Chapter Nineteen: Cross the Line

Raimie

Several days into the Withriingalm, its mists grew thick enough that the group could no longer travel safely. While we waited for conditions to clear, I was forced into a day of lectures with Ferin, and the promise of a lesson with Rhylix later was all that dragged me through it.

Normally, I’d find the chance to learn something new enthralling, but my enthusiasm was mitigated not only by who my teacher was but also the subject matter that she’d chosen for today. At the moment, she was taking care of an emergency, leaving me with a thick tome on etiquette to read.

As I paged through it, I tried to keep my attention on the polite mode of address when speaking with the Little Lord of the Zariya Principality, but the people on all sides were distracting me. Sitting on the back end of a wagon, I kicked my foot against marshy grasses while running my finger under lines of text.

“I don’t understand why I’m studying this,” I said under my breath. “What’s the point of learning these stupid rules?”

Beside me, Bright leaned forward as if examining the book.

“Well, let’s consider what Ferin likely wants from you,” it said. “I know you don’t like the idea, but we can speculate, right?”

Making a face, I nodded.

“High society holds having manners in high regard,” Bright continued. “If you become the rightful ruler of a kingdom, you’ll need to know these ‘stupid rules’ in order to deal with other nations.”

Loudly groaning, Dim launched itself out of the wagon, landing in a twirl.

“Manners be damned!” it said. “Become powerful enough and you can do whatever the hell you want.”

With a small smile, I said, “Dim has made a good point, Bright. Not that I’ll ever be powerful enough for other kingdoms to take me seriously, not without conforming to their societal rules first.”

Dim started preening while Bright beamed at me, but when they caught sight of their counterparts, they froze, probably realizing that I hadn’t agreed with either of them.

Then, they glowered at me. Bright did so with a tinge of righteous indignation while Dim just looked gleeful, and I burst into laughter.

“Glad you find my choice of reading material amusing.”

Gliding into view, Ferin plucked the tome out of my lap, and caught off guard, I sputtered.

“I’m- You- Give that back! I was almost finished.”

Ferin stopped short, turning to me.

Lifting the thick tome, she said, “You read all of this in the short time that I was gone? Are you sure about that?”

Usually, questions like this would have me bristling, annoyed by the other person’s preconceived notions about my abilities, but there had been such skepticism in her voice that I flinched, fixing my eyes on the ground.

“Most of it, yes,” I said.

“All right, then.”

I heard pages flipping.

“Tell me about Chapter Ten: On the Intricacies of the Kreati Principality’s Culture,” Ferin said.

Oh, I knew this. Recitation. It required proper posture and pose, and for some reason, I was compelled to follow this standard today.

As I hopped into the mud, I caught sight of my teacher, leaning against the wagon opposite me with the book beside her. Clasping my hands behind my back, I cleared my throat, bringing up page two hundred and eighty-six from that book’s portion of my mental index.

“The Kreati are known throughout the civilized world as the most affectionate of people. Strangers to their cities should know that they may be stopped in the street for an embrace.

“Before coming to the principality, visitors should examine the differences in their greetings. For instance, one between close acquaintances will look like what’s shown in Diagram 10.1—”

I copied the illustration further down the page as best I could.

“—whereas one between family members-”

“Stop!” Ferin said.

With an odd look on her face, she turned to an earlier section of the book.

“Start from page… thirty-seven.”

I furrowed my brow. The requested page was one of those that I’d glossed over. Still, I recited what I could.

“-strong belief in morality. In fact, during ancient times, the Audish king was considered an avatar of their god, Alouin, pure in every aspect of his life… and then, there’s something about striking down evil and protecting the innocent at some point further down the page.”

I lowered my head with heat burning in my cheeks.

“My retention isn’t what it used to be.”

After a moment, Ferin crossed to me, dropping a hand on my shoulder, and again, I flinched. She didn’t notice, too busy nudging my chin up until I met her eyes.

“You, Raimie of the line of Audish kings, are a wonder,” she said.

