Last time, I healed her scratches with my tears. Maybe I can be lucky again.
Yet, my tears have zero impact this time when they drip onto her wounds. They truly are too deep for my magic.
Her blood blemishes her porcelain skin, and I finally lose hope. She really is going to die.
Grief like I’ve never known consumes me, and I let my cries carry across the forest. The sound seems to shake something deep in the earth, but all I can focus on is the human in my arms. She’s slipping away, and fast.
What do I do? I think of the only thing I know.
I pray.
Someone, somewhere, has to hear me...
I can’t be alone. Not truly.
Please, someone, anyone…Help.
But when help doesn’t arrive, I shut my eyes, giving up at last.
I really am on my own. No one is coming to help us.
Slowly, I lean forward, kissing her pale lips, and then I whisper the three words I swore I would never utter to another soul again.
“I love you, Ivy...”
Suddenly, a blast of light bursts across the clearing, and I shield my eyes.
It’s too bright, even for me.
When I re-open my eyes, I blink in surprise. My surroundings have changed.
No longer are we trapped inside the overgrown evergreen forests of the north, but in a small wooded glade, one blanketed in bluebells.
Songbirds trill from the deciduous trees, and I jerk my head left and right, trying to find a conifer.
These trees may shed their leaves, yet they’re frozen in time. Because time doesn’t move here, but the trees are still living and breathing. I can sense their roots through the verdant grass, roots that vibrate and hum like a heartbeat.
This land is beating with life.
It beats withmagic…
Did I die after all? Because there’s only one name that comes to mind when I cast my gaze around this serene place.
Heaven. Or something akin to it.
The sweet, pealing sound of children’s laughter echoes through the trees, and while I should be afraid, I find that I’m not.
The laughter puts me at ease.
These spirits are not malicious. They’re just as pure as the dewdrops that drip from the bluebells.
Finally, I spy them. They’re nothing more than small orbs of light as they coalesce at the other end of the glade to form the tall, elegant shape of an ethereal woman.
Vibrant, sweet light radiates from her very form, and I stare, open-mouthed. My heart pounds, and I swallow.
“Maghelena.”
She answers with a smile. A goddess in the flesh.
