The Hardest Things

They stayed in the Valley for two days before Lyda and Adea's parents made it themselves, but for the first night, Adea was kept in the village's healing ward, where she endured the most uncomfortable night she had ever been through. She had never been treated for physical injuries before, but she was still amazed by how skillful the healers were, and it made her question how her own sister could ever consider hurting someone, or something.

The healers were much cheerier than she expected, constantly telling her how tough she was, which made Adea smile amidst her pain. However, she soon realized that they were only trying to keep her calm when they finally told her that her rib bone had suffered a clean break but fortunately did not appear to have punctured her lungs or heart. They said that the best she could do was take it easy and wait for the bones to heal. With nothing else to be done, they gave her a bitter-tasting draught that they said would make her drowsy and help her to get some sleep, and then gently spread a light, jelly-like substance around the bruise on her chest which numbed most of the pain, promising that it would help her sleep like a baby tonight.

It did not.

Adea barely got a wink of sleep that night. She still found it difficult to breathe at times due to the pressure in her chest. That was the least of her problems. As exhausted as she was, she was too terrified to even think about falling asleep. Lyda's threat from earlier was still burned into her mind.

"I will personally see to it that your sleep is filled with the most horrific nightmares you have ever experienced in your life!"

Would she really do it? She had done it before purely for selfish reasons. She had a reason now, exuding anger that bordered on hate, and it was all directed toward her. There was little doubt in Adea's mind anymore that Lyda was becoming capable of such merciless acts. For all she knew, she could be waiting for her to fall asleep right now, wherever she was. Adea could do nothing but lie awake in fear. What was happening to the person she once loved as a sister?

When Adea woke the next morning to the soft singing of birds and the faint light of dawn peering in through the windows of the ward, her heart skipped a beat at the thought that she had fallen asleep, but she was relieved to know that nothing horrible happened in her sleep last night. The effects of the numbing agent had worn off, leaving behind a stiff pressure in her chest that felt more like she had simply slept on it wrong. The healers tending to her asked how she slept. She confirmed, "Like a baby," with which they shared a laugh.

They allowed her to be released after sending someone to fetch her friends to accompany her. Adea felt better already when Eran showed up to take her back to their campsite. She was noticeably nervous about facing Lyda again after their last encounter, but when Eran tried to ask what happened between them, she still could not bring herself to answer. Perhaps, she thought to herself, there were some terrors too horrific to describe.

Part of Adea was relieved to find that Lyda was gone when they made it back to the campsite. Upon seeing them approach, Jay jumped up and ran over to hug her, but Adea quickly stepped away, bring her arms up as if to defend herself.

"Easy, Jay!" she exclaimed. "It's still broken."

"Sorry," Jay responded sheepishly.

"So where's Ellis?" Adea asked, noticing that he also was not present.

"He'll be back any time," Eran answered. "He went to find some food when I came for you."

"And Lyda?"

Adea had been almost too nervous to ask, and Eran and Jay seemed to share her disturbed feelings. They revealed that though she did return to the campsite around sundown, nobody had spoken to Lyda after the incident in the plaza, but they could tell that she was being chewed up inside about it. Eran confessed that she left shortly after everyone else had woken up that morning. Nobody knew where she had gone.

Lyda spent the early hours of the morning wandering the streets of the village, lost in her thoughts of guilt over the pain she caused her sister. What had come over then, she couldn't say. Adea had pushed her too far by threatening her the way she did. As far as Lyda was concerned, that was the only reason she would have reacted with such hostility. It wasn't her fault, she continued to convince herself.

Weighed down by her guilt, Lyda lost the strength to keep walking as she sat down against the baluster along the side of the stone path. There were very few people around this far outside of the plaza, so Lyda figured she'd found time to distract herself with the book she had bought yesterday. She rested the book on her crossed legs and began skimming through it, searching for something, anything, that might catch her curiosity. She had no idea what she might find Outside texts, so she started by trying to find connections or references to her own ancestral culture.

