#shadowglass

i wish i could sink my teeth into your neck and shake like a fucking dog. you're mine. you're mine. all mine. i'll fucking kill you. no one else should ever have you.

Finished chapter 12 and I'm 99% sure the traitor is Althy. I'm making more and more realisations and how it just fits too well.

1) it would be between Shadi, Althy or Tea's mother as suspects for Likh's blight. Shadi isn't a traditionalist but could theoretically still be physically capable (though again she would lack a motive) and the mother has an ordinary heartsglass so she is physically incapable at all. Which leaves only Althy or Shadi.

2) Althy has been with Mikayla from the start as her friend, however, if we look at this just purley physically, she has been around longest and since Mikayla lost her heartsglass AND, most importantly, there when the previous Dark Asha in Mikayla's care "went mad with darkrot" by laying waste to a village. Shadi was not around or knowledgeable of these events. She is too young.

3) If we assume darkrot isn't real or caused by dark heartsglass, then we can also assume that last Dark Asha from before could have been afflicted by the same poison Tea was. She was also dangerously "close" to taming the Daeva and questioning the Elders.

4) Why was Likh specially targeted for the blight? I think this may point to Althy's potential motives. I believe it wasn't just his/her closeness to Tea, but the deviancy from the Elder Asha's ways. Same with Khalad, Althy has been suspiciously distant and I don't think that's a coincidence. I think she's far more traditional in the older Asha ways than she lets on.

5) Althy was too quick to blame Tea. While she wasn't exactly hostile at first, she showed the same exact distance/ indifference to Tea when she was arrested as she tends to show Khalad. I think the latter point may be a stretch, but it gives off the same feel to me; there's distinct inability to frame Tea as innocent because she doesn't WANT Tea to be viewed as innocent.

6) Altaecia was far too quick to become volatile and so against tea. She also immediately blamed her for Mikaela's death, but I don't think it was genuine. It felt too forced. I think she knew tea was innocent, but wanted her to be viewed as guilty once again.

7) She demanded to see Tea's pages far too much and as far too hasty. She wanted to get those pages as soon as possible. She was very likely the one to steal the last pages.

8) I think the traitor would be someone who weasled their way right next to Tea to keep her as a regular ""Bone Witch who will die for her purpose"" rather than finding too much of the truth, and what better position would be as an Asha Sister to her?

As for her motives for all the above, I think it's very likely she was never actually friends with Mikaela but instead was charged to keep watch over her, helped to hide her heartsglass from her and silence Vanor, poisoned the apprentice to compel her into murder/ madness, poisoned Tea and killed Daisy, tried to blight Likh to frame Tea as the one to kill him/her (two birds with one stone), and, finally, was the one behind blighting the Elders and killing Mikaela. I think Althy, if we view her as an agent of the Elder Asha's and perhaps a to-be Elder Asha herself, these crimes make sense. Especially if you see her actions under a lense of traditionalism and trying to keep the status quo.

TLDR:

tea of the embers-

8 November 2019

Made a sketch of my character’s (Morrigan’s) weapon, I’ll post more about it when I add color!

sometimes i wonder if i am cut out for fucking anything. if my therapy is actually doing me any good. if there is actually a future for me that doesn’t involve restarting my life every year or two.