The Heretic of Sælonis ||A Sci-Fi Romance Novella||

they were scared of us

I pushed Nierhæ into the Council's chambers, hard enough to make her stumble forwards and land on her hands and knees.

"I'll make you regret that, delivery boy." With the helmet on my head, I could smirk without worrying who could see me.

"I'd like to see you try, Heretic," I replied before I looked to the faraway people in the great white expanse of a room. They sat behind an abnormally long table, wearing pale robes that blended with the wall behind them. "I present the target you tasked me with delivering; Vosiuth, the Heretic of Sælonis." I knelt on one knee behind Nierhæ, who had shifted her weight to sit on top of her feet.

"You bow to them?" Nierhæ whispered, but she projected her voice so the Council could hear her heresy. "Why? All they've ever done is destroy people's homes and histories. They destroyed yours-"

"Enough." A voice echoed through the cavity of a room, and I did my best to keep still. Flinching would look... weak. I couldn't be weak, especially not now. But that voice was one I'd grown up around. It was the voice of the man who trained me from when I'd been taken until they sent me on my first mission. The Council didn't have individual names to call them by, as a technique to show a united front. How did I think this was normal? "We aren't here to question the history of the Council," he said, and I looked up to see him staring at me. "We're here because Uhnros has completed his mission, and it's time for him to reap the rewards." That was an odd choice of words.

There weren't any rewards. Never. Completing missions wasn't something we did for something in return, it was only to thank Sethes for taking us in. It was to earn our keep as part of the society that gave us a home. It was to show how grateful we were for being given a purpose.

I kept my emotions calm, as Nierhæ as taught me. I reached my mind outwards, as I had practiced with her. Instead of allowing others to hear my thoughts, I held out an imaginary hand to grab hold of the thoughts of those around me.

Most of them didn't come in the form of coherent words.

They were feelings.

A gentle form of warm panic from Nierhæ as she realised something was wrong. And there was a cooling calm from each member of the Council, but that coolness was a cover for the burning fear in their bodies. They were scared.

They were scared of Nierhæ.

They were scared of me.

They were scared of us.

And there was something else. The hint of mistruth. Of lies.

"Take the Heretic to be prepped for execution," he instructed, and a handful of people in robes came into view to grab Nierhæ.

"You'll pay for this." She hissed as she was dragged from the room, and I had to keep my eyes forward. I had to push down every bitter sensation that told me to go after her and kill anyone who laid their hands on her. She could take care of herself. I'd seen the proof of it.

Besides, this was her plan. She wanted to be dragged away and left on a stake to burn in front of a camera, her execution to be displayed on screens throughout the galaxy to destroy hope. They didn't know it wouldn't work. They didn't know it would end with her using her last words to call everyone as part of the resistance to act. They didn't know she would use the time in solitary before the execution to reach her power into the core of the planet, and interlace what the Aura had given her to disrupt it.

She would destroy the planet from the inside out...

And I'd brought her here to do it.

"As for you, Uhnros..." My mentor trailed off as the door Nierhæ had been taken through slammed closed. "Your report is not needed."

My report wasn't needed? But it was... they needed a mission report. They always needed a mission report.

Before I could stand, or ask a question out of turn, hands grabbed my arms and forced me to lie the ground, the helmet on my head ripped off as warmth flooded through my body. This wasn't...

A person pinning me down pulled on my hair, to lift my head so I could see the Council as they all stood up in unison and walked towards me.

"Your eyes are gold, Uhnros..." My mentor spoke, but his voice... it was wrong. That was when I noticed the soft orange light at each of their fingertips. By the fucking Aura...

"You're all Chosen." I whispered, and that was when my mentor lifted his hand towards me. The hands pinning me down... they weren't real. They were barely visible constructs, shimmering a deep orange that bordered on red.

"And you broke your creed, didn't you, Huntsman?" One other whispered, but it boomed around the room like a shout.

"Do you know the punishment for breaking your creed?" Another asked, and I willed myself to remain calm. Being emotional would end with me pushing my thoughts onto them, and if they knew everything about me, then they likely knew what my Aura given Gifts were.

They were trying to force me to share my thoughts.

"How do you know I broke it?" I murmured, as my mentor picked up my helmet and inspected it. Had they spied on me? Had they recorded every word I'd ever said? Recorded everything I'd ever seen?

"We expected you would once you found your betrothed, Cædir." The eldest stated, proving every theory that Nierhæ had come up with as correct.

The mission was for me to bring her here, so she could find out who I was, and make me remember. They wanted me to break my creed, so they had reason to kill me. They wanted me dead.

They wanted to make a spectacle of me, just like they did Nierhæ.

While the Fifth Heir of Mertonis was alive, there was hope.

While the Chosen Princess of Sælonis was alive, there was hope.

While we were both alive and had every chance of finding each other, as the Aura had predicted, there was hope that we could lead the galaxy to freedom.

That hope could be ripped away from the people to make them compliant. To kill us both through public executions, one after the other, would be to drain the last of the optimism from each planet and each of its inhabitants. And when the Council controlled the galaxy, they could broaden their horizon to the rest of the universe.

It brought into question the history of Sethes. It brought into question whether the Chosen that had threatened to take control of the planet had actually been someone willing to fight against the Council to free their people.

How deep did the lies run? How far did this all go?

There wasn't any point in playing their game anymore, or pretending to be one of them. It wouldn't matter if I had broken my creed or not. This had been the plan since they took me as a child; to kill the two who could destroy them side by side.

"We'll kill you," I whispered, keeping the details to myself, but pushing my consciousness onto each of theirs. They had to feel my presence in their minds, because I wasn't subtle about it.

"That's an interesting idea, considering you're currently pinned to the ground." My old mentor stated, and I smiled.

I pushed my mind further into each of theirs and pulled forward each of their fears. I showed each nightmare they had about their power being stripped from them—their control. When that wasn't enough, I played their worried thoughts of Nierhæ and me working together. I made sure they saw exactly how this would end. With them dead at our feet.

And the pure panic I felt in return was the last thing I felt from them before something hit me in the back of my head and everything went black.