***
With much effort, I forced one eyelid open. I lay on something soft, a light scent smelling of clean linen, fried food, and age hung in the air, oddly comforting. My body relaxed by a fraction as my mind decided this place smelled…safe. As my one open eye began to focus, I studied the intricate cream colored lacework stitched into the hem of the sheet that covered me. Like an itch, something twitched at the edge of my mind, annoying like water dripping from a leaky pipe. Even as I tried to ignore it, I could feel the pressure of the pipe threatening to burst.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
A thought struck me, something gnawing inside my gut whispered of fears I could not name, more potent and powerful than my leaky pipe. Swirling at the edges of my mind were thoughts, horrors attempting to press into my consciousness. I pushed back at them, desperately clinging to the foggy numbness I was suspended in. I exhaled softly as I won the battle, beating back the pain that begged to suffocate me.
One word brought the pain crashing in around me.
“Dani.” A lovely voice breathed.
My eyelids shot wide as I sprung into a seated position. Mouth nearly coming unhinged as I tried in vain to scream, but my voice could not be compelled to comply. It was like those dreams where you fear for your life or that of another, trying frantically to voice a plea, a warning…but to no avail.
Flashes of light, hues painted blue and red danced before my eyes…the clash of steel in my ears… the salty smell of sweat and the metallic stench of blood tempered by freshly fallen rain…and Nikolas…so beautiful…so lifeless. I felt the mud between my fingers as I crawled toward him where he lay lovely and broken upon the ground.
I searched my hands for the earth that felt so real between my fingers. They were pale, pale even for me, but clean even as I turned my palms away to search the backs of my hands.
I couldn’t understand. What had happened, where we were…I didn’t know. Nothing looked familiar in this foreign room.
I searched the foamy green eyes across the room for the answers to my questions.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Liam’s eyes reflected the fear and pain of my own as he closed the space between us, reaching his calloused hands out to mine and lowering them gently to my lap. “Shhhhh. Shhhh. You are safe.” He cooed quietly.
While still striking, Liam looked exhausted and worry worn with his black hair in disarray atop his head, his face drawn, and bluish circles hanging beneath the pale green of his eyes that were so dull they hardly looked like his own.
I shook my head emphatically in disagreement. Opening my mouth again to begin my onslaught of questions, I was met with only silence, my voice lost. Frustrated tears beaded along the rims of my eyelids as I shook my head again, grasping his strong hands as I strained to ground myself. To discern what was real and what my mind had conjured.
Gripping his long fingers tighter, I begged with my eyes for the answers to questions I couldn’t voice.
If it was possible, Liam’s green eyes grew duller as his face became etched in sorrow. I shook his hands and my head when he seemed reluctant to speak again.
A defeated exhale was his only response as he tilted his head a fraction.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
A looked around the room hysterically trying to gain my bearings, taking in the antique four poster bed hewn from rich cherry wood I was occupying. In the corner stood a matching armoire inlaid with a beveled mirror, the reflection of the room distorted by the aged, glassy surface. A vanity sat pressed to the wall in the same deep, lustrous cherry wood as the bed and armoire, with delicate glass knobs perched on each drawer. The bedside table held a hand-painted pitcher nestled in a matching basin to one side, and an antique rose-colored glass lamp complete with a fringe of crystal teardrop prisms adorning the shade. The graceful prisms threw rainbow shafts of light in various directions from the sunlight filtering in through the large bay window that faced an expanse of meadow.
Turning my head back to face Liam, I frowned as my brows knitted in confusion. Where are we? I mouthed to him as the contents of my stomach turned to rot.
This time Liam answered, though he seemed reluctant to do so. “You were not safe, the Black Knights were almost upon you. We could have attempted to flee, but we would never have outrun them. The portal was the quickest way to ensure your safety.” He squeezed my hands to offer moral support.
My breathing became labored as I shook my head at him. My lips formed a single word. No. I didn’t mean to conjure that portal, I hadn’t conjured it…had I? Frustrated by my impaired ability to communicate, I flailed my arms toward the room around me, then tapped my index finger repeatedly against my sternum. I prayed silently, because that was the only way I could pray at the moment, that he would understand.
“Dani, you must be gentle with yourself.” Liam told me carefully before answering my question. “Soleil conjured the portal. I’m so sorry, Dani. I cannot imagine…” He trailed off, omitting the words that would wound me further than I already had been.
My cheeks were damp with tears before I realized I had begun to cry again. I felt dizzy and deprived of air, afraid and threatened by powers and pains I was not strong enough to defeat. My head felt disconnected from my body as I hyperventilated, causing my extremities to tingle. As the room began to spin, or perhaps it was me…I couldn’t really tell anymore, the pressure in my mind reached a new high. Behind the wall of tears that had formed in my eyes, shapes became indistinguishable, melting into a blur of colors that spun all around me.
Drippp…Drippp…
Burst.
