When Emiran next opened her eyes, it was dark outside and there was a fire burning near her. Traevin was nowhere around that she could see from where she lay. She pushed herself up slowly and attempted to locate him. She felt a bit clearer headed than she had been before, so she hoped that meant her fever was breaking. Calling his name quietly, so as to not draw attention to their hiding spot, she grabbed the bowl of water that sat near the blanket she was on.
None of this had been with her when she left and it made her feel strangely loved in a way she’d never felt before. Traevin could have left her where she was, but instead he’d helped her and taken care of her when she couldn’t do it for herself. She’d never really had anyone to love except her mother and sister, so this was an entirely new feeling for her. Then an intense sensation in her stomach made her want to double over. Even in her worst sickness she’d never felt like this.
She grabbed her stomach and squeezed it tightly. Folding herself over her knees, she tried to get the feeling to stop. It felt like someone had put a bunch of firecrackers in her guts that were starting to pop all at once. She heard a crunching near her left side and turned her head to see what was making it. Traevin came walking out of the trees leading the horse she’d taken. He was delighted she was awake. His delight instantly stopped the popping in her guts.
Then it hit her what the feeling was, or at least she partially understood it. She remembered as Meredith being able to feel and taste Akina’s guilt and the other’s fear. This was clearly a feeling she was getting from Traevin though exactly what it was besides intense worry and distress she had yet to place. As soon as he saw her sitting up though the feeling disappeared and she felt as if she were floating on a cloud made up of butterflies. It tickled and made her start laughing.
Traevin gave her a queer look and raised his eyebrow at her. He tied the horse’s reins to a stake he’d stuck in the ground at some point and came over to sit beside her. She wondered how long they’d been hiding out in this little clearing among the trees. Traevin didn’t bother to wait for her to actually ask the question, he simply said “We’ve been here for a week now. Once I found a safe place to let you rest I didn’t want to move you. Are you feeling better?”
Emiran did her best to shake the tickling feeling surrounding her and replied “Well I feel like I can keep my eyes open easier. I’m starving so I guess that’s a good sign. Do you have anything to eat?” Traevin nodded and smiled as he got up to go to the saddlebags that now adorned the horse. She was glad to see a smile on his face, it made her feel warm inside and she liked it. “Well I’m glad you’re starting to feel better. I’ve been so worried I’ve hardly left your side.” He said “I left last night to locate the nearest village and get some supplies. Have you made any sense of your life yet?”
He returned to her side and handed her a small loaf of bread and some kind of jam or jelly. She wasn’t about to turn down even the worst food right now, so she grabbed it and started picking pieces off the small chunk of bread. As she chewed she pondered his question. She definitely felt different, but she wasn’t entirely sure if it was because she was now sensing Traevin’s feelings, or if she was starting to feel her soul reintegrate itself. She shrugged and said “I don’t think I’ve quite put everything in order yet. I have put together some of it but I have a hard time distinguishing who I am when I jump around. I’m trying.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder and said “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize with the line having been broken that you would experience more than one lifetime. I thought you would only experience Hera’s, the way you only experienced the one lifetime with the other woman I brought you.” Emiran tilted her head so she could look at him as she chewed. “Well to be honest I was still trying to put some of her life in order.” She said “I didn’t feel horribly different when I absorbed her life. In fact I felt more complete. Why do I feel so different this time?”
Traevin tucked her hair behind her ear so he could see her whole face and said “I expect it’s because she shouldn’t have been the carrier. She wasn’t a part of your bloodline and neither were the others, besides Meredith. So your mind is having trouble separating out the lives that don’t belong. They were foreign souls that just got stuck with carrying a piece of you because of Akina’s actions.” He stroked her cheek softly for a moment before he continued.
“Perhaps if you focus more on reintegrating Meredith’s life your mind will be able to bury or erase the foreign souls and their lives.” She could feel just how much he loved her as he stroked her cheek. It was as if someone had taken her heart and wrapped it in a fiery nest of feathers. It was an intense feeling that was pleasant but at the same time painful. “I will try my best. I’m not sure who I am anymore if I’m being honest. I feel like I’ve been living a lie my entire life. If I’m not Emiran who am I?” she replied.
