Chapter 29
Hannelore Mountain, Realm of Eldridge
Light glowed softly against the walls as Daya wandered through the guardian sanctum searching for her protégé. After communing with the mountain, she’d returned from the meditation chamber to find that Veda was not where she’d left her.
Peace flowed through her as she walked. The earth above her head and surrounding her dampening the energy of the outside world. But where had Veda gone? There were not too many rooms to explore below.
Veda, where are you? she asked.
In the sunroom, Veda said.
Veda had taken to calling rooms by their purpose—like the herb room they spent so much time in. What was she calling the sunroom?
Which room is that? Daya asked.
The one way in the back of the windy passage on the main level.
There are no rooms that far into the mountain.
There are now! Veda sounded like she was smiling.
Shaking her head in confusion, Daya made her way down the dead-end hallway. As she curved the last bend, she came to a halt and stared in amazement. What she had always known to be a blank wall now held the imprint of a door.
A radiant sun was emblazoned at its center. Most rooms were entered through a permanent opening in the wall, but a few were like this. She pressed her hand to the emblem marking the presence of a room behind it. Heat and magic tickled her palm until the wall disintegrated into an open entryway.
Stepping over the threshold, she was shocked to find a fully outfitted room. A large stone table graced the center of the space. Shelves holding books, huge rolls of parchment, and some cartography tools stood before her.
“Veda, what… how did you find this?”
“I was waiting for you by the pool, but then I felt the pull to come exploring this way, so I did.” Veda shrugged. “Isn’t this amazing? I’ve never seen so many books! And look, these rolls are giant maps.”
Vestiges of unfamiliar magic drifted on the air, having been locked away for generations. She gingerly reached out to touch a book. The sense of someone she’d never met rose. A comforting connection that shouldn’t have existed, yet somehow did.
“Want to see the neatest thing? Come here.”
Veda grabbed her hand and pulled her toward one end of the rectangular room.
A square basin of sand rose from a pedestal. Rising on her toes so that she could see over the top of it, Veda stretched her hands out to cup the air around the pile of sand at the center.
Rousing her magic, Veda’s fingers flexed and moved. Sand started to swirl between her palms, reshaping to form a lifelike model. Ridgecrest rose out of the sand, shaped into its current garden existence, Veda’s tree prominently at the center.
“How did you know what to do?” Daya asked, not sure she would have thought to do the same.
“I was just playing and let my magic do what it wanted.” Veda removed her hands and smiled up at her. “Can we open one of the maps? How old do you think they are?”
“Pretty old. It’s been at least several hundred years since this was open.”
Thousands, Hannelore corrected.
“Wow.” Veda’s eyes grew huge.
“My mentor, Faye, mentioned that long ago the sanctuary used to be bigger, that things were more involved in the care of the mountain. She never discussed what specifically was different, though. It was before her time. She’d only heard stories, never seen it herself.”
Not time yet. Hannelore’s voice rose around them. Must be two.
Daya and her mentor didn’t count as two? Veda asked, frowning.
Two of the same. Not as you.
Veda and I are different types of guardians? Daya asked.
Yes.
She’d gotten that impression at the fortress when Veda had gone through her guardian ritual so early. But the full extent of possibility had been lost on her. Daya was a primary guardian. Hannelore’s connection to the world in the present time. Completely bound.
Veda wasn’t her replacement. She was another guardian. Connected to Hannelore, but not as completely as Daya was. She was meant to interact with the world. A bridge between Hannelore and the world while Daya held its core within her very soul. Their functions—their callings—were different.
Hannelore was waking up. Entering a new phase of existence. The mountain had told her that it needed both of them for what was to come. It seemed that it was now giving them access to things of the past. Things they would need as their roles changed. As the world changed.
Veda can leave, can’t she? Daya pressed the question down a private pathway to the mountain. She’s not physically bound to your shadow as I am.
She is not.
Daya’s heart thundered in her chest. Hurt and aching as emotions overwhelmed her. Feeling trapped for the first time in a very, very long time. Trembling, she stepped back. Her mind began shutting pathways to give her privacy from the others.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Veda asked worriedly.
“I need… a moment alone. Stay and explore. I’ll be back.”
Not waiting for acknowledgment, she hurried out of the sunroom. Her feet moved without thought, taking her up and out of the sanctuary, into the protected valley.
Breaking into a run, she left the glade—usually her preferred place to recenter herself—and didn’t stop until she was back in the forest. Slowing, she looked around and spotted the place her heart had led her.
Against the hillside, a rock overhang guarded a small alcove. Squeezing between the trees, she entered the protected space and sank to the ground. Dropping her head to her knees, she hugged herself.
Connor’s voice rang in her mind. Just breathe, anaiah.
She’d never known hurt like this. Not when her parents died. Not when Draven had been killed and Savian left.
The storm broke inside her. Sinking her hands into the earth, she let the pain break free and cried. For herself. For Connor. For what they’d lost.
“He belongs here!” she yelled.
The response was a rumble deep within the earth that she felt in the physical world where she sat. Not your choice.
Not Connor’s either, apparently.
Given the choice, she knew he would have stayed.
Would have chosen her. Veda was free to leave, to visit him.
But she couldn’t. It would kill her and destroy Hannelore.
She tried to breathe, tried to let go of the intense pain that had swamped her.
The feeling that something had been taken from her.
You can’t be the reason, Hannelore said.
She knew that in her mind. Staying for her and not for Hannelore… Connor would have died trying to become something he wasn’t meant to be. It was why she hadn’t let him. Hadn’t confessed that he could try if he wanted to. The consequences would have destroyed her.
Because if he’d died during the process of transformation for Hannelore, it would have broken her. Shattered the pure connection she had to the mountain.
That was what she’d been afraid of, not watching him age. That him staying and dying at the behest of the mountain would have destroyed her along with him. Which would have ended all of them. Hannelore couldn’t exist without her, not fully.
You are mine, Hannelore said.
I know.
Vines grew around her, sheltering her until she was totally enclosed in the tiny alcove. It hurt, as it was so reminiscent of the magic she’d used with Connor when they’d played hide and seek together in this very spot.
We are one.
Did that mean Hannelore missed Connor too? Felt betrayed by him walking away? She wiped the tears off her cheek. Time healed. She knew that. But she wished she could move forward faster. Let go of the pain.
Sparkling ice-blue flowers began to bloom along the vines.
She reached out to touch the cold petals.
They were her favorites. The flowers normally bloomed very rarely.
The plant needed a warm climate, but the flowers only grew under icy conditions.
The sparkles were actually frost, coating the whitish blue petals.
You belong here.
I know that too, she said, her heart calming with a sense of rightness despite the lingering pain. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.
Time is its own magic. We will heal.
What do I do until then?
Be my guardian, as always.