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“What do you mean she gave you a gift? She can impart powers on others?” Felix’s normally jovial expression turned serious, all humor dissipating instantly.
“No, not exactly. She more or less steals them from others during intense stress.”
“You better start from the beginning,” Marik demanded.
“When we were twelve, I died. Well, almost died. I might as well have died.” Ness’s voice was heavy with the difficult memories plaguing her. She took a deep breath, squeezing Ryn’s hand before continuing. “Ryn saved my life. But in doing so she accidentally killed someone we both cared deeply about.”
“And who was that?”
“Our mentor, Sister Brie.”
Chapter Twenty-Five - Retracing Memories
Marrik
“Do you remember this?” I asked, watching as the auburn haired woman moved through the field of dying grasses and decaying wild flowers.
“It wasn’t like this.” Ness replied, her eyes traveling across the sky. “It was sunny outside.”
“No storm?”
“No,” she replied, watching the storm clouds roll through the memory I had pulled her into. She shivered as a cold fall breeze lifted her hair into a torrent of waves. “It was fall, so that’s right, but it wasn’t cold. It was unseasonably warm. It was so warm she wanted to stay outside. She always had a sixth sense for beasts and knew one was there.”
Ness continued looking around her, before focusing on her young form lying amongst the underbrush. She lifted her arm as if to reach out for her younger self lying in such silent repose that she appeared made of stone.
“She didn’t want to go back. We argued and she just stood there, refusing to budge. But I…I knew we needed to go back.”
Thunder crashed and rolled overhead to cover a growl that pierced the sky behind us.
I knew that sound. A hellcat.
“I was attacked right there. She came from nowhere. I had no idea she was there.” Tears began to run in rivulets down the woman’s cheeks.
The scene before us skipped, Ryn appearing as if by magic next to her friend’s stony form.
“I didn’t see much of anything besides the jaws that ripped out my throat. I didn’t even have time to scream.” She paused, watching as my Little Thief’s childlike form bent over her friend’s unconscious one. “I didn’t even get a last breath.”
Aeryn reached out, her fingers skating across Ness’s cheek, completely unblemished and without the gruesome injury described.
“Girls!”
Both Ness and I looked up, seeing the form of the tall willowy woman on the other end of the clearing. For the first time I truly studied her, her sunken skin hugging cheekbones while turquoise eyes faded into the cloudy mists of the white surrounding her irises. Her face held a vague familiarity I couldn’t quite place, and I didn’t care much to try at that moment.
“Girls, it's time to come back now!”
Before our eyes we watched as the red headed girl opened her eyes and sat up, the color of her features changing like the settings on a television.
The scene fast forwarded again; this time, my Thief held tightly to her crumpled mentor, her vacant stare watching the rolling storm clouds above.
“I take it that wasn’t real either?” I asked as I watched the silent tears stream down Ness’ cheeks,
“No, actually, that’s the only part that’s real.”
I pulled us back from my Thief’s repeating nightmare as the scene faded away before us. There would be nothing new. While Felix had retrieved Ness from the keep, I had remained within Aeryn’s mind repeating the memory with her trying to see anything I couldn’t from the previous go around. I was eager to return now that I knew what hadn’t been real, but I needed more information before returning.
“How did that woman die?”
Ness sighed. “I don’t know exactly. Like I said, I was basically dead the entire time. But what I know is that when I came to, Sister Brie was already on the ground, completely drained and devoid of life. She was nothing more than a shell. Her power though - it lived on. It was within me. And the weirdest thing - I could feel Sister Brie inside of me, some piece that just felt like it was there. My connection to sloth came shortly thereafter.”