At that he gave her a worried look and the warm tickling feeling she’d had was replaced by the firecracker popping in her guts. She winced and curled herself up again “Please don’t worry. It hurts. I will figure out who I am again, I promise.” He hugged her from the back since he couldn’t get his arms around her in the position she was in, and said “I’m sorry. I believe you will. I’m not trying to hurt you.” She shook her head and said “You don’t have to apologize for what you’re feeling. It just hurts that’s all. It’s going to take me some time to get used to feeling things from other people.”
He frowned and furrowed his brows. “I just worry about you that’s all, especially now that I’ve found the correct point in time. I know I’m supposed to make you whole again.” He said “But I wonder if you’ll be the same woman I fell in love with when I do. And I don’t want to kill you in the process. I’ve done that once already and looks what’s come of that.” He lay back and stared up at the little patch of sky that was visible between the treetops. The feeling in her guts calmed down some and Emiran uncurled herself. She still felt a pit in her stomach but it wasn’t as painful.
“Well I really can’t answer that, since I still don’t remember who I was, or am.” She said “But I can say that you’re presence has become comforting to me. Until this gift at least, but I expect that will pass over time. At first you terrified me. You gave me a hollow empty dread.” She lay back with him, still pretty tired and laid her head on his chest. “I don’t feel that way anymore. You feel…familiar, and comfortable. So even if I am not the woman you fell in love with, I will be a woman you can fall in love with.”
Traevin put his arm around her shoulders and held the side of her face with his other hand, rubbing her cheek softly. It was enough to make Emiran want to fall asleep then and there. “I will always love you, no matter what body you inhabit, no matter how many lifetimes pass. All I see is you. And I can only hope once I’ve put you back together all you will see is you.” he said “Even if you don’t I will still love you. No matter what name you go by.” Emiran smiled as the warm tickling feeling returned and placed a hand on his chest. She said nothing more as she fell asleep under his soft touch.
As she dreamed her brain began to jump through the lifetimes again. She didn’t start with Hera and it made it that much harder to try and place things. She had to take clues from her surroundings if possible to even try to figure out what time period she was in. She felt like she’d placed most of them in the correct order at least, even if she was still trying to order each different lifetime. When she came upon Meredith though, this time something was different. She was at some point within her lifetime before she’d met Akina, so Emiran knew it was awhile before her death.
She was in what appeared to be some kind of ceremonial room. She sat in front of an altar filled with things Emiran recognized and things she didn’t. But the things she did made her believe that Meredith had also been a practicing witch, just as her family had wanted her to be. Meredith didn’t turn away from the altar but she spoke and it was undeniable that she was speaking directly to Emiran. “I know who you are. I feel myself within you, which means you can only be a piece of me. Or is it I that is a piece of you?” she said.
Emiran was quite surprised at this and said “Well I suppose it’s both, though if you want to get technical it’s you who are a piece of me. How do you even know I’m here? I thought I was just living through your memories.” Meredith rose now and turned to her. A smile that both seemed happy and cruel at the same time adorned her face. It gave Emiran a strange feeling that she really didn’t like. “Do you forget that Traevin told me everything? When he put me back together as quickly as he did, I saw everything. I saw both my past and future selves. This is new to you, but I knew it was coming. Let’s just say, as a powerful witch, I prepared for this moment.”
The way she said the last part of that made Emiran’s skin crawl. It was a feeling of being in danger. She pushed it aside as best she could though and said “What exactly is it you’ve prepared for? You’re dead. I don’t see how you can be prepared for anything.” Her smiled widened now in an almost maniacal way. “I may be dead in your time, But as this takes place I’m not dead yet. As a part of you, I’m able to connect with you in my dreams.” She said “Much as you connected with the part of you that you killed before you came upon the girl forced to carry my piece of our soul.”
Emiran called out mentally to Traevin hoping even in her sleep he would be able to hear her. “That’s all handy information to have, thank you” she said “But that doesn’t tell me what it is you’ve prepared for. Or for that matter how you know about Hera if she was never meant to be a part of us.” Meredith nodded at this and began to walk a slow circle around the room. Emiran followed her movements, unwilling to turn her back on her.
“I told you, I saw everything. Do you have any idea what seeing so much time at once does to a person? Not us of course, when we’re whole, because that’s our job. It comes naturally.” She said “I wasn’t whole yet before I absorbed the piece of us that sees through time, the psychic piece. The one that you now carry is already a part of me. So I can easily connect with you.” her pace was slow, like a cat trying to creep up on its prey. Emiran followed every movement but stayed in place, waiting for her to continue.
