Chapter 22
I tossed and turned in my sleep, sweat beading at my neck and back as I wrestled with the small, scratchy blanket. The nightmares kept overtaking me each time I closed my eyes, but the exhaustion was making it impossible to remain fully conscious. I was unable to resist it any longer.
“I will NOT listen to you any longer!” I shouted, raising the bowl and slamming it back down onto the stone floor. The clay shattered into pieces and scattered across the floor. A few shards pierced into my skin, sending beads of blood trickling down my legs. Ignoring the pain, I stood.
Kyra, the woman who had accompanied me to meet the priestess Nissia, stepped forward amongst the destruction. “Nairu, you cannot turn away from your fate. We need you!”
“You cannot continually keep me in the dark and expect my unfaltering devotion.” I pointed a shaky hand at Kyra. “You will tell me what is happening to me or I will walk out of that door and never return. I have given you everything!”
“Nairu. Please,” she implored, seizing my hand before I had the chance to forcefully pull it away. “If I say too much, it could happen all at once. It could kill you. Your body won’t be able to handle the sheer force of it.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “If you do survive… he will take you.”
Nissia stepped between Kyra and me, shoving us apart. “I will take it from here, Keeper. You have fulfilled your duty. Now, return to your people and inform them you have entrusted the vessel to my care.”
Every muscle in my body ached, but I used the last ounce of energy I had to summon my power. Shadowy wisps of magic circled my hands, poised in front of me. I would not let Nissia separate Kyra and I. Kyra was the only chance I had in deciphering what was going on with me.
“You threaten me?” Nissia laughed, a wicked laugh that gave way to an even more sinister smile. “You are nothing—no one—without him!” She stared into my eyes with piercing ferocity. “You dare turn his power toward me? You forget your place. Let me remind you how very replaceable you are.”
Kyra stepped in front of me, a protective hand holding me back. “You will not harm her.”
“This one is a failure. She rejects her blessed fate. He cannot do what must be done with her in this state. We will try again.”
Nissia blurred from existence in a cloud of darkness. The only indication of her reappearance was the feeling of her breath on the back of my neck. “Do not forget what happens when you abandon your fate.”
Before I could turn around and defend myself, I felt Nissia’s blade plunge deep into the base of my spine. The agony was instantaneous, and I fell to my knees as tears burned the corners of my eyes. When my knees gave out seconds later, I crashed to my stomach and began to pull myself with my arms in a futile attempt to get away from her. The clash of metal reached my ears from behind. Kyra defending me.
As I dragged myself, the shattered pieces of the clay bowl cut through my skin and dug into my arms. The fresh cuts were distracting from the wound in my back, which had since gone numb from blinding pain. The door was incredibly near. If I managed to push it open, even slightly, I would have the ability to cry out for aid, but my vision was fading rapidly into splotchy patches of white. It was as though no matter how deeply I breathed, I could not take in enough air to fill my lungs. Everything ached. Everything.
My eyes flicked open, and I took an impossibly deep breath until I felt my lungs would burst from the pressure. The nightmare had seemed so real, I’d thought I was suffocating when I roused. I instinctively sat up and reached for my back, searching for an invisible wound. There was nothing there, not even a scar. It hadn’t been real. A nightmare. Nothing more.
I knew my hope of getting rest was slim to none. I forced myself to remain nestled in the bedroll, staring up at the sky as it shifted from the black of night to the warm orange of sunrise, all the while replaying the scene of the nightmare in my head. Exhaustion overwhelmed me, making it difficult to comprehend all the words that had been said, but I knew I needed to speak with Alandris. Someone needed to be made aware of the nightmares I had been having, and he was the only person I trusted.
I was a jumble of nervous energy the entire time we walked toward our destination. If the land hadn’t been so flat, I likely would’ve been stumbling all over the place. I couldn’t focus. Relief washed over me when we finally stopped to make camp for the evening, and Alandris and I were given the responsibility of foraging on our own. I was practically dragging him away from the campsite by the time the others had left for their own tasks.
Once we were a decent way out, and I was convinced no one would be close enough to perceive our whispers, I came to a sudden stop. Alandris barreled into me, gripping my shoulders to steady himself just in time before he’d send us tumbling to the ground .
“Did something happen, Nairu?” He scanned me up and down as though looking for wounds. Appearing satisfied with the results of his investigation, the worry on his face lessened.
“First, let me ask you this. Would it be possible for me to be as old as Lyandril claims? I am human.”
“If we were wrong, and you were an Elf, Faeling, Fae, or some other immortal creature, yes. Even if you were only half-blooded, it would be possible.” He brought a finger to his jaw. “You remember your childhood, though, do you not? A childhood with Kallistra, who we believe to be human.”
“Yes, I should only be twenty-five, but what if I was confused about that? Is it possible to explain away a gap in my memories or attribute it to something else? If I were an immortal, would I still look like this? Young.”
“Immortal creatures do not age beyond a certain point of adulthood. At least the ones I’ve listed. Zorinna and I are over two hundred years old, though we stopped physically aging around your current age—well, what I previously assumed to be your age, since according to Lyandril you are a nearly four-hundred-year-old crone.”
Alandris’ playful jab hadn’t registered as my mouth dropped in realization. I don’t know why I hadn’t considered the differences in our lifespans. It was common from what I’d understood. Even amongst my own people—relationships between mortal and immortal beings were frequent. If I were human, as I’d always believed myself to be, then I was a mere flicker in the eternity that would be Alandris’ life .
