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Bryn could feel the disappointment radiating from the crow. She was glad the little bird said nothing this close to Bryn. She had surprised herself when she hit Declan, and so she wasn’t sure she was above strangling the crow. It wasn’t like Cyerra could die after all.
Callum tilted his head as if baffled this was not something she already knew.
The long, pained sigh in her mind came from Cyerra, before the crow spoke to her.
“Close your eyes, Bryn,” Cyerra’s voice rang in her head. “Feel that darkness in your mind, that part of you that you hide in the shadows?”
Trying to take this seriously, she visualized a door, shadows spilling out from beneath it.
“You need to go through that door.”
Walk through the creepy door of her psyche? How could this possibly go wrong?
Stepping forward in her mind, she put her hand out. The same hand as was in the real world without tattoos.
Pulling open the door, a vast blackness spread out from it, reminding her of the place Kian had told her about.
Hesitant, Bryn waited, but the shadows had other ideas as they wrapped around her arm and tugged at her, pulling her toward the threshold.
Trying to pull her hand back was no use as the shadows only strengthened the more she struggled.
Panic had her trying to open her eyes only to realize they were already open in the very darkness she’d proclaimed not long ago would make her go mad. Closing her eyes, she pretended that was the reason for the darkness. It felt easier to accept somehow when she felt in control, even if it was false.
“It’s safe. Relax and walk through. I will be waiting on the other side,”Cyerra assured her, and Bryn took a deep breath before following Cyerra’s advice.
Hands out in front of her, she felt the wood of another door and moved her hand until she felt the cold metal of a doorknob before twisting it open.
Stepping through the pitch-black door, she emerged on the other side.
Opening her eyes, the shadows remained around her before finally letting go and dissipating.
Everything around her was the more colorful version of her world, just as it had been in her visions, but it felt different this time since she had come through on her own. She could feel the breeze more than she had before, and a pulse timed with the rhythm of her own heart seemed to shudder through the land.
It was as if the Otherworld, Faerie, had its own heartbeat.
She was still next to the pyre, but Callum wasn’t. The dead tree that Cyerra had just been on was lush and full of life. Greens of varying colors wove through the tree, the sun shining above sending flares of sunlight through the leaves and onto her, colors glittering along her skin. Holding her arms out, the tattoos were once again inked where they had been every time before.
A chuff caught her attention, and she turned to the silver wolf who was watching her from where Callum had stood moments before. Getting to her knees, she ran her fingers through its fur, its eyes closing as it leaned into her touch.
Cyerra was flying, meeting other crows in the branches of the trees that surrounded town.
“Are you Callum?” she asked the wolf, its head shaking dramatically in a very obvious no, and she wondered who the beast was that had become a protector for her in this realm. Could it be another familiar?
“If only you were this real outside of here,” she whispered, and the wolf opened sad eyes before giving a nod and a bark.
Laughing, she gave the gorgeous beast a kiss on the forehead, earning a slobbery kiss on the side of her face in return that reminded her of Finian.
Standing, the wolf whined at the lack of pets but followed her as she roamed.
It was as if the veil laid directly upon her world. She could see all the buildings, Niamh’s, and the Cauldron clearly. The gorgeous grass that grew between her and the brick buildings and trees that stood outside the walls built to keep people in. No sand to be seen anywhere.
It was as if they’d saved the world already, the Fomori gone, and it returned to the beauty it had once been so long ago.
A piece of her soul longed for what she now imagined the world could have been. Unsure if it was possible to ever get it back to the way it once was.
Overwhelmed by the loss of that place she couldn’t remember but grieved for, she fell to her knees in the middle of Saints’ Road along the plush foliage and plants that thrived and screamed.
Vines moved along the ground, wrapping around her wrists, but she felt no malice from them. Where she’d landed, the grass had thickened, making a soft carpet for her knees.
