Elegy for a Star

 

It had only been a minute.

A minute of no control. A minute of sitting in the dark depths of her own mind. A minute of being danced about like a puppet on strings.

Tess screamed aloud before hearing Molu’zhar respond, “Enough.”

Not enough. It would never be enough until he gave her control again. She continued yelling, screaming, making whatever noise she could to frustrate the demon puppeting her body.

“Remember that I have no attachment to this meatbag of a body. I’ll begin removing fingers from it,” Molu’zhar threatened, “Mind your place.”

How could Miri live like this? All this time? Where was she now? Shouldn’t Tess be able to find her? She scrambled, looking about in the darkness. “Miri?” She whispered, scanning the empty expanse. Was she in here somewhere? Gods, that would be helpful. Miri would know how to take control again. She’s done it before.

She would wait until he was asleep. That was when his consciousness was most vulnerable. She could assume control then and try to escape.

What if he doesn’t sleep, though? He’s a demon. Her body is now demon possessed. She’d never known Miri to sleep without giving control back to her. It was her body, though. Surely her body would get tired and Molu’zhar have to rest with it. If Molu’zhar was letting the body recharge, was he really unconscious, though?

It was all so confusing! It was so frustrating! This is why she needed Miri. She would know these things. She was a demon, right? No, she wasn’t. She’d implied as much by mentioning her gifts. What even was the woman living in her head? If she wasn’t a demon, what was she? Why did she look the way she does?

It wasn’t important right now. For now, she couldn’t depend on Molu’zhar being unconscious. This is why she needed to escape now, and not give Molu’zhar time to get comfortable. She couldn’t give Molu’zhar time to do worse while in control of her body.

“I’ll need some time to adjust,” Molu’zhar spoke to Arlen. His words were spoken with her voice. This was cruel. This was disgusting. It was an invasion! It was her body that he was controlling like a puppet! She never felt this way when Miri took control. She already knew she was sharing that body, and she always blacked out when it happened. Molu’zhar, whether by choice or not, kept her conscious, and he was an invader. He wasn’t trapped like Miri was.

But was Miri still trapped somewhere in here? Tess couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her. It was that moment they fought before Gwendolyn showed up again. Had Miri found a way to escape her mind and left without telling her? The thought worried Tess. Maybe she scared Miri off with her inquisition. The idea that she may never see or hear from Miri again caused her throat to tighten uncomfortably.

At least the idea of her throat. Her actual throat was Molu’zhar’s right now. Focus! Focus on getting out. What would Miri do?

Maybe she could manifest, like Miri used to. Tess plopped down in the darkness, sitting cross-legged and focusing her thoughts on leaving this body. She stared at the images she saw through Molu’zhar’s stolen eyes, trying to force herself through them and out into the world. It wasn’t happening. She felt nothing. Maybe that was outside of what she was capable of doing. Maybe Molu’zhar kept her from being able to. Maybe it was something that only Miri could do.

Arlen nodded his head in response to Molu’zhar and began to leave the room. “See that you do,” he said as he departed, “I’ll need you sooner rather than later. I need to decide how best to utilize you.” The Betrayer stepped through the doorway and closed it behind him, leaving Tess alone with Molu’zhar.

Tess desperately tried to expand her mind, expand her consciousness, anything! She felt like she were only playing pretend, like a child might with a wooden sword or make-believe magic. She tried willing herself out, like bursting outward from Molu’zhar’s mind.

Well, not literally. Tess still needed her head when she took control again.

If she took control again.

“I can feel you pushing,” Molu’zhar spoke openly, audibly.

Wait, it was doing something? It felt like nothing. It felt like she was just thinking and straining, but that was actually doing something?

Molu’zhar turned and plopped down into the couch within the ornate room, adjusting Tess’ loincloth and feeling the fabric of it between his fingers. Between her fingers. “We need to talk,” he said with her voice, speaking quietly so that he wouldn’t be overheard beyond the interior of the room.”

“What about?” Tess asked with a bite to her tone.

Molu’zhar’s tone, however, was dead serious, “We are going to kill Arlen.”

“Wh-.. what?” Tess stammered, “Why? You… he’s your boss, isn’t he?” She shook her head, “Aren’t you working with him?”

“He bound me to him,” Molu’zhar spoke softly, “Against my will, as Wyrden do.”

“Then how can you turn against him?” Tess asked. She didn’t know how bindings worked, but she could assume. She arrived into all of this through a ritual that was meant to bind evil, according to what Gwen taught her.

Molu’zhar spoke especially quiet for this part, “When Elnaril hit me with that wave of magic, it snapped the tether. I’m free, and Arlen doesn’t know it.”

“Then give me control back and you can just leave,” Tess said, trying to hide the excitement and desperation cocktail that was her voice at that moment.

Molu’zhar shook his head. Her head. “No,” he said, “For a few reasons.”

Tess was quiet, seething within her own mind.

“I cannot let Arlen go unpunished for binding me,” Molu’zhar stated, leaving room for a follow-up, “And this is a capable body that I’ve inherited. I see no reason to let it go.”

“Capable?” Tess laughed, “Hardly. I don’t even have a gift.”

“A gift?” Molu’zhar asked, clearly confused by the notion.

Right, the Black Sun wasn’t here yet. There would be no cause for knowing that a gift is.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tess sighed, “I have no talent for fighting, Molu’zhar.”

