Chapter 24
Closing my eyes to step through the flame is a reflex action, but I open them again almost immediately, and when I do, I find that I’m standing on a small square of stone.
My throat dries slightly as I blink. I’ve hardly had a great deal of time to consider how the Veil might teach me a lesson, but I expected to remain in the cave, the same as the last two times. But obviously that’s not what’s happened.
The area is dimly lit, but the stone beneath my feet reminds me of the tiles that pave the streets in the High Hold.
Smooth and polished, almost to the point of a mirror.
In front of me is a large door. The smell of oak and beeswax polish emanates from the wood, while a large brass handle sits proudly at hip height.
As I twist around, taking in my surroundings, I see that there is not only a door in front of me, but doors in all four directions. In front, left, right, and behind.
Instinctively, I reach out to the one in front of me and attempt to pull the handle down, but it’s locked. Still, I try to push the door inwards. Unsurprisingly, nothing happens.
My tongue draws along my bottom lip as I consider what to do next. A good burst of magic, like the accidental storms I’ve whipped up, would be enough to blast it off its hinges, but I’m not even sure if magic works here.
Besides, Oel is the God of logic and order, so perhaps trying a more sensible approach, like testing the other door handles, is a better place to start than blasting doors to pieces.
I move around to my right and try the door there. Once again, it’s locked, but when I try the third one, the handle drops with ease, opening almost without the need for pressure.
‘So I guess it’s this one then,’ I say and step into the room.
The temperature change is instant. The constant chill that has settled deep in my bones since we arrived in Isthyr is replaced by a warmth that is almost stifling.
It’s recognisable, even with my eyes closed.
It’s the heat of fires that are left to burn for hours in the rooms of the wealthy, even when they’re empty. It’s the warmth of a place that draws more magic than it needs.
It’s the warmth of the High Hold.
I am back – somehow – in Wrohelm.
I’m all but certain of it, yet as I open my eyes, a gasp still flies from me, and my hand covers my mouth as tears prick my eyes.
It may have been only a month since I was last here, in this corridor, but what I face now is a far cry from the hallway I stood in before I left. This house … this house is the home of my past.
Plants weave up around doorframes, the green vines bursting with flowers.
Passionfruit, honeysuckle… There are so many scents that my lungs can barely distinguish them all.
Aromas of food add to the medley, along with the tang of fresh paint and beeswax, as if the wood has been only recently polished.
A chill runs down my spine as I realise the real question I should have been asking myself is not where I am, but when.
I take a tentative step forward, only for a door ahead to swing open.
But it’s not a member of my family that steps out.
It is, however, a familiar face.
Dinah.
Surprise grips me as I stare at the woman who has remained unchanged in all the years that I have known her. Utterly unchanged. It’s like time has no meaning for the priestesses. I knew they were long-lived, but I never realised quite how long. How old is Dinah?
I’ve barely asked myself the question when my mother steps out into the hallway.
My mother, but a younger version of her.
Younger, even, than those few memories I have of her when we were growing up in the High Hold.
Her skin is entirely smooth, and her hair – longer than I ever recall seeing – is tied in a braid that reaches all the way down to her waist.
My heart wrenches. For all my anguish over the lies and half-truths she must have told us, joy rips through me at seeing her again. I long to run to her, to throw my arms around her and let myself be held and comforted, yet as I step into her path, neither she nor Dinah registers my presence.
They can’t see me.
The realisation is crushing.
‘Mother?’ I call, but she can’t hear me either. I close the distance between us, desperate to reach my hand out to touch her, yet my fingers pass through her like she’s nothing more than smoke on the breeze.
A choked sob bursts from me.
What fucking cruelty is this? To see her yet not be able to speak to her, to touch her? I want to dissolve into the floor. I want to cry and wail and gnash my teeth at the unfairness of it all.
‘Remember, a drop on your finger will be enough for now. Then, as she gets older, you will need to up the dose. If you’re unsure, please ask.’
‘I know how to dose the tonic. I just wish I knew why I was dispensing it.’
‘It is safer for you and your child if you do not. Not yet.’