But then, she took a firmer grip of my chin, shaking my head back and forth.

“Are you telling me that you’ve had a memory like this for the entire time I’ve been teaching you? No wonder you’ve been breezing through my lessons,” she said. “I’ll have to modify my teaching schedule.”

Releasing me, Ferin stepped to the side, rummaging in the wagon’s bed behind me. She returned with a few books piled in her arms.

“Here. Busy work for you: useful information that’s also not particularly necessary,” she said, handing them off. “You don’t have go through them by tomorrow, seeing as how Rhy gets his turn with you soon, but look through them when you can.

“Now, get out of here! I need to think.”

Licking my lips, I backed away from Ferin, who was muttering under her breath. I didn’t know why I considered her a threat right now, but I didn’t turn my back on her until I was a good distance away from the wagon.

With freedom unexpectedly mine, I trotted through camp with Dim and Bright following me. Rhylix wasn’t with his belongings, but I hadn’t thought he would be. My friend was always out, doing Alouin knew what throughout camp. This, however, was where we met for every training session, and when we started tonight, I’d rather be waiting for him than the other way around.

So, I found the driest patch of ground nearby and settled in to read. I’d gotten through two books before someone plucked one from their pile.

“The Many Rules of Penumbra and How to Play,” Dath said. “The hell are you reading this for?”

Chuckling, I raised a hand for the book.

“It’s at your commander’s behest, if you must know,” I said.

“Ugh. Your lessons with her must be awful if she’s having you study that stuffy game,” Dath said before pausing for a moment. “Come on. I have something better for us to do.”

Snapping my current volume shut, I set it aside.

“Thank Alouin,” I said. “I was about to go out of my mind with boredom. What are we doing?”

Biting his lip, Dath glanced around.

“Raimie… do you trust me?” he said, meeting my gaze. “I did a lot of stupid shit in Allanovian, sure, but I hope the last two weeks have proven to you that I’m not the hateful person you met.”

Regarding the trainee, I compared the man I’d grown to know with the boy I’d met in Allanovian. Those two versions did seem anathema to one another, which made sense given the stories I’d heard about Dath’s recently deceased partner, and if I was aware of one flaw in my character, it was that I always believed the best of people. I always insisted on offering a second chance.

Getting to my feet, I brushed myself off. I took a deep breath before firmly holding my companion’s gaze.

“I trust you, Dath,” I said.

For a breath, the trainee looked both stunned and relieved before he pulled himself together and took a step closer.

“Then, I need to ask a favor of you. I need you to come with me beyond our camp’s boundary, and you’ll have to leave your visible weapons here,” he said, lowering his voice toward the end.

This had my eyebrows shooting for my hairline. I might believe the best of people, but Dath was asking a lot from me with this request.

With an intense look of concentration in place, Bright left my side, circling the trainee.

“From what he’s radiating, I believe he’s sincere with his words,” it said. “It’s difficult, though. Something’s off about him.”

“I’m not sure about him either,” Dim said. “He smells fucking amazing, which isn’t a good sign for you, but he also rankles me.”

Great…

As if sensing my indecision, Dath quietly said, “Please, Raimie.”

And that did it for me. Unbuckling my belt, I set Silverblade aside, leaving my bow and arrows beside it.

Gesturing toward the mist, I said, “Shall we?”

In silence, Dath led us through the marshland until mists had hidden the camp, and every step I took had my skin crawling. This, all of this, felt like a trap, although I was unsure who, besides Dath, might want to hurt me.

“If worst comes to worst, you can always pull from me, like you did in that second trial,” Dim said. “As long as I’m around, you’re never unarmed.”

Jerking my head to the splinter, I hissed, “What?”

“What, what?” Dim asked.

But I could say nothing more without drawing Dath’s attention.

The second Zrelnach trial. Where my fists had caved a man’s face in.

Alouin, I hadn’t thought about that for weeks. Dim had been involved with it?

