not good to invite too much Darkness into your soul."
"I don't think I've got a choice here," he snapped.
"Sure you do. Your soul has gotten much Darker in the past month than in the nine months since the summer solstice."
"How in blazes do you know that?" he demanded.
"I've been keeping an eye on you. Have you checked the state of your soul recently?"
"Well, what in darkness did you think was going to happen to me, Blake? We talked about this at the summer solstice."
"Yeah, and at that point you were scared for the state of your soul. I wasn't, but I am now. I figured you were strong enough to handle it if you were careful and restrained yourself a bit. You didn't seem to want to do much with your power, and I understood that. I still do. But now you're doing more and I don't know if you can handle it."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he snapped.
"Donnan, listen to me. I have confidence in you. I believe your soul is strong. I think if this was just the sort of thing the god did for a cleric, you'd be fine. But this isn't just some cleric power. This is a direct connection to the divine."
"You told me that."
"But it's much harder on your soul than I thought it would be. Look, Donnan, I know you want Aolani. I know you want a job with some prestige and some money to be comfortable. What happens when Alain figures it out? He's too good of a guard. He's going to make investigator someday. Are you going to do a spell on him too?"
"I won't have to. What's he going to do to me? He can't arrest me."
"Do you want to find out if the Arcane Covenant applies to you?"
"He wouldn't dare do that," he growled. "The mages would probably try to kill me for what I'm doin'. Alain doesn't want to see me dead."
"Adrie would turn you in. She already knows how this kind of magic works. She's been keeping an eye on you. I wouldn't be surprised if she figured it out," Blake said.
"Then I'll have to go talk to her just to make sure."
"And then use that spell on her. When does it stop? And you know what the worst part is?"
"Sure, go ahead and tell me."
"You're doing all this for a lie."
"What?"
Blake sighed. "You've enchanted Aolani's suitors so they stopped pursuing her. You enchanted her friends so they wouldn't see her. You enchanted her so she would stay. Yes, the spell fades, and yes, a lot can happen before it does and with the influence of the spell it's likely she will change her mind. But it's all an illusion. It's a lie. You've manipulated the circumstances so that she has no choice but to be with you. Now you'll never know if she's with you because she wants to be or because you made her."
"Well, you know what? I don't care. Either way, I get what I want."
"And that's all that matters?"
"Of course not."
"But it matters more than anything else."
"Yeah, in this case. Hey, if she'd been reasonable, I wouldn't have needed to use the spell on her."
Blake just stared at him.
"What?"
He shook his head. "Nothing, I guess. Anyway, it's late. You should go." He went over to the door.
Donnan didn't move. "What, you're mad at me?"
"Ashamed of you. Disappointed in you. And very worried."
"You're unbelievable. I can't believe I'm gettin' this kind of grief from a Dark acolyte." He felt he would prefer it if Blake was angry. He could deal with anger, but disappointment was far worse.
"That should tell you something, you know. Don't you remember all those conversations we had when I first signed up to be in the Order of Darkness? How you didn't like the Order because you thought it was unfair to manipulate people into getting our way? How you thought it was cheating? Don't you remember that? And now that's exactly what you're doing."
This served to cool his anger a bit. "Maybe the Order had some things right," he muttered defensively.
"No, Donnan, they don't. And I say this as an acolyte." He lowered his voice and met Donnan's pale eyes with his dark ones. "Look, part of the reason I was so grateful you continued to be my friend is because I need someone to remind me that there are other ways to get things done besides the Order's way. Donnan, I need you to help me keep my soul Light."
He blinked in surprise. "You never told me that," he stuttered.
