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Even though he was the runt of the litter there was something endearing about him. Like so many of the other lions now his body was lean. There was not enough food for us to wear a lot of flesh, so the lines and angles of his muscles were stark. His hair was shaved to bristles, his jaw sharp. His gaze had a way of falling to the floor, but I assumed this was more because he was in my presence than anything else, although it did seem he was naturally meek. It helped to set him apart from the other men though. They had all lain themselves before me, eager to mate with me because they thought the role required only physical prowess, but I wanted something far more potent than that. I wanted someone who could look into the future and see the same things I did, which was why I urged him to think about this question carefully.
He licked his lips, and when he was ready, he spoke.
“If such a place does exist then I think we owe it to ourselves to find it again. It is said that we come from there, that long ago our ancestors were sent from Orestes to make a home here. Perhaps now it is time for a homecoming, if Orestes is not just a story.”
“And if they do not wish for us to return?” I asked.
“Then we do what lions always do. We fight.”
I gave a slight nod of approval, my lips twitching, forming a half smile. I had expected him to obey the same traditional line of thinking as all the others had, as my father had, that we should stay here and fight for this land because this was our home. Perhaps there was hope for Lanas yet. There was always a chance for me to be surprised.
“I see, well, it’s good to know that you have the best interests of the lions at heart. I feel the same way,” I said, and I could see him visibly sigh with relief. “But not everyone thinks as we do. They believe that we should stay here and that by some miracle the world is going to change again and become as it used to be. I know it’s not though. This world is dying, and if we stay here then we are going to die with it.”
“But then what are we supposed to do? It’s not as though we can actually go to Orestes.”
“Can’t we?” I gave him an enigmatic smile and enjoyed the look of bemusement on his face. I hated keeping secrets from my people, but some things were just too controversial to share, and could not be understood by everyone. I took a deep breath and leaned back in my seat. He remained on the floor, bent on his knees in supplication to me. I wasn’t sure he was going to make a good mate attitude wise if he could not speak up for himself, but time was growing short and I was growing desperate. If I did not make any changes soon then this pride would die and I would only have myself to blame. There were so few men left… if Lanas truly thought like this then I had to give him the opportunity to learn the truth and see what he did with it.
“Lanas, what if I told you that there was a way to get to Orestes?”
“But… but how?” he gasped, a look of shock upon his face. His lips remained wide open, gaping like a hole in the world.
My gaze drifted towards the bracelet that wrapped around my wrist. I held out my arm. The bracelet was thick and round, made of hard metal. Jewels were inlaid around it, making it sparkle whenever it caught the light. To others it was a beautiful piece of jewelry that had been handed down through the generations, a royal heirloom, but to me it was a cage. Whenever I looked at it, I burned with resentment and remembered when my father had first put it on me, how he had pinned me down. I was only a child. I had not possessed the strength to fight him off.
“Have you ever heard of the people who can walk between worlds?” I asked.
“I’ve heard the stories, yes, but they’re the same stories as Orestes.”
I let out a small chuckle. “I already told you that every story has an element of truth to it. There have always been some lions who have had the ability to walk between worlds. How do you think we arrived here in the first place? This ability has been passed down, but it does not always appear. It is rare, and people fear rare things. Over the generations that have lived and died on this world there are superstitions that have arisen and lies that have been told, lies that have played on people’s fears. I suspect that people told these lies to keep us here, to give us a reason to fear anything new. But now those fears are going to cause us to fall into oblivion. You may not believe this, but my father was someone who allowed himself to be ruled by fear.”
“The King? I don’t believe that,” Lanas said scornfully.
“He was afraid all his life, and then he had me, his only daughter. He wanted to keep me safe, keep me protected. That’s why he gave me this.”
“Does it work?”
“Oh yes it works. There’s a story you don’t know, the story of how he first gave me this. I was only young, little more than a cub. I felt this thing inside me, this energy that I couldn’t quite explain. It was like a sense of taste or smell, and for a long time I assumed that everyone could feel it. Then one day I embraced this feeling. I was thinking of a place I had heard in a story, a faraway place that did not exist here. The air swirled around me and there was chaos. I tumbled through a crack in the world and then I was exactly where I had been picturing in my mind, a world where the sea rolled onto the shore, waves crashing with anger. I was drenched by water, and there I stayed, watching the tides ebb and flow for what seemed like hours, until I grew tired. Then I thought of home and I returned.
It came as easily to me as breathing, and I did not think anything of it. In fact, I was excited to share the story with my father, but when he saw me his face was like thunder. He grabbed me in his arms and asked me where I had been, for he thought I had been lost. He had sent all the hunters out looking for me. Apparently there had been quite a panic. He scolded me for hiding, and asked me where I had gone.
