H ad this place been a shrine once? A church? The water grew deeper, to my knees and then to my thighs, warm as bathwater. There were no
fish, no algae, no bugs. The water was smooth and dark as black glass.
I ventured deeper. The palace had partially collapsed over these swamps, creating a crumbling ceiling of beautiful marble and silver ahead from the remnants of those fallen walls, braced upright by the arches that marked my path.
My hand felt as if it was on fire. It shone just as brightly, too—bright enough to light my route. My head pounded, my vision blurry.
Distantly, far above, the sound of fighting echoed, growing louder with each passing moment. But so much stronger than the sounds was the feeling. I could feel the deaths above, just like I could feel the emotions of others when my magic was at its strongest, as if every sensation was amplified down here.
Suddenly, the trickle of magic that I had been following became a gushing stream, threatening to drown me.
The light in my hand went out. Darkness swallowed me whole. I tried to steady my shaking breaths. Fear fell over me.
{Hello, little butterfly.}
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
My breath caught. No. This wasn’t real. That voice didn’t exist anymore. Reshaye, at least as it had once existed, was gone.
{Is anything ever really gone?}
“Yes.” I said it out loud because I wanted to hear my own voice. It sounded flat and empty.
A low laugh. A different voice. What a naïve response, coming from someone who bears so many marks of her past.
I felt hands on my back, my scars. I drew in a gasp and lurched away, my eyes searching desperately and finding nothing but endless black. I heard no movement in the surrounding water.
I questioned my sanity. “Who are you?”
You don’t recognize me?
Now, the voice of a young girl, perhaps of ten or twelve, speaking Thereni so close to my ear that I should have been able to feel her breath.
Despite myself, panic was building.
Do not be afraid.
Esmaris. That was Esmaris’s voice, unfurling through the darkness like smoke. The sound of it paralyzed me with fear against my will. I was thirteen years old again.
Why are you frightened? he whispered, and the most terrifying thing is that he sounded so genuinely tender—I had forgotten that he had sounded that way, sometimes. I am the one that used to rock you back to sleep at night. I gave you so many of your best days.
It was the truth. Esmaris had been my oppressor, but he had also been my lover, my father. All roles that should never have been so sickeningly combined.
“You’re dead,” I whispered.
I’m dead? Esmaris laughed, the way that he often did when I had done something silly and charming. So innocent. I can never die. By marking you, I will live forever.
His hands caressed my back—after all this time, I still knew exactly what they felt like, right down to the placement of their callouses.
Think, Tisaanah, I told myself. This is not real. Where are you? You are standing in water, in Niraja. You are going to find the Lejara here. This is deep, powerful, nonsensical magic. You are half in another world.
“Stop,” I commanded. The hands disappeared.
Silence. I steadied myself in the beat of my pounding heart. I touched my own face to remind myself of my physical presence.
My name is Tisaanah Vytezic. I am in the city of Niraja. I am here to reach the Lejara. I am here because my people need me.
I rooted myself in this purpose.
I looked up. Above me, two realities blended together. One was the ruins, the arches and marble soaring above me—the physical world. But superimposed over it was what looked like a starry night sky, violet streaks slashing across it.
I was in two places. My body, in the ruins. And my mind, which had been pulled far into the fathomless layers of magic.
I had to be close to the Lejara, to have been pulled in this deeply without realizing it. But I still didn’t know what I was looking for, let alone how to use it. Was it… a consciousness, as Reshaye had been?
“What are you?” I asked.
You don’t know yet? Max’s breath was warm against the shell of my ear. The ghost of his embrace enveloped me, only to disintegrate into the stagnant air.
Not real, I told myself.
“I’ve come here to wield you,” I said. “Help me understand how.”
A laugh in many voices. The stars—not-stars—above me lit up in ripples with the sound.
You are welcome to try, a voice said—the voice of a young girl.
And then a young boy. But you are only one half of a whole. You cannot fly with only one wing. A giggle. Or, maybe you can! You want to try, anyway?
The dark had become all-consuming. I wanted to flail my hands out to steady myself.
Hey. The whisper was so close that lips brushed my ear. Did you know that caterpillars become nothing before they become butterflies? Gross, right?
I knew that voice. Kira. I turned, expecting to see Max’s sister as I remembered her in his memories.
Instead, my mother stood before me.
The sight of her knocked the breath from my lungs. Ten years had been greedy, eating away my memory of her face. Her dark hair was wild and unkempt around her shoulders, but I no longer recalled the distinct shape of her eyes or the line of her chin, her features reduced to vague guesses.
You wish to wield this? Her voice was a hundred variations at once. Every time I looked at her, her face was slightly different. Then wield it, my love.
She extended her hand, palm up.
It’s a trap, I told myself. This is not real. It’s not her. This is some pit of magic that is trying to consume me.
But my thoughts were sticky, like a moth caught in a web. I found myself moving before I could stop myself.
I took her hand.
Immediately, the magic overwhelmed me.