A gasp catches in my throat as I stare at my mother’s swollen stomach. Her hand moves across the thin leather of her dress in a soothing motion, her eyes gazing down with a look of total devotion.
She’s pregnant with me. I can’t say how I know I am the unborn child there in her belly, but I do.
The thought causes a surge of emotion to roll through me.
This is a gift. To see my mother like this, to see the love in her touch as she cradles me.
But it’s not the gift I need to see. It’s a lesson I must learn.
But what is the lesson here? My mother was suppressing my magic from the moment I was born and doing it with the priestess’s knowledge.
Is that what I’m meant to learn? The question has barely formed in my mind when the image withers into nothing.
As if made of paint, the figures slide into a mass of colours that cascade in front of me, until there is nothing but the stone floor beneath my feet and the other three doors around me.
Three. A smile of satisfaction fills me. That’s part one done then. Let’s see how Stefan feels about having his record not only beaten but also smashed to smithereens.
I reach out and try the door in front of me, which once again remains locked, but the second opens.
The wall of heat feels less oppressive this time, as if that short sojourn into Wrohelm was enough for me to acclimatise to the temperature.
The aromas are similar to those found behind the other door – fresh plants and roasting meats – but there is more noise in the air here, deep, gruff laughter matched by the high-pitched squeal of a young child.
My father?
I move towards the sound, only to be distracted by the open door to one side of me.
It’s the same room in which I nearly robbed Jonas of his life by removing the breath from his lungs.
It faces out onto the street, and just like the vision before, there are two women present: my mother and Dinah.
But while the priestess is unchanged, my mother shows the toll of time.
Her hair is still worn in a braid, but now it wraps around itself into a bun pinned at the back of her head.
‘You are certain? Still?’ my mother says to Dinah, wringing her hands.
‘After all this time? Of course I’m certain,’ Dinah replies. ‘It is for the best, I promise you. I will leave you now, but you must do this, Reeva. Give it time to leave your body. You are the one.’
‘Yes. Thank you,’ my mother says as she dips her head, her tongue darting out to wet her lips. ‘Thank you for this honour.’
Dinah nods knowingly, a proud smile forming. ‘It is indeed a great honour, but it is one you are worthy of. You and you alone.’
An honour? What has Dinah asked of my mother?
The pair embrace for a moment before the priestess walks towards the door. Towards me. But before she meets me, the image once again dissolves, and I’m back standing on the stone tile.
There are still three doors in front of me, so whatever it was that I was supposed to learn in that last vision, I clearly didn’t get it.
I bite down on my lip. What did I see? Dinah telling my mother that something she’d been asked to do was an honour. So do I have to work out what that honour was?
I look around me, hoping there might be some other sign in this small space to help me out, but there’s nothing. There’s not even an exit – aside from the remaining doors – so does that mean I’m stuck until I can work it out?
No. No, of course not. That can’t be it. Every Issen has needed more than one attempt, and my first one hasn’t ended yet. And if I have my way, it’s not going to happen until there are zero doors left. So how do I get rid of that second one? What was I supposed to learn?
I need to think.
There’s not really enough room to pace in the small area, but I try nonetheless. I manage three steps between each turn, and as I reach the other two doors, I attempt to push the handles down, but I’m unsurprised when they don’t move.
I’ve not found out what I need to know from that second door.
The answer’s in there. The lesson that I’ve got to learn.
The door’s still here, so maybe if I go back inside…?
My pulse skitters. Yes, that’s exactly what I should do, but this time I should keep walking and head down to the laughter, to the sounds of my father playing with the baby.
Yes, that’s what I should do. Excitement that I’m on the right track flitters through my body. I don’t waste another moment. I push the door open again and immediately pick up my stride down the corridor, passing the room where Dinah and my mother sit.
The laughter grows louder and stronger with every footstep, and I’m still a distance away when I’m certain that it’s coming from the kitchen.
My father’s tone is so deep, so full of unbridled joy, that my throat burns with the lump rising in it.
I don’t remember the last time I heard my father laugh like this.
I think I’d forgotten that he even could.
Swallowing back the ache in my throat, I place my hand on the door handle, ready to step inside and see him, but the instant my fingers touch it, the vision disappears, and I’m back in the three-door space.