Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
M ireille.
Mireille.
Wake up, my pup.
Cool grass tickled Mireille’s cheek, and a child’s buoyant laughter floated through her mind.
Along with a voice that, centuries later, she still recognized. Still ached for.
A glowing hand cupped her armpit and pulled her to her feet.
Warm sunshine bathed the cozy house, and white petals danced across the feet of a tall, broad-shouldered man with a braided beard and a young girl on the brink of human adolescence. Neither held that iridescent shimmer; they were visions, not souls. And they were sparring with wooden daggers.
An errant breeze pulled chocolate strands from the girl’s messy plait as a grin lit up her freckled face.
“Keep that dagger up,” the man ordered.
“I know ,” the girl said in a tiny, determined voice, her smile twisting into something fierce as she rushed him.
Neither of them noticed Mireille standing there.
Mireille wasn’t even sure she was standing there. She couldn’t sense the ground beneath her feet. Her body felt weightless.
Another presence drifted beside her, and she turned to find a pair of blue-gray eyes within a kind, lined face. The man was handsome in a stately sort of way, with short, dark hair that curled beneath his ears and a close-trimmed beard that hugged his jaw.
“D-Daddy?” she croaked out.
A tear dripped down the man’s cheek, and he pulled her into a crushing hug. Despite her lack of form, she felt his strong arms wrap around her.
“How… how is this possible?” she asked.
“We’re in the Halfway. But we don’t have much time before Adelphinae realizes you’re here. If she does, you won’t be able to return to your world. So, you need to listen to me carefully.” He squeezed her shoulder. “You need to fight , Mireille. You have to wake up.”
Her knees weakened, and she collapsed against his chest. “I’m just… I’m so tired. Can’t I stay here with you?”
“No, my pup.” His eyes crinkled as he stroked her cheek. “I had many regrets in my life. But the biggest was that I didn’t fight your mother harder for the chance to know you. By the Creator, I wanted to. But she convinced me it would be too dangerous. You mustn’t be too hard on her. She was trying to protect you, the only way she knew how.”
“Why?” Mireille sobbed.
“Because Ethyrios, as it is currently being run, is not a kind place for beings born of two species. Look what the Empire has done to you already.” His expression hardened to something stony, something furious. “Used you up. Run you ragged. Turned you into a pawn in their twisted games.” Mireille stared at him with wet, pleading eyes. “There is no such thing as linear time in the Halfway. The souls here can see the past, which has already been set, but we can also see all possible versions of the future. And I’ve only seen one in which you finally escape the Empire’s clutches.” He turned toward the man and the young girl, still sparring together beside them.
“Who is she?”
“Your destiny,” her father breathed reverently. “And Ethyrios’s only chance for salvation. You’ve got to find her. Help her. She’s going to need you.”
“How? How will I find her?”
“You’ll know.” Her father placed his hand over her heart. “In here. The path will not be easy. Nor quick. This girl is centuries away from existence. There’s a chance she may not come into being at all. But there’s only one way to guarantee it.”
Mireille cocked her head, questioning.
“Hope,” he said softly. “It’s the most powerful force in this world. It’s what kept me going all those years while your mother hid you away. Hope that you’d survive. Hope that you’d have at least some part of me within you. Hope that you’d be safe, even if I couldn’t provide that protection myself.” His hands were rough as he gripped her cheeks, a soldier’s hands, and the skull-shaped pommel of his sword glinted over his shoulder. “I needn’t have worried. I’ve been watching you, Mireille. I’ve seen what you’ve become. A fierce, powerful female who takes no shit from anyone.” He chuckled softly. “You’re going to need to use that strength for what’s to come.”
Hearing the word strength sapped any that was remaining from Mireille’s weary body, and she collapsed into her father’s arms, sobbing against his cloak.
“I’m so proud of you,” he whispered into her ear.
Mireille scoffed. “I’m a mess, Daddy. I’ve been a mess for a long time. I don’t know how to change. How to be perfect.”
He tipped her chin up. “You don’t need to be perfect, Mireille. You are worthy of love and joy and peace just the way you are.”
Something tugged at Mireille’s chest. As if some force were trying to pull her out of this vision. Her father jolted. He felt it, too.
“You need to go, my pup. You need to wake up,” he said. “Use your elemental magic.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” she sobbed against his neck, clinging to him. “And what magic? I don’t know what it is. I can’t access it.”
“You can,” he insisted. “You must . All you need do is say the words. Believe them.”
“What words?”
The tugging grew more insistent, and rainbow light shimmered around her father’s increasingly transparent silhouette as he whispered the words into her ear, then pushed out of her arms.
“Don’t leave!” she shouted.
“I love you, Mireille. I’ve always loved you.”
“Wait!” She dropped to her knees, clinging to the grass as the force in her chest tried to pull her away. “What’s your name?”
Her father dissolved into glimmering mist, his broad smile, so full of love and affection and pride, the last thing to fade.
Tears flowed anew as Mireille watched the little girl and her father.
“Remember your mantra,” the man said.
The girl lifted her dagger, the portrait of youthful determination. “Blade up, fear down.”
Mireille said the words her father had spoken to her, then let the tugging sweep her away as his voice rang out in her mind.
“Gareth,” he said.
“My name is Gareth Fortin.”