The medical ward held Leah overnight with a guard posted outside her door.
That was fine with her.
She curled up in the corner of her bed and let sleep numb her mind. She dreamt of hidden ruins and endless corridors and floors that dropped her into pits. Sometimes she'd have the sense that Shade had been there, able to catch her and let her slip regardless. She saw him rip her books into tiny scraps like all they'd done together meant nothing. She saw him laugh in her face as Emrys rejected her for the small part of her Teridian blood over and over and over until she started running away from it all, but Shade always ended up in front of her, everything but his eyes bathed in shadow.
It was safe to say that Leah didn't get much sleep that night.
In the end, she stared up through the ceiling, gazing at the stars until they were drowned out by the dawn.
She would have stayed in bed all day had Illiya not come by to pick her up for the Lightless transferring duties after breakfast was done, Leah having ignored her delivered meal.
Illiya was talking without an attentive audience as they walked. "I thought we were only going to have the captive Lightless, but apparently Emrys got good intel about a rescue mission and so he forced them into attacking early and got the slayers there in time to ensure everything went smoothly, so the Lightless numbers nearly doubled! It's the biggest batch of subjects we've ever had!"
Leah barely blinked. "Mmhmm."
"Come on, Leah," said Illiya, tugging her wrist as Leah continued to drag her feet down the hallway. "I know the med staff didn't give you that much relaxant. We're going to be late!"
"So what?" muttered Leah. "At this point, I'm thinking I'd be better off back in Teridia." It wasn't like anyone wanted her here anyway. She wondered if Asriel would have even bothered bringing her to the League had he known about her impure blood. Probably not.
"Don't be stupid," said Illiya, more than a little impatient. "Leah, they don't care that you're not entirely pureblood! The reason Emrys can't let you on the team is because the methods we use are a lot easier to perform if the blood is pure Radiant. The Teridian or Human blood mixed in with it can skew the results!"
It made sense, but Leah had heard the disdain in Emrys's words. "You heard him. He doesn't need me."
Illiya slapped her on the shoulder. "Well he's signed you up for transfer work, so he needs you for something right now, and we're going to be in a whole lot of trouble if we don't show up!"
They joined the other gathered Radiants at the Spire as Emrys began instructions. Groups of Lightless would come in. Each Radiant would take one restrained Lightless to the holding cells via the opened tunnel, and this process would repeat until every Lightless was in their cell.
"Do not be afraid of them," said Emrys. "And do not empathise with them. They are husks of a once-proud Radiant, a husk occupied by the parasite that seeks to destroy our race. Pity their loss, but remember--they are the enemy, and as yesterday's attack has shown, they cannot be trusted."
Leah was placed in a group with a few more experienced members that could handle situations if they went awry. She was told that if her Lightless got loose, to step back and allow them to handle it. These weren't Shattered, they told her over and over, but they could still do damage.
Didn't she know that already.
The first group went smoothly. The Lightless came through on their net already bound at the wrists by some metal human contraption. The Radiant group stepped forward and led them away.
Leah watched the next group come through with disinterested eyes. Her usual curiosity was gone. She longed for her father's house, that comforting hug and the safe environment where she knew how things worked and who she could trust. The environment might have been trying to kill her on a regular basis, but at least the only other Radiant within several times the walking distance wasn't.
The fourth group had a minor altercation as one of the Lightless made a run for it. They were quickly tripped over with Light and caught by three Radiants as they struggled to their feet, hissing and cursing and swearing in at least three languages.
Leah's group was next. They waited. A flash of Light brought the next group through on their net. Leah glanced at the Spire, noting how many more slots were missing, how many more Displacers were likely to come in after this. The rest of her group took a Lightless, Leah taking the remaining one, and followed them down the hall.
Nerves fluttered in her stomach as she took the Lightless down the hall at an arms length. She expected them to twist or turn or fight at the very least, but a dead look in their eye kept them pacified. They weren't like Dale or Shade, but Leah kept her emotions distant. She'd given them leeway once before and almost died for it. She wasn't about to make that mistake again.
They went through the tunnel and navigated the holding cells. So many of the cells Emrys had shown her during her brief visit to the research lab were now empty, their former occupants gone. A twinge of guilt pulled at her heart as she put the Lightless inside their cell and locked the door behind them.
They didn't even look at her, even as she glanced back over her shoulder to check.
By the time they got back, they only had to wait a minute until their next Lightless to escort were Displacered in. Unlike the previous group, who'd worn street clothes similar to the Humans of Hulari, half of these Lightless wore grey garments exactly like Shade's. With their faces uncovered and in broad daylight, they didn't look half as intimidating as they had in the ruins the night before. It wasn't until her second Lightless was safely locked away inside her cell that a thought struck Leah.
Was Shade among these captives?
She felt like she'd had a bucket of cold water dumped over her head. He'd said he was going to be busy the next few nights. What if he'd participated in the attempt to rescue these Lightless and been caught himself?
Leah was suddenly alert, a purpose back in her steps back to the Spire. She tried to meet the eyes of every Lightless she passed, hoping that one would look familiar--that he'd look back at her, but it never happened. Maybe she'd already missed him when she'd been too busy feeling bad for herself. Maybe he'd needed her help, and she'd already failed him.
