Content Warning: Depictions of Addiction, Trauma, Loss of a Parent, Gravedigging.

Welcome to Find Your Colors. Here we are discussing the narrative within the Shards of Color Trilogy and the first book in that trilogy, BLUSH BORN.

I am Jeff B. White, and I am the writer and creator of these stories. Through this publication and podcast, I am focusing on the emotional intelligence, radical vulnerability, and transformative growth found through exploring the psychological concepts and real life story behind this dark fairy tale.

Recap

On Monday, we read through Chapter 9, Loss of Color, and witnessed the ultimate tragedy of the story as the Uncrowned King ordered the execution of Regale Frye. We watched Jethran experience the devastation of losing his mother, a profound grief that triggered a massive surge of aureolin energy. He found a significant upgrade in his overall powers as he forged wings made of pure light and leveled the throne room before fleeing into the sky.

We also saw some other major developments in his abilities. There is now an active physical force caused by his vibrancy. Before this moment, his power manifested through love and perception, yet now it has become highly intense. His blast took the lives of two men when the BAPs who were holding him were turned to ash. He will soon have to process the reality that he ended those lives, even though the act was completely unintentional.

Today we are going to look at the psychological aftermath of that event with the breakdown for Chapter 10.

Buried Hearts

Chapter 10 Colorless Parting

The wings of light that had carried him from Evenhere City beat against the air with frantic energy. They were a construct of pure feeling. They were born of the searing yellow rage that had answered his mother’s murder and the profound grief that was its echo.

The light was the same aureolin yellow that had obliterated the fortress wall, a color of untamed power. It was the color of a world ending, and it was now a part of him. Jethran could feel them shuddering with his heart, each downstroke a silent scream. The sound they made was a rending, the sound of light tearing fabric, a sustained thunderclap that vibrated in his bones. The force of it was agonizing, pulling at new muscles in his back that he didn't even know he had. A magnificent pain that was the only thing keeping the void at bay. He moved with jagged agony, a comet of betrayal streaming across the storm filled sky.

He flew, cradling his mother’s body. Her familiar weight was now an anchor, grounding him in the emotional storm. He stared forward. He couldn’t look back. To look back was to see the gray sprawl of the city, the hole he had torn in the wall, the throne room, the King’s smiling face, the snap of his fingers. To look back was to see her body fall, again, and again, for eternity. Looking back meant unraveling in mid-air, to let the wings dissolve and to follow her into the ultimate gray.

He pressed on through the torrential rain until the gray of Evenhere City was a distant, sickening memory, a smudge of ash on the horizon. He continued until the air tasted cleaner, until the deep lilac of ancient tree bark grew tall enough to grant him sanctuary, their massive trunks standing with a promise of a world older and deeper than the TriAught. The world below presented a complex pattern, a tapestry only now existed because of him and the effect that his Blush was creating. He saw fields of swaying citrine grass that should have been gray. He saw the leaves on the lilac trees, vibrant with citrine, aureolin, and gold. It was a world with color. The world his mother had whispered about in forbidden lullabies.

He had brought her to it, but only in death. That realization was a fresh blade in his gut, twisting with every beat of his terrible wings. He was looking for a place that held all the beauty this world had to offer, something fitting for her grace. He passed over a jagged cliff edge, but its violence felt like a mockery of the King’s. A streak of lightning shot across the sky.

He saw a cave consumed by silence, but it felt too much like a tomb, an extension of the gray. His search continued over an expanse of blooming flowers, but its bright beauty was an insult, a laugh in the face of his grief. He knew in his heart that no place was good enough, no place deserving enough to house her. Not in this world or any other.

He found a hidden glade where a circle of stones cloaked in ancient moss leaned together as if whispering secrets. The constant downpour that had followed him from the Fortress to the glade reduced, but still the rain persisted. Despite the rain, the air here held a stillness, thick with the scent of damp soil and blooming night-flowers. The light was different, softer, as if the trees themselves were protecting this one, sacred patch of ground. It was not enough. It would never be. But it was all he had.

He landed. As his feet settled on the ground, his wings blinked once, twice, and dissipated in a cloud of stardust. He stood there for a moment, his body trembling from the exertion, the sudden silence of the glade a deafening roar after the thunder of his flight. He gently laid her down on a bed of soft moss. Her face was peaceful. The lines of worry, etched there by his mere existence were gone. Her blue eyes, now forever closed, were at last free. The sight was a fresh scar laid upon his spirit, and he choked on the hollow sob that tore at his throat.