The first she noticed was this book's consistent reference to the deity which it called God. It seemed like too generic a name for her to take seriously at first, but the more she explored, the more she became certain that it was the same entity that was spoken of in the pages of Aunt Mara's book. Clearly there was a connection between them. This book was enormous, she thought. There had to be answers in here somewhere.

Lyda continued to flip pages, but the strain of yesterday's incident only plagued her mind ever persistently. She could not concentrate enough to keep reading. Her arms were beginning to shake with rage. It wasn't her fault! Adea had no one to blame for what happened to her but herself. That was what Lyda kept telling herself as if to feel better, but it only made her angrier. She slammed the book shut and pushed off her lap and onto the ground before burying her hands in her face and sobbing.

"I thought I saw you," a kind, familiar voice said from just down the street. "You're the only one I know who can wander alone in such a lively place."

Lyda looked up to see Iris walking her way. Iris froze, however, when she saw the red in Lyda's eyes. It took her off guard. Lyda may have had her moments of self-misery, but she had rarely known her to wander off and wallow in her sorrows like this. Something heavy was eating away at her mind.

"What's going on?" Iris asked as she approached her.

Lyda glanced away, pretending to look at the book lying by her side. "Nothing," she sniffed. "I just didn't sleep well last night."

"Oh, don't lie to me," Iris said sternly. "I've known you since you were a child, and I know when something is on your mind-"

"I'm not a child anymore!" Lyda snapped, jumping to her feet. "Maybe there's something on my mind and maybe there isn't, but I don't need people constantly inserting themselves into my business!"

Iris crossed her arms and stared at her a hard face. There was a moment of awkward silence as Lyda tried to cool down, waiting for Iris to say something, but she only continued to stare quietly. Eventually, she couldn't bear to look her in the eyes and adjusted her gaze away toward the ground.

"It's Adea, isn't it?" Iris said after a moment.

Lyda was taken aback by the sudden question. "Why would you think that?" she struggled to hide her astonishment.

"Because you didn't get your perceptive intuition from no one," Lyda remarked. "I've seen you act this way many times before. You always look down like that when there's a problem between you two. She's the one you love more than anyone else. Now whatever shame you're feeling, I would be a worthless friend if I let consume you."

Lyda was left speechless by her sentiment. For a moment, she wanted to simply let her anger take over and tell Iris to go away. That was when, much to Iris' surprise, Lyda broke down as she rushed forward and threw herself into Iris' embrace.

"I'm sorry!" she sobbed. "I don't know what I'm doing, and I can't bring myself to talk to anybody."

"You can talk to me," Lyda said softly. "I've always listened to you, and I've never judged you for your problems."

"This is different, Iris," Lyda muttered. "I can't tell anybody about this."

"Yes, you can!" Iris persisted. "Sometimes the only way to beat the obstacles in your life is to do the hardest things. Come on. Let's take a walk up the mountain, just like we used to, and talk as friends. As sisters."

Lyda's heart was pounding in her chest, and Iris could feel her shaking in her arms. Whatever was on her mind, Iris was bracing herself for Lyda to tell her she did something terrible, but she would not let that get in the way of helping her friend.

Eventually, Iris managed to convince Lyda to walk with her around the mountains just outside the Valley for a few hours, just the two of them. Before they left, Iris went back to the campsite her family had set up to collect a small bag of food as well as supplies she always took with her into the wilderness. Her husband and son were not there, and she guessed that they must have still been out in the plaza, but she shrugged it off, assuring Lyda that it wouldn't be a big deal if she disappeared for a while. With that, they made their way back up the mountain path and out of the Valley.

For much of the first hour, Iris tried to ease the tension in Lyda's system by simply asking her what she had been up to since the last time they had seen each other. This only fueled Lyda's stress even more as she finally confessed that she had not felt like herself in years. This caught Iris' attention as she asked when Lyda meant by that.

"I feel darkness surrounding me all the time," Lyda stammered with a trembling voice. They had wandered up to the top of the mountain just south of the Valley when Lyda's legs could carry her no further. "I've felt this way for a terribly long time."