The next Lightless tested her patience a little. He didn't stop screaming about how he was going to infect them all, but at least he kept walking. There was blood on his shirt that didn't look like his own, and Leah had to wonder exactly what had happened from wherever it was they were Displacering in from.
She closed that door a little harder than the first two.
Leah returned to the Spire with her group checking on her to see how she was doing before they went back to their own conversations. Leah tried to bite down on her panic that she'd missed Shade, if he'd even been captured. The same garments, and she was jumping to conclusions.
Then, the next group of Lightless came in.
These were the ones the blood had come from. The fighters. Their garments were torn. They were covered in cuts and scrapes of varying depths, not all of them looking like they were able to stand alone. Leah was assigned one that seemed capable of walking unassisted despite his limp, though she was sure it was only determination keeping him upright.
Because of the limp, they lagged behind, and Leah didn't think telling him to move it was going to change much despite what the other Radiants kept suggesting. Remembering Dale's tactics to get her alone, Leah was careful to always remain within sight of the others, always careful to keep her distance from anything the Lightless could trip or grab her with. He didn't have the dead look in his eye. He was very much aware of his surroundings, and he kept glancing between the other Radiants and her.
She knew he was going to do something.
Finally, he drew a deep breath, and Leah prepared to leap out of the way and call for help, only she didn't need to. Instead of grabbing or tripping or hurting, he spoke.
"I know you," said the Lightless, his eyes sliding ahead. "You were the one Shade brought to the ruins, weren't you?"
Both parts of Leah's blood ran cold. If he told the other Radiants, would she be deemed a traitor? Would they believe her words over his, especially if he could produce her journals as evidence, her finger-trail in the dirt on the walls?
The Lightless chuckled. "I'll take your horrified look as a yes." He sighed. "Don't worry, I'm not going to sell you out. Parasites or not, all we wanted was to be left in peace, so it'd be a little hypocritical if I didn't give you the same thing just because I can't have it anymore."
The words caught Leah so off-guard that she drew level with him, trying to glimpse his face to see if he were lying, but he just looked tired. "Why?"
The Lightless shrugged. "Why not? I looked at your books. They're in the study under a hidden platform near the desk, by the way. Everything checked out with what Shade said. You look like a hard worker. I hope you do something with that, maybe that temple will even have something useful."
"Do you know where Shade is?" breathed Leah. "Was he--"
"No idea," said the Lightless. They reached the tunnel, their conversation silenced as they drew closer to the other Radiants right until Leah was placing him inside his cell. "The bastard almost fainted and some other Lightless dragged him off into the forest before the Radiant reinforcements arrived."
Leah pretended to be adjusting his restraints to get a few more precious words in. "What's your name?"
"Why do you care?"
Leah flicked her eyes to his. "Humour me."
He gave her a lop-sided grin. "You know me as Ash."
Leah's eyes went wide. "You--"
"Tried to kill you, yes," said Ash. He jerked his head at the walls of the cell, the other Lightless around him. "But can you blame me for being scared of this?"
Leah was still trying to formulate a reply when a Radiant from her group appeared in the doorway. "Leah, let's go! Is there a problem with the restraints?"
"There was, but I fixed it," said Leah. "He was complaining that it was too tight."
Ash narrowed his eyes. This was his prime chance to sell her out, and she could do nothing but hold her breath. "Well maybe they'd be a little looser if you just took them off!"
"This is why we don't talk to the Lightless, Leah," said the Radiant. "They're unreasonable, the lot of them. Let's go."
Leah escorted two more Lightless before no more Displacered through, but she was on autopilot, her fingers gentle against the arms of the Lightless she escorted.
What would she have done in the face of this kind of fear? Would she have held a threat, person or not, at the end of her Hilt to protect the ones she cared about? Would she have tried to kill someone she thought knew too much to ensure the safety of her people?
She'd never known anything close to it. She'd never reached that limit. She didn't know. She couldn't get her head around a parasite--a mindless, Light-driven parasite, if the Shattered were anything to judge by--could have enough sentience to care about the others it possessed on such a level. It didn't make sense. What reason could a parasite infected mind have to grant her peace?
It didn't. It couldn't. Which meant that Shade wasn't an anomaly. That her initial suspicion had been right--that the Lightless and the Shattered were two very, very different things.
Emrys dismissed the Radiants from transfer duty just after lunch. Leah listened as he told them what time they needed to be back tomorrow to begin recording the names and information of their new Lightless subjects, which was apparently a tedious task because most were uncooperative.
Leah used the remaining hours of daylight to go for a walk outside, one that conveniently ended her up at the once Lightless occupied ruins. She found the desk, her note still where she'd placed it, and lifted the stones. Her journals were exactly where Ash had said they'd be.
She sketched as much reference material as she could before she knew she had to leave. Even then, her bag was heavy with sheets of Light with additional scenes and borders she saw on her way out.
Leah worked into the night, continuing the sketch and decode the symbols right up until the point where she fell asleep on her desk.
*+*+*+*
A/N - Short-ish chapter but hey. It's words. ^^ Not sure if Leah's slump is affecting me or if my slump is affecting Leah but at least it was on an appropriate chapter.
I'll reply to comments and things on previous chapter tomorrow mebe hopefully idk we'll see sorry I'm a bleh at people-ing I love you guys <3
Wordcount: 57,917