Chapter 23
I can’t understand just how many bones in my body are damaged.
Nor can I fathom the sounds, the smells, the feel of the leaves under my fingers.
The light in my body begins its work of repairing.
I don’t move for hours. I entertain myself by listening to peculiar noises. Among the typical songs of birds and the skittering of smaller mammals, the squeaks and beeps of unnatural things are amplified beyond what I believe to be possible. They are nothing that I know from my world. Or from the world of Emira.
Is this the afterlife?
If so, why am I racked with pain? Why does my body continue to fight?
When I open my eyes, I see nothing but green trees and shrubbery above my head. As the sun moves across the sky, I get a sense that I’m alone, despite the noises.
I’m hidden in the underbrush.
I hear voices in a tongue that matches that of Emira’s and Bryn’s. Not entirely the same though. There’s laughter and music.
Children playing.
My head regains function, my neck finally able to turn—I’m certain it was broken—because now my legs twitch uncontrollably with my healing.
I resist crying out.
I understand the brush of footsteps. People are close. Closing in, but I can’t move. My body holds me, prevents me from moving as I heal.
No one comes though.
I play with my thoughts, calling out to those I was once bound to. Still nothing from Niawen and Caedryn. I am truly alone after being in constant companionship for so long.
Alone.
And free.
But unable to move.
I lose consciousness, succumbing to fate. Whatever happens must happen.
Suddenly, I spasm upright and whack my forehead on a low branch.
I brace my head and cry out from this new injury.
My hand comes away with a smear of blood.
A laceration. Nothing compared to having my entire body broken.
It’s daylight, and as I squint through the low brush, my eyes behold a world so very different from anything I have ever seen.
So not Emira. Not Bryn.
I must have passed through a portal.
Could Caedryn have channeled enough power to open a passage?
Is this to be my final torment?
I’m in a wooded area that breaks into an expanse of lawn. Beyond the lower trees, tall structures of windows and rock reach above them toward the heavens.
How are they so tall? What technology allows them to pierce the sky and block out the natural world?
I crawl to my knees as I continue to gape. I pause to take inventory. I have nothing but a knife in my boot. I’ve lost my twin blades, my other gear. They are still strapped to Huflaih.
I hope he survived.
My clothes are ripped and dirty. Sand fills my pockets, the crevices in my body armor. I absentmindedly brush myself off.
The grassy field beyond the wooded area is packed with people running and walking and sitting on benches, talking to no one, or talking to a slender rectangular box in their hands. The encroaching buildings loom overhead like monsters—rigid, angry beasts.
I gag. How can I even describe the odors? Rotting food. Sweat. A chemical slurry of gases. My stomach twists. I crouch into a ball, my senses on high alert.
Be still. Don’t smell, don’t hear, don’t see.I pull everything that is enhanced about me inside a little ball. I will myself to be normal. A long time ago, I had once known what normal meant. That seems beyond my grasp. Every cell in my body is changed. I know that. I feel that. But somewhere deep inside, I also know I can control it.
I will not be beaten yet.
What else could you possibly do to me?
I’m yelling at Niawen.
Her death is too fresh. Too raw.
She doesn’t deserve my rage.
Forgive me. Oh, please forgive me.
A moment of clarity settles over me, as if my hearing decides to take control. A sympathy of soothing notes sings to me. I have no idea what instruments call to me, or how the sheer number of them come together in such harmony. I hear every individual beat from every individual instrument.
I look up, following the music. Fifteen feet in front of me, a woman lies on a pink ruffled blanket. An array of food is spread around her. A book—I narrow my vision on the title, Merlin—lies face down over her stomach.
She wears skin-hugging pants, and a white knee-high dress under a violet knitted top. I marveled at the strange apparel and soon realize all the people in this realm are dressed bizarrely.
Her fingers twist a white cord. More intriguing, the wires attach to her ears. As I observe this peculiarity, I comprehend that the music comes from her ears.
I cock my head and rise to my feet. Thoroughly absorbed, I study her. Nothing else exists for the moment, and for that, I am grateful. All the overwhelming sensations have ceased. I almost laugh. Am I finally normal?
Her hair is golden. Her nose—scooping and tiny. Her lips—a squashed heart, slightly parted. After all this time, I know the exact features.
No.I’m haunted.
I will always be haunted. I stumble toward the woman.
She can’t be real.
I trip. After years of moving with such fluidity granted to me by the light, I trip.
The offender is a hard, dirty-white, flattened path. It stretches on in either direction on either side of me.
What in all the realms is this? My hands are scraped where I caught myself. They should heal shortly, but pain burns them.
I curse.
The golden-haired woman rolls upright, removing the strange wires from her ears. “Are you all right? You have to watch out for those sidewalks. They trip unsuspecting people left and right.” The woman giggles as she stands and comes over.
I brush my hands off on my pants. The skin has started to scab over. Somewhat relieved that I’m still in fact abnormal, I grope to my feet as she loops her arm through mine and steadies me.
I catch her scent. Heady, feminine, and sweet. On a deeper level, her pheromones connect with me.
Familiarity. Delicious familiarity after seemingly centuries of absence.
An ache surfaces, and I groan.
“Are you hurt?” Her voice sings through me.
“No, just embarrassed.” A lie. I can’t be embarrassed, not with the strings of my heart thrumming the way they are.
She looks me over. Checks the cut on my forehead that I’m certain has clotted. I still haven’t seen into her eyes because her hair cascades over her vision.
She swipes the shorter pieces out of her eyes. “Well, I’m not very graceful either. Don’t feel bad.”
“Thank you,” I say, trying to remember my manners. I shouldn’t be so rude, but they don’t return quickly after years of being with savage assassins. “I’m Kenrik.”
“Your pants are torn. What did you do to your forehead? It’s bleeding and your leg too.”
“I’m fine.”
She drags me over to her blanket and forces me down.
“There’s really no need,” I mumble.
She unscrews the cap on a metal cylinder and pours the contents on a paper napkin. “Roll your pant leg up.”
I obey. Her eyelashes flutter as she wipes the blood away.
I wait for her exclamation.
“I can’t see an injury. Where did the blood come from?”
I laugh at her puzzlement. “Niawen?”
She lifts her chin. I’ve waited for this moment ever since I left her in Rolant.
Oh, to look into her eyes again. Her green eyes.
Niawen’s eyes.
It is her.
“Niawen, it’s Kenrik. Don’t you recognize me? I know it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other in the flesh, but I haven’t changed, thanks to you.
“Kenrik?” She says my name as if it’s amusing. “My name’s Allison. Well, Allie. Niawen’s pretty, but I’ve never heard such a name.”
My soul breaks.
Is this not Niawen reincarnated? Has her soul not slipped through to a new world? How can she look so much like her but not know who I am, not after the way we’ve been bonded for so long?
I’d know Niawen anywhere.
Certain of my assessment and that I’m not completely delusional, I answer her. “I don’t care what your name is. I’d know you anywhere. If this is another cruel joke from the creators, well, all I have to say is, you’ll not get rid of me so easily. It’s time I haunted you.”