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“Where am I?” I ask them.
Little Kane smiles, tears collected on his high cheekbones. “I want to be just like Aquarus one day.”
How is this happening? This was the childhood story. The fictional character he based that alter on. Warrose was the one that read him that story.
But how am I here?It’s real. My feet are planted on a cold stone floor. And I can feel the warmth of the flickering gas lamp against my cold skin.
“Warrose,” I mutter.
I fall again, quicker this time, a dip of my stomach, and I’m back on the beach, clutching myself against his broad chest. Tasting tears and the balmy air on my tongue.
I blink, looking around at the people staring at me. Only one person stares back in shock, in disbelief. Aurick steps forward, pointing a finger at me.
“What did you just see?” he asks, a slight tremble to his tone.
I blink my sore, burning eyes at him.
Warrose clutches me tighter. “She’s in shock.”
Aurick’s crystal-blue eyes bounce between us, then turn to his men as if looking for verbal confirmation. He turns back to Warrose. “You didn’t see it.”
Ruth steps up behind me, running a hand over my hair.
“We need to get her back,” she says quietly.
“We’re not leaving him here,” I retort, squirming in Warrose’s arms.
“It’s okay. He’s coming with us.”
But Aurick is still staring at me. Like I’m a piece of the puzzle he didn’t see before. And I want to scream at him. Throw my fists into his chest.
I want to kill him.
Because although I know this is my fault…
It’s his too.
10. After
They part for me like clouds after a storm.
No one wants to come close. Even Warrose and Ruth keep their distance as I walk through the Demechnef halls with DaiSzek by my side. They lead me to the infirmary where Niles is being treated. I know I’m going in the right direction when I hear the screams of a grown man.
I turn into the room in a daze, briefly noticing the metal table and the soldier cutting off Niles’s clothes. As his pants come off, I wince at the bright-red burns and melted skin on his right leg. His right arm, ear, and some of his hair were hit too.
He howls again, and I have to put a hand on DaiSzek to keep him from growling.
They begin rubbing white cream all over his body, injecting him with something for the pain. But he keeps screaming.
Ruth rushes past me, grabbing his good hand while she cries with him.
I can only stare like a corpse. A living, breathing corpse.
I glance over my shoulder at Warrose. “Can you see where they put Dessin? I need to know where they’ll keep him.”
Detached. Cold. Alone.
He knits his brows together and nods. I remember the way he looked when he was young, sitting with Kane, reading him stories. Was any of that real? Or was I having a psychotic break? Hallucinations?
