The Sense-Wardens surrounded her, flooded her mind with pain and misery, made her want to curl up into a little ball, just surrender, stop fighting, beg for the instant release of death. The struggle wasn’t worth it. The anguish wasn’t worth it. Everything hurt and everything died and nothing was worth it. Give up. She should give up. Oh, God, she wanted to give up. She was crying. Of course she was crying. Why wouldn’t she? Life was nothing and nothing meant anything and everything was meaningless and she should just lie down and die. Just die, for God’s sake, and let the Faceless Ones judge her in death. Just lie down here and stop fighting and accept the end.
But she didn’t worship the Faceless Ones.
She didn’t believe they straddled life and death. She didn’t believe they would judge her.
These weren’t her beliefs. These were the beliefs of the Sense-Wardens, the men and women surrounding her and forcing these thoughts into her head. Oh, they were clever, these Sense-Wardens. They crept in there and force-fed her these feelings and made her despair. It almost worked, too. But they weren’t strong enough. “Not against her. Not against Darquesse. She was quickly becoming a god, quickly becoming strong enough to kill the Faceless Ones should she ever meet them again. These Sense-Wardens didn’t have the first idea who they were dealing with.
But they were realising now.
And some of them were already trying to pull out, but it was much too late. Now she was in their heads, and she was overpowering their puny little minds, crushing them with an ease that was frightening, terrifying. They tried to retreat but she caught them, one by one, and she was turning out the lights inside their minds. One, two, three and look as their bodies dropped four, five, six and they were all gone now, their minds ruined, their bodies shutting down, and Darquesse stood up and willed away the headache.