"How long?" Iris asked caringly.

Lyda was not ready to do this. She was not prepared to reveal to another Human being the things she had been doing ever since she was a mere child.

"Lyda," Iris said, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Just come forth and empty it, whatever it is that's bothering you. I don't care how bad you think it is. I wouldn't be here for you if I thought otherwise."

"I'm scared," Lyda uttered. "You just couldn't understand."

"Tell me," Iris pressed on.

Lyda's hands were shaking, and every fiber of her being wanted to turn around and run away, but at last, she took in a deep breath and began to speak against all her nerves. "Do you remember that day when I was 10, when I asked you to tell me about the Spirits behind my parents' backs?"

"Yes," Iris rolled her eyes playfully. "One of my more awkward memories with you. You didn't tell your parents about that, did you?"

Lyda shook her head, her eyes wide with fear. "No. But after that day, I couldn't let my fascination rest. I found a book in the cellar, where my aunt Mara was staying at the time; an old, leather-bound book with many passages about the Spirits. I don't even think my parents knew she had it."

"Alright, so you found something you weren't supposed to have," Iris said, trying to keep her calm. "You did things behind your parents' backs that you regret today. That's nothing to get all worked up about. I did my fair share of that when I was a child, too."

"Iris, you don't understand. The night after we spoke about the Spirits, I read about a mysterious place not far from where we had been. The book called it the Crossing. I snuck out of the house that night and found it, along with an ancient ritual site. I deciphered some of the pages of Aunt Mara's book, which I still have to this day, and I learned how to perform a terrible ritual at the site. When Adea's nightmares became too much for her to bear, I convinced her to go with me to the Crossing to initiate the ritual, promising that her nightmares would stop."

Iris' skin began to crawl. She could not believe what she was hearing, and she knew that she was failing to hide her disturbed expression. "And what did the ritual entail?"

Lyda swallowed roughly. "A sacrifice."

"Of what?" Iris was almost too scared to ask.

"To make the ritual work for Adea, I cut the heart from one of my mother's hens and burned it."

"Oh, Lyda," Iris gasped.

"I didn't want to do it," Lyda lied, remembering how powerful it made her feel inside to rip the life from that defenseless animal. "I only did it because I thought I was helping my sister."

"And," Iris stuttered, "did it work?"

"Yes! Adea's nightmares stopped. Actually, they didn't stop. The ritual did something else instead; it gave both of us complete control over our dreams. We could see and do whatever we wanted in our sleep and could wake ourselves whenever we chose. Adea was happy, so for years I believed my actions were justified."

"Did you ever tell anybody else?"

"No! I couldn't risk it. I know what we did was too perverse for conversation. I even went as far as to threaten Adea just to keep her silent."

"Lyda…"

"But that wasn't the end of it," Lyda found it difficult to stop now. "Four years later, I tried to make her go back with me to perform the ritual again. She refused, so I found a way to inflict a nightmare upon her, unlike anything she had ever experienced before. I promised her that I could help her put a stop to them again, but I lied to her. After we performed the ritual again, I revealed to her that I did it because I realized it could be used for other purposes as well. I thought that we could use the wisdom we gained from it for the good of our people, just as you once told me.

"I thought my motives were pure. Lately, I'd become so obsessed with this that it drove a wedge between Adea and I. Just yesterday, back at the plaza, she got so deep under my skin that I snapped without even thinking. I hurt her, Iris. I broke her rib and caused her to spend a night in the healers' ward. I didn't mean for it to happen, but what will happen to me if she told them that it was me who hurt her? What if the Mistresses learn of it?"

Iris took a deep breath, taking all this in. It was the most Lyda had ever told her before, and Iris could tell that it truly went back as far as she claimed it did. "Lyda," she began in a soft tone. "Do you think Adea told them it was you?"

Lyda thought for a moment before shaking her head in shame. "No, I don't think so. You won't say anything either, will you? Please, Iris! I can't afford to have my reputation affected."

"No, of course I won't," Iris said. Lyda let out a sigh of relief until Iris continued. "I think that you should."

