I Copy the Authorities of the Four Calamities-Chapter 185: The Suppression

The heat from the mana-heater was a small, flickering comfort against the encroaching frost of the cave. Isole leaned her head against the rough stone wall, her eyes sliding shut as the exhaustion finally claimed her. The rhythmic sound of Vane’s whetstone against his spear followed her into the dark. It was a steady, grounding noise that slowly morphed into something else. It became the sound of silver needles clicking against porcelain.

The smell of wet limestone vanished. It was replaced by the overwhelming, cloying scent of white lilies and ancient cedar.

Isole was standing in the White Pavilion of the Silver Wood. The sunlight here was filtered through the canopy of world-trees, falling in perfect, pale diamonds across the marble floor. It was too bright. It was too clean. She felt a familiar, crushing weight in her chest, but it wasn’t the weight of her mana. It was the weight of expectations.

"Hold your chin higher, Isole," a voice said.

It was a voice like a violin string pulled too tight. Her mother, Elara Sylvaris, stood five paces away. She was dressed in shimmering silks that mirrored the emerald of her eyes. She didn’t look like a woman who had just welcomed her daughter home from a war zone. She looked like an appraiser examining a damaged shipment of fine glass.

"Your posture is slouching," Elara continued, her eyes narrowing. "You have spent too much time in the company of humans. You are beginning to move like one. It is unseemly."

Two Elders stood behind her. They were ancient, their skin the color of aged parchment, their robes heavy with the embroidery of the Sylvaris crest. They didn’t speak to Isole. They spoke about her, their voices low and humming.

"The resonance is still there," the first Elder whispered. "It is thick. It is unrefined. It clings to her like the soot of a furnace."

"It is a stain," the second Elder agreed. "Prince Valen’s house prides itself on the clarity of their line. He will not tolerate a wife whose core vibrates with the cadence of a funeral bell. The contract is specific, Elara. She must be a mirror of the Light."

Isole tried to speak. She wanted to tell them about the Iron Groves. She wanted to tell them about the logic Vane had taught her and the way the dark mana had felt like a shield when the world was falling apart. But her tongue felt heavy. It felt like it was made of lead.

"I can control it," Isole managed to say. Her voice sounded small in the vast, silent pavilion. "It saved my life."

Elara moved. She didn’t walk; she drifted, the silk of her skirts hissing against the marble. She stopped inches from Isole. She reached out with a hand that was perfectly manicured and freezing cold. She tucked a stray strand of emerald hair behind Isole’s ear.

"It didn’t save you, Isole," Elara whispered. "It corrupted you. You come back to us smelling of the grave and iron. You think this ’weight’ is power? It is a deformity. It is a birthmark on the soul that we have spent years trying to fade."

Elara’s eyes searched Isole’s face. There was no love in them. There was only a profound, stinging disgust.

"Do you know what the Prince will see when he looks at you?" Elara asked. "He will see a girl who couldn’t master herself. He will see a daughter of the Sylvaris who preferred the filth of the gutter to the purity of her station. Is that what you want to be? A broken thing?"

The Elders stepped forward. They didn’t use staves. They used their words. They began a rhythmic, psychological chant that Isole had heard every night of the winter break.

"Imagine the braids, Isole," the first Elder said. "See the dark as a wild vine. It is ugly. It is suffocating. You must pull it back. You must weave it into the corners where it cannot be seen."

"Every time you touch that heaviness, you are choosing to be a monster," the second Elder added. "Every time you let the light flicker, you are telling the world you are unworthy of the Sylvaris name. You are telling the Prince you are a peasant in a noble’s skin."

Isole felt the mental walls slamming into place. They weren’t magical seals. They were far worse. They were the scars of shame. Every memory of her dark mana was tied to the look of revulsion on her mother’s face. Every pulse of her true power was linked to the idea of being "worthless."

They made her practice for hours. They would put a glass of water on a pedestal and tell her to boil it with her light. If the steam came out grey, they would walk away in silence. The silence was the worst part. It was the sound of being discarded.

"You will be pure for the ceremony," Elara said, her hand dropping to Isole’s throat. Her thumb pressed against Isole’s pulse. "You will filter every breath. You will be the beacon he expects. If you fail, Isole, do not bother returning to the Wood. We have no use for a daughter who smells of rot."

The Pavilion began to dissolve. The lilies turned to ash. The white marble cracked, and the emerald green of the Silver Wood bled into a dark, suffocating purple.

"You are a monster," her mother’s voice echoed. "You are a monster. You are a monster."

Isole’s eyes snapped open.

She gasped, her chest heaving as she sat bolt upright on the thermal blanket. Her hands were clawing at her own throat, searching for the phantom grip of her mother’s hand. The cave was freezing. The mana-heater had sputtered down to a low, dying ember.

Across the cave, Vane was instantly awake. He didn’t move toward her with the soft, coddling concern of a healer. He stayed in his crouch, his hand already on the grip of his spear. His grey eyes were sharp and alert, scanning the shadows before settling on her.

"Nightmare?" Vane asked. His voice was a low, grounding rasp.

Isole didn’t answer immediately. She couldn’t. She was still feeling the "braids" in her soul. She could feel the way she had intentionally knotted her own power to keep from feeling the disgust she had seen in that pavilion.

"Isole," Vane said. He didn’t raise his voice, but there was a command in it. "Breathe. You are in Sector 4. There is nothing here but you and me."

Isole let her hands fall to her lap. She looked at Vane. He was covered in soot. His tunic was torn. He looked like exactly what her mother would have hated. He looked like the mud. He looked like the truth.

"They didn’t seal it," Isole whispered. Her voice was shaking. "They just made me hate it. They made me feel like I was rotting from the inside out." 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Vane watched her. He didn’t ask who "they" were. He already knew. He had seen the way she carried her staff like it was a cross.

"Rot is just biology, Isole," Vane said. He stood up and walked to the heater, feeding it a fresh mana-cell. The orange glow flared back to life, illuminating the sharp lines of his face. "It breaks things down so new things can grow. If they want you to be a mirror, that is their problem. Mirrors are fragile. They shatter. I’d rather have something that can take a hit."

Isole looked at the heater. She thought about the Prince she had never met. She thought about the White Pavilion. Then she looked at the star-steel of Vane’s spear.

"The suitor," Isole said softly. "They wanted me pure for a suitor. A political marriage to bind the lines. I was a trade, Vane. Just a trade."

"Everything is a trade," Vane replied. He sat back down in his spot by the entrance. "But you are the one who decides the currency. Are you trading your life for their approval? Or are you trading their approval for your survival?"

Isole didn’t respond. She pulled her knees to her chest and watched the snow fall outside the cave. The "braids" were still there. They were tight. They were itchy. They were the psychological chains of a girl who had been told she was a monster.

But as she watched Vane sharpen his spear in the dark, Isole felt a new sensation. It was a tiny, jagged spark of defiance.

She wasn’t in the Silver Wood. She was in the West Ridge. And the only person who was going to see her tonight was the boy who had already seen her bleed.

"Vane?"

"Go back to sleep, Isole."

"I don’t think I can."

"Then watch the fog," Vane said. "It doesn’t care if you are pure either."

Isole leaned her head back against the stone. She didn’t close her eyes. She watched the fog roll over the jagged rocks of the ridge. She felt the heavy, dark mana pulsing at the edges of her core, testing the knots she had tied.

For the first time in months, she didn’t try to tighten them.