The voice that answered was not hers. “I am death and retribution, reborn.” She twisted the shadow blade piercing his chest. “I am the Revenant.”
22
EMBERS & ASH
CEDRIC
“Welcome home, Cedric.”
The words wrapped around him like iron chains, pinning him in place as he stared at the cottage. It had been more than two decades since Cedric had looked upon the straw-colored roof, the twining green vines that framed a dusty blue door. It looked exactly as he remembered.
And he did remember.
No matter how hard he tried, he’d never be able to forget.
“Impossible...” he whispered. A breeze caressed his face, making the branches of the cherry tree in front of the cottage sway. Tiny white-pink petals drifted through the air, a fragrant snow that settled in Cedric’s hair, stuck to his cheeks. His wet cheeks.
He roughly wiped away the tears with the backof his hand, then took a step back. A firm hand grabbed his forearm, gnarled fingers digging into his flesh. Alouette was surprisingly strong for her age. Cedric remembered that. He rememberedhernow too. Shame crept up from his gut for not recognizing her at first. His family’s loyal housemaid, the nanny who’d helped raise him, who’d been with them until?—
“This isn’t real,” he said, shaking his head. It couldn’t be.
“Is that which shapes us not real?” she asked, releasing his arm. His skin tingled where she had gripped him. “Go on, child. They’re waiting for you.”
“No one waits for me,” he said, voice thick. His eyes darted to the door, half-expecting it to burst open, for his parents to run out, for the Crucible to reveal some new twisted manipulation of his memory.
Half-hoping it would.
His chest filled with something that felt like dread.
But nothing happened. Nothing moved. The cottage was still, serene. Just as it had been that night.
The air tightened around him. Cedric suddenly fought for breath. Pressure built in his chest. It was tight—too tight. His armor must have been pressing?—
He wasn’t wearing any armor, he remembered.
Cedric squeezed his eyes shut. Tried to slow his racing heart, ease his panicked breathing. He didn’t. He couldn’t. He thought his heart might burst clear of his chest for how hard it was beating.
He wanted to laugh. Turns out, it wasn’t a dark beast or a dragon or a horde of gnarlings that would do him in. It was his own traitorous body. Thegreat championwas going to die of a heart attack, right here, with only a ghost to witness it.
A warm voice filtered into his ears. Melodious, soft, full of life. Cedric knew it immediately. It filled every haunted corner of his mind, his soul.
He never thought he’d hear it again.
And as that beautiful voice hummed a sweet, gentle song, his heartbeat finally slowed. His shoulders sagged. His breathing evened.
When he finally opened his eyes again, the door had swung open on silent hinges. Golden light spilled into the night. Laughter echoed faintly. And from somewhere within, Cedric’s mother continuedhumming a sweet lullaby.
Cedric’s past crashed over him, wave after wave of heart-clenching memories. He could see it, smell it, taste it. Fresh bread cooling on the windowsill. His father’s strong hand gripping his shoulder, ruffling his hair. His mother’s flaxen locks spilling down her back as he chased her round and round the cherry tree.
“Go on,” Alouette encouraged, her voice drawing Cedric back to the present. The illusion was so vivid, the memories so tantalizing, that for a moment, he almost said yes. He almost went through that door.
But the truth of what lay beyond it lingered just beneath the surface, a shard of glass waiting to cut him open. He couldn’t go in, couldn’t face what he knew awaited him inside that house.
The end of his world.
“I can’t do this,” he snarled, stumbling back from Alouette. Pulling his token from beneath his collar, he murmured an ancient command in his mind and waved his arm at the house. Blue paint chips shuddered off the door as it connected with the frame, slamming shut.
He turned toward the trees, desperate to locate the path they had taken to get here. He would go back. Surely the other side of that golden mirror lay somewhere at the end of the bridge. Better to face an endless void than this madness.