“I didn’t get a chance to become whole. Akina ruined that, though that’s in the past now.” she said laughing “But since you originally absorbed the piece from that little girl, your mind is breaking down. The only way to stop it is to kill me, here, and absorb the piece from me. That’s what I prepared for.” There was truth to her words, but Emiran could taste the fact that she was also lying. It tasted like a salty burning rush through her mouth, and it felt like someone was poking her brain stem with an ice pick. She couldn’t really explain why she knew that meant she was lying, she just did.
Emiran called again to Traevin. If what she said was true, she needed the dagger to be able to kill Meredith. He was the only one that could bring it to her as far as she knew. “You’re lying to me. I can taste it.” she said “You may be telling me the truth about most of it, but I don’t believe you prepared yourself to get killed by me here.” Meredith laughed heartily and her eyes glinted dangerously.
“You’re right of course. Very good, you’re learning my power quickly. I applaud you.” she said, clapping her hands in a slow pretend gesture “But I’m afraid this is the end for you. I intend to kill you, and be the one who becomes whole. Your body will live on, but I will be the one inhabiting it.” With that she pulled the dagger from within the folds of her dress. It wasn’t the dagger she’d killed the man with before Akina had killed her; it was the dagger that Traevin had given her.
It made sense that he would have given it to Meredith as well since she’d clearly had to use it to kill the pieces she was able to before her death. But it puzzled her how she had it but Emiran didn’t. She recalled what Traevin had said about it no longer being able to hurt her because of his power being given to her. So she was pretty confused as to how she intended to kill her with it. Meredith lunged at her and Emiran jumped back reflexively. She continued swinging at her, narrowly missing Emiran’s throat once or twice as she continued to jump back away from her.
Regardless of what Traevin had said, she wasn’t about to take a chance. As Meredith swung for a fifth time, trying to knock her off balance, Emiran grabbed her arm and tried to wrestle the dagger from her hands. They struggled over it for several minutes, Meredith continually trying to pin Emiran against the wall or in the corner. Since they were of pretty equal strength though; Emiran wouldn’t allow it and tried to sweep her feet from beneath her. Meredith was caught off guard by this and fell backwards.
She refused to let go of the dagger though and dragged Emiran down with her as she fell. Emiran had the advantage though being on top, and dug her arm into Meredith’s throat as she continued trying to pry her fingers off the dagger. As she looked closer at her arm, she noticed that Meredith didn’t have the black streaks that adorned her arm. If someone had been watching them, it would have looked as if twin sisters were fighting and the only way to tell the difference would have been the streaks and the length of the hair.
Emiran was sure now that the genes that had given her the looks she had were a recessive gene that only popped up in the women of each family that were a piece of her. At least she had a starting point for finding her past lives if she ever got the chance to do some research on the subject. Meredith grabbed her arm trying to pry it off her neck, but Emiran pushed harder and harder using all her strength to keep Meredith beneath her. She grabbed her wrist tighter and pulled it sideways as far as she could. When the dagger was pointing away from both of them she slammed her arm on the floor.
Meredith struggled beneath her trying to get on top, but Emiran kept slamming her hand on the ground until her grip broke and the dagger went sliding across the floor. She let go of Meredith’s wrist and punched her in the face, right across her jaw, to disorient her while she scrambled off her as quickly as she could to grab the dagger. She reached the dagger and grabbed it so tight it would have taken three people to break her grip, just as Meredith grabbed her leg and pulled her backwards. Emiran rolled over and Meredith was on top of her in an instant.
“Well I underestimated you. But I don’t intend to give up that easily.” She said, now trying to emulate what Emiran had done. Emiran grabbed her arm so she couldn’t get it across her throat and struggled to keep it up while trying to keep her from getting the dagger. “Well there’s something that you don’t know about me” Emiran said smiling “You can’t win.” She lifted her knee and jammed it as hard as she could into Meredith’s back and rolled over with her as she arched backwards in pain and shock.