With no tools, only his one good hand, he dug. He plunged his fingers into the lilac mud. He clawed, tore, ripped at the ground. He attacked the world through the mud. His hand was a frantic tool. He was furious at his own body, at his weakness, at the Menders who had stolen his hand and left him unable to even dig a proper grave. He poured all his rage, all his grief, into that hole. Every handful of mud, every rock he tore loose, was a memory that assaulted him.

Her hands mending a tear in his gray tunic. The gray-on-gray thread, a tiny, invisible act of love. Her quiet humming the lullaby of the traveller and the flower. Her face, lit by a single candle, as she whispered, “See how beautiful you are?”

He screamed, a jagged scream that echoed off the ancient stones, and clawed at the ground, his nails splitting, his fingers bleeding. The sting was a distant, unimportant fact, a small pain against the gaping wound in his chest. He dug until his arm was a trembling limb. He dug until the hole was deep enough, a cradle, a sanctuary. He was digging a grave not just for her body, but for the only warmth he had ever known. When it was deep enough, deep enough to be safe, he stopped, panting, his body slick with sweat, his stump aching with a phantom, digging motion. He looked at his hand, caked in mud and his own blood.

He lined the grave. He gathered broad leaves, still shimmering with citrine light. He found petals of blue lilies and purple roses and sprigs of red lavender. These were colors she would never get to experience. They were now part of this beautiful world he was somehow recreating and would never be able to share with her. He laid them with a tenderness he didn’t know he still possessed, a final, soft bed for her.

He lifted her one last time. Her body was impossibly light, a mere shell of the Wem who had been his entire world, his shield, his creator. He laid her to rest. He kissed her cold forehead. As the storm began another pitch, he began the task of returning the ancient dirt, handful by handful. The first clump struck her gray tunic with a suffocating thud that stopped his heart. It was the most violent sound he had ever heard. Each handful was a betrayal. The cool dirt felt like the gray pills from the Medic, burying her, hiding her, erasing her.

“I’m so sorry, Mother,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I’m sorry that I ruined your life. I’m sorry that I killed you.”

He worked until a small mound marked the place. He may as well have put his heart in the ground with her. Jethran knelt before it, his body hollowed out, shaking in the sudden chill of the forest. It wasn’t enough. The world would forget her. The TriAught had already erased her. He would not allow it.

He opened his satchel, pulling out the gray medic kit. His unfeeling fingers moved past the sterile bandages and salves until they found it: a simple, gray-metal dissection scalpel. The tool of the BigAught Medics. The tool of violation. He would take this tool of violation and turn it into an instrument of love. He had found a soft slab of slate by a small stream, and now he set to his work.

He placed it at the head of the grave. The first cut was hesitant, a shallow scratch on the stone’s dark face. He leaned into it, his shoulders bunching with effort, his one good hand gripping the scalpel with intensity. As the sky flashed with lightning, he began to carve her name.

R

The work was slow. Painstaking. The world faded. There was only the scrape, scrape, scrape of steel on stone. It was the only sound in the universe. He traced the letter again and again, the line growing deeper, truer. The muscles in his arm and back began to ache, to seize. The tip of the first scalpel blade dulled, the metal groaning. He paused, his breath coming in ragged gasps, and carefully, with trembling fingers, replaced it.

E

As he worked, he saw his mother’s warm smile. He heard her voice, a lifeline, whispering, “See how beautiful you are?” He carved the stone as if he could carve that memory into the world itself, make it permanent, make it real in a way that her death was not.

G

He poured all of his grief, his love, and his impotent rage into the task. Each scratch was a tear he couldn’t shed, a final conversation he would never have. He was taking their clinical tool of dissection and using it to assert her existence, to write her name into the ground that they had stolen her from.

A

Hours passed. The sun began to dip, painting the glade in shades of gray. His hand was a claw, cramping so badly he had to stop and pry his fingers open. His arm trembled with exhaustion, but he did not stop. A second blade chipped. A third. He worked until the last letter was finished, until her name was a permanent, undeniable truth.

L

He finally sat back on his heels, his body aching, the last scalpel blade broken. He ran his battered fingers over the freshly carved letters.

E

REGALE FRYE

He had done it. He had taken their instrument of dissection and used it to create a monument of devotion. It was done.