"I didn't want to put too much pressure on you," he said with a wry smile. "We in the Order have to be careful about inviting too much Darkness into our souls. Friends and family, if we have any, help keep us in the Light. They remind us that people can be kind and good and honest without ulterior motives or some agenda. When you became the Dark Avatar, I decided I should do the same for you. That I should try to keep your soul from turning too Dark. Admittedly, I thought you were thinkin' small in the beginning but I've reconsidered and think it's really for the best you want so little, all things considered. You want to be comfortable and marry a wonderful woman and have the kind of life your status has denied you. That's a really reasonable ambition. I thought once you had the good job and were seeing the wonderful woman, you'd be happy enough you wouldn't have to use the Dark power. But it's only pushing you to use more of it than you ever did before. So I'm saying as your best friend of several years, please reconsider what you're doing. I'm really worried about you."
It took a few moments before Donnan could find a reply. "I don't really know what to say. I had no idea."
"That's why I figured I should tell you. Please, for the sake of your soul, take that spell off of Aolani and her friends."
"I can't do that!"
"Yes, you can."
"I can't! What's she going to say? What's she going to think? She was in the middle of tellin' me off when I enchanted her. How am I goin' to explain that?"
"You don't have to. People are very good with coming up with their own explanations when nothing else seems to fit."
"But Blake, she spent the night with me. In my bed," he said with emphasis.
"Oh, for the love of gods, did you really do that? I mean, I knew she spent the night with you but I didn't think you made it to bed with her," Blake said, looking disgusted and ashamed anew. "You enchanted her and took her to bed?"
"Hey, I figured if I was changin' her mind about movin', I'd change her mind about other things," he said defensively.
"And this is exactly my point," he snapped. "Where does it stop? Think about what you did to her. You betrayed her trust, took away her choice, and violated her, Donnan."
"I did not!" he yelled.
"Yes you did."
"So no one has ever come to the Order for somethin' like this?"
"Yeah, they do. You did something that a Dark priest might do for a supplicant. And what does that tell you?"
Shame overcame anger. "Maybe I should reconsider what I'm doin'," he said, sitting down in a chair.
"Yeah, you should. I think a good first step would be to dispell those enchantments and then you should probably apologize. A lot."
"But we went to bed."
"I know, but like I said, she'll come up with some sort of explanation. She'll remember that at the time that was something she wanted to do, and she'll go from there. I don't think she'll blame you, if that's what you're worried about. Which, really, is the least of your worries," Blake said darkly.
"It seemed like the easiest thing for me to do to get what I want," he said lamely.
"And that's the danger with power, especially this kind. That's somethin' else for you to keep in mind."
"Yeah," he replied. After a few minutes he said, "Would you like to play cards or something? I feel like I need to do something."
"Alright. You will consider what I've said?" he said sternly.
"Yeah."
"Alright. We'll play some cards," the acolyte agreed, not a bit reassured.
It was less than two months to the summer solstice. The Hunters hadn't quite fo
und the Dark Avatar, but they were getting close. Time was growing short, and Eliora felt it in her soul. Still, she spent most of her time staring at dirt and trying to put off the inevitable. She'd tried planting a flower in the Charred Land soil and nothing happened. She put a worm in it to find out if that would help and it died. The stuff no longer reminded her so much of sand. It was gritty, but there was also a lot of very fine dust mixed with it. It reminded her of something else but she hadn't quite figured out what. She’d even asked Hanae if the demians could help. Hanae flatly refused to even touch it. When Eliora asked her why, the demian had a difficult time explaining her reasoning.
“It has no life, my Lady,” Hanae had said.
“I know that. I want to know why, and I know your magic is different from human magic, so I thought maybe you could help me figure out why.”
“I cannot bring that into our city. You should not have it here.”
“It’s just dirt,” Eliora replied, puzzled.
“No, it is not. It is wrong. It has no life but it has a shadow. There is something twisted about it and we cannot help you. Please do not ask again.”
Eliora let the matter drop because it was upsetting Hanae so much. She didn’t feel she was much closer to an answer, but instead was left with even more questions.
She was brushing out her hair before heading to breakfast one morning when she felt something very strange, like a flash of heat and a very strong feeling she was needed elsewhere and immediately. She jammed her feet into her boots and darted out of her cottage without even putting her hair up and ran to Jomei's cottage.
"What? What?" he asked, yawning when he came to