“You can’t kill me with this, even if you tried, but I can kill you.” Emiran said, taking the moment of surprise to bring it down as hard as she could into Meredith’s stomach. “You may have seen this and prepared for this, but obviously you didn’t see everything like you thought you did. I’m immune to its power. You however are not.” Meredith’s eyes widened in shock and she tried to speak but Emiran didn’t give her a chance. She twisted the knife around and side to side until she was sure she’d done lethal damage. She used every ounce of her strength to force it down until Meredith disappeared into a cloud of blinding white light that quickly went up through the dagger and into Emiran.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Emiran sighed heavily and lay back on the floor. She closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath. The struggle had left her more tired than she’d felt after killing the other piece of her and she wondered how she could feel so tired within a dream. Or was it a vision? She thought. Either way, she was glad it was over and felt like she could sleep for a week. The rest of her sleep was unremarkable as far as she was aware and she woke up feeling quite refreshed. Traevin was sitting beside her now, holding her hand tightly. She could feel his worry clearly, but it wasn’t as painful as it had been before.
“Why are you so worried?” she said “I’m feeling quite a bit better actually.” He breathed a quite sigh of relief and his worry dissipated like fog on a sunny day. “I could hear you calling to me but try as I might I couldn’t get in to your mind. I thought perhaps you were dying again and that’s why I couldn’t.” he said, “I tried to wake you when I couldn’t get in, but no matter what I did, you wouldn’t wake up. I even tried pouring cold water on your face, and smacking you. It didn’t matter. What happened?” he smiled now and grabbed the side of her face.
The intensity of his love now hit her in a way it hadn’t before. Underneath it she could sense tones of desire, passion, loneliness, sorrow, regret, and joy. Each feeling was so intermixed with the others that they all hit her at once. It made her feel both amazing and like she wanted to burst into tears simultaneously. She took a moment to catch her breath before replying “Meredith tried to kill me. She wanted to be the one to absorb my piece of soul. If you had given her your mark, I might still be trapped inside my mind. She tried to kill me with the dagger you gave to me.”
She sensed confusion from him now. The amount of different feelings she was getting from him was almost overwhelming. She was very glad he was the only person near her. Had she been at home when she absorbed this piece of her power she imagined the overload of feelings might have been enough to kill her. It was no surprise to her that Meredith had lived in a cabin secluded from the village once she became an adult. This would definitely take her some practice to figure out how to filter out other people’s emotions so she could figure out her own, and figure out how to intentionally sense others.
“Why didn’t she have your mark like I do?” she asked him. The confusion he was putting off made her feel like her head was smothered in a blanket of thick fog and she shook it vehemently trying to clear the feeling away. “She didn’t have it yet because it actually should have been the last mark you received.” He replied “I only gave it to you first because of our altercation. I had to get you off of me without killing you. I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting you to attack me. The only way I could think to do that was to cut you and touch you with a hint of death.”
Emiran thought about it before replying “Is that why it’s the last I’ll master? It should have been the first, but since it’s the first mark I received it will now be the last?” without giving him a chance to answer she added, “Well I guess it’s a good thing you did give it to me, otherwise Meredith might have been able to win our fight if she had got the best of me. She was pretty determined too.” Traevin nodded in response to her question. “The last piece of the puzzle has become the first and now you’re getting all of your powers out of order. So I don’t know which one you will master first and which one last. I guess that will really depend on you.” he said.
He hadn’t let go of her face the whole time, even when she’d shook her head he’d left his hand where it was so that he could grab her face again as soon as she stopped. He seemed unwilling to let her go. “I didn’t think a dead piece of you could kill you. I thought only you could kill them. What happened?” he said. “She was a powerful witch, as I’m sure you knew. She must have found some means when you weren’t around to be able to connect with me at the proper time.” Emiran replied “She told me when she absorbed the psychic piece of us she saw all of her past and future selves.”
Emiran closed her eyes and buried her face into his hand. “I am feeling better now. I’m less confused about who I am. But I’m starving and overwhelmed with the amount of emotional information I’m receiving from you.” she said “Can we eat something and maybe just lay here while I absorb everything and practice blocking your emotions out? I would rather practice on you then learn on the fly when I’m surrounded by a lot of different people.” He smiled and squeezed her cheek “Of course my love, as you wish.” He said.
This made her chuckle. He got up and grabbed something off a flat stone he’d set close to the fire and brought it to her. She guessed it was probably the same kind of mystery meat he’d given her when he’d forced her to eat something. “Thank you. What is this?” she asked. He shrugged casually and said “Some kind of wild bird I found out in the woods. It’s a pheasant or something along that family line. I wasn’t exactly being picky. I needed to find something you could eat quickly.” She picked at the meat and nibbled on it while she stared at him.
