Chapter 31 #2
As were words of comfort when I could still recall the look on her face when Akareth tore her apart in front of me, again and again and again.
I took a deep breath and drew back my hand.
“I need water I think,” I said, getting to my feet again. “I’m going to sit alone for a bit.”
“Are you sure?” Vidar asked.
I locked eyes with him, forcing myself not to look away again.
“I have watched the two of you die the most horrendous deaths countless times in the past weeks.”
“Three days,” Vidar corrected.
I blinked, unable to acknowledge him. Three days was a lie. A blatant one. It had been weeks. It had been a grueling, torturous two weeks. Or three? I could not tell how many nights I’d spent in agony. How many days. Were there days in a dream?
I shook my head with a soft smile, something inside of me laughing at how little sense it made.
As I turned to head for the water, I caught a glimpse of Lyla staring at me from the shadows, her face doll-like and still.
But looking at her was like holding my hand over a flame.
Eventually, it didn’t matter how much pain I could take.
My body decided that surviving was more important and I looked away.
Frustration was bitter. I hissed a curse at myself and headed for the trees, losing myself in the foliage.
I could hear Meridan and Vidar as if they were having a hushed argument behind me, but it all disappeared when I began to follow the stream and found a larger pool of water.
Desperate, I dropped to my knees by the pond and dipped my hands in like I’d just burned them over embers and needed the relief.
With a sigh, I splashed some of the water on my face, sweeping it back through my knotted hair.
I looked down into the rippling surface of the water to see my face looking up at me. My hair was a mess. Dark circles tugged at the bottoms of my eyes. I looked like Lyla, disheveled and wasted.
Quickly, I began combing my fingers through my hair, washing whatever filth the strands had gathered and attempting to get some semblance of the woman I was back.
By the time my hair was thoroughly soaked and my scalp sore from tugging and combing the mess away, I settled back on my ankles and hunched over with exhaustion.
How could I be exhausted after sleeping for so long?
It made so little sense and yet there I was, weakened and broken, my mind half of what it was weeks… no… days ago.
Hours passed alone by that stream. Every now and then I glanced at my reflection again, hoping I still looked like myself.
The longer I sat, the more my mind seemed to purge the visions of my sleep.
I begged Lune to take the visions away completely, but something told me they’d never really disappear.
The air shifted in that tiny clearing. Sounds changed, blocked by something that was not there moments ago. I could hear her heart beating before I heard anything else.
“You’re quiet,” I said, turning to see Aeris standing next to the thin trunk of a tree.
She took a breath and then carefully entered the clearing, finding a stone to sit upon.
“The quiet ones attract the least attention,” she said. “I learned that when I was very young.”
“Where did you come from that you had to be so quiet?”
“A place where they believed what I was could be cured. That it was God’s will that they did so.”
I scoffed at the idea. “Gods have no will. Only a sick desire to watch people suffer.”
“Which is why the Yri never believed in a god.” She paused a moment, straightening her skirts. “But… I understand now that it doesn’t matter what I believe in. I do believe Akareth is real.”
“Did that hurt? To admit that?”
She shook her head. “No. But I suppose it does make me more fearful.”
I glanced into the trees, wondering why it wasn’t Vidar or Meridan that showed up to find me.
“Did someone ask you to talk to me?” I said.
“No. I had a theory, though. You care for Vidar very much. You care for Meridan. But we’ve just met, you and me.
I thought, perhaps, we haven’t known each other long enough for me to be used against you.
That’s what it is, isn’t it? He used them against you in your dreams. It must be hard to see them now, alive, when you’ve seen so many horrible things. ”
I felt the air tighten around me and stopped breathing for a moment, the blood and bones of a thousand deaths washing across my vision.
“Yes,” I whispered. I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head. “It’s not clear. It’s all fading.”
“The dreams?”
“Yes. I can barely remember it all.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“I want it to be, but there’s an echo. A stain. The less I remember, the more I feel like there’s been something left behind. Something dirty that I cannot wash away. I still feel what it did to me, I just can’t remember how.”
Aeris scooted closer to the edge of her rock and leaned toward me.
“Even a stain can be washed away with some time.” Her fingers moved as if she wanted to reach out to me, but she diverted, tucking her hand under her leg.
“I know your friends are in a panic. They won’t say it, but your captain…
he loves you very much. I’ve seen desperation in many different eyes and his scream the loudest. I also spoke with your sister.
She is… horrifying.” She looked up at me, biting her lip. “She is also desperate.”
Silence filled the space in the wake of Aeris’s words as I processed what she was saying.
“Are you thinking you would have been better off going inland with your captain now?” I muttered.
“No. I think I’m here for a reason.”
“A reason,” I chuckled. “Do you believe in reason and purpose after all your talk of Yri having no gods?”
“I believe I’ve made my purpose. Perhaps it wasn’t predestined that we cross paths, but we did and now I have something to contribute.”
“And what’s that?”
“What Lyla is feeling.”
“I don’t care what she’s feeling. She—”
“Yes, you do.”
“And? She got us into this mess. She brought those things to Dornwich. Gus is dead and I nearly drowned in my own madness because of her. If there is a thread of me that cares what she is feeling, it is the part I must sever so the rest of me can survive. So, all of us can survive. I made a mistake. Now I must burn the rot away before it spreads.”
“What if she can make you stronger?”
I could feel the cold blackness bleeding across my eyes as my anger burned through my vision.
“You insult me,” I scowled.
Aeris stood as if preparing to run. “Call it a curse or a gift, I have always felt what others feel. It has always been a whisper in the back of my mind. One I could ignore if I truly wanted to. When I spoke to Lyla, I could not ignore it. She infected me. She made me feel what she felt. I cried in Nazario’s arms that night and I knew not why.
She does not weep, so why was I? But around you, I feel the same.
I feel as if I want to scream. You are similar, you and Lyla, but only one of you is free now. ”
I unfolded from the bank, coming to my full height in front of her. She stood her ground, her head tipped back to look up at me.
“Lyla should be torn apart for all she’s done,” I snarled.
But I did not feel those words. I did not taste them. I barely even heard them. They were just words, said because I felt like they made the most sense, but they were not true and it disgusted me to think it.
“Perhaps,” Aeris shrugged, taking a step back. “All anyone could say while you were sleeping was that it was your choice what they did to her. It’s the only reason she’s alive, I think. So perhaps you should decide.”
With that, she turned on her toes and quietly walked back through the trees toward camp, leaving me there alone with my thoughts again. Only now I had more than the lingering traces of my nightmares to contend with.