They needed Tarrin, they needed him desperately. Keritanima had shown shocking potential, especially after she had absolutely stunned everyone by leading the quickly created alliance that attacked the Cathedral of Karas to get him back. She was not the spoiled, self-centered, immature brat that everyone thought her to be. Myriam had had the luck of being in Jervis' office, railing at him for his little activities the night before, when the news reached him. His jaw abosolutely dropped from his head. If Keritanima could fool Jervis, then that meant that she had all of Wikuna fooled as well. But where Keritanima showed incredible potential, control, and aptitude, she didn't have his raw power. Tarrin was a Weavespinner. A Weavespinner! That unprecedented power had not been present on the world since the time of the Ancients. If a Weavespinner couldn't challenge the fabled Guardian of the Firestaff and have a chance at victory, then Myriam couldn't think of anything that could. He was their best chance, and now he was out of their hands.
A dark shadow passed over the light flowing from the large window, closed against the winter chill, and Myriam found the breath to scream when something grabbed her by the back of her nightgown and pulled her out of her chair. The ceiling and floor traded places wildly until she found herself on her back on the floor, a knee on her pelvis and a huge, padded hand holding her by the throat. Two slits of intense green radiance marked the silhouette of a human figure, a figure with the other hand held up and away.
Not a human. A Were-cat!
"Tarrin, are you out of your-"
"Silence!" Tarrin snapped in a voice tight with fury. "I know the truth, Myriam! You did this to me!"
Myriam Lar, Keeper of the Six Spires, ruler of the katzh-dashi, one of the most powerful people in Sulasia, wet herself at that infuriated proclamation. But then again, few human beings could stare death in the face and not be affected in some way. Tarrin was infuriated, and his Were-cat nature would not allow him to handle that fury in a very gentle or painless manner.
"You watched me, spied on me, let me go on here and suffer, and you never had the nerve to tell me! I should kill you for this! I want to kill you so bad that I can taste it! You destroyed my life!"
"What was done was done for the good of everyone," she said in a quavering voice, seeing her own death in those twin slits of unholy green fire. "It was not done without great need, Tarrin. We need you. We need you now more than any person, any kingdom, any civiliation, has needed someone before. And you can't do what you need to do unless you are what you are now. Yes, we changed you," she admitted in a tight voice, tight with terror. "But it was only because we had no other choice."
Tarrin grabbed at a bulge in her nightgown, then Myriam gasped in pain when he snapped the chain holding her shaeram around her neck. He held that gold amulet in his paw lightly. "I want to kill you so bad I can taste it, but that's not good enough." His paw suddenly exploded in white light, Magelight, and she felt him weave a spell into that amulet. He plunged the amulet down and pressed it against her chest, just under the collarbone on her right side, and she screamed in total, mindless pain. The amulet's gold burned into her skin, charring it, burning through and into muscle, even as the magic behind it burned into her soul.
When he relented, Myriam curled up into a defensive ball, crying and moaning, feeling the searing pain shudder through her with every beat of her heart. "I did that because there was no other choice," he hissed. "I'll never trust you again, Keeper. Know that. But also know that you have a traitor among you. If not for my need to keep others safe, I would kill you and be done with it. But their lives are in as much danger as yours, and it's all because of that.
"Jula collared me," he told her as she looked up at him. "She said someone ordered her to do it, someone here in the Tower. And it's a woman. I don't give a damn about you or the Tower, but I do care for those I'm leaving behind, and they're in danger so long as that traitor stays among you. I'm letting you live only because you're the only one that can keep my friends alive, Keeper. And if they die, then so will you."
"What happened to Jula?"
"I punished her for taking away my freedom," he said in a cold voice, a voice full of tightly controlled fury. "Just be glad I'm not doing the same to you. I should, but if I kill you, my friends will be in danger, and you'll just be replaced by people who will come after me. Now that you understand the consequences of chasing me down, I'm sure that you'll think twice about it. You have no idea what I'm capable of, Keeper. I'll raze all of Suld to the ground just to kill you. So leave me be, and I'll let you live. And every time you start to forget my warning, just reach up and touch your brand. It won't let you forget."
He stared down at her, then those slits of ominous radiance blinked. And then he was gone.
Choking, coughing, stifling a sob, Myriam Lar, Keeper of the katzh-dashi, rolled to her knees, clutching her chest. The brand was throbbing, pulsing with pain, and she could feel its shape. It was a perfect brand of a shaeram. She rose up while supporting herself with her other hand and vomited, reaction to the fear, the shock, and the pain.
It was survival, but it was also doom. Without Tarrin, the entire world was in danger.
And there was nothing that she could do about it.
Entering the courtyard perhaps for the last time, Tarrin stared around the majestic scene, his heart heavy and his soul dimmed. He hated doing things like that, but it there really wasn't a choice. Getting Jula had been absolutely vital. He wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing she was out there, with her collar, waiting for him again. The Keeper too had suffered for her crimes, and even now he regretted not just ending her, or even not being more thorough with the punishment. But to kill like that mortified his human soul, even as the memory of what he had done had begun to return, memories that horrified him so deeply that he couldn't even express it in words. It had shocked him into a strange feeling of disassociation with himself, where what he had done seemed to be someone else, and it drowned out anything he may be feeling other than his anger for those who had wronged him.
If there was anywhere he would go, it would be the courtyard. The fountain still splashed its melody of nature, and the statue of the Goddess still stood atop it, all stone and water but also beauty and warmth. But he couldn't feel those things, could barely feel anything other than a numbness to his emotions, a blanket laid over his mind that only allowed the fire of his anger to bleed through. The statue's expression was melancholy, as if she could feel his pain, and would join in his suffering. The tent still stood to the side, where he and his sisters and sat and studied night after night, where he had gotten to know Miranda, where he had started to feel that there was hope for them all.