The way back was faster. He went through the cavern of Mt. Hyn and raided the jungle temple for supplies. The Priestesses clawed at him, tugged at him. Chattering in their strange language. But he wouldn't be deterred and they didn't really try to stop him.
His black mood drove him forward. He wouldn't take the Path. He'd walk through the fallow fields and desolated woods. Veshier fashioned himself a walking stick he knew he would need. His 'vision' would fail him once he got away from the Temple and the Brotherhood haunted the Path, looking for sacrifices. Surely, by now, word had spread that their vile master was awake and free from the stone.
He didn't let himself feel. It would break him if he did, he knew. Blaming the Bond, he'd come to love Linarra. That feeling hadn't abandoned him when the Bond did. It didn't leave when he'd seen her bright blue, beautiful energy intertwined with the Usurper's pop of vibrant red. She'd given herself to him. He should have hated her for it.
Veshier couldn't muster anything but heartache. He'd let himself fall for her, let the Bond twist his heart into her hands because he'd thought they would die. Together. Unlike Linarra, it wasn't a horror to think that the High Priestess had sent them to die. They were burdens on the Temple. Both of them inadequate and weak. A liability. The Mother, in the times before the Prophet, demanded sacrifices. Perhaps it had merely been time to go back to the old ways. Perhaps it was the only thing that would save the world from ruin.
All that was over now, however. Linarra had claimed that the Brotherhood had freed the Usurper, but just before the Bond between them had shattered, he'd felt something. Something strange.
He felt when the bond with the Usurper formed. Linarra had -chosen- it. Her spirit had called out to the Beast, woke him and freed him. Chose him. Over her Guardian. Over the Temple. Over the world. Why, he had no idea. She'd asked questions. She'd given into the little permissions. She had, in her own way without realizing it, seduced him too. Maybe it was her destiny. Just as it was his to thwart her and the Usurper. To redeem himself. Redeem his dead brother.
Now, with a pack laden with water and dried fruit and meat, Veshier set off adjacent to the Path. He knew it would be very easy to get lost this way. He had to stay in the brush. It made walking slow and tedious, brambles tearing at his trousers and cloak.
It didn't help that the journey there had been so perilous. His limbs felt heavier than flesh. Like stone, he mused. Every step hurt him. As he walked, he spoke.
"Mother, hear me. I have failed my Priestess. She serves the Usurper. Give me strength. Get me back to the Temple. Guide my path. I live to see your will done. I will be your Guardian," he said over and over like a mantra.
It was hubris, he knew, to ask to serve the Mother in such a way. He didn't deserve it, but he kept asking. Over and over and over. He whispered it to the hollow, sour smelling wind. Even if She never heard him.
At first, all the world was darkness. No spark of life, no energy, no colors against the inky backdrop of his blindness. And though he tried not to despair, it gnawed at him anyway. It would take him weeks this way, going at a snail's pace, tapping the ground with his walking stick. And if the Brotherhood came across him, it wouldn't be hard to dispatch him.
He wouldn't give in or give up. Veshier was determined to die trying. If that was his only path to redemption, then so be it. Renewed hope came in the form a tiny, golden thread of energy, barely perceptible. It glittered and grew and made its own path in the darkness.
Had the Mother heard him after all? Had she accepted him as her Guardian? Veshier wouldn't question it. He offered his thanks and followed the golden thread, now glimmering bright. He cast aside his walking stick as a show of faith and devotion.
The golden thread didn't follow the Path, which was winding, it cut through the dead fields and dying forests. It would lead him back to the Temple much faster. Veshier had been so overjoyed that his prayers were heard, that at first he didn't notice the pain and weakness leave his body.
All the aching soreness left his limbs. His thirst vanished and he felt sated, as though he'd just eaten his fill. Veshier returned to his full strength and had no doubt now that it was the work of the Mother. She had given him this boon, accepted his prayer, given in a golden path to follow. It hardened his resolve.
The only black thorn in all of it were his feelings for Linarra. He couldn't stop thinking of the bright electric blue of her energy. The way her mouth tasted when he'd kissed her. He thought he should pray for her, pray that she realize the Usurper's deception. Pray that the Mother purge her heart of the wickedness that clearly dwelt there.
But he couldn't bring himself to do it. Maybe it was selfish, some failing inside him. He had the same blood in his veins that his brother had. His brother had turned against the Temple and the Mother. He'd wanted to take his Priestess far away and make her his wife. Have children with her. The rift between him and his charge had made his Priestess take her own life. His brother followed by throwing himself from a cliff. It was the day his father had burned his brother's body that his gifted sight had been bestowed upon him.
"And that gift," he said to himself, "Was really destiny."
He had been chosen for this. To resist the temptation his brother had succumbed to. To not only see the Usurper destroyed, but see Linarra destroyed as well. She was his -whore-. It was foretold in scripture. He just never thought it would happen this way.
He didn't have the gift of prophecy and realized his own failings. Too literal, he told himself. He had to remain open to the Mother and her will and influence.
As he broke into a sprint, Veshier realized that the High Priestess may not give him a warm welcome. He was returning without his Priestess. His Priestess had given herself to the Usurprer. Liriel was well within her rights if she chose to put him to death. He accepted it. If that was the Mother's will, then it was. He knew he'd played his part. He only prayed Liriel would let him set it right.