All at once I was assaulted with vividly clear images racing through my field of vision like a movie set to fast forward. My body pitched and convulsed with the onslaught.
Trucks and cars, stoplights, busy paved roads, mountains and trees. The gondola that carried vacationers up the mountain, a busy strip of road lined with shops, the massive grave yard that hosted a ghost tour. Scores of high schoolers cheering at a pep rally, painted faces in the school colors of purple and white, the bright lights beaming down on the football field at kickoff. A modest square house, school texts open and scattered across a simple wooden desk, my aunt standing in a doorway with her arms crossed over her chest, and Jones…smiling and laughing as he opened the passenger side door and gestured for me to climb inside.
A sense of familiarity overwhelmed me as I realized what I was seeing. My memories, my life as it had been before.
As suddenly as it had begun, the images stopped, settling back into my mind like that’s where they belonged.
My vantage point had changed, I realized, as I stared up at the domed ceiling of the room. After a few moments, Liam’s face entered my line of sight. His brow furrowed as he looked down at me. He looked uneasy, fearful even. Carefully, he brushed aside a now sweat soaked strand of hair that clung to my clammy forehead. “You are safe.” He murmured, like I was a small child afraid of the dark.
But, I was no little child and what I feared was far worse than the dark. What I feared most had already happened. I had lost my family…again. And…and…Nikolas.
Maybe I was wrong. I had to be wrong.
My father, my mother? I mouthed, staring into Liam’s green eyes.
He absently pushed more stray hairs away from my damp skin as his face became more drawn. “I…I do not know.” He said reluctantly.
Nikolas? I pleaded.
Liam closed his eyes, unable to face me as he shook his head once.
That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Pain washed over me with a fresh fierceness I wouldn’t have thought possible. I had won a small battle earlier, keeping the pain at bay. But I was all out of fight now. My body writhed against the mattress, mouth agape in a silent wail.
Liam tried fruitlessly to sooth me, stroking my arms, attempting to still my quaking body. I caught sight of his face for a m
oment, panicked, his eyes were fixed on my abdomen. Muttering a string of curses under his breath, he began applying pressure to my stomach. I thought this was a silly thing to do. I wanted to tell him so…tell him that he couldn’t fix me that way, tell him I was broken beyond repair.
Slowly, I became aware of a new pain, a physical one. It felt like ripping, shredding just where Liam’s hands were pressed and then deeper. The rusty smell of blood floated in the stagnant air of the room and Liam began cursing again.
I pushed the physical pain back down, I could fight that one at least. I had to concentrate, maybe I could fix this. Maybe I could turn back time, maybe I could be magic once more. Focusing every ounce of strength that remained to me, I squeezed my eyes shut as my body stilled and…just…tried to will the hands of time to turn back, to get back to where I came from…to do something, anything but exist in a world where Nikolas did not.
Panting, I thought harder, trying to use my sheer will to bring what I wanted into fruition. The room became brighter and I opened my eyes, needing to see why. My skin was glowing, light radiating from my pores. Something warm trickled from my nose, I paid it no mind. My hair whipped around me, but only me as Liam’s sat placidly against his brow.
Liam looked horror struck…and…panicked as his hair began to ruffle slightly, like the wind was reaching out to him now. Grimacing, he yelled over the howling wind. “DANI STOP! YOU MUST STOP!” Then, he turned his head and spoke to someone who wasn’t me. “I can stop her, give me a moment!” He pleaded.
A voice I was unfamiliar with spoke next, feminine but, gravelly. “You cannot stop her now any more than you can stop the sun from rising! You could sooner stop a bolt of light from touching the ground if it had a mind to do it!” The voice bellowed.
Liam bellowed back, angry now. “NO! I can help her.”
The voice responded with a roar, speaking over the whipping wind. “You cannot help her now. She will destroy you as she destroys herself. There is no more time.”
I would’ve looked for this person, the one who was saying these crazy things, but I was too busy. I couldn’t be distracted anymore, I was going to do this…or die trying.
I shut my eyes against the brilliant light, determined to focus correctly once more. Something tickled my nose, a strange odor filled my nostrils and my concentration faltered, the light behind my eyelids dimming and the wind dying down.
I plowed forward, trying to think of what I wanted. My thoughts slipped away from me slowly, but steadily, like water being pulled toward an open drain. Mind fuzzy, I opened my blurry eyes to the spinning room or the spinning me…whichever it was. The light died away and the last remaining strand of whipping hair landed softly on my clavicle. My hands searched for the gooey wetness that was seeping across my skin. While my vision was questionable, my sense of touch told me my hands and fingers were slick and wet…and the scent…it was unmistakable…salty metal.
Blood.
Who’s bleeding?
My eyelids drooped once, twice.
Stay awake, you’re not finished yet.
Three times. My eyes did not reopen.
As my mind drifted like a leaf on a stream, I had a thought.
What had I told Nikolas? Oh, yes. The price you pay for passage…
I couldn’t complete the thought before unconsciousness swept me away.
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