If so, then… yes. I had a powerful weapon at my disposal, a secret card to play, or I would save for one fact. I’d been a dumbass, avoiding everything that might help me ‘pull from Dim’.

As it was, the power to smash in someone’s skull was walking beside me, and I couldn’t use it. Once we returned to camp, I should ask Rhylix to skip weapons training so we could talk about primeancy, if only for tonight.

How idiotic was it that I’d needed something like this to make up my damn mind about my gift?

“I need your help.”

With difficulty, I focused on the trainee in front of me.

“I’ve gotten myself involved with something wrong, something deadly,” Dath continued. “I want out, but… I can’t do it alone.”

Shit. I’d known coming out here had sounded like a bad idea.

But I couldn’t refuse to help someone, especially not someone who could be my friend.

“Ok. What are you involved with? Or maybe you can share why you want out?” I asked. “Actually, just give me any and all detail that you can.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Dath said, “The reason I want out? It’s you, Raimie. Over the last two weeks, you’ve shown me that you’re a better person than this world deserves, and I can’t let you die, which is what they want.”

Halting, I was peripherally aware of Bright and Dim going defensive, but most of my attention went to my companion, who’d turned my way.

“What?” I said with my voice dead.

Dath opened his mouth to reply, but something flashed in his eyes—panic maybe?—and he leapt forward. He jerked me to the side, sending me tumbling to the ground, but not before heat lanced through my arm.

“Shit,” Dath hissed. “Stay down.”

He took off, and rolling to my back, I slapped at my shoulder. When I pulled my hand away, my breath caught on seeing blood coating it.

Dath had wanted me to stay down?

“No way in hell,” I breathed.

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I had to get away. Fast. So, I gathered myself and sprang to my feet before shooting into the mist.

The ground was moving far too quickly beneath my feet, zipping by at an incredible speed, but perhaps that was a battle rush talking. It didn’t explain the puffs of white light that were bursting beneath me with every step, though.

I’d taken maybe two dozen strides before the world around me skewed, dangerously tilting. Following its new angle, I was soon stumbling, and not long after that, my foot got stuck, refusing to lift out of the mud. Gritting my teeth, I jerked and yanked on it, but when my struggles only saw this mud rising to my ankle, my heart stuttered.

Sucking mud, one of the Withriingalm’s most notorious hazards. Without several people to haul me out of it, this patch of ground would pull me in until I suffocated. If I was remembering that correctly, of course. My only choices were to hope someone found me before I vanished beneath the surface or to hurry along my demise. That was all fighting to escape would do.

Well. No one was coming for me, and I wasn’t one to surrender quietly.

So, while the world warped around me, making me dizzy beyond measure, I tried everything to pull my foot free. My efforts had only sucked me in to the knee, leaving my legs painfully sprawled, when motion made the mist swirl.

Disoriented, I drunkenly patted down my body until I found a knife, tucked into my free boot. I held it ready, feverishly scanning the perimeter of what I could see, and when Dath came into view, I almost threw it. Only the arrow that he was holding in place at the join of his shoulder and neck stopped me.

“Raimie! Thank Alouin. You’re alive.”

When Dath staggered closer, however, joy dropped from his face.

“Shit,” he said. “Hell, what do I-? Ok. First.”

Dropping to his knees, he ran a hand over my body, and weakly, I slapped at him.

“The… fuck, Dath?” I mumbled.

“Sorry. I thought we had more time. They were supposed to be further out,” Dath said. “I have to know if they got you. It’ll tell me my timeline.”

Roughly, I shoved him.

“They?” I snapped.

Looking away, Dath said, “Two people, part of the group I wanted to leave. I was supposed to lead you into an ambush today, which I apparently did.”

A crazed giggle spewed from him before he shook his head.

“It wasn’t supposed to go like this. When I made my decision to leave, I didn’t have time to change their plans. I hoped that you’d help me fight them, and we could go from there but…”

Shuddering, Dath rapidly blinked before continuing.

