The room swam in and out of focus. He could barely make out the master’s shape anymore, just a dark outline against the firelight.
Why? Lucas managed to ask. Why destroy your own work? Because they’re coming, the master said.
People who want to know what I knew. People who need those names to stay buried.
I’m dying anyway, Lucas. But I won’t let them have the truth. Not like this.
Not to use it. Not to bury it deeper. If the truth dies, it dies with me on my terms.
The last thing Lucas saw before the darkness took his vision completely was the master’s hand reaching toward the fire as if trying to warm himself against the flames that were consuming his life’s most dangerous work.
Then everything went black. And in that darkness, Lucas realized something terrible. He’d read enough of those manuscripts to remember.
The mana fell into chaos in the darkness. Lucas heard bodies stumbling, furniture crashing, voices calling out in panic.
The housekeeper, Donna Maria, was crying somewhere near the kitchen. The cook kept repeating, “I can’t see.
I can’t see.” Like a prayer that wouldn’t be answered. And through it all, the master’s labored breathing, steady and calm, like a man who’d expected exactly this.
Lucas pressed his palms against his eyes, hoping it was temporary, hoping the burning would fade and his vision would return.
It didn’t. The darkness was complete, total. The kind of black that makes you question if your eyes are even open.
Master. His voice sounded small in the confusion. I’m here. The old man’s voice came from near the fireplace.
Don’t move too quickly. Your body needs to adjuSt. Adjust to what? Being blind. To the price of truth.
Lucas wanted to scream at him. Wanted to grab the old man and shake him and demand answers that made sense.
But his legs wouldn’t cooperate. He slid down against the wall, his hands still covering his useless eyes, and tried to breathe through the panic clawing at his cheSt. Don Maria found her way into the room by following the wall.
Lucas heard her shuffleep approach, heard her voice thick with tears. “Senor, what happened? What was in that smoke?”
The master didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice carried a weight that silenced everyone.
I protected my work the only way I knew how. Years ago, when I realized what I’d written, what I’d documented, I treated those manuscripts with a compound.
Something that would make them dangerous to handle, dangerous to burn, dangerous to anyone who tried to take them from me without permission.
You poisoned us, Lucas’s voice came out harder than he intended. “I poisoned the truth,” the master corrected.
“You were just in the way.” The casual cruelty of it hit Lucas like a fiSt. He trusted this man, admired him, traveled hundreds of kilometers to work beside him, and the master had knowingly, deliberately blinded him to protect secrets Lucas didn’t even fully understand.
“What was in those manuscripts?” Lucas asked. “What was so important that you do this?”
The master’s breathing grew heavier. Lucas heard him shift, heard the creek of the old leather chair as he settled into it.
“Names,” he said finally. Dates, places, things that happened during the years when powerful people thought they could do anything and no one would remember.
I was there. I saw. And I wrote it all down, disguised as fiction. The books that got published were safe versions, edited, cleaned up.
But the originals, those were testimony. Testimony of what? Of crimes that were never prosecuted.
Of people who were disappeared. Of money that changed hands while families starved. Of decisions made in private rooms that destroyed lives in public squares.
The master’s voice grew stronger, like talking about it gave him energy. I was young then, connected to the right families, invited to the right gatherings.
They talked freely around me because I was just a writer, just an artiSt. They didn’t think I’d remember.
They didn’t think I’d care. Lucas felt something cold settle in his stomach. The dictatorship, among other things.
The master coughed, a wet sound that spoke of failing lungs. I wrote it all down, every name I could remember, every detail.
I thought someday I’d be brave enough to publish the real versions. But years passed.
I got comfortable, famous, rich, and the people I’d written about got more powerful, more dangerous.
So, you just kept quiet? I kept the originals as insurance, as proof, as penance, maybe.
The master’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. But last month, I got a visit, a man in an expensive suit who knew too much about my filing system.
He didn’t threaten me directly. He didn’t have to. He just smiled and said he’d heard I was dying.
And wasn’t it fortunate that my estate would be so well preserved for future generations?
Lucas understood then they were coming for the manuscripts. After I died, yes, they’d have legal access to everything.
They’d find the originals, and they’d make sure those pages never saw daylight. Or worse, they’d use them as leverage.
Blackmail power. The master coughed again. I couldn’t let that happen. Better to destroy everything than let them control the narrative.
But you destroyed us, too, Doname said quietly from her corner of darkness. The master didn’t deny it.
Yes, he said simply. I did. The silence that followed was heavier than the darkness.
Lucas sat there, his back against the wall, trying to process what he just heard.
The master had poisoned them deliberately to protect secrets that powerful people wanted buried. And now Lucas would never see again, never see his mother’s face, never watch another sunrise over the FLLA, never read another book.
The unfairness of it burned worse than the chemical had. There has to be a cure, Lucas said.
An antidote, something. There isn’t. The master’s voice was flat. Final. I made sure of that.
You’re lying. I’m dying. What reason do I have to lie? Lucas pushed himself up from the floor.
His hands stretched out in front of him, feeling his way forward. His fingers found the edge of a table, then a chair, then finally the arm of the master’s leather seat.
He grabbed it, leaned down toward where the old man’s voice had come from. “You’re telling me I’m blind forever because you were too much of a coward to publish the truth when it mattered?”
“Yes.” No hesitation, no apology. Lucas’s hands tightened on the chair arm. He wanted to hit him.
Wanted to hurt him the way he’d been hurt. But what was the point? The master was already dying.
Already paying his own price. The others, Lucas said, Donna Maria, the cook, the driver, they didn’t ask for any of this.
No one asks for collateral damage, the master said. But it happens anyway. That’s what power does.
It spreads. It touches people who are just trying to live their lives. Is that supposed to make me feel better?
It’s supposed to make you understand. Lucas let go of the chair and stepped back, nearly tripping over something on the floor.
He caught himself breathing hard, fighting the urge to scream or cry or both. Around him he could hear the others moving carefully through the darkness.
Don Maria was praying now, her voice a steady murmur of Hail Marys. The cook had gone quiet.
The driver was cursing softly, methodically, like he was working through every bad word he knew.
There’s something else, the master said after a long moment. Something you need to know.
I think you’ve told me enough. The manuscripts weren’t the only copies, Lucas froze. What?
I’m old, not stupid. I made backups, digital files stored in three different locations, encrypted, protected.
The master’s breathing was getting worse, each word coming with more effort. I was going to take that information to my grave.
Let it all disappear with me. But now, now what? Now I’m thinking maybe that was the coward’s choice, too.
Lucas felt his way back to the wall and slid down again. His head was pounding.