She was examining him in an entirely new light. She no longer felt any fear because of him even though his gift was the gift of death. He no longer gave her a hollow feeling. It made her wonder why she’d felt hollow in the first place. She was about to ask him but he was clearly listening to her internal dialogue because he said “I made you feel hollow because we are so integrally a part of each other. Even split into pieces your soul recognized that we were connected and it made you realize how much of yourself you were really missing.”
He lay down on the blanket next to her while she ate and continued “You felt hollow because you basically were hollow. I don’t mean that in a bad way. But people aren’t meant to be in more than one piece. Your soul felt the emptiness you had in place of your soul; it recognized the feeling of death.” Emiran nodded slowly, chewing thoughtfully on the bite she had just taken. She suddenly realized that she’d never seen Traevin eat anything, and felt silly wondering if he did eat. She held out some meat to him and he accepted it gracefully.
“So how long do I have to stop COLO from whatever it is they are doing?” she asked, lying down beside him once she’d finished her stick of meat. He rolled over to face her and put his forehead on hers. “I don’t know, I may be able to travel through time, but without the specifics I can’t find any particular point in time. You weren’t very forthcoming with the details of when, how, or why.” He said. “The only specific thing I can pinpoint for someone is their death, as it is my job to bring it to them. That’s the only when I could give you.” This immediately sparked a question in her mind.
He simply shook his head though “No I won’t tell you, nor can I, when you’re meant to die. When I fell in love with you I gave up my ability to kill you, intentionally or by my own hand I should say. He said “Now that you have a touch of my power I suspect even if I didn’t love you I’d have a hard time killing you.” he started laughing now and Emiran was greatly confused by his reaction. “What’s so funny?” she asked. He continued laughing and said “Well you’re the one who sees through time, I’d suspect if anyone could tell you when you’re meant to die it would be yourself.”
He made a good point that Emiran hadn’t yet considered. She had never intentionally tried to see the future though. She didn’t have the first clue how. Then another thought popped into her mind that she instantly tried to stop before she’d completed it. She knew it was a question that would cause Traevin pain and that was certainly the last thing she wanted or needed right now. She didn’t need to finish the thought for Traevin to understand where she was going with it though. Grief overcame him even though he tried his best to hide it.
“No I can’t tell you when Lenora will die either.” He said “She shouldn’t be able to, without the use of very special circumstances. But something tells me that COLO will find a way, if anyone can who doesn’t know my family.” Emiran hardly heard his response though. His grief hit her like a horde of angry wasps protecting their nest and it took all of her concentration just to keep from screaming. She would have much preferred the feeling of his worry to this. She curled up on instinct and tried her best to hold her breath.
This was a perfect time to practice blocking out his emotions if ever there was one. Especially considering she’d brought the grief on herself in a way. She tried to picture a relaxing night in the woods out at her grandma’s house since that was one of the closest things she could think of to peaceful. As the memory began to unfold within her mind she tried to imagine the feeling of angry wasps was instead the feeling of the grass poking her skin as she lay and stare up at the sky. That sensation had never really bothered her, at least not as a kid.
She breathed in and out slowly as she focused on the memory. It was far preferable to what she had been feeling. A part of her recognized that Traevin was saying something to her, but she couldn’t focus enough on him to understand it without the feeling returning. She felt Traevin’s hands grab her face but she kept her eyes closed. She must have replayed the memory in her mind four times before she felt confident enough to try and open her eyes. She looked up into his soft grey eyes and he breathed an audible sigh of relief.
“I’m sorry, what were you saying?” she said. He let go of her now and stood up. He walked over to the edge of the clearing and faced away from her. She waited and continued to breathe slowly in and out. The feeling was starting to fade, but she wasn’t really sure if it was because of her concentration or if he was somehow altering or burying what he felt. Finally he spoke again and said “I was asking what’s wrong because you curled up like you were in pain. It became evident pretty quickly that I was the source of that pain.” He went quiet and Emiran could hear the sound of him clenching his fists. She wasn’t sure why it was so loud to her.
“Please don’t be upset.” She said “It wasn’t intentional and I don’t hold it against you. If it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine.” She got up slowly and went over to stand behind him. She grabbed his hand to stop him clenching his fists. “I know you don’t want to cause me pain. I can feel how much it hurts you when you do. But please don’t feel like it means that you have to leave. That’s not what I want, and that’s not what you want either.” She stood in front of him now so she could make him look at her.
