Zenobia: Chapter Two

by Spira (Mistborn) in my little cobblestone and glass house in the land of Minecraft

This chapter isn't that suspenseful, but it reveals more about the mysterious spirit Zenobia. Comments appreciated. Thanks!

Zenobia

How was this possible?

Not even the Priesthood could sense my presence. And this was a common boy from a village in the outskirts of Talurra!

This Vance Coleo… He did not understand the danger of conversing with the one chosen to take the punishment of sin. If the Priesthood found out…

Tonight was the full moon, the jewel of the dark. They would come and free all of Talurra’s sin that had been sealed inside my soul.

“I am going insane…” I murmur in the comfort of the cave’s evening light. Rays of the familiar red sunlight wafted into the stony cavern of Mount Qerra, where the views of both Talurra and the Wanderlands were split by this hulk of rock and the other impassible climbs of the mountain range.

I lean against the cave’s inner wall, glimpsing the last of the ember sun falling into the forests in Talurra’s distant forests of evergreen. As soon as the sun was vanquished by the night, the Dark Vapors would seek out my soul.

Clutching my last remnant of my life, I gazed at the setting sun. My only connection to my previous life was the sapphire bracelet my mother had given to me. Silver bands held the aging jewel, and etched into the stone was the only hope: Zenobia, follow your heart to destiny.

The sun inched closer to the horizon by the second. Vivid reds and oranges grew dim with the onset of twilight, led by the rising moon.

Closing my eyes, I sense the presence of the Dark Vapors coming for me from the depths of Malice…

From their subtle persuading aura, my eyes opened. Some say the eyes are the windows to the soul. And that is correct.

Mystical mists I know as the Dark Vapors, made of sin and evil itself, cloud my vision as they sink into the deepest parts of my haunted mind. A vivid sensation of ice pierces through my veins, but I do not scream, for it has been done hundreds upon hundreds of times.

After the ice, fire races through my veins, aided by adrenaline. Images that I can never banish forever from my memory flash in front of me. The announcement by the Priesthood that I was the Chosen who would save Talurra from sin… The chase through the world… And the summoning of the Dark Vapors to take my soul away…

I feel the Vapors… Leaving my mind and spirit… Taking away all the struggles I bear inside me… All but my own pain. Leaving my suffering to destroy what remains of my sanity…

Ebbing away all of my strength, the Dark Vapors slipped from my soul and escaped the realm of the mortal breed.

There are no tears to cry. All of them fled my misery long, long ago…