“Come to me.”
Ahead, through the crowds of bodies that churned forward, the curtain peeled back enough that I was able to spot the shadowy figure I’d been face-to-face with in the Ether. Its glowing eyes were trained on me, and I felt the tether between Cirian and me shred as it did.
“For my mockery. Now I’ve seen the face of a god, and I cannot look away.”
With a burst of speed, I broke from him, wedging myself into the crowd of bodies as they pressed their way towards salvation.
“Bastien!”
Fingers dug into my back as Cirian caught up to me, but it was too late. Only a few more steps, and I would know the peaceful embrace of the Umbral. The figure ahead reached out with both arms, beckoning me forward.
“Come.”
The figure’s hands gripped mine, long fingers stretching to wrap around my forearms as it pulled me forward and out of the reach of Cirian. I twisted to look over my shoulder as the darkness propelled me, watching as Cirian shouted my name for a final time before the rift in the curtain fell closed.
Then, there was nothing.
Nothing and nothing and nothing.
Breezes are what I missed the most of all. Standing amongst the rows of sprouted wheat that lined the outskirts of the buried town of Paradise, I marveled at the stillness that surrounded me. Above, the stalks would sway to and fro, dancing in a beautiful, hypnotic pattern. Here, beneath a mountain, the air was stagnant and heavy, like the earth that settled above our heads. It was stifling at times. Even if the Reviled had managed to illuminate their city with the beautiful crystals that hung like constellations above, they could never replicate the breeze.
The top button of my shirt threatened to squeeze the life out of me. Kaine picked it out this morning, grabbed it from the pile next to my bed when I overslept. He gave it a sniff, making a face before tossing it at me. My dreams had woken me early that morning, a heavy feeling in my chest pulling me from a dead sleep. I must have dozed off again before Kaine nearly broke down the door to my bedroom, saying I was already late for the first of my meetings. They rolled one after the other till the afternoon grew late.
Kaine would be angry if he found me here, hiding amongst the wheat when there was a stack of paperwork waiting for meback at the group hall. To be perfectly honest, I would be lost without him. He kept me on task. But there were times—like that afternoon—when I needed to get away from the yoke of responsibility and try to feel like myself again. I wanted to be Azrael—not Rudderkin—if only for an hour.
So instead of an afternoon fraught with paperwork, I wandered the wheat, absentmindedly running my fingers over the soft awns. I was near the edge of Paradise, where the wall of the mountain that surrounded us rose at a slope just a few yards away. As I reached the end of the last row, a patch of soft earth caught my eye. Thistles and weeds had grown tall, nearly the height of my hips, and spilled over the splintered wooden edges of a flower bed. It looked as though it had been some time since the last blooms had graced that place, yet as I stared into the tangle of choking brambles, I spotted a few small, colorful buds, fighting their way towards the artificial light that shone from above.
“How resilient you are,” I muttered, kneeling down by the bed and brushing aside the interfering weeds. “To flower, even amongst the thorns. You just need a little push, and you’ll thrive, little ones. Let me help.”
Carefully, I untangled the mess of prickly invaders that had grown around the wildflower. It became quickly apparent to me that there were more flowers under the canopy of thorns, so I set to work, wrenching the weeds from their place and uncovering what lay beneath.
During my time at Chateau Greene, the gardeners were always kind to me. When I would break a dish or scald a pot of milk on the stove, Father would send me out into the gardens while he cleaned up the mess. There, I would find them, the Unseen who cared for the labyrinthine hedges and roses that Madame Greene loved so dearly. Their skin was always kissed by the sun, and their hands stained by the earth, but their smileswere kind and their voices soft as they asked me to join them in their work.
They taught me the rhythms of the seasons. When to prune and when to plant. How to care for the soil and repair what was broken by storm or animal. There was so much love suffused into the dirt around the Chateau, I often wondered how it didn’t seep inside the cold and drafty halls.
Sitting back on my heels, I observed the fruits of my labor. The wildflower blooms spread across the bed, uninhibited by thorn or thistle. Pale pinks and deep blues, and a few that looked like they could have sprouted from my scalp. They were beautiful. And with hands sullied with earth, I felt truly at peace for the first time in weeks.
“There you are.”
I didn’t need to look up to know that Kaine had found me at last.
“Please don’t make me go back,” I said, rubbing two fingers together till the dirt clumped and fell onto the soil.
“The delegates just arrived. They need to speak with you.”
I let out a sigh, rising to my full height with a reluctance I wished I could disperse. Once again, I felt a heaviness in my chest, exactly like that morning when I’d been shaken from my slumber by a terrible dream.
“They must be exhausted from their travel. I can speak with them tomorrow.”
Kaine cocked an eyebrow. “Silas will have a few choice words if you try to put him off.”
“He’ll have them either way,” I replied, rubbing at my chest to try and alleviate the pressure.
“Now you’ve gone and dirtied your shirt,” Kaine fussed, knocking my hand away to surveil the smear of dirt I’d left.
“Even more reason to postpone,” I said.
Kaine muttered a few words under his breath, the ends of his fingers sparkling. A tingling sensation spread across my torso, and I looked down just in time to watch the stain vanish from the material.