“Look” she continued, grabbing his face to keep his eyes on her “I may not know what the original plan was, at least not yet. The plan has clearly changed though. So we’ll just have to go about this in a different way. It doesn’t matter how much you love someone, you can’t avoid hurting them forever. Especially not someone who can sense all your feelings! You can’t be expected to monitor everything you feel, just as I can’t be expected to monitor everything I think. Mistakes will happen along the way, I think you’re old enough to accept that fact.”
His fists unclenched and he smiled at her before he started laughing. “Yes I can accept that fact.” He said still laughing “Now you’re definitely starting to sound more and more like the woman who made me break the rules and fall in love. I’m glad you seem to be regaining your sense of self.” Emiran was glad to see him laughing and patted his cheek before she walked back over to the fire. “Did you grab my backpack when we left the village? The books you wrote are in there. Though I suspect that you could just tell me whatever it is that you encoded into that mess of family trees.” She said. He went into the trees a short distance and returned holding the backpack up.
“I could tell you yes, but I don’t think I need to. You seem to be figuring it out just fine on your own.” He said “Besides which, after what just happened I should think that you’d want to discover things a little more slowly. Take a minute to recover.” Emiran shook her head. “I will rest more as I need to. Right now I feel motivated enough to push on.” She said, taking the backpack from him. She reached in and grabbed one of the pieces of paper, a pen, and one of the books to use for a hard surface. “Here I need you to run into the nearest town, or wherever you can, since you clearly have the ability to move around further than I could in a short period of time, and get some supplies.”
She wrote a list of several items, including a sheath for the dagger he’d given her, and several other items she felt necessary for infiltrating COLO without getting killed. Handing him the list she gave him a soft kiss on his cheek and said “Thank you. You’ve helped me more than I feel I’m entitled to, and I appreciate it.” He looked the list over and nodded “I’ll see what I can do. You’re welcome.” He returned her kiss then turned swiftly on his heels and disappeared into the trees. She grabbed the other book she needed from her bag and sat down next to the fire.
At least with him gone I’ll be able to concentrate and not feel a wave of emotions without warning, she thought. Luckily she’d bookmarked her place in the book of family trees when he’d distracted her in the village, so picking up where she left off wasn’t hard. She pulled the paper from the book and began searching the trees for the one that ended with the last name she’d written down. It took shifting through 19 pages before she found it. As she followed this family tree up she found Meredith’s name alone on one side, where as her siblings had gone on to have children that ended the tree with the name she’d found.
She wondered why if her siblings had children the empathic gift couldn’t continue through one of them, even without the mark. Clearly she was so intent on taking revenge on Akina and coming back to life through Emiran that she’d never considered that possibility. Either way it was her gift again and seemed like one less thing to worry about. She finished following the tree up after looking at the date of Meredith’s death and wrote the first name down. It seemed clear to Emiran now that no woman starting the trees off lived past the age of 31. She wondered why this age was so significant. She imagined that Meredith too would have died at 31 if she hadn’t killed the people that led to her death.
Shaking her head at the mystifying pattern she wrote the fourth name down and continued flipping through the pages. After an hour’s worth of searching she had compiled a list of 3 more names. She vaguely recognized some of the names in the trees from the history books she’d studied in school. It shed a new light on some of histories important events. She set the book down for a break and stretched out on the blanket. Staring up into the slowly lightening sky she tried to put herself in the places of these people based off the information she knew about them. As she concentrated on a rapidly fading star and thought of a specific person, in this case Lady Godiva, she drifted into a light and disturbed slumber.
In her dream she was Lady Godiva. She could see everything through her eyes. All the pain she felt being suppressed by her tyrannical husband was like a lightning bolt to the brain. Her bravery and confidence made Emiran feel like she was almost unstoppable. Every smell of horse manure, food cooking, sickness, blood, and sweat came through so clear it was palatable. Emiran couldn’t explain it; it was a dream after all. Wasn’t it? Every thought that Lady Godiva had about her plans to oppose her husband and his unjust treatment of the locals and her as well seemed as if they were her own. At the same time though, Emiran was thinking as herself.
She wondered if this was what it was like to be able to see through time. Living another person’s life and seeing through their eyes literally, able to judge the person and the world based off what they were thinking and feeling. She was just about to start her famed ride through town naked when a rustling sound that didn’t seem to fit into the dream made her come back to reality. As she came back to her present time she realized that she had never even closed her eyes. So how could she have been asleep? A trance would be the next closest thing she could think of to describe what had just happened.
