Chapter 57
So warm. So bright.
So empty.
Lunara couldn’t tell whether she was moving. Everything was white on white, as far as the eye could see. No ground. No horizon. No sky.
No way to tell how long she traveled, or gauge the time. It wasn’t until she saw a dark spot in the distance that she had a goal.
She ran, sprinting for that far-off thing until the details cleared and she stopped dead in her tracks.
Two rows of doors waited, angled slightly in to face her. Different shapes and sizes, different colors, nothing between or behind them.
Her steps were tentative as she walked between them, eyes darting.
More than once, her feet stumbled when she recognized one of the panels, long lost memories jumping up to accompany the sight.
They followed her life, aging with her, the recollections becoming more and more recent.
She nearly fell over when she reached one that was an exact replica of the carved double-doors in Lyriat’s great hall, a vision of Nyri’s laughing face as she showed her around flashing in disjointed stills.
That was all fine.
What surprised her most was the gilded door at the very end. Teeming with intricate designs, a massive, curving handle in its center, it was the one from her dreams. The one she was never allowed to pass through.
It stood front and center, like an end to all things.
And there, lying on the floor in front of it, was a female—twiddling her thumbs as she looked up at absolutely nothing.
She wore a plain white shift that blended with the landscape so completely it gave the impression she was naught more than a head, arms, and legs.
Her feet were bare, crossed over each other and rocking back and forth with seeming impatience.
“Hello?”
The female froze, her only movement a smile stretching across her face before she bounded up in a blur and rushed for Lunara. “You’re here!”
Shitting stars. You know that voice.
She didn’t bother to mask her shock. Couldn’t have even if she’d wanted to. “It’s… you. The Voice.”
For the first time, those familiar giggles reached her ears, instead of banging around inside her skull. “It’s me!” She swept Lunara into a crushing hug. “Though, I wish people would stop calling me that.”
The female released her, stepping back with an exuberant look. She was tall and lithe. Ethereal. Beautiful. Her violet eyes were wide and excited as they danced over Lunara, as if she’d never seen another person before and had been waiting ages for her first glimpse.
“Where are we?”
“The actual explanation is incredibly complicated, but—very simply and for lack of a better description—this is a pocket of your mind.”
Would have thought there was a bit more to it, honestly.
The female laughed, as if she’d heard her thoughts. Then again…
Lunara swallowed. “You don’t… live here, do you?”
You might be even crazier than you ever thought.
It was strange to see the sad look that flitted across her face, like it didn’t belong.
“Sometimes, yes. Sort of. When I wish to feel safe or see the light.” She snapped out of her melancholy so fast that Lunara recoiled in surprise.
Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she said, “So this is it—the moment we’ve all been waiting for.
What do you think? How are you feeling?”
“Um…”
Lunara didn’t know what she was feeling. Sort of nothing. The last she remembered, she’d been brushing Illamiata’s glassy surface with no idea what to expect.
Certainly not this.
Are you dead?
The female threw her head back and laughed, a wild sound that had Lunara’s lips curling in response. “No, little moth. You aren’t dead. Well, you might be soon. It depends on you.”
Comforting.
“It really isn’t,” the female said matter-of-factly.
So many pressing matters, but only one thought was able to solidify in her mind. A mystery that had been burning within her for decades. “What’s your name? Who are you really?”
Her smile morphed into a thoughtful frown.
“One moment, please.” Her eyes went to the middle distance and began to glow, swirling with the very fabric of the Unknown before she blinked and it disappeared, muttering, “How interesting.” She shook herself and smiled again.
“I remember now. I can answer one of those questions without consequence, but not both, and only if you choose the right one. Which is it to be?”
Oh, sure. Zero pressure.
“It’s really not. It’s actually quite a lot of pressure and now you have to decide on one because, if you choose neither, it will… bring…” She grimaced and gripped her head. “Um, never mind that last bit.”
“O-kay…” Lunara picked up an errant curl and twisted it in her fingers.
“Lots of choices today, I know, but you’re doing wonderfully so far.” She leaned in and narrowed her eyes, her brows raising as she pinched her lips between her teeth, as if she could urge Lunara in the right direction with the bizarre look.
She searched her face. This creature had always given her the answers, even if Lunara had been too dense to understand them.
