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I licked my lips, expecting my voice to sound raspy from screaming, but it came out clear and calm. "Yes… yes, I can hear you."
"We witnessed what happened to you. Now that we know, we can work on breaking the cord that binds you to Dredge. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
The words drifted through my thoughts and I flashed back to dancing when Dredge said dance. A puppet. He'd called me a puppet. "What do I need to do?"
"You must return to that moment and find the thread of energy that connects the two of you. It's not just his blood that makes him your sire."
Go back? Did he say go back? The last thing I wanted to do was dive back into that mire of pain and anger. But then the thought of being free dangled, the carrot in front of the horse.
"What do I have to do? How do I do this?"
"It's simple. You go back and I'll be here, shoring you up. Focus on finding the cord that binds you to him. We need to know precisely where it connects in your aura so we can pinpoint and sever it. But before we make the break, we need to find out where he is. For that, you'll have to reach out from the present through the binding cord and touch his soul."
Jareth brushed a stray hair out of my forehead and that simple kindness made me sniffle. Reliving the past was exhausting, painful. But if reliving it is this bad, think what it's doing to you every day, every hour, every minute you carry the burden. The words echoed in my mind and I blinked behind the blindfold. All of my anger and sorrow couldn't be wiped away as if it had never happened, but perhaps I could lay it down? Quit carrying it and let it go?
"All right," I said. "Let's do it. How can I keep from being sucked under by the memories?"
"I'll be by your side, now that I know what you're facing," he said. "Lean on me. Call on my strength."
As the smell of blood came close once again, I said, "Dredge tried to do this, didn't he? You took him back to his time of turning?"
Jareth let out a long sigh. "I did. I had no idea he'd been a priest of Jakaris in life—the years of perversion that twisted his soul. And so the ritual went terribly wrong. Instead of being willing to let go of the anger, he was looking for a way to absorb his sire's power into himself. And it worked."
I thought about that for a moment. Dredge had sought to embrace the power, and to that end, tricked Jareth. He'd given in to the very soul of evil. I wouldn't follow in the footsteps of my sire, no matter what the cost. "I'm ready."
A pause, and then Jareth began the incantation again, sprinkling three more drops on my forehead.
Surrender your expectations. Surrender your doubts.
Surrender your fears. Surrender your strengths.
Surrender your anger. Surrender your control.
And then three drops on my lips and I reached out and sucked them in as I held on for the ride to come.
Creature of the night, demon of the blood,
Turn back the clock, turn back the minutes
and hours and years.
Return to the night you were born anew.
Return to the night of your siring.
Once again, I was back in the cavern, back in my now-dead body. But this time, I felt a golden glow cradling my head as I frantically tried to place myself. I was dead—I was dead and Dredge had turned me into a vampire. But wait, this was a dream, a vision I was walking through.
That's right, I thought, breaking through the fear. My name is Menolly and I've been a vampire for twelve Earthside years, and I'm really lying on a platform in the Temple of Reckoning. These are merely shades of the past.
I tried to focus, to find Jareth. Then, I realized he was the golden glow that was cushioning my head. He was here, watching over me. I instinctively tried to take a deep breath, but my lungs didn't want to work right.
Wait, I'm dead.
My thoughts began to sort themselves out, as memory kicked in. That's right, I thought. It had taken me over a year to learn how to take a breath. Meanwhile, I'd spent far too many days dreaming that I was suffocating.
Jareth's hands ran down my shoulders, reminding me that I wasn't trapped here with Dredge. I wouldn't have to go through the year of madness again, locked like an animal in a silver cage while the OIA tried to retrieve my soul from the shattered state Dredge left it in.
Now… time to find that cord. I forced myself to relax and sought out the tendrils of energy racing through my body. The blood and the rape and torture had created implings—parasitical creatures created from intense emotions. For the first time, I could see that they'd attached themselves to my aura and they were probably still with me after all these years. Shuddering, I tried to push them aside but Jareth patted me on the shoulder and I let it go for now.