He then stood over the mound of lilac dirt and flowers, and he spoke. He recited the traditional words of parting of the Here. They were words she had taught him. Though he never imagined he would have to say them for her.

Part now, Here of Evenhere

Enter now into the Afterhere,

Go forward in your death,

Guide me through each breath.

You’re in my heart and forever will

With me be held ever still

And with that final, finished act, the fortress he had built inside himself crumbled. The meticulous focus, the rage that had fueled the digging, the spite that had guided the carving, it all vanished. The void rushed in.

He collapsed beside the fresh grave, his body convulsing with silent, dry sobs. He was alone. Utterly. Irrevocably. He was an island, a mistake, a plague. His mother was dead because of him. The pain became a vacuum, a cold star, a negative space in his chest that was heavier than any mountain. It sucked his lungs, his heart, his bones into a pinpoint of impossible density. He couldn’t breathe. He was going to die here, and he deserved to.

He reached for the gift of Muralis. He took a slow, deep breath, and as he exhaled, a calming plume of cobalt-blue smoke emanated from his lips. The Mist of Muralis.

He hesitated. He looked at the grave, at her name. To breathe it in was to lessen the pain of her loss. It was to let her go. It was to betray this monument he had just built. She deserved to be mourned. The pain spiked. A memory, unbidden, flashed behind his eyes: the snap of the King’s fingers, a sound so small, so casual, that had ended his world. The sound of her body hitting the stone floor. It was too much. It was unbearable. No one should have to feel this.

He gasped, a desperate, broken sound, and inhaled the mist, pulling it deep, deep into his lungs. It was instantaneous. It was cold. It was a profound numbness. The vacuum in his chest was filled with a cool, blue stillness.

He had become a hollow statue of grief. He stood to his feet, his movements now fluid and empty. He shouldered his satchel. He gave the grave one last, empty look. Then he turned and began walking.

He wandered aimlessly as he simply wanted to put as much distance between himself and the place where he left his warmth. He wandered through the forest in a constant downpour of rain. He was a shell of his former self. The Mist of Muralis was a fickle, demanding friend. It was a mask, and it required constant maintenance.

Then, the mist would begin to thin. A fragment of memory would break through. The smell of the wax from the King’s throne room. The creak of the leather on Martier’s boots. The color of his own aureolin wings. Each time the feelings and emotions would begin to rise, a jolt of uncut agony would electrify his system. His knees would buckle. A scream would build in his throat. And he would panic.

He then would exhale, hard, conjuring a blue cloud, and he’d breathe it in. He became desperate and greedy. He would inhale until the memory shattered, until the feeling was gone, until the world was flat and silent and safe again. For two days, without stopping to sleep, without stopping to eat, he meandered through the Western Wilds. For two days, he held the Mist of Muralis at nearly each breath. Refusing to allow himself to feel.

On the third day, his body began to fail. The numbness could not mask starvation. The hunger was a grinding pain that the mist couldn’t touch. The pain of his arm was a searing screaming monster that nothing could subdue. The cold was seeping into his bones, and the warmth of the numbness could not stave it off.

Then he remembered the BAPs. The two hereman who escorted him from the dungeon into the throne room. The ones who held him whenever he tried to run towards his mother. They had turned it to ash when his body detonated. They were killed. He killed them. He didn’t mean to do it. It was just his raw power.

He stumbled, falling to his knees. The jolt of these thoughts was enough to crack the blue shell. He was too tired to summon the mist, too weak to fight. Jethran thought he deserved to feel the weight of the lives he had taken. He just lay there, weeping, until he had no tears left.

Then as the last ounce of strength left his body, he was stricken with a searing vision. This was similar to the ones that he had experienced before, but there were no misty woods and there was no storm.

There was only a graveyard, and a swoosh sound. He looked up to see there was a giant red lady swinging from the purple crescent moon. The swoosh of her swinging began to take on a rhythmic effect, forming itself into beat. Then he heard the lady humming. Soon the air filled with song.

Upon a once before…

Swinging from the crescent moon,

Graves below in lilac dirt.

The crimson lady keeps time.

As she holds an ancient hurt,

Her voice, it rings like a chime,

She hums a forgotten tune.

Her left hand shows you the past,

Heavy songs across the space.

Humming with the bitter tears,

Watching the forgotten place.

Holding secrets from the years.

The other a future cast.