She was clever. Cared and helped, for whatever reasons, and Lunara was almost certain she already knew most of the answer to one of them.
It made her hesitant to waste the chance on a confirmation, and—
Ah ha! ‘I wish people would stop calling me that…’
Both of their faces split into matching grins at the same time.
“What’s your name?”
The air moved as the female rose from the floor on majestic, feathered wings, her hair defying gravity to float around her face and body.
How Lunara had missed those attributes was no wonder—both were white as snow, as the rest of this strange place, blending perfectly like her shift had.
Golden light poured from her skin when she spoke in a voice that boomed with infinite layers.
“I am called Endellion,” she proclaimed.
Sweet baby Sisters in a cradle…
Endellion’s power was all-encompassing, all-consuming. It sucked the breath right out of Lunara’s lungs and forced tears to her eyes. The warmth of it was staggering.
When her feet touched down again, she reverted instantly back to normal—as normal as she was capable of being—and Lunara sucked in a heaving gasp at the loss of it.
“Yay!” Endellion squealed. “Two out of three!”
“It’s… lovely to finally meet you.” Lunara was having trouble staying upright, her own power thrumming down every nerve ending, alive and buzzing, and growing by the second. “What’s the third choice?”
Endellion’s brow furrowed, suddenly serious.
“The one that matters most.” She turned to the golden door.
“Two are there, without a doubt.” Her voice was layered again, though less overwhelming than before.
She pointed to Lunara, a crushing weight settling over her.
“Two go in, but one comes out.” Her voice dropped as she gripped Lunara’s shoulder.
“Is the light filled with love, or spiteful and mean? It is peace for the world, or the end of all things?”
Lunara buckled, her knees crashing to the floor. “What’s happening to me?”
“Things are happening, moth, outside of our control. The dawn dwindles. You feel its crown slipping. You’re out of time. You must choose, or die.”
“Choose what?” Lunara grunted through clenched teeth. It was like being ripped apart at the seams, her flesh waiting for the moment it could spill free. “I think I’m already dying.”
She crumpled fully to the floor, curling in on herself.
“Sweet, little friend. It’s not you who’s dying. The fourth tower has lost its heart and its hope. Its loss is yours.”
The regret in Endellion’s tone snagged her attention through the agony, even though she couldn’t decipher the words. Not with the weight settling down and trying to snap her bones.
All this way, all this drama, just to die inside of your own damned head. Great.
“It really isn’t,” Endellion whispered. “Now you have to choose quickly, or die.”
Lunara forced herself to all fours and drew jagged air into her lungs. Endellion had led her to this door—the door she’d dreamt of—and it had to mean something. Maybe the choice was to go through it.
She crawled, slipping over and over, losing her balance. Face-planting as she reached her arm out to touch it. More and more pressure bore down on her, her neck bent at a sickening angle as she cried out.
Cracking an eye open, Lunara found herself staring at the floor—and at the faint lines she hadn’t noticed there before, creeping along and up into the gilded frame of the door.
What had seemed so perfect from a distance was actually decaying, gold flakes sloughing away as veins of blue worked to dismantle it.
Blue, like the sea on a clear day.
‘Turns out, little moon, that you are my favorite color.’
It suddenly didn’t matter that her insides were liquefying, or that her skull was about to explode.
Lunara scraped her body up and threw herself at it with a sob.
Blood poured from her nose and mouth to splatter against the unending, pristine white as she reached the jamb and dug her fingernails into it, attempting to pull herself up.
Endellion was at her side in an instant, breathless and urgent. “Do you wish to go through?”
Lunara tried to answer, but all she did was cough up more blood.
“You must answer me, or I cannot help you!” Her hands hovered around Lunara, desperate, waiting for permission to move.
With what felt like the final gulp of air she would ever take, she choked out a garbled, “Yes.”
Endellion gripped the back of her dress and hauled her from the floor like she weighed nothing, using her free hand to shove one of Lunara’s against the knob.
Peace settled into her like a sigh. Certainty. Rightness. This was exactly where she was meant to be.
“You must go through of your own volition, moth.” Endellion’s voice was pleading. “There’s nothing more I can do. Just go. The final choice awaits on the other side.”