“May I sit, Gessa?” Lolly asked, her voice calm.
Gessa, startled, nodded mutely from the hard bench. Lolly settled onto the edge of the room’s only other stool, her gaze steady but not unkind.
“What you told Master Thorne and myself… claiming sanctuary from a ‘powerful enemy’ who seeks to control you for your talent… these are serious charges. And your desperation is clear.” She paused, her eyes searching Gessa’s. “But your words were also… carefully chosen. Guarded.”
Gessa’s hands tightened in her lap until her knuckles turned white. Shame, hot and familiar, washed over her. She stared at the floor.
Lolly continued, her tone even. “Spur Law makes provisions for those with the Wayfinding talent. It also offers sanctuary in dire circumstances. But sanctuary is a shield, Gessa, and to wield it effectively, we must understand what we are shielding you from. This ‘enemy’… he has a name, does he not? And his desire to control you, was it solely for this talent you claim?”
Gessa remained silent, the unspoken horrors a suffocating weight in her chest. How could she speak of Polan, of the degradation, the years of insidious torment, to this powerful, respected woman? The shame was a gag in her throat.
Lolly waited a moment, then sighed softly. “Child, I have seen many things in my years. Many kinds of fear. Yours is a fear that runs deep, like roots in poisoned soil. Vagueness will not serve you here. If this enemy is as powerful as you imply, he will not simply let you disappear. The Iron Spurs do not invite conflict without just cause and full knowledge.”
She leaned forward slightly. “There are things worse than a quick death on the road, Gessa. Living under a shadow, a lie… that is its own kind of prison. If you want our help, our true protection, you must trust us with more than half-truths.”
Lolly’s words, devoid of judgment yet hard as iron, chipped at the icy wall Gessa had built around herself. Trust. It was a foreign concept. But looking into Lolly’s keen, steady eyes, Gessa found not condemnation, but a flicker of something else… a weary understanding? A strength that might not buckle under the weight of Gessa’s ugliness?
The dawning realization that this woman might actually listen, might actually believe her, was a sliver of light in an overwhelming darkness. The need to unburden herself, to have someone, anyone, know the truth of what Polan was, warred with years of ingrained fear and shame.
“He… he is my husband, Lord Polan of Ironhold,” Gessa whispered, the words barely audible, tasting like ash in her mouth.
The admission, once out, seemed to crack something vital within her. Lolly’s expression did not change, but a new stillness came over her.
“Lord Polan?” she asked, her voice quiet, but with an edge that Gessa hadn’t heard before.
Gessa could only nod, tears beginning to well, blurring her vision.
“Tell me, Gessa,” Lolly said, her tone now softer, yet imbued with a thread of command. “Tell me what he has done. No word of what you say will leave here.”
And it was then, faced with that quiet, relentless gaze and the desperate, dawning sense that this woman might actually understand something of the horrors she had so long hidden, that Gessa’s carefully constructed walls began to crumble.
The dam broke. Hesitantly at first, then with a rush of shame-filled, fragmented words, Gessa confessed more, not everything, not the deepest violations, but enough about Lord Polan, his quiet cruelty, the feedback stone, his possessiveness, her suffocating life, her desperate flight.
She spoke until her voice was raw, tears she had sworn she wouldn’t shed tracing paths through the grime on her cheeks. Lolly listened without interruption, her expression growing sterner, her eyes dark with a grim understanding.
When the last of Gessa’s ragged words faded, silence settled in the room. Lolly rose, her expression unreadable but for the hardness in her eyes. “Rest, child,” she said, the words more a command than a comfort. “We will deliberate.”
Lolly left, and Gessa collapsed back against the wall, feeling boneless and scoured from the inside out. She didn’t know if she had earned their help or simply sealed her fate, and for a long moment, she was too exhausted to care. Sleep, deep and immediate as a plunging stone, took her.
6
THE IRON VERDICT
She was woken some time later by the sound of the door opening, revealing a guard whose face she didn’t recognize. “The Masters have made their decision,” the guard stated, his voice flat. “The assessment will begin now.”
The talent assessment was held in a specialized chamber deep within the Academy. It was a circular room, surprisingly stark, lined with what looked like dull, iron-veined stone that seemed to absorb both sound and light. Instructor Ky was present for this, his expression one of guarded neutrality, summoned, Gessa surmised, due to his expertise in unusual manifestations; his earlier dismissal from the audience now made a different kind of sense.
He stood with Aris Thorne and Lolly in a recessed, protected alcove, their faces shadowed. The only other person in the room with Gessa was the Talent-Sensor, a quiet, middle-aged man named Master Elms, whose gentle, hazel eyes and soft-spoken demeanor seemed out of place amidst the Academy’s general austerity. Despite his gentleness, the pendant resting against his robes made Gessa’s breath hitch—the unnaturally clear, flawlesscrystal of a Truth-seer. He wasn’t just here to guide her; he was here to taste the lie if she failed.
“Mistress Gessa,” Master Elms said, his voice calm and reassuring, a stark contrast to the turmoil Gessa felt. He gestured toward the center of the room. “Please, stand here. Try to be at ease, if you can. This chamber is designed to help us perceive and understand inherent talents. There is nothing here that can harm you.”
Gessa moved to the indicated spot, her legs feeling like lead. Ease was an impossible dream.
“The stones in the walls,” Elms continued, his gaze kind, “and these crystals you see embedded… they will resonate with any Wayfinding energy you manifest. You might see lights, or feel… a certain pressure. Do not be alarmed. It is merely the room responding.” He gave her a small, encouraging smile. “There is no specific command I can give you, no right or wrong way for this to feel. Simply quiet your mind as best you can.”
His eyes drifted briefly to the milky locket still resting against her collarbone, a badge of powerlessness she had yet to take off. “Forget the glass you wear, Gessa. It is a lie written by others. Show us what is written in you.
“Reach inward to that part of yourself where you feel this talent resides. Trust what you sense, and… allow what is within you to emerge. When you are ready.”