“I knocked them out, so they won’t be a problem for…” he said before cocking his head, “two or three hours, if we’re lucky. I’m more concerned with poison. Did their arrows hit you?”

Oh. Oh, this was a mess. But maybe we could fix it.

Absently, I brushed my arm.

“Is that why I’m seeing two… no, three of you?” I asked.

Sitting back on his heels, Dath slapped his palms to his face.

“Fuck!” he shouted into them. “Alouin damn this shitty hell.”

“‘S’bad then?” I mumbled.

Popping into being behind Dath, Bright shrieked, “Yes, you dumb…”

Red in the face, it repeatedly bit its tongue.

“MARVELOUSLY INCOMPETENT human,” it continued. “Stop sending me away, and take from me.”

Giggling, I pointed at Bright.

“You’re worried,” I said.

“Of course I am-”

“Seriously? You’re making me tell you to calm down?”

That last part had sounded like Dim, but I was much more concerned with the fact that Dath had drawn a knife.

“I’m sorry. I have to knock you out. It’ll slow the poison down,” he said. “Hopefully, I can retrieve the antidote as well as some help before that—”

He glanced behind me.

“—sucks you in.”

“Wow,” I said, slurring the word. “That’s a good plan, coming from someone who left a sword in- in…”

A smile twisted Dath’s face.

“Yeah, well. Consider this payback for our first trial.”

He slammed his knife’s pommel into my temple and-

I was back. It had been weeks, and gods, I’d missed this place. Or maybe it was more that I’d missed someone who was only found here. At the thought, I laughed, and it reverberated back to me as something far less pleasant.

“Are you here?” I called. “Please. I want to see you. I really, really do, and- and if it helps, I know who you aaaaare.”

Idly, I watched swirling color mar the black above. I discarded this mystery to lift myself onto my elbows. Slowly, I looked over my nightmare’s horizon, and when I spied a bump in the distance, a manic giggle flew from me.

“Nooooo…” I drawled, pouting. “Come here. Ny-”

In an instant, the wraith was standing over me, and I grinned at that all-encompassing hood.

“I know who you are,” I repeated.

“I heard you the first time,” the wraith said. “It does not matt-”

The bond around my waist snapped. While I snickered, the wraith glanced at where it had once been.

“Huh. Maybe repaired memories do make a difference,” he said. “Still, it does not matter now. I cannot rouse you in the typical manner, and it is killing us too quickly. So…”

Taking hold of my tunic, the wraith lifted me off of the ground, leaving me hanging from his grip. All I could see was the sky and yes. There WERE colors in the black.

“Pretty,” I said, reaching for them.

“Please, forgive me, heart of my heart,” the wraith whispered, “but you will—”

He punched me, driving me into the ground. Before I could process my shock, the wraith pulled me up again.

“—wake—”

Once again, pain accompanied my impact with a far too solid surface. Once again, I was left dangling from someone’s hold.

“—up.”

With this blow, the wraith left me on the ground, and growling, I lunged, wrapping my arms around his legs. When I tugged, he landed on me—gods, it felt right, RIGHT—before rolling to the side, and his hood retreated enough for me to recognize the face beneath it.

“Please, wake up,” a piece of my essence said.

And colors reached the horizon.

Gasping, I jerked upright, but a spinning landscape forced me to the ground again. I vomited, letting that sick splatter all around me, and for a while, I didn’t move, listening to the silence. Marveling in the fact that I was alive, if not for much longer.

Because sucking mud had engulfed me to the waist, and I saw no sign of rescue. Plus, I was awake, which wasn’t conducive to surviving the poison pulsing through my body.

But like before, I couldn’t lay here and let something kill me, even if fighting it would bring death along faster, and I certainly wouldn’t want to leave this world while unconscious. Thank Alouin that I was awake, no matter what Dath had said.

I clawed at the reeds around me, shimmying in the mud, and raked my fingernails in the soil, but nothing pulled even the slightest bit of my body free. Soon, I was up to my shoulders, and the rapid beat of my heart matched the rate of my hyperventilation.

