fifty #3
“Great. Because she’s gone.”
“I’ve got a better question.” Sonall faced them, fatigue etching his face as if he had aged two decades in two minutes. “Where the hell are we? Is this the Void?”
“I don’t know.” Mira looked around, ready to shield them again if necessary.
Yet the peace settling in around them almost felt like they were at a nexus between worlds.
If I walk in one direction, will I end up in some other reality?
If she found a door, would it open? And if she got separated from Sulim and Sonall, would she ever see them again?
“I don’t quite think so. It still smells like Cerilyn. Besides,” she said with a huff, “my father destroyed one planet, not the whole reality we left behind. Well, we’re still in it, I think. But this might be what remains of Cerilyn for now.”
She sniffed again. There were hints of her father’s sweet and spicy sorcery, meaning he had been here a few minutes ago, but she still sensed the heavy humidity, the dense jungles, the arid deserts, and the sweaty people who had made Cerilyn the planet it was.
Maybe this is what is left behind when a planet is winked from existence. And everyone on it.
Well, Mira wasn’t dead. Nor was Sulim. Sonall looked like he wished he were dead.
“I wonder if we saved a decent number of people,” he muttered.
Mira put down her staff and attempted to relax her shoulders. “I’m sure we did. And…I’m sorry. The moment I decided to teleport you two to Yahzen, everything went to hell. It’s too late now. I don’t think I can teleport out of here.”
“We have to see it through,” Sulim said. “That’s the gist I got from that lady back there. By the way…” She brushed against Mira. “I’ve seen her before. When your father attacked Master Marlow and me, she was… attached to him. Just appeared before me.”
“What are you saying?”
Sulim relayed a tale that would have broken Mira’s brain if she wasn’t now used to the strange way the world worked.
Rahara emerged after Ramaron was knocked out.
She severed herself from him and said something about how it was supposed to be this way…
So, Nerilis didn’t know about Rahara until now, did he?
Does he even know who she is? Did he know who he was in this grand scheme?
Rahara the ancient prophet, Dreamwalker, and priestess knew what she was, and accepted her role in the schism of time and space itself.
Nerilis fought against it. Raged, even. He claimed to do his wife’s bidding, but when Mira meditated on her father’s answer to the Void’s destabilization… she could not agree.
“Looks like we’re to suffer through the end of the world, ladies,” Sonall said. “If you told me that this was my lot back when I was a kid… well, I don’t know what I would have said. But I wish I had a drink right now.”
“I never say this, but so do I,” Sulim added. “I should know better, though. Being your soulmate and all.”
Mira did not take offense to that tone. “All it means is that you must be strong enough to be my soulmate,” she said, not truly believing her own words.
“I could use a drink and a soulmate right now,” Sonall said.
“For what it’s worth…” Mira began walking forward, hoping that they would follow. “My mother said that you two were very similar. You could have had a happy marriage, if it wasn’t for me.”
“As long as I got something out of it…”
Mira chuckled at his surly tone. “You did. Kema was very smitten with you. Dunno. She could’ve been a lovely Lady Gardiah in another life.”
“Don’t even go there.” Desperation tangled in Sonall’s voice. “Don’t tease me with things I can’t have.”
Mira pursed her lips closed. Sulim put a hand on Sonall to quell his sudden anger, but Mira knew it wasn’t toward her. We’re all suffering right now.
Even so, she had to focus—if only to get them out of there and to a better reality.
Sulim put up a decent front that she wasn’t scared shitless, but even she had to admit that she had no idea what awaited them somewhere on the other end of this metaphysical landscape.
I don’t know what’s happening. She fell in step behind Mira, knowing it was foolhardy to walk abreast with her or—Void forbid—a pace ahead.
At one point, she searched for Sonall’s hand beside her, desiring the touch of a fellow human who was as discombobulated as her.
The past week had been nothing short of miraculous.
Miraculous and dreadful. She had discovered the existence of other realities.
That she had been slaughtered in one, only for her soulmate to come over to this one and try again.
Cerilyn had been attacked. Everyone who hadn’t made it off the planet in time was now dead.
Even Sulim had known that when she saw the butterflies fluttering above their heads back in the inner sanctum.
For once, she couldn’t count on anyone else to save her.
She couldn’t even count on herself. Every scrape, jam, and impossible situation from her life as a mercenary had not been leading up to this moment.
In a way, she would have rather been the na?ve farmgirl of Qahrain, who could barely defend herself with a scythe and had perfect aim.
