All secrets become deep. All secrets become dark. That's in the nature of secrets.
I have known since we met that you carried a burden, some secret that weighed you down. You looked up at me and I saw darkness in your eyes and your sad smile, even as you tried to hide it.
It is a new talent of mine, this power of recognition. Perhaps it developed because I failed so completely at seeing the secret that was killing my friend, a lifetime ago. When Ozorne needed someone to save him from the darkness that was eating him alive, I let him down. I don't talk about my regrets when it comes to who I used to be, because they're hard to understand, even for myself. Hard to understand that you can love and miss those who have hurt you, that it is impossible to separate the hatred from the fear from the self-loathing from the memories of pain.
My anger, so tightly controlled and hidden and usually forgotten, is not secret anymore. It is easy for others to understand the hatred when they have seen the scars, and so revealing it does not give away anything real. All the things done to me at the hands of my former friend are no longer secrets, either; these things that used to haunt me as they have scarred me have now been understood by and revealed to friends in my safest moments since I changed my name and made a new life for myself in Tortall.
But still I carry secrets. And since you are about to reveal yours, screwing up all your formidable courage to the task as Onua and Alanna and I wait in silence, I can reveal mine, if only to myself.
I was the only one who didn't bow to his every whim, whom he trusted to tell him the truth without manipulations. I can look back and see the signs that he needed someone to help him, that he was trying to tell me that something was wrong, something he didn't understand and didn't want to admit. He was growing distant and irrational and he was frightened as his mind began to rebel against him and I was too busy with magic and papers and experiments to see. The secret I will not tell: it was my fault, all the terrible things he did. I deserved it, not because I was the traitor his madness convinced him I was, but because I failed him when he needed me most.
Analytically, I know that my friends will deny the truth of this, if I say it out loud. They will try to convince me that I did not deserve what was done. And some part of me believes it, but most of me does not. And because I cannot separate Ozorne-my-friend from Ozorne-my-torturer in my memories – because there was no one moment when he transformed from one into the next and left all we shared between us behind – the guilt remains deeply embedded. And because I know they would be horrified to learn that I blame myself for what happened in his dungeons, I do not tell them so they cannot fail to convince me otherwise.
As I promise not to interrupt your story of what happened to put you on the road to that fair in Galla, alone, I hope that you do not carry the same kind of secret with you. I hope that my secrets of pain in dark rooms, and the level of betrayal possible between friends, and my lack of any chance of redemption are mine alone to carry, but I have seen your eyes and can read the darkness there. If your secret is unique to you, it is no less painful to carry.
And so, magelet, this is something we share. But I have called your courage formidable, and you have just proven me right as you take a shaking breath and begin to tell your story.
It is not easier to open up to that light; secrets want to be kept. They embed themselves in darkness that surrounds you until all memories of the light are gone. It is the power they are given when they are not rooted out. When you have a secret, you close your eyes to keep it safe. In your mind, your secret has taken such importance that you think you'll never be rid of its weight, that you will carry it forever, that it has become you. You think the only way to protect yourself is to hide in the darkness.
But everyone has secrets. And they lose their power when they are shared.
I believe it when I tell you that you are not to blame for the wrongs done to you, for the harm others chose to commit. It is easy to look at you and tell you that you did not deserve the pain and fear and loss you experienced, no matter what may have happened, no matter your role, no matter how different you were.
I see the parallels; I do. I know that if I sat with my friends and took my own shaky breath that they would say the same thing to me. It's just that we all have to wander through the darkness until we are ready to open our eyes. No one can help us find our light; we must do it for ourselves... but we are all searching.
If you think you are alone in the dark, you are wrong.
A/N The quote at the beginning is from the book Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow: with no exceptions, the weirdest book I have ever read in my life. This one-shot was written for the TPE Halloween Challenge #2, which gave the last line and asked it be used either to start or end a story of the writers' choice. This was very difficult to write, and took a different direction than I expected so all responses are welcome!