“You always were a stupid child, weren’t you?”

At the question, I went still, becoming a sculpture made of ice. Hardly daring to believe what I’d heard, I didn’t look for the woman who’d spoken, whispering to her instead.

“Mama? Is that you?’

“Pathetic. Ungrateful.”

It was my mother. I’d know that voice anywhere. As mud crept up to my neck, I searched for her in the mist.

“You ruin everything,” she snarled.

Something stabbed at my heart, making me desperate enough to gasp. Mud reached my chin, and with my heart thundering in my ears, I tilted my face to the sky, seeking a few more seconds of air. Of life.

“You’re right, and I beg for your forgiveness,” I said. “I didn’t mean to make you fall, and everything I did to disappoint you as a child… I’m sorry for it.”

“It’s not enough!”

She loomed over me until her face blotted out the sky.

“It will never be enough!” she screamed. “Do you know how much I’ve sacrificed for you? You killed me, you ungrateful wretch!”

Why could I hear her through the mud? This sludge should do a better job of plugging my ears.

Maybe I could drown on my tears instead of liquid soil.

“I know,” I sobbed. “I’m so sorry, mama. Please! I’m sor-”

Mud filled my nose and mouth, and I breathed it in.

----------------------------------------

I woke up to a blank slate of a world. A bland field of cropped grass stretched in every direction with not a tree in sight, and a blue sky made a solid canopy from horizon to horizon. In the background, a barely audible whine hummed.

The only flaw in this scene of blue and green was a hand-sized hole in the sky’s apex. There, a miniature battle was playing out between forces of light and darkness, reminiscent of what I’d seen when Bright and Dim had showed me their true forms.

Speaking of which.

“Are you two there?” I asked. “You can come out if you want.”

I wasn’t too surprised when they didn’t.

So, this was the afterlife, was it? It wasn’t at all how I’d pictured it.

“Bright?” I said. “Dim?”

After what had happened, I could see them being stubborn, refusing to heed my call, but I had to ask for them anyway. Right now, they were my only means of figuring out what the hell was going on. If they’d carried over to the afterlife with me, I needed to talk to them.

Instead of my splinters, a middle-aged man stepped out of thin air several paces away, scrubbing his hands on stiff, blue trousers. His tunic had its sleeves cut off halfway down his arms, and a demonic, hooded figure was painted on the front.

Besides his strange clothes, this man could have posed as an average human. Short brown hair, salted with gray, framed a plain face with murky blue eyes peering from it.

“Ships damn Earth. I hate visiting that disconnected iteration,” he said, as if to himself. “At least I’ll get a minute to myself now.”

He looked up, freezing when he spotted me, and perfectly aware of what he’d just said, I awkwardly waved.

“Hello,” I said.

The stranger ate the ground between us with his stride, grabbing my arms when he reached me.

“How did you breach my safe space? I thought I’d fixed my sequences to keep essences out,” he snapped. “Tell me what you did, and I might not hurt you.”

Shoving me away, the stranger lifted his hands, holding light in one and darkness in the other, and unsure what was happening, I threw my own hands over my head.

“I died? I don’t know,” I stammered. “I was eating mud, and the next thing I knew, I was here.”

Even in danger as I was, something was dragging on my focus. Something above me.

The draw of it was powerful enough for me to sneak a glance overhead, focusing on the battle between light and darkness, but now that I was truly looking at it, something about this depiction seemed different from what my splinters had shown me. Something was hovering in the center of it, in the frontline where shadows formed.

What was that? A black spot maybe, or no. A splash of light revealed a figure, suspended between the combatants, and its body was twitching. The high-pitched whine that I’d noticed earlier took on a new meaning.

Hell, I couldn’t look away from the scene, trapped by something I didn’t at all understand.

“Holy shit, you’re my- Wait, no. Sorry. Can’t know that yet. What is it I’m supposed to say? Ah, yes. You’re like me.”

Right. The possible threat. Whatever had hold of me broke with the reminder of what I was facing on the ground.