The breath was ripped from Lyda's body as she stared at Iris in disbelief. "What?"

"I think that you should be the one to tell the Mistresses. It doesn't have to go beyond that, Lyda. The Mistresses would be sworn to keep it to themselves. The worst that they would do is hold you for a couple of days just to make sure that you're alright and not a threat to anybody's safety. But other than that, I really think that you should tell your parents everything you just told me."

"You can't be serious!" Lyda cried.

"I am, because I'm your friend, Lyda. I'm not saying this to cause you pain. I'm telling you this because I love you, and the only way to truly let go of your past is to confide it in the people who love you."

"I can't tell my parents all that! You know what they would do!"

"Lyda," Iris' voice was beginning to tremble as well. "I don't believe that. Keeping all this bottled up inside will do nothing but destroy you, don't you understand? You said listened to my advice in the past, so listen to it now. Sometimes we have to do the hardest things to overcome our demons."

Lyda lost herself in thought for a moment. She could not believe what she was hearing from her own best friend. For a moment, she felt betrayed all over again, but then a familiar feeling swept throughout her mind as Iris' last words echoed in her ears. "The hardest things," she muttered to herself. Looking back up at her old mentor, she said, "I know what I have to do."

Iris beamed as she pulled Lyda into a hug. "I'm proud of you," she said kindly. "You'll be doing the right thing, trust me. For now, you just need to take your mind off it."

"How?" Lyda asked, still feeling the stress raging inside her.

"The same way we've always done. Let me make you some tea. I have all the ingredients with me that I need, except for one thing." Her eyes scanned around the area, lighting up when she spotted a patch of chamomile about a dozen yards away. "Perfect!" she exclaimed as she headed over to the patch. Lyda remained where she was, still feeling weak in the legs. Her eyes were glued to the flower patch. Her right hand hung by her side, her thumb running along the side of her index finger as if in anxiety, but only one thought was going through her head.

"Don't worry about anything, Lyda," Iris said as she knelt by the patch. "Everything is gonna be alright. I'll help you get through this every step of the-" As she reached out toward the leaves of the patch, she let out a scream as something sharp dug into the back of her hand. Iris stumbled onto her back, clutching her hand and hissing in pain. She looked at the back of her hand to find two tiny holes in her skin, one of which was leaking blood as the vein was punctured.

Lyda walked over to her side, her eyes on the chamomile patch when a rattlesnake no more than 24 inches long slithered out. Iris pushed away from the patch as the snake disappeared into the grass. "I didn't even hear it rattle," she uttered in shock. "That's unusual." Looking back at the bite on the back of her hand, she realized that the snake's venom was undoubtedly in her bloodstream. "I have to hurry," she said as she removed the knapsack from around her waist in which she was carrying her supplies. She was surprised for a second to see that it was partially open. Curious, she thought. She must have forgotten to secure it properly. "Luckily, I always carry with me a draught to counter the effects of venom. I should only need a small dose." She ran her hands through the contents of her bag but began to panic when she couldn't find what she was looking for.

Iris dumped everything out of her knapsack, frantically scattering the various draughts and healing ingredients, but the one she was looking for was nowhere to be found. "Oh no!" Iris cried. "This isn't possible! I never go anywhere without it! Lyda! Help me find-" Iris looked up to beg Lyda to help her, but her eyes were quickly drawn to the object in her left hand. Lyda was holding a small, glass vial containing a thin, crimson-colored liquid. Iris let out a fluttered breath of relief. "Oh, thank the Light!" Iris sighed, not even thinking about how Lyda could have gotten ahold of the serum. "You found it! Give it to me!"

Iris reached her hand out to take the vial. Lyda glanced from her to the vial and back to her, a blank expression on her face as if she didn't know what was going on. Iris winced as the bite on her hand continued to throb. "Lyda, give me the antivenom!"

Lyda hesitated for a moment, but eventually, she made a simple gesture that shocked Iris to her core. She shook her head.

Iris' blood ran cold. "Lyda, what are you doing? I need that, please!"