“I do,” he replied, “And this form is fast, flexible, swift. Not to mention the connection to the Wyrd that you possess. You can sign for me. Your magic would be useful.”

“I won’t help you.”

“Then I’ll mutilate your body. I’ll only give you control once you’re crippled and in terrible agony, slowly dying,” Molu’zhar replied, “So think carefully. I have nothing to lose by letting this form die. If you do not help me, then your body is gone.”

Tess felt rage boiling up inside of her.

“Think on it for a while. I have to plan, anyway,” Molu’zhar replied, tilting his head back and resting upon the couch, “Do let me know what you decide.”

That rage slowly burnt down to a simmer, then to a calm. Molu’zhar had given her everything she needed for a way out of this. Sorcery. She could still perform sorcery.

Tess assumed that, since her arms and fingers were only a manifestation, a visual aid to make sense of the impalpable thought that she was, floating around inside her own mind, that she wouldn’t be able to cast anything at all. Molu’zhar, a demon who would know his way around a possession or two, explained that Tess could cast.

She needed to plan, too. If she acted, she needed to get out right away. If she tried and failed, Molu’zhar would do horrible things to her body before she could do anything about it. She needed something foolproof. But what? What did she have that would be guaranteed to work? Worse yet, she didn’t have her gloves. Whatever it was, it would need to be executed perfectly, of her own doing. Perhaps Miri was right. She was glad that she didn’t start using the gloves right away. It would become a crutch to use them all of the time and not learn how to do the signs properly without them.

But she was in her mind, right? Miri mentioned she could go through Tess’ mind and find things, so how did she do that? Just trying to think on it, trying to will herself to do it, was something that Molu’zhar could feel. Maybe that’s all she needed to do to read some of her own thoughts. What did she remember—even subconsciously—from her studies? Tess pushed into her mind, willing for the deep, subconscious thoughts, the things that she couldn’t remember, but were still locked away.

Her memories manifest as a library of books that rushed in from the distance, storming past as she was woven down the aisles at a speed that would crush her if she collided with anything. With a sudden halt, the library stopped, and Tess was standing on the far end, near a room called the Archives. It was dark, lit only by a single candle sitting atop a wooden desk. An array of books laid upon a shelf beside the table. Tess searched over the titles.

Mistburn Ornithology

Cenerine’s Might

The Stolen Child

Mercenary

How to Kill

That Bitch Vol. I: Nym

Badass Gloves & Other Artifacts

These were all books, great volumes that must contain memories of hers. She wanted to read all of them. They may contain her memories, the things that were locked away. Was Miri able to find this room? These tomes? It wasn’t difficult and Miri had so much time here. She must not have been able to. She would have told Tess if she could.

Tess looked over more titles:

The Burning of Esterville

Ostmyrr: A Compilation of Sonnets

That Bitch Vol. II: Maeros

Meriel the Musician

The Fox’s Clever Trick

The Stars & You

That Bitch Vol. III: Arlen

That Bitch Vol. IV: Eventide

The Conjurer of Krico

There were a number of others, but Tess knew she didn’t have time to read them all. She wasn’t even sure if she had time to read one. At any moment, Molu’zhar could make his move to try and kill Arlen. She knew that even if they succeeded, Tess’ body wasn’t going to survive the fight intact. Besides, if Molu’zhar was fated to do this anyway, even without Tess’ form, wouldn’t the Black Sun have never happened? Tess may have intervened in the Tower so that Henry didn’t get captured like he otherwise would have, but she did nothing to change the events of what happened to Molu’zhar. She couldn’t let Molu’zhar use her body like fodder against Arlen. She had to act now, but which book would be most useful?

How to Kill looked promising. Why would Tess have that one locked away in her mind? Just who was she before she appeared in that ritual, unable to remember anything at all? And who was Eventide? Who was Nym?

It dawned on Tess that these may not be her memories. Too much has happened to her mind. First Miri merging with it, and then all of the times that she has dreamt of Krahe after Pava’s experiments. She couldn’t trust that anything in here belonged to her. Could this be their memories? Most of them suggested Krahe, as far as Tess could understand. What did Pava do to her?

Regardless, the book on Arlen was tempting. If she knew how to kill Arlen, maybe she could kill Molu’zhar too? It was too risky, though. It might not have anything about Molu’zhar at all.

Tess pondered The Stars & You. The stars were the origin of all magic. They formed the constellations through which Star Wyrden cast their spells. If she were going to find a proper spell that could get her out of here, it was going to be in that book. She ached as she drew the book from the shelf, knowing that it would be for the best if she acted the moment she had a plan. She wanted to stay in here and read everything, but there simply wasn’t time. Maybe she could find a way here after she was back home. Sometimes it was hard to remember that she was within her own mind, within a Trial, within the Void. Home felt so far away.

She opened the old tome and poured through its table of contents. It was there. The very first chapter:

The Thirteenth Constellation.

Tess stopped reading through the list right there. A whole entire constellation that she hadn’t been taught? Was it known? How did Krahe, or whoever’s memories these were, know what it was? This was it, though. This was what she needed to find the right spell. A new constellation would open tens of thousands of combinations of spells, if not more.

Tess flipped through the book with a frantic pace, stopping when she found the right page.

There, on the parchment, was the Thirteenth Constellation: The Cloak.