But at the moment, the stranger looked fairly harmless. He had his hands hanging by his sides while his mouth had been left gaping.

After a moment, he said, “I’m sorry for how I acted before. You have to understand. No one’s visited this place in forever. So… may I come closer?”

Why not? So far, the stranger hadn’t hurt me, merely reacted in a manner appropriate for finding an unknown man in one’s home. I hesitantly nodded.

When the stranger stepped within reach, however, he summoned light and darkness again, and I automatically leaned away.

“I won’t hurt you,” the stranger said. “I just want to test something. Will you let me?”

What was the worst that could happen? He killed me for a second time?

With a nervous laugh, I nodded again, and hesitantly, the stranger placed one hand on the base of my neck while hovering the other over my forehead.

Energy flooded through me, two forces opposing one another so fiercely that they threatened to tear me apart.

Like what had happened at the tear.

Frantically, I fought to recapture how I’d dealt with this sensation the first time around. This second encounter with it was too much, overwhelming in its intensity.

As the two forces started teasing at my sanity, a memory of that horrible, wonderful event returned, and gritting my teeth, I wove the energies together. Before a seductive sense of peace could take me over, I leaked my creation into my surroundings, and this time, it didn’t knock me flat on my ass. This time, I didn’t feel drained or wrong after it had left.

“Ships, you are,” the stranger said. “You are, and you’re too damn early.”

“I’m what?” I asked around a mouthful of cotton.

The pity in the stranger’s eyes gave me pause.

“I can’t explain everything right now. There’s not enough time,” he said, “but if you want to know, we can talk through your iteration’s tears. Suffice it to say that for now, I’m intervening.”

He turned away, gesturing at the air.

“She could start CPR thirty seconds earlier, but then… no, too high of a cost. They find him a minute sooner? Could work. He’ll be brain dead for a bit, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Let’s see.”

Supremely confused, I didn’t know where to begin with my questions, so I waited, wondering when I’d see what the afterlife had to offer. Once the stranger had finished with his nonsense, he faced me with a grin.

“You’re going home now. It was so good to meet you, Raimie,” he said. “You have no idea.”

How did he know my name? How did he know how I’d died? What did he mean about-?

When the stranger moved forward, I pulled away from him, repulsed by all the unknowns he now represented.

“Wait!” I said. “You said to find another… tear?”

I wasn’t sure where I’d find one in the afterlife, but it couldn’t hurt to ask. Like with every other mystery in my life, I had to figure this out, no matter how intimidating these unknowns might seem.

“When I find one, who should I say I’m looking for?” I asked.

Narrowing his eyes, the stranger said, “That’s right. I never told you.”

Straightening his posture, he smirked.

“My name is Alouin.”

Choking on a gasp, I could only imagine how bugged my eyes look. Alouin? The god?

“Always loved that part,” Alouin said with a laugh. “Until next time!”

When he poked my forehead, I fell backward, and the ground opened up, swallowing me whole.

----------------------------------------

I float in the space between realities. My next adventure calls to me, and I’m eager to follow it. I’d imagine that doing so would be like crossing a line, and lo and behold, one appears before me.

I can’t see what lies on the other side of it, but does that matter? Nothing ties me to where I once was. Does it?

Perhaps I should check.

In an absence of anything substantial, voices force their way to me, enticing me back.

“You found him?” Rhylix asks.

“By the barest of luck,” Ferin says, panting. “Rhy, when I got there, only his fingers were free of mud.”

“I should have sounded the alarm when he didn’t show up for his lesson.”

“You did the best you could.”

“Maybe. Help me get him to camp. You! Run ahead of us and get a tent raised.”

A grunt and the creak of armor fills the void.

“You think we should hide this?” Ferin asks.

“Did you see the gash on his arm?” Rhylix says. “Someone’s tried to kill him, and they… they may have succeeded. Whether or not he survives, I don’t want the perpetrator to know. Not yet.”

“That’s… probably wise.”