Forgetting everything,

Given for the trust compelled.

For if the past was to fade,

As the memories she held,

She gave her past unafraid,

Beauty futures will not bring.

Trust will make the vision clear,

Remember for Evenhere.

Jethran watched as the lady hummed, holding out her hand. From that hand grew a bright light that separated into six smaller lights. Each a different color. Crimson, Indigo, Cobalt, Vermillion, Celadon, and Aureolin. The tiny lights swirled around each other until a new light was formed. Pink.

Suddenly, a darkness came and the world turned gray, then to dust. Then the seven lights bound together and shot across the sky. Flying directly into the sun. From her other hand, a world arose. Vibrant with all colors.

Jethran thought it must be her showing the past and future of Evenhere. He couldn’t think of any other explanation as to what those moments she portrayed in her hands could have possibly meant.

Then the being stopped and looked directly at him across the distance. She spoke into his very essence…

Remember who you are.

The vision ended. He was dizzy. He hoped this was from the lack of food and sleep. He sat for a while thinking about these things. Just trying to figure out what it meant.

“I’m just... Jethran,” he sighed.

Finally, he stood and began walking forward. Eventually his path led him to a village nestled in a small, damp valley. It was a collection of low, gray cottages that were half-hidden in the steam that rose from vents in the ground. The steam swirled through the air in heavy clouds. It clung to everything, muffling the sounds of the world, making the entire village look like a watercolor left out in the rain.

Although it did smell of herbs, it smelled sweet and inviting, not at all like the antiseptic scent he found in the Mender Village. At first he told himself not to go. His good hand instinctively flew to his stump. After what he survived in the Menders Village, he did not want to face anything similar. He crouched at the edge of the ridge, watching.

The hunger was a grinding pain. The cold was real. The ache of his arm almost too much. They might have medicine. Eventually, his mind settled on the fact that it wouldn’t be possible for something like that to happen again. The Menders must be a unique group of people.

He resolved not to trust and not to be a victim again. Jethran exhaled the Mist of Muralis, despite having declared himself finished with it. He took a slow inhale to steady his perception. Then he began the careful descent into the village, noticing it almost seemed to be lit by the steam itself.

The Breakdown

Reclaiming the Blade

Chapter 10 deals entirely with the immediate shockwave of profound grief as Jethran lands in the Western Wilds and faces the physical reality of burying his mother. He digs a grave using only his one remaining hand, allowing the intense physical exertion to become a channel for his rage.

The most important psychological shift happens when the burial is complete and Jethran needs a way to mark the grave. He reaches into the stolen medical kit and pulls out a Big Aught scalpel.

The scalpel is a tool of the oppressor representing the clinical compliance of the King’s regime. Jethran takes the exact instrument used for dissection and forces it to create a monument of devotion. By carving her name into the stone, he asserts her existence against a system that tried to erase her.

In recovery, we often have to take the systems or the experiences that broke us and repurpose them. We take the pain and use it as the mortar for our new foundation. Jethran reclaims his agency by turning a weapon of the gray into an anchor for his love.

The Afterhere

Chapter 10 introduces the concept of the Afterhere, serving as this world’s answer to the afterlife and establishing the three distinct planes of existence held within the kingdom’s belief structure. Evenhere acts as the living world where everyone currently resides; the Afterhere is treated as a beautiful, heavenly afterlife; and the Underhere exists as a tangible plane considered to be the physical source of all darkness.

We also experience the Song of Parting for the very first time. Later in the story, we discover that each culture has its own unique version of this parting song, and we eventually learn how they all seamlessly fit together.

Because this is our initial introduction to the song and Jethran is singing it for Regale, I embedded a hidden tribute by making the first letters of every line spell out the name of my own mother. The character of Regale is deeply based on her in countless ways. The name Regale is actually an anagram created using the letters of my mother’s full name, just as Jethran Frye is an anagram of my own full name. I simply gave his mother the same last name I created for him.

Interestingly, the name Jethran Frye translates to “generous ruler who brings freedom and abundance,” while the name Regale Frye means “she who provides unconditional love without cost.” Those definitions perfectly capture the essence of the characters wearing these names.

This naming convention happens frequently throughout the early parts of the story, as seen later with Winley Knowles who was created using my friend William’s full name. Also, Martier’s name was built as an anagram from my father’s full name.