So I told him. I told him all about this new world I had seen, a world of water and sand. I described the feeling of the water on my skin and the coolness of the air, how the waves went back and forth in this hypnotic rhythm that was so relaxing. He didn’t believe me at first, but he could not deny the truth because my clothes were damp. I suppose at first he must have assumed it was sweat, or that I had bathed myself while fully clothed. I will never forget the look of horror that came upon his face. In that moment I realized that I was no longer his daughter, but some monster that needed to be controlled. He told me to stay where I was and he rushed away. He came back holding this. His hands were trembling. I asked him what it was. He told me that it was a gift, a special gift that would stop this from ever happening again. I didn’t understand at first. There was a look in his eyes that I had never seen before though, and in that moment where I had stopped being his daughter he had stopped being my father as well. I was happy to accept the bracelet up until the point where I realized it wasn’t just a bracelet. There were spikes that protruded inside. They scratched my skin and pierced me. It hurt so bad. I screamed. I wanted him to know, but he kept telling me that it would be alright, that this was necessary. I thought he would stop. Why would he want to hurt me? He was too strong for me to pull my arm away. I yelled and howled. All he said was that things would be different, that I had something wrong with me, but this would fix it, this would make it so that he would never have to wonder where I was.
That’s when I realized what he was doing. He was taking this thing away from me and I didn’t want it being taken away. I knew that it wasn’t wrong. I tried my hardest to escape. I thought of anywhere else to try and be free of him, but as I felt myself being pulled into this other world his grip on my arm tightened and the pain became too much to bear, and he managed to put the bracelet fully onto me. The chaos subsided and whatever had been inside me before wasn’t there any longer. This stopped it,” I stared at the bracelet. My voice became strained, weighed down by the sorrow of all that had happened. There were days when I tried my hardest to forget that moment, that moment when I had lost trust in my father.
“He explained that what I could do was a curse, and this was to protect me. He told me that I would have to wear this for the rest of my life to ensure that I couldn’t slip between worlds again, but he could never explain exactly why it was a curse. He just said that it was something I did not have to worry about, nor did I ever have to be afraid. A few nights later after I still hadn’t forgiven him he tried to justify it by saying that there were dangerous worlds out there, worlds that might have killed me and he was only doing this for my own protection. I never believed him though. He was scared because he didn’t understand it. He was scared because of what might have happened.
He should have trusted me. He should have celebrated me. Instead, he took away something that could have saved this pride. But with your help I can be free. I can walk between worlds, find Orestes, and get them to welcome us back. But I need your help.”
He looked dumbfounded. I certainly understood, for it was a lot to take in. He was hearing something that had never been shared with another before. He might well have gone outside and shouted to the heavens that I was some witch, but what difference would that make? If people rebelled against me then they would only be sealing their doom far more quickly than if I survived. I was the only one who could save them. They had to see that.
“How can I help?” he asked, his voice shuddering. It was the right answer though. Darrow had finally picked someone who had the right mindset.
“I’ve tried so many times to get this off, but I just can’t break through the pain. It’s dug into my skin so deep that if I try and wrench it off then I pass out. I need you to take it off for me. It’s going to hurt, and it’s going to bleed, but I need you to do it and once you start you can’t stop until it’s off. I don’t care what happens to me. I just need you to do this. This is the way that we can save our pride. Once I’m free then we can find a way for us to escape this prison. We can eat until our bellies are full, hunt the land that will be filled with all kinds of creatures. We can live the kind of life that our ancestors enjoyed, that were supposed to be promised to us. All I need is for you to take this off my arm,” I said, almost as though it was the easiest thing in the world.
Lanas frowned. Uncertainty rippled across his face, but he nodded. I reached over and grabbed a wooden spoon, holding it in my mouth. I closed my eyes and braced myself against the pain. I felt him putting his hands against the bracelet and beginning to pull. As soon as he did the spikes that hooked under my flesh began to resist and pain blazed through me. My entire face scrunched up and I whimpered, my teeth clamping into the wooden spoon.
“Keep going,” I commanded, my words muffled because of the spoon.
It was as though fire spread through my body. I clamped my eyes shut, but even so wet tears were able to seep out. It was as though I was transported to that moment years ago when the bracelet had just been put on me. The fear and pain swirled together creating a potent cocktail that played havoc with my mind. I shuddered and groaned and my mind was so hazy I felt as though I was near death. It became so intense that I almost became numb. There was a moment when I opened my eyes and through my blurred vision, I could see Lanas straining to pull the bracelet off me. A river of blood flowed from my flesh and dripped to the floor. My skin was torn and tattered, a fleshy mess that writhed underneath the shadow of the bracelet. He pulled and dragged and I cried out, gasping in anguish. It felt as though he was wrenching my arm from its socket, but I did not care one bit as I just wanted it gone. I didn’t care if he tore my whole body in two because finally, I would be able to see this thing gone from my body and I would be free once more.