A long period of heavy breathing follows with the sound of a burden lowered into cloth coming soon after.

“Can you do anything for him?” Ferin asks.

“I don’t-” Rhylix starts.

“What’s going on?”

Eledis’ booming voice joins the other two.

“Why have I been-?”

I chuckle at the imagined look on my grandfather’s face, and as if requested, I observe the scene from a great height, adding another temptation to the voices’ pull.

From beside a bedroll, Ferin and Rhylix face Eledis with both of them stricken silent. Alouin, my friend looks like his world’s ending, and seeing this, I wish that cloth wasn’t keeping me enclosed with these people. I’d like to fly into the sky, far away.

Eledis’ face almost matches my imagined expression, but alongside my expected shock, anger twirls as well.

“Someone explain,” he says with a hollow voice.

Before Ferin or Rhylix can oblige, the tent’s flap lifts, letting my father inside.

Alouin, my father. With his wife and son dead, he’ll be left with Eledis, and I know how those two feel about one another. Maybe this is what’s tempting me, preventing me from stepping over the line.

A denying whine flies from my father, and he’s across the tent faster than I can track, kneeling beside the bedroll. With trembling fingers, he brushes grimy hair away from his son’s face while Eledis ignores him, glaring at the Esela in their midst.

“A few hours ago, Rhy came to me in a panic, saying he’d lost Raimie. He asked me to help look for the kid,” Ferin says. “I indulged him, setting up a search party. Felt pretty foolish for doubting him when I found sinking mud almost engulfing the boy. With some help, we got him out. Brought him here.”

Eledis’ fury transfers to Rhylix.

“And why aren’t you treating him?” he demands.

Licking his lips, Rhylix says, “I-”

And is interrupted again. An Eselan woman… the one who ran into me a few days ago, pushes into the tent, taking everything in with a glance. As she hurries to the bedroll, she pointedly ignores Rhylix, moving my father’s hand away.

“Excuse me,” she says. “I need room to work.”

She didn’t have much to begin with. With so many people in it, the tent is exceedingly crowded.

As bidden, my father scoots back with his eyes turning glassy. As for the woman, she does a once over of the body.

“Barely sustained respiration rate and a thready pulse,” she says before glancing up at those watching. “I’ll do what I can, but you need to let me work. Go back to bed, if you can. Otherwise, go. This may take a while.”

Nodding, Ferin hurriedly departs, and while Eledis appears grim, he hauls my father to his feet, supporting him as they head outside. Only Rhylix stays behind, hugging his elbows.

Clicking her tongue, the woman rubs her face.

“What am I going to do?” she says. “His essence has already fled his body. I can’t fix that!”

“I know,” is all Rhylix says, tense. Resigned.

“Alouin, they’ll kill me,” the woman says with a hiccupped sob. “Their blessed child of foretelling gets himself killed, and I’ll pay the price for it.”

With thin lips, Rhylix moves to her side, briefly rubbing the top of her head.

“No, you won’t,” he says. “When they return, you won’t be here. I’ll tell them that you left his care to me.”

Jerking her head up, the woman says, “You’d do that?”

When he nods, she jumps to her feet, attacking him with a hug.

“Thank you!” she says. “I won’t forget this.”

As if afraid that Rhylix will change his mind, she’s quickly gone, and alone, my friend slumps with air bursting from him. He sits beside the bedroll, resting his hands on a chest crusted with dried mud. For a while, he merely stares at that deeply dreaming face before shaking his head.

“You bastard,” he says. “Don’t you die on me.”

And the temptation that’s yanking me to this abandoned world, full of grief and pain, snaps. I stand in front of a line with nothing on the other side, but still, I want to cross it. I want to explore, seeing for myself how empty the other side is.

With a half-smile, I lift a foot, and blinding light pulses around me. As it fades, a hook buries in my back while a magnetic force rips me away from the line, and I tumble through the space between realities.

My body jerked on the return of its essence, and I screamed before lapsing into unconsciousness.