"I don't think so," Lyda uttered in a low voice. "I can't do that, Iris."

"What are you saying?" Iris breathed in disbelief.

"I wish you didn't press me to tell you all that I did. I really wish. I wanted to be able to trust you when I felt that nobody else would be there for me. I trusted you, and you betrayed that trust! I'm sorry, Iris, but I can't allow any of this to get out."

Iris' jaw fell open, realizing that Lyda must have deliberately swiped the serum from her knapsack when they hugged. "Lyda! I told you I wouldn't tell a soul. I swear it!"

"No, you just want me to be the one to tell the Mistresses, and now I understand why. You won't let any of this be on your name so you want it all to be on mine. You call it the hardest thing when it's the easy way out for you! You're nothing but a hypocrite! You know what the Mistresses would do with me and you don't care! All this time I thought you were my friend, but you only care about yourself!"

In the middle of her rage-filled monologue, Iris lunged forward to try to grab the vial from her hand, but Lyda stepped back out of her reach. Just then, Lyda dropped the vial to the ground and smashed it beneath her foot.

"NO!" Iris screamed. "You crazy bitch! How can you do this?!"

"I'm sorry, Iris," Lyda muttered, a hint of tears in her voice. "You said the hardest thing could set me free, well this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do."

"Please don't do this!" Iris continued to plead from the ground.

"It's time to be quiet now, Iris," Lyda said coldly. She raised her right hand, clenched into a fist. "I wish it didn't come to this. The only consolation I can give you is my word that I won't lay a hand on you." With that, she opened her fist and began to move her hand in a circular motion.

Iris turned her head to look behind her as her ears were filled with a bone-chilling rattling sound. The snake that had bitten her was laying no more than 12 inches from her face, its body twisted in a position as if ready to strike. With nothing left to say, Lyda suddenly closed her fist as tight as she could. Obeying her command, the snake lashed out at Iris' face, and the air was filled with her blood-curdling screams.

Lyda's mind was in a haze from that point on. Her head was swarmed with thoughts that there would be no coming back from what had been done. It wasn't her fault, she told herself. Iris had forced her hand. She told her once to use her wisdom for good, but what good would it have been if the only other person who knew her secrets was alive to speak of them, especially after the threats she made. Yes, Lyda thought, they were threats!

Lyda walked across the ridgeline, dragging Iris' body behind her, except that, as she so evilly promised, she had not a hand on her. Lyda's hand was stretched out behind her, dragging Iris telekinetically through the grass. As the breeze fluttered through the trees, she could hear the whispers embedded in the rustling of the leaves, and for a moment, her mind flashed the memory of her nightmare when she saw the mysterious, cloaked figure carrying the woman's unconscious body down that dark, stone corridor. How far was she willing to go for the power of the Dark Twin?

After what felt like an eternity, Lyda came to a cliffside. She glanced over it to see a small river running forty or fifty feet below her. This would have to do. She turned around to kneel beside the body of her old mistress. That was the first time she got a good look at the husk that was left behind.

There was a series of fang marks scattered around her face, bruised and bloody, but that did not compare to the blood that gushed from her neck where the snake had punctured her jugular vein, thus sealing her slow and painful death. Lyda was relieved that Iris' eyes had closed before she died. She may not have been above something like this now, but she did not go back on her promises. I won't lay a hand on you.

Shedding a single tear from her eye, Lyda leaned down and kissed Iris on the forehead. "I hope you find peace," she said under her breath. "Treacherous bitch."

Standing back to her feet, Lyda raised her hand, and as she did so, Iris' body was lifted into the air by an unseen force. With nothing left to say, Lyda let out a cry filled with despair as she swung her arm to toss the corpse of her best friend over the cliff, watching as it plummeted into the river, vanishing from sight.

Lyda took a deep inhale that felt fresher than it had in a long time. A rush of cool wind swept up, blowing leaves around her feet, and sensing the presence of the Spirit that had guided her all this way, Lyda lifted her eyes from the cliffside and formed the most malevolent smile her face had ever known.