“I will die… You will live forever, and I will die,” I mumbled, lost in my thoughts. Too caught up in the enjoyment of his company, I hadn’t realized that our futures could never truly align. I didn’t know if I had it in me to grow old and die while the one person I’d ever felt something for carried on forevermore without me. Would it not be more… merciful, to stop whatever this was between us now before we were too deep?
“Well, yes, it may be better that you are an immortal crone, after all.”
I clenched my teeth. “You think this amusing?”
The smile fell from his face. “I am sorry, Nairu. I—That was a poor joke.” He reached out to cup my face in his hands. “I intend to ask Amorphael for a favor of my own when we return with her flower. I will ask her to grant you immortality.”
“You’d considered this?” The anger bubbling beneath the surface had simmered into nothing. His delicate touch had left me pliable.
“I am greedy. I do not wish to give you up in ten years, a hundred years, or a thousand years. I do not wish to give you up ever.”
I drew back. “Surely that will have a steep cost.”
“It likely will, but it is not unheard of. There are many mortals who seek out Fae magic to grant them immortality. I will pay it, whatever the cost.” He brushed his thumb along my cheek. “We may be going on an additional grand adventure to find her another flower she’s fond of.”
“It might be fun.” I laughed .
The tangent my mind had chased in our discussion of immortality had thrown me off track. I’d almost forgotten the purpose of this conversation with Alandris. The nightmare.
“There is something else. The reason I asked you about immortality…” I stepped back from him. I was not in a position to be distracted again with our time so limited. “I’ve been having vivid dreams for some time now. They started before we met, when I first began my pilgrimage. I am in them, and that… thing. The voice I heard during our training, and again in the forest outside of Esvilde. It speaks to me, sometimes in my head, as it has here, but other times, it speaks through me. I have looked into mirrors in these dreams and found a reflection there that is not myself. Not any version of myself I have ever known. It is wrong… corrupted.”
Alandris listened intently, nodding his head.
“Sometimes, in these dreams, there are others,” I continued. “Women who are perhaps my friends—I am uncertain. I wrote down all of their names, but I don’t recognize them at all. The most recent one, her name was Kyra. We were traveling to meet a priestess at my God’s temple.”
“Your God has temples? I am surprised to hear that. Minor, unnamed gods don’t typically have formal temples.”
“Kallistra and I never managed to find one. Our people are nomadic by nature, so we don’t settle into one place. We move every few years to a new area, though we always remain in the North. But in this dream, there was a temple somewhere in the South, maintained by a priestess named Nissia. ”
“Were you familiar with her?”
I shook my head. “She wanted me to look into my reflection, but I fought it. That is when she told me I was rejecting my fate, betraying my God. She… stabbed me in the back. She said I was replaceable.”
His eyes drifted behind me, prompting me to show him my back. “Do you…?”
“I have no scars, but it felt real. Is there some possibility it could be?”
Alandris took a deep breath. “The caliber of healer it would take to not only save your life, but to heal you to the extent that you would bear no scarring, would be otherworldly.” Alandris ran his thumb along his jaw. “In all of my years at the Mages Consortium, I have never met a Mage who could heal at that level. Healing magic is incredibly rare, as is. Very few Mages possess the power at all, and those who do are so sought after they often work under Lords, or even Kings, for fees beyond anything a normal traveler could ever afford.
“As you’ve said, you remember growing up with Kallistra, and you’ve been traveling on your pilgrimage for three years. Unless you were separated during this time and lost the memories of what occurred during that separation, I don’t think it is possible for these dreams to be real. Besides, for that to be the case, Kallistra would have to be an immortal as well.” Alandris placed a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Nairu. I know you want to find answers, but I don’t believe your dreams will have them. I believe they may just be a result of the need to find said answers.”
I’d expected such a rational answer from the ever logical Alandris, and in a way, I’d needed to hear it. If I had the ability to generate one hundred theories about my identity and purpose, and he had the ability to discard ninety-nine of them, we would ultimately discover the one that matched.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t resist the intuition that my dreams held a deeper significance, and our time was rapidly dwindling. There was only one action I knew we were capable of taking to expedite the process, regardless of its potential danger.
“Tell Lyandril you will kill me,” I said.
Alandris furrowed his brow. “What?”
“Write to Lyandril and tell him you will kill me. Tell him you need more information before you can act. Tell him I’m dangerous and my magic has become increasingly powerful.” I spoke swiftly, my words riddled with anxiety.
“Nairu.” His voice took on a dark tone, and I knew he was less than pleased with my idea. “If I do that, there is the possibility he may insist on coming here to handle you himself. Even if I do not reply to tell him where we are—he will hunt you. He is the Grand Arch Magus. He will find us, and I don’t know if I can stop him if he does.”
I bit my lip. “There is also the possibility he will not bother—that he will trust you to take care of it yourself. You are to be his Arch Magus, are you not? ”
“I am not doing this.” Alandris turned away from me. “Do not ask this of me. Not this.”
My hand reached out to grab his cloak, and I moved up behind him, wrapping my arms around his waist as I pressed my forehead to his back. “Please, Alandris.”
He brought his hand up to his stomach to interlace our fingers, though he would not turn to look at me. “We will find another way.”
Before I had the opportunity to present any further arguments, Alandris escaped my hold and resumed walking toward our camp.