chapter thirteen #3
Was my dream a warning? Without it, I wouldn’t have known that my dagger has the power to take out an umbra.
I let my thumb glide across the sleek stone shaft.
The dreams about Nana are strangely vivid, unlike my regular dreams, and not just because of the lucid awareness.
They feel real. As though I’m actually present in a past event.
These dreams have me wondering . . . Is it possible I’m mentally ill?
But if what I saw was real, Astēr must be beyond repair.
I have my doubts that losing your mate can be handled as casually as Seniia and Vilder seem to deal with umbra attacks.
How long ago it happened, though, I don’t know.
Reāns age slower than humans, I know that, but based on that, Astēr could be anywhere from thirty to one hundred and still look the same.
So the question is, When did those dreams take place?
I roll over onto my other side, facing Seniia. “How do you do it?” I ask. “How can you go through a life-threatening experience, like the umbra, and then just continue as if it never happened? Burn me. It almost seemed like you were having fun.”
Her mouth tilts to the side in a half smile. “Probably because we were.”
I groan. She can’t be serious. “But how?”
“It’s easy.” She pushes herself to a seat beside me. “We shake it off.”
I think about the way she shook herself as she got up earlier, before crossing the berth to check on me. It seemed like an odd thing to do at the moment.
“Like an animal,” I say. A vision of a deer I once saw in Bronich comes to mind. It came running out of the woods, scared by a crow, then, as it realized there was no threat around anymore, it shook its body as if to release the experience and calmly went back to grazing.
“Not like an animal, La?na.” She rolls her eyes. “We are animals—except you humans seem to have forgotten that.” She gazes down at me as I remain on my side. “How you humans survive at all is beyond me.”
“Not sure if we do . . .”
She chuckles. “It’s a rare thing to meet a human who is not in fight-or-flight mode,” she says. “And you are no exception. You have flight written all over you. When you’re not fighting off an umbra, that is,” she says with a low laugh. “Thanks for saving us.” A genuine smile lights up her face.
“I’m happy to contribute with something,” I grumble, and Seniia laughs her contagious laugh.
“Could you—” I cut myself off. It’s probably impossible anyway.
“What?” she says.
“It . . . It’s silly, but I was wondering if . . . maybe you could . . . teach me?”
She cocks her head. “I’m not sure, but we can try.
It has a lot to do with mindset. With your conceptions.
” She rises from the bed and makes her way to one of her many bags.
“Meaning, if you change your conception”—she pulls out one piece of clothing after another, strewing them all around our small shared space—“you can change your world, in a way.”
She pulls her nightgown over her head, throwing it into the corner—I notice she has many of the same glyphs that cover Vilder’s upper body—then swiftly dons a pair of dark leggings and a blue-green tunic that matches her eyes perfectly.
It ends just above mid-thigh, revealing her long toned legs.
I cringe inside. It’s nothing short of walking the streets in your stockings. Basically underwear.
“Humans fear death. Reāns don’t.” She secures a golden belt around her waist, attaching her medicine pouch to it.
“When our time comes, we’re ready to return to the embrace of Mah, the eternal mother.
” She studies me silently, a thoughtful frown furrowing her brow as she considers her options.
“I think the best place to start is to see if I can remove some of your anxiety, but it requires that you trust me. Can you do that?”
My face flushes. Is my anxiety that apparent? I let my eyelids drift shut while drawing in her calming scent—a mix of flowers and spices I don’t know the names of, and to my own surprise, I nod. “I trust you,” I say.
“Good!” She pats the bed excitedly. “Lie on your back.”
I do as she says, and she proceeds to push one hand, palm up, under me, stopping right under my heart, while she lays the other on top. Can she sense my inner void, the gaping soulless hole in my chest?
“Close your eyes,” she says. “And breathe deep and slow. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”
Heat radiates from her hands. It’s strange but not uncomfortable. I peek my eyes open to look at her. Her eyes are closed, and a soft, almost inaudible hum vibrates from her lips. I let my eyelids shut again, turning my awareness back to my breath and allowing her to do her healing.
The boat’s rocking becomes a gentle cradle as time stretches and blurs.
Seniia’s humming vibrates through me, a frequency I feel more than hear, while colors bloom behind my eyelids—soft greens, warm golds, the deep blue of the ocean below, the heat from her hands spreading slowly through my body, melting tension I didn’t know I was holding.
I don’t know how long I drift in this warm, suspended space, but at some point, the mountain-size knot of anxiety in my chest simply .
. . dissolves, leaving me as light as a feather.
My eyelids fly open, and I stare into Seniia’s blue-green eyes. Taking a deep breath, for the first time, it feels like I can actually breathe. I feel calm. Aware in a relaxed way I have never experienced before.
She leans back so she can take me in, and something must have changed, because a radiant smile spreads across her face. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“I think it did.” I smile. The anxiety that’s been my constant companion for as long as I can remember has been reduced to a nuisance. I can still sense it lurking there in the background, but it’s not front and center anymore.
She pulls me into a firm embrace. “We won’t let anyone harm you. You know that, right?” she whispers as she squeezes me tight.
I stare into her eyes as she pulls back.
“You will be all right,” she says with so much conviction it’s hard not to believe her.
“I’ll be all right.” The words are barely audible as I push them over my lips.
She squeezes my shoulders.
“I’ll be all right,” I say louder, and for the first time since fleeing Llyr, I truly believe it.