Potent: Book 1

Chapter 20: Energies Spent

[Trigger warning: this chapter contains ALL the triggers. There are instances of emotional, psychological and physical abuse, assault, blood, violence, brief descriptions of self-harm, characters experiencing alcohol dependence and emotional breakdown.]

Ber, Day 11 of Melis, Eclipse of Thyxia, Year 602

"Brethren, once you begin to use the words "I" and "my," instead of the words "we" and "ours," you have already lost." —The Facerum

* * *

The moment it began, Beynon knew the dream.

From time to time the ugly thing resurfaced and his mind played out the whole damned drama again. Played it out as though it were still happening. As though he were a tender fifteen summers of age again.

He hadn't discovered the trick of waking himself mid-dream yet, so once this started, he was doomed to see it through to completion. It was horrible. Calumn knew if Beynon could arrest the whole process, he most certainly would.

In the dream, Bryn Beynon was younger, thinner. And he was afraid.

His mother had been unwell for weeks now.

She'd had spells before, but none of them had continued for this long; she'd always been able to snap herself back into lucidity before too much time passed. The worst part about it was her ostensible calmness, her gentle assertiveness. She was able to make even the strangest, most frightening things in the world sound plausible, logical, even. She terrified him.

The woman was a brilliant politician and tactician. She made solid, utilitarian decisions for Daitak. She led the masses with aplomb. And the guilds and councils adored her. But they didn't know her. They didn't know her like he knew her.

"Bryn, darling," she would say. "I'm only thinking of you, and of the kingdom. To be an empress is to be a sacrifice. Now, leave me alone. This needs to be done."

Her rituals.

He'd never understood why they were so extreme. She never did anything halfheartedly. Everything was dramatic. Everything was... horrible.

Calqua might spend days steeped in wine and potions, convinced she was seeing dreams and visions of the Divine Pantheon and that she must listen to what they were telling her.

She might make herself ill, refusing to eat and forcing herself to vomit for days. "Cleansing myself of the impurities," was what she told Bryn she was doing.

He remembered her standing out on the terrace, again for days at a time, refusing to drink any water or cover herself until her body blistered with burns from the sun. She'd said she was receiving ancient knowledge from the gods through the cosmic rays.

Then there were the other things she did to herself. The burn marks. The scars.

He could feel himself squirming in his sleep. Let's get this over with then, shall we? he told his dream self.

Bryn had been in the solar, he remembered. That was back when the palace staff actually maintained it. His mother had kept it lush and palatial and practically overflowing with rare plant and tree species.

It had happened on an Orwa, which was appropriate, and he had just noticed a dwarf ugalia tree inexplicably rotting in the corner, which was also appropriate.

"Bryn!" cried his cousin, arriving breathlessly from the other room.

He turned to face the boy. There were of an age then.

Almost consciously, he shrugged to himself. They were of an age now, he supposed.

Trey was perhaps sixteen in the dream—making Beynon fourteen.