It didn’t matter. It couldn’t even save her from being abducted by Second Tribe mercenaries.
All of the hired protection in the world hadn’t saved Sonall and his family.
He squeezed her hand. Did he know what she was thinking about?
She was going to dump us on Yahzen. Sulim stared at the back of Mira’s head as they proceeded through the dark.
Every once in a while, Mira tilted her head back and sniffed.
Whatever that was about. Both of us. On her grandmother.
What then? Neither Sulim nor Sonall knew a thing about actually living on Yahzen as refugees.
Even if Lady Lerenan had agreed to shelter them and used her influence to protect Sulim and Sonall…
then what? Sulim would spend the rest of her life mourning Mira.
Sonall would never achieve his dream of retiring to Arrah and salvaging what he could from his family’s remains.
His sister’s doll was a Relic… He had infused so much of his love for his family into that doll that it had become the very piece that brought it all down.
It was poetic. Sulim doubted she’d live long enough now to compose that ballad.
At some point, Mira stopped.
“It will have to do.” She turned to the people behind her, unperturbed by the fact that they held hands for comfort.
“I had hoped that Ramaron could have been the third I needed for this moment, but…”
Mira looked right at Sonall, who glared back at her with a gaze that demanded, “Why didn’t you get me out of there in time?”
It wasn’t until then, as his fingers curled around Sulim’s and his thumb dug between her knuckles, that she realized how much contempt he could hold for one woman.
“You’re of the Blue Line, Sonall. You’ll have to be our third.”
“You are gonna have to run that by me again. In Basic, please.”
Even Sulim wasn’t sure what Mira meant, and she was not inspired by the wrinkling nose and resignation to explain concepts that went beyond most mortals’ heads.
“Every one of us who has a soul is also connected to one of the ley lines that tendril through the universe,” she said.
“There are three. Mine is red. Yours is…”
She turned to Sulim. “You are yellow. And Sonall is blue. I’m convinced that it must mean something. Why else would my mother and Rahara give me the rarest gift of seeing who is what?”
“The fuck is a ley line?” Sonall asked. “This is some shit I was never supposed to have to know about, I’m guessing.”
“Many julah don’t know much about them, either. I didn’t. Not until a while ago. I’m… sorry. This is all my fault. Because of who I am. Because I wanted so badly…” She briefly glanced at Sulim before closing her eyes. “Because my mother wanted so badly for you and me to be together, asha.”
Sulim finally released Sonall’s hand. It was her cue to wrap her arms around Mira and bury her face in the familiar warmth of the woman she loved.
Limbs enclosed around her. Mira sniffed, not searching for a scent, but holding back tears.
She doesn’t know what to do. Sulim held her tighter, taking on the role of the one who must reassure the other.
She’s just as lost as me right now. Mira the priestess knew definitions, studied theories, and had premonitions, but she was still a beleaguered soul that traipsed through this reality while bearing the weight of another.
Her mother had Ascended the day Mira was born.
Her father had defected from the priesthood and became a wanted criminal.
This can’t be easy. The woman had to learn how to use a stave, too!
When the moment was over, Mira pulled away, sniffing up the last of her would-be tears. “Just promise me,” she said to Sulim, “that no matter what happens, you’ll find me.”
“No matter what happens,” Sulim repeated, “we’ll be together.”
She was wholly aware of Sonall’s presence behind her. While he remained silent, she knew the weight he bore as well. No matter what happens… She kissed Mira’s knuckles and held that soft palm to her face. We’ll all go down together.
“We’ve walked this path before,” Sulim said.
“Your mother showed me when she came to me in my dreams. Countless times, you and me… even him. Others, too.”
She squeezed the hand against her cheek, closing her eyes and living in a moment that may not have existed at all.
Who am I to say? Maybe I ceased to exist when the High Priestess came to me.
This was the Void. All of it. A purgatory meant to purge Sulim’s existence before she was sent to live as someone else, just like she had a million times before since the creation of the Void.
“You’re right. We must be strong to survive all of this in every reality. But if anyone could lead us to one where we can simply… be…”
She opened her eyes, meeting the visage of a beautiful woman who wanted to believe everything Sulim said. “It’s you.”
“Right…” Mira retracted her hand. “Well, then, let’s do this. We must make a triangle.”
Sulim motioned to Sonall to walk a few paces the other way. Yet while Mira counted with her staff, back turned toward them, he took Sulim’s hand and yanked her toward him. Sulim let out the meekest gasp of surprise at his brute strength.