Chapter 66
***
The two females linked arms and skipped toward the glassy lake. It was childish, they knew, but with the silver-haired one’s birthday declaring her an adult, they wanted a few more moments to be young.
“What will you do now, Sylaira?” the aquamarine-eyed one asked as they reached the water’s edge.
“Keep practicing Vaela? since I’ve finished all my final exams. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to travel and perform,” she gushed, standing on her toes and bending into a crescent. Then, she flung her arms out wide and starleaped down the shore.
The other raced after her, clumsily mimicking her friend.
They both stopped, laughing and breathless, near a small waterfall.
“You must continue your painting, Heraphia,” Sylaira encouraged, bracing a hand against the rough stone. “The world needs that light.”
Heraphia shrugged. “Perhaps. But I think I’d be better suited to teaching. That way I don’t have to leave my precious works behind every time we’re forced to move.”
Sylaira reached for her friend and pulled her into a hug. “Things will calm down. We only had to pack up and go once so far. And our upcoming one is just a precaution.”
“I know,” Heraphia said with a sigh as she backed away and went to stand facing the lake. “Still hurts.”
Sylaira trailed her fingers along the rock wall until the chilled trickle of water ghosted over her fingertips.
With a hiss, she jerked her hand away, the water suddenly scorching. She shook her arm, in violent, jerky motions, the sensation creeping up even as she backed away.
“Are you okay?” Heraphia called out, but to Sylaira, the voice might as well have been underwater.
Her vision swam like she’d plummeted beneath the surface of the lake. Darkness edged in.
“No!” she shrieked, not realizing she’d spoken aloud. Heart thundering against her ribs, she desperately scanned her memories, seeking the moment she’d last consumed a dose of virelthorn.
Only to realize it had been before weeks of studying and her birthday.
Her spine snapped straight, forcing her head toward the sky. Toward where the Goddess watched over Her creations. Toward where She’d offer a prophecy to Her most powerful Seer.
Heraphia spun just in time to witness Sylaira’s fall. Water splashed. Stone crunched. A whimper escaped her friend’s lips just as she crashed to the ground at her side.
Ice-blue irises disappeared, replaced by a pure white. A tremor wracked Sylaira’s frame. Foam gathered at the corners of her mouth. Her lips moved, at first silent, and then with a relentless, screaming stream of words.
Heraphia’s breath froze in her throat. Terror flickered in her heart—terror for both of them. Because she knew what was happening.
Sylaira was a Seer too.
Tears streaked her cheeks as she held her friend through the agony of Sight.
Why did she never tell me? Heraphia thought, sorrow threading in her bones. But then, she’d never told Sylaira of her power either.
Heraphia rocked them both, trying to soothe away the trauma that came with the Goddess-gifted power.
Until finally, Sylaira’s eyes fluttered open again. She sucked in a sharp breath, only to shatter into sobs the next moment. Heraphia shushed her, but that only made Sylaira surge to her feet.
She had to get away. Couldn’t See. Couldn’t bear the darkness. Couldn’t swallow the blood.
“Get it off me!” she shrieked, diving into the lake. The cold water didn’t even deter her as she scooped silt from the bottom and scrubbed it over her arms and hands, trying to remove the ruby stain.
“Sylaira!” Heraphia burst to her side in a spray of lakewater. She grabbed her friend’s arm, trying to stop her from peeling the flesh from her bones. “There’s nothing there.”
Yet Sylaira didn’t stop scraping at her skin. Didn’t stop sobbing. “If I See it again, I will die. This power will kill me. Make it stop. Please, make it stop.”
“Look at me,” Heraphia said, cupping her face and forcing it up. “Breathe.”
A thin haze lifted from Sylaira’s mind, Heraphia’s steady gaze anchoring her to the present. She noted the flecks of a faint green among the aquamarine color of her irises. The pearlescent sheen to her damp hair.
She dragged in a breath and exhaled it in time with Heraphia’s.
Then again.
“That’s it,” Heraphia encouraged.
Sylaira swallowed, uncurling her hands and releasing the wet sand. “I’m a Seer,” she choked out. Because how else could she have explained her erratic behavior to the person who knew her best in all the worlds?
“I am too,” Heraphia admitted, tears brimming. “I’m so sorry I never told you before, it’s just so…”
“Horrific?” Sylaira finished for her, breathing ragged again as flashes of her vision returned.
Her mind tore like fabric, split open by divine will.
Light poured through her veins, silver and screaming.
Obsidian swallowed the cries of thousands of dying soldiers.
Fire burned through ancient forests, cloying and pungent.
A tempest rained down, flooding everything in its path.
It sucked her into its vortex until she became it as much as it became her.
With a shudder, she yanked herself back to reality. Yet panic held her ribs in a vise. “This is what happens when I skip doses. Why was I so stupid? Why didn’t I ask my mother to remind me?”
There wasn’t enough air in all the worlds as darkness prowled forward. She clutched the sides of her head like that would stop the Goddess from violating her mind again.
“This is a curse. A fate worse than death. That is why I must take virelthorn.”
Heraphia’s trembling hand found friend’s arm. “Is that how you hid this from me?”
“Yes.” Sylaira’s lower lip trembled, and then she threw herself onto the shore, the terror of her power holding her hostage. “I can’t See, Heraphia. It’s always bleak. Death. Ruin. I’ve never Seen something good.”
Sobs wracked her frame, and her teeth chattered between them. She pulled her knees up to her chest like that could protect her. Heraphia sank beside her, both of their dresses soaked. But she wasn’t leaving her friend, not in this state.
“I’m hysterical every time I wake from one,” Sylaira continued, fighting with herself for a semblance of calm amid the storm. “Especially longer ones. That one was relatively short.”
A shudder swept through her, and she dug her nails into her flesh, trying to ground herself as her Sight threatened to rise again.
She tried to force air into her lungs. Thinking about the magic would only bring it forth, and she needed a dose of the suppressing herb before another one overtook her senses.
“Help me, Heraphia. I have to take something,” she pleaded, desperation leaking into her tone. But she didn’t care if her best friend saw her this way. She was the only person who could possibly understand.
“I’ve got you. Always,” Heraphia said, hauling them both to their feet. She grasped Sylaira’s hand and tugged her along.
“One step in front of the other,” Sylaira murmured to herself. Yet her breathing remained uneven as she fought against her power. The ground blurred as more tears fell.
Sylaira’s mother raced from their cottage as she saw her daughter approach.
“She needs virelthorn,” Heraphia conveyed for her friend.
A moment later, Sylaira’s mother shoved a smattering of leaves into her daughter’s hand. She threw them back without hesitation, chewing so fast she nearly choked.
“Come inside both of you, or you’ll catch a chill.”
A fire roared moments later, drying the friends.
But even the hearth couldn’t chase away the chill of Sylaira’s vision.
And as she rested beside Heraphia, all she could do was cry.
Heraphia dried her cheeks, saying nothing.
Because they both knew the truth…
For an Elessarum Seer, death was a mercy.
Sight was an enduring curse, one that would steal far more from them than either realized.