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For an hour, we wandered through the chirping, daunting trees. The shrubbery grew thicker, and my heart rate increased as we got deeper into the woods.
I paused several times, a smell or sight tripping something in my head, but when Zen questioned me on it, I couldn’t give him a definitive answer.
His tone grew tenser as the afternoon sun began to sink over the blue sky, disappearing beyond the heavy branches of the massive, ancient trees.
“This is useless and stupid,” I finally announced, my own frustration shining through as I fed off his impatience.
“Maybe not,” he said evenly, but he wasn’t fooling me. He was just as tired of this as I was. “Here, have some water. Why don’t we rest for a second?”
He pointed at a fallen log, and I started to refuse, but he guided me to sit down.
“We always knew there was a chance that this wouldn’t pan out, Little Mouse,” he reminded me softly. “We came here on a hunch, and there were moments where you thought you recognized some things.”
“That’s good for nothing!” I growled, accepting the proffered canteen and taking a long swig. The cold felt good on my parched insides, but it did nothing to alleviate my mounting aggravation. “We still have to walk all the way back!”
“I’ll shift and run us back,” he told me, answering everything as always. “At least this time we have that option, right?”
Tears of anger flooded my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I moaned. “I dragged you out here for nothing! Like I haven’t put you through enough already!”
“Hey, don’t cry, Miri,” he said urgently, sitting at my side. “It’s not a big deal. Come on. Worst case, we got out of the castle for a day outing. I can think of worse things.”
“It’s not a big deal for you,” I agreed bitterly. “You always know what to do and say. I’m the fuck-up. I mