#roderika

“Don’t you miss how it felt to let the light flow behind your eyes? When the searing of your body gave you that fleeting sensation of joy and hope…?”

This time it was the voice of her dead mentor, forced into a soft tone so very unlike the man she knew when he was alive… ‘He’ stood beside the blind girl, their hands joined and watching Shalem expectantly… waiting.

“Shut up,” the Elden Lord growled, “...Go away…”

Hyetta cooed sweetly, “We danced together once… we both felt the light of salvation as the Three Fingers touched our souls…”

Shalem’s jaw tightened, and she began to write firmer, louder, flicking and spattering ink across the paper but she didn’t care… She needed the noise of their voices drowned out.

“We were so close,” Hyetta continued, swinging her hand in the demon’s like a merry child instead of a harbinger of desolation, “We both held the answer together, and we were going to truly repair the world, My Lord… Truly end suffering and curses… Truly reach equality and peace… Truly erase the sins of the Golden Order… Return all to its rightful place within The One Great…”

The corners of Shalem’s vision blurred, and she felt the stabbing and burning pain behind her right eye again. She fought to keep her breathing from going uneven, straining her lungs to stay calm and steady. Ignore, ignore, ignore, ignore… They would go away eventually…

The demon spoke again, squeezing Hyetta’s hand with one and reaching the other to Shalem, “...I did warn you truly; your ascendancy through sacrifice would only poison the roots of your lordship. No matter how many sleepless days you bury yourself in this banal busywork, you have always felt the corpses of those who died for your flawed new Order on your back. When you try to sleep, we come to you and we know you hear their dying screams, cries, and regrets in your ears. When you feel moments of vane joy or ease, you begin to see again the suffering you cannot stamp out; the horrors that all living creatures continue to inflict upon each other… How long will you continue to ignore the truth?”

Shalem stood up abruptly from her desk, kicking her chair away and clapping her hands over her ears. She turned away from the demon and the blind girl, pacing around the space and letting the sound of her own breathing fill her ears. Her right eye burned, and squeezing her eyelids shut didn’t help ease the pain or push away the mirage of her tormentors.

“I don’t care,” she spat through gritted teeth, “I will work tirelessly for centuries if I have to and I will achieve peace and harmony without becoming a tryant or killing innocents… You are wrong…”

Hyetta was now in front of her, undoing the bandage around her eyes and smiling softly, “Even if you can, then after you die… who’s to say an Elden Lord won’t follow into the throne after you with crueller intentions…? The work you exhaust your body to push out will always be meaningless… Struggle will always be meaningless… Now that you know the truth… The only thing that can be done to free this world from evil in totality…”

Shalem kept her head down, refusing to look up and see the hollowed and charred eye sockets that flickered with sickly yellow flames. Her jaw tensed so hard that it hurt, and a bead of sweat went down her temple.

“The pain and sin can all finally end,” the demon purred, reaching its left hand– Yura’s hand– toward her right eye, “...We can truly bring about everlasting serenity and silence… as soon as you take that false sense of golden security from your right eye…”

“SHUT UP…!!!”

Shalem grabbed a glintstone ornament within an iron fxture from her desk and hurled it with fury towards the image of Hyetta and the demon.

At the sound of glass shattering, she gasped and jolted.

…Both horrid visions were gone, and she stared at the splintered and broken mirror in the remnants of her rage. In the few pieces of silver that hung off the frame, Shalem stared blankly at herself, her tired and haunted eyes staring back at her with pupils narrowed to thin slits. But… moreso… she noticed the single stream of blood that ran down her right cheek from the corner of her right eye.

With trembling fingers, she reached up and touched where the blood pooled and fell from… When she felt something firm against her fingertip, she gave a shaky exhale… the Unalloyed Gold needle was still in place… But it’s power could only do so much. As Ranni had feared when she had first helped Shalem affix the needle, it could only stop the progression of one’s affliction, not end it.

The only other option with a higher chance of success was her and Ranni’s magnum opus; Starsteel. Not only was it a viable replacement for Miquella’s Unalloyed Gold, but it ended up having a much stronger effect in completely preventing an outer entity’s advances…

Rykard had been her first test, sewing it into the Praetor’s neck and mostly restoring his body and mind from the God Devouring Serpent’s mutation and integration. From there Tanith and ergo Volcano Manor swore loyalty to Shalem and committed to manufacturing more Starsteel from the refined meteorite ore to make the stakes for Caelid and to make another strand . But… the thread-like chain that was produced for Shalem two years later had to be rerouted to a different recipient– Messmer.

She had made her vow to Messmer that in exchange for him agreeing to be the reigning Empyrean beside her if she took the Elden Throne, she would find a way to free him from his curses and afflictions from the Abyssal Serpent and his own fire. While sewing that precious thin strand of silver into Messmer’s ring finger wasn’t a point of regret at all– especially since the outcome was a levelheaded and much more agreeable co-ruler… but, well… Shalem was also aware of what she had given up for it.

Ranni wasn’t in this world to speak with about theories and hypotheses on how to push back the Frenzy anymore.

A new Starsteel thread was years away from plausible production.

