometimes that makes me feel better.

Maybe I just miss my mother and I'm imagining that I'm talking to her. She was innocent in all of this. I wonder where she is now? I couldn't bear to face her after I killed my father. She had already been through so much, and I didn't want to see the pain my actions—justified though they may have been—had caused her.

* *

No, I'm not crazy. I've been having dreams. Dreams filled with talking crows and shadowy creatures. With towers stretching to the stars. These are dreams of darkness and change. Of a chance for a new world.

When I read these words, it seems like I should be afraid, but I'm not. There's a comfort to it all, as strange as that sounds. I think it's the Lady of Shadows. She's kind to me. She listens to me when I speak to her in my dreams. She holds me when I cry. She comforts me.

This woman, she is more of a mother to me than my own mother ever was. And she's promised me we're going to fix the world so no one ever suffers again or loses someone they love.