A true testament to the living, breathing nature of this story is how the worldbuilding eventually evolved beyond my initial blueprints. I started by crafting names using the names of people close to me, crafting these deeply personal anagrams early in the drafting process.

As the lore expanded, the fictional cultures of Evenhere took root and began generating their own unique linguistic rules. Characters started emerging organically with names dictated entirely by the history and language of their specific societies. The foundational rules I set for this world, this itself, Evenhere essentially gained a mind of their own, creating culturally significant traditions that now actively steer the narrative into entirely unexpected directions.

The Mist of Dissociation

Once the carving is finished and the adrenaline fades, the void of grief rushes in to make the pain entirely unsurvivable. Jethran uses the Mist of Muralis again, despite having said that he would never use it again.

The mist gives him Stillness. In psychological terms, Jethran intentionally triggers dissociation.

In my memoir, Shards of Hope: A Tweaker Witch’s Journey, I talk openly about using substances to numb the noise of my own trauma. When the reality of life feels like a crushing weight, finding a way to simply turn off the feeling becomes an act of desperate survival. The mist gives Jethran a profound numbness and fills the vacuum in his chest with a quiet stillness.

Every time a memory breaks through, Jethran experiences a jolt of pure agony that causes him to panic and inhale more mist. He chooses the quiet of the mist over the screaming reality of his grief.

The Burden of the Blast

Beyond the grief of losing his mother, Jethran carries a new internal conflict because his powers evolved from perception into destruction. The aureolin energy turned two BAPs into ash. The act lacked intentional malice, yet the consequence remains absolute.

Processing that guilt of even unintentional harm adds a true cost of his power. This moment is going to affect him for a very long time.

The Demand of Memory

Jethran starves his body and exhausts his mind trying to outrun the pain until his physical form finally fails and the mist cracks.

In that moment of vulnerability, he receives a chilling vision of the Crimson Lady swinging from the crescent moon. She hums her song of hallowed land and bitter tears, showing him the creation of the colors and a vibrant world rising from the dust. Then she speaks a direct command into his very essence, telling him to remember who he is.

Healing demands that we look at our history so we can understand the shape of what remains, to find the beauty that awaits in the future. The vision forces Jethran to stop running and start walking forward, even if he still only sees himself as “just Jethran.”

In truth, the moments this vision shows actually foreshadow events from the following two books. Events that will not be clear or understood by Jethran until he is in his 40’s.

Bargaining with Trauma

At the end of the chapter, Jethran finds a new village, and his immediate reaction is absolute terror. His hand flies to his stump because the last time he trusted healers, they mutilated him.

This is a textbook trauma response where the brain projects a past betrayal onto a future opportunity. The body registers a threat before the mind can even process the environment. Jethran has to engage in a mental bargain to step forward, rationalizing that lightning rarely strikes the same place twice.

However, acknowledging the logic does not instantly erase the fear. He pushes past his panic to seek food and warmth, but he still has to exhale and inhale the Mist of Muralis one more time before descending into the steam. Healing is a slow process, and sometimes taking the next brave step requires leaning on the exact coping mechanism you are trying to outgrow.

Let’s Discuss

This chapter forces us to look at how we survive the unsurvivable moments of our lives.

* Have you ever had to take a painful experience and repurpose it to build something beautiful?

* Have you ever found yourself relying on a coping mechanism to numb a pain you were unprepared to face?

* How do you convince yourself to keep moving forward when your past experiences demand you hide?

Feel free to answer these questions in the comments below or just take them with you as you go.

What’s Next?

On Monday, we will do a readthrough of Chapter 11. We will follow Jethran into this new village and see exactly what kind of people live hidden in the steam.

En Español

Recently, a friend told me that they had tried to listen to this on Spotify but they just weren't able to keep up because English isn't their first language, and they still struggle sometimes. So that prompted me to begin using Google translate and 11 Labs voice cloning to record my previous posts in Spanish using my actual voice. I'm actually quite impressed with how these things have turned out. So I'm currently in the process of translating the previous posts that have been shared on here as well as my novel itself. That second part takes a little bit more work than I initially realize but might actually be worth doing. So stay tuned for updates on that because it's turning out to be an interesting part of this journey.

Join the Conversation

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Thanks!

If you read this all the way to the end or listened to it all the way through, you are absolutely my hero. I want to thank you for allowing me the time out of your day and the space in your brain to share my story and to introduce Jethran to the world.

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