And her co-ruler was infamous for how ruthlessly he handled cataclysmic threats against his land and people.

Saying she was absolutely fucked was being generous.

Prevention was no longer viable. The infection of Frenzy had gone from a pain she could ignore to regular hallucinations and the burn of flames that curled under her skin.

Now she was staring down the shattered glass where possibility once stood, and the only thing left to do as fast as possible-– with whatever weeks or months she had left— was mitigation, preparation, and Thiollier’s ‘Last Ditch Effort’ to seal it away with herself.

“Shalem…!”

A head of short and wispy blonde hair bounced into the room with a panic, pulling her out of her daze. Shalem clapped her hand over her right eye and glanced over her left shoulder to see Roderika panting and staring at her with concern.

“I-I heard you yell and something break! Are you okay…?!” the spirit tuner paused to look aside and see the shattered mirror, “Oh no– wh-what happened?!”

The Elden Lord gave a smirk and a huff, “I appreciate it, Roderika, but it’s just a brief moment of regular stress… You don’t have to worry.”

Shalem turned away fully from Roderika, keeping her bleeding eye covered and making for her desk.

Roderika fidgeted her hands, voice dropping to a mutter, “But… regular stress doesn’t make you lash out and break things… Something must be wrong… Wh-why don’t I get Fia and invite Nepheli Loux over…? Maybe you need a break… If its sleep, maybe Mister Thiollier can make you something to help…? Or I can also ask the king if he’d–”

“Roderika. Stop. I just had a weak moment because I haven’t slept well. There’s no need for you to get everyone concerned over a broken mirror. This paperwork pissing me off, but I’ll get through it. That’s all. And Thiollier already made me something to help if I need it.”

Of course she lied. Why would Shalem be honest and tell anyone that she had been seeing visions of the Frenzy’s agents speaking to her and beckoning her…? The last thing she needed was to sow fear and dissent so soon after taking the Elden Throne, let alone that she figured Messmer wouldn’t hesitate to move as fast as possible to lock up and bury her if he knew she was harboring the Frenzied Flame…

With a heartbreaking whimper, Roderika dropped her hands and bowed her head, nodding once, “...Okay… But… Sh-Shalem, if you do get to feel it’s too much… can you please tell me? Or any of the others… It’s probably not easy. Being Lord, I mean.”

Keeping her back to Roderika, Shalem sighed slowly and reached the window, setting both of her hands on the windowsill and looking out to the light rain that had begun to drizzle on the stones of the castle and the newly red and orange leaves of the ‘Erdtree’. All she offered Roderika was a slow nod, not putting her heart into it.

After a few moments, she heard the spirit tuner’s soft footsteps begin to move. Just before Shalem could figure Roderika was leaving, the young woman rushed up behind her and threw her arms around her shoulders, pressing her cheek to Shalem’s back.

…Her eyes went wide at the gesture, Roderika holding her tight for ten seconds before finally letting go and stepping back.

“Just… try and take extra time to sleep tonight?” she softly pleaded, “And maybe you can take a break soon… Go clear your mind with a little dungeon crawl and treasure hunt like you used to…?”

…Shalem let out a shaky exhale, lowering her head. She couldn’t bring herself to be cold to Roderika, not for more than a struggling few seconds at least. Not to mention, the advice given wasn’t far-fetched… It had been almost a year since she had left the Land of Shadow and ergo had ended any all of her expeditions and field studies.

“...How about this, then–” she began glancing over to Roderika briefly, “--there’s an area on one of my maps I have yet to go study. Let me wrap up and pin down a few things here so that way I can take a short trip out, then I’ll go… It’ll be a short reprieve. Okay?”

“...Yes…” she could practically hear the weak smile in the spirit tuner’s voice, “And… I could come with you…? Or Nepheli.”

Shalem shook her head slightly, “No need; where I’m going is pretty innocuous, and the catacombs there seem to be pretty small. It probably won’t even take me more than half a day to go in, explore, and come out and be on my way back. Having Nepheli leave Stormveil for a three day ride up here to come with me, do that, and take the long journey back wouldn’t be a good use of either of our time.”

“I-I know you’re both lords now,” Roderika muttered and shrugged, “But… she talks about how she misses when we all spent time together in the Hold…”

The tone made Shalem’s heart feel heavy, and she paused for a moment.

“...Okay, then,” she responded softly, “...When I get back… I’ll send out letters. And we can have any evening of just the four of us.”

The light little gasp of elation took weight off the Elden Lord’s shoulders, “R-really? Oh! I… Yes. I think we’d all love to…! We all should… I… Okay. I’ll leave you to it. Just… let me know.”

Finally, the sound of light footsteps faded out of her office and down the hallway, the tall door groaning behind Roderika.

Shalem finally slumped over, keeping upright by her grip on the windowsill, and gave a weary, shaking sigh…

A cardinal with its bright red feathers cutting through the gloom of the sky fluttered past the window, and she looked up to watch it as it passed her by. She was left with her own reflection again, the bleeding of her right eye stopped but the blood drying and clotting on her cheek. It made her tighten her jaw and grip on the window.

“...I’ll just clean up and get back to work…”

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