Ten
I wake with a scream on my lips as my brain registers the agony radiating from my right thigh, and with shaking muscles, I struggle to sit up.
My strangled cry is inhuman at the sight, for the outside of my thigh is ripped open and pumping blood onto the stone.
The crimson pool spreads alarmingly fast, and I yell as my fingers force my gaping flesh together.
I’m sitting on the hidden path, but I must have hit a protrusion as I fell, blacking out temporarily as the stone sliced through my leg.
The wound is deep. Too deep, and my shaking hands don’t slow the blood spurting from my veins.
This wound will kill me, and I already feel the effects of the blood loss.
I’ve nothing in my pack to stop the bleeding, and even if I did, there’s no way I could climb on this ruined leg.
My vision blurs, unable to focus on my weak fingers failing to pinch my flesh closed, and my cries echo off the edge of the world.
I didn’t even find him. If I must die, I want to hold a part of him, but I’m alone, always alone.
I have been since the day I was born, kept separate and untouched until him.
I guess it’s my fate to perish lonely, too.
I say his name as my fingers lose their grip, my thigh gaping open. I say it again as I lay back, unable to sit up. I say it a third time as my pooling blood spreads below me.
My vision goes black, but I see him above me.
My eyes can’t distinguish his features, though.
All I see is a shadow, but I know he’s welcoming me to death.
I shall finally join him in the nothingness.
I wish Death hadn’t been banished. At least then I could find him in the afterlife, but Hreinasta stole everything from me.
My childhood, my faith, my husband, my eternity.
With weak fingers, I reach up and touch his shadow, the skin surprisingly warm for a ghost. I say his name again, but even my dying ears hear how garbled my words have become.
Perhaps this fate is best. I don’t know how much longer I can survive without him.
I’ve already forgotten the sound of his voice.
I only remember that it was deep as thunder and thick as smoke.
How long before I forget his face? His scar? His friendship?
“Sellah!” the shadow yells as darkness claims me. My, how my memory distorted his voice, for as he speaks, nothing about the tone sounds familiar. I hate that I’ll die knowing I forgot pieces of him.
The shadow shifts closer. Death closes in faster.
“My ch—”
* * *
I’m vaguely aware of movement, of a solid warmth against my chest. I can barely open my eyes, but the world comes to me in flashes.
A black cloak draped over whatever is warm and moving before me.
Clouds, endless clouds. Something grey and razor sharp.
A familiar voice, a presence I think I recognize. And pain. Unending pain.
Pain and warmth and endless sky.
Then the darkness comes again.
* * *
Intense pain lances my leg, and I jerk awake, sitting up violently fast. A broad palm gently catches my chest, stopping my momentum from propelling me into the dark figure crouching before me. I stare wildly at the featureless face, a groan slipping from my lips as I attempt to gain my bearings.
“There you are, my child,” the figure says, and at the term, I know whose hand presses against my clavicle.
“Stranger,” I croak, my vision finally clearing enough to make out his features. I’ve not seen him since Death’s ruined temple in the jungle, and I forgot how alarming his white eyes are, how dark his aura is.
“I worried I lost you,” he says, and I realize the pain in my right thigh is coming from his other hand. I glance to where his fingers rest against what I thought was a gaping wound but is instead a series of neat stitches.
“What…?” I start as he pulls his palm from my chest and returns to bandaging my leg.
“It’s not infected, which brings me relief,” he says. “For many days, I worried the fever might take you.”
“Days?” I rasp, my throat as dry as The Sivatag, and The Stranger hands me a water skin.
“You’ve been lost to me for almost a week,” he answers, binding my wound, and I seize the opportunity to scan our surroundings.
We’re on a massive plateau, the flat rock extending as far as the eye can see, which isn’t far since the clouds swallow us whole.
We must be higher on the Verdens Kant, and my lethargic brain cannot reconcile this waking reality with my last memories.
“I didn’t die?” I ask. “Where are we, and why are you helping me? I thought you couldn’t help?”
The Stranger chuckles at my spewed questions. “You did not die, but you came very close. And we’re at the top.”
“Top? The top of the Verdens Kant? How?”
“Drink your water, my child,” he scolds. “I strapped you to my back and climbed the edge of the world. I believe this is the pinnacle, but the clouds never clear, so perhaps I’m mistaken.”
“You helped? Why? You told me you couldn’t?”
“I helped because if I had not, you would’ve died.” A change comes over The Stranger. His cloak grows darker, his voice deepens, and the air surrounding him oozes black. “I cannot let you die, my child. You are my only hope, my only way, and I do not suffer what is mine.”
I recoil as he calls me his. It’s not how Kaid used to utter the word, with reverence and adoration.
The Stranger claims me as if I’m his possession, his property, and fear pricks my skin.
In truth, I know very little about the man who insists he can return Kaid to me if I find his scattered bones.
In my sorrow, I believed his promise, but I don’t truly understand the darkness I’ve allowed to latch onto my spirit. I don’t even know this dark man’s name.
The Stranger looks at my pale face, his white eyes seeing into my soul. I can’t breathe at the intensity in his gaze, and then as suddenly as he darkened, the blackness slips away, returning him to his usual self.
“Do not fear, my child. You must do this alone and have faith in my promise, but there are always loopholes.” He brushes my hair behind my ears.
“How can you have faith if you are dead? I am not aiding you in your quest. I am only aiding your life. It is why I could not intervene until death threatened you. I cannot deliver you to his bones, but I cannot stomach the thought of leaving your corpse on these rocks.”
I nod, realizing for the first time that a small fire burns beside us. I don’t know where he found wood to burn in a land of stone, but I don’t question him. I’m simply thankful to still be alive.
“I may have little power in this world.” He grips my chin gently. “I cannot save you from everything, but I can stitch your leg and carry you to safety. I have grown fond of you, and your death would put an end to our plans.”
The way he speaks makes me wonder if there’s another reason he promised to return Kaid to me. He sought me out a cycle ago when devastation crippled me. I clung to his oath out of sheer survival, but now I question his motives. Why is my faith so significant? Why am I so important to this stranger?
“Rest.” He takes the water skin from me. “When you are well, you’ll find his bones, and we shall leave this edge of the world behind us.”
“There’s truly nothing up here, is there?” I ask as I lay down.
“It would seem that way.”
“How disappointing.” I yawn. “I’d hoped this climb would be worth it.”
And it is, in the end. I rest for three more days, and then, on aching legs, I wander the shrouded plateau, The Stranger never far behind me, until I find his thigh.
I hug what used to be an impressively powerful part of his body to my chest as The Stranger makes me swear to remain among the clouds until I can make the descent alone.
Now that I have his severed limb, my dark protector cannot aid me, and so he leaves me with a full waterskin, his pack of dried meat and nuts, and a fire burning in the mist. I stay atop the edge of the world for as long as my supplies allow, and then with a leg that may ache forever, I scale the Verdens Kant, the descent more excruciating than the climb.