The rustling sound continued and Emiran’s danger sense went into overdrive. She couldn’t find the correct word for what she was feeling, but it was clear to her that whoever was out there did not have good intentions. She shot up quickly and tried to sense a mind as she took off into the trees to find a place to hide. Being out in the open was a very bad idea. She tried her best to be quite as she crept through the underbrush until she found a large outcropping of rocks that had a small overhang she could shelter underneath. She kept reaching out trying to get into the mind of whoever was out there, but all she got was silence.
Based off what she was feeling she knew it had to be a person. As far as she knew she couldn’t sense animal’s feelings, and this was far more than just a sense of danger from a wild animal. She held her breath and listened as the crackling and rustling started and stopped several times, seemingly in different directions. It sounded as if more than one person was out there. Still no thoughts came to her and it disturbed her. She finally decided it was time to stand up into a crouching position and try and see if she could locate the people making the noise.
As she peeked her head around the overhanging rock she was met with the end of a rather crudely fashioned, what seemed to her a mix between a bayonet and a rifle with the barrel sawn off. She looked up into the face of a man that had a cruel look on his face and on his forehead boasted a mark that looked eerily similar to the one Jareth had given her. She swallowed slowly and said “Who are you? What do you want?” His lip twitched and he lifted the weapon upwards, indicating he wanted her to stand up. Emiran obliged since she saw no quick and easy way out of this.
When she had risen to her feet she looked around and saw that the man indeed wasn’t alone. There were two other men, boasting the same mark he carried, surrounding the other sides of the outcropping. She stood stock still and repeated her question. The man who stood behind the outcropping smiled a vicious looking smile and licked his lips before he said “My name is Dratholik. I’m here to bring you into the rightful custody of the law. You can think of me as a bounty hunter if you like. COLO has paid us all very handsomely to track you down and bring you in.
He looked at her now up and down in a way that made Emiran very uncomfortable. She tried to feign innocence and said “What does COLO want with me? I’m just a simple Blacksmiths daughter. I was out here enjoying some peace and quiet. I haven’t done anything against the law as far as I know.” The man sneered at her and said “That’s a nice try, but you know what you’ve done. We all know who you are Emiran. Perhaps you should have made a better effort to disguise where you were. There’s a reason COLO sent us in particular.” He pointed at the mark on his forehead now.
“This here prevents Telepathic contact. Had you not acquired your empathic gift when you did, we would have been able to sneak up on you and you never would have been the wiser.” He grunted and pointed in the direction away from the clearing. “Start walking.” He said “Unfortunately we’re supposed to bring you in alive. Or I’d just kill you.” he pushed her now with the end of the crude weapon he held to jumpstart her walking. The sharp tip of it sliced easily through the skin and cloth on her shoulder and she winced.
The man smiled at that and pushed her again. Emiran started walking seeing no other choice until she had a chance to get the better of them. That time wasn’t right now though. She was outnumbered and had left her dagger in the camp in her haste to find a place to hide. Dratholik walked close behind her while the other two, who still hadn’t said a word walked a little further away along the sides of her. Emiran sent out a call to Traevin to let him know she was in danger and leaving camp. She had no hopes of him finding her though. She knew it was on her to get out of this. She continued walking silently, keenly aware of Dratholik’s intentions even though she couldn’t read his mind.
When she got a chance to get the best of them, he was definitely going to have to be the first to go. After all, take down the ringleader and you make the group weaker right? She studied the other two out of the corner of her eyes as they walked, looking for any weakness she might be able to use to her advantage later. She was glad there were only three of them. It may have been a disadvantage, but at least it wasn’t an overwhelming one. Emiran knew she’d have to find a way to use her touch of death when it came down to it, unless she could manage to get a hold of one of their weapons.
Dratholik clearly was thinking along the lines of her trying to escape, even if he didn’t know about her touch and its dangers, because as he walked behind her she felt him pull her arms quickly behind her back and tie her hands together tightly, and he chuckled at Emiran’s gasp of surprise. She didn’t like this disadvantage but she tried not to let it show. She just kept her head down and continued walking as they indicated, quietly observing them all out of the corners of her eyes. They may have known who she was, and more about her than she was comfortable with, but they underestimated her and the thought of that made her smile to herself in a self reassuring manner.