The Crow King's Wife (The Elder Blood Chronicles #5)(84)
“So Lex led Myth straight to our stronghold.” Remedy sighed heavily and rubbed his face. “I didn’t know the exact details there. I knew Faramir was different, but I didn’t know if she had always been Myth and was just now showing cards or if Faramir had been replaced and I had truly lost a friend. No one knew very much about Faramir beyond the fact that Caspian trusted her with his life and secrets. No one really knows where she came from or how Caspian found her, so it was possible she could have been Myth all along.” Remedy explained and felt something tighten inside his chest. He had kept himself from dwelling on Faramir, and some part of his mind had decided she had been a traitor all along and so he had pushed away any thoughts of mourning for her. Faramir had been with the Fionaveir long before him, and she had been the one to cleanse his cuts and read him stories as a child. She had nearly been a second mother, and now she was gone. He couldn’t decide which was a more painful thought, losing your mother or knowing she was a traitor and deceiving you all along. He had chosen the latter for the simple fact that it bred more anger than agony, but Azashy’s revelations stole that small bit of solace. Faramir had never been a traitor; she had been betrayed by her own blood. Though Remedy sincerely doubted Lex had any idea what he had done.
“Myth killed Faramir and took her form. It wasn’t too difficult for everyone to believe that Oma had run off and disappeared given how broken her mind was. The only one that might have been confused by that story was Shade, and he conveniently wasn’t there when it happened.” Azashy spoke gently. The look in her eyes told him that she understood the pain he was hiding, but there was no way to soften the truth.
“And with the trust everyone felt for Faramir Myth had an easy time with corrupting our ranks.” Remedy concluded sourly. He leaned forward in his seat and propped his elbows on the table before shaking his head at Azashy. “I don’t understand though. How did he turn Symphony so completely? Not even Lutheron is acting the same and I don’t understand at all. None of them would abide by what is going on if they were thinking clearly. Is Myth a mind mage as well?”
“It’s called conditioning, and as far as I know Myth is not a Mind mage. There are herbs that weaken a mind though and over a long course of time if you are told the same thing over and over you will believe it, especially if it’s something that already concerned you. Symphony worried that she wasn’t fit to rule over all, and with the use of herbs and soothing words Myth convinced her that it was true. Now Symphony will not make a single judgment without consulting Myth, and she doesn’t bother to check on the after effects of her decisions. She trusts every word she hears from Myth and believes the world to be exactly that way without looking for herself. Lutheron was simple to manipulate. He had to see a threat and once Myth showed him one clearly he was distracted from her actions. Caspian…” Azashy trailed off and stared down at the table.
“That is truly Caspian isn’t it?” Remedy demanded as she fell silent. He spoke more sharply than he intended to, but Caspian was more to him than Faramir had ever been. This entire mess was painful, but the thought that Caspian was dead too made it nearly unbearable.
“It’s Caspian.” Azashy replied softly. Her dark eyes trailed back down to her tea and she shrugged one shoulder. “He was an outlaw to most but to others he was a true hero. Seeing him so far from his path breaks my heart. The knowledge that I’m the one that brought about his fall is a guilt that crushes me whenever I dwell on it too long.” She rubbed absently at her temples and shifted in her seat before continuing. “Caspian was conditioned with his own failure. Myth used his time as High Commander of the Justicars against him and combined the memory of Fiona Veirasha’s death to lead him down his current path. Caspian is focused on cleansing the city of everything remotely wrong and he is going to an extreme that is going to get him killed. You cannot keep so many people imprisoned without repercussions. It is coming and it will be bad.” She met his eyes once more and smiled sadly. “And Sanctuary will lose another Hero and only a few will even mourn his death. Myth has taken Caspian’s shining honor and tarnished it beyond repair. No one will ever look at him with respect again, not even his own people.” Her gaze dropped once more and she slowly shook her head. “And it’s my fault. So many things are my fault and it’s a lesson I should have learned long before. What I did at Glis should have taught me to keep my mouth closed, but Myth has such charm when he chooses to use it. I didn’t even realize what I was doing, and now…” She fell silent and raised her tea cup to her lips.
“I can fix it Azashy. I am a Mind Mage. I can take the brainwashing and cleanse it from them and return them to what they were.” Remedy spoke into the silence and tried to keep the hesitation from his voice. What he suggested was risky and he was sure even Azashy knew that. In order to repair their minds he would have to guess what their true feelings on the matter had been before Myth’s tampering. There was a very good chance that he wouldn’t actually repair the damage but would simply change it to a different kind of damage. It was nearly impossible to keep personal sentiment from such work, and the odds that he would implant his own beliefs into their heads were very good.
“I could shatter this cup and glue the pieces back into place as I believe they should go, but the cup would never be the same again. There would be some cracks and chips that no matter how hard I tried I could not repair.” Azashy returned gently. “What is broken will never be properly mended. You can attempt to mend it, but there will be cracks that show and chips that are missing. Too much has been done to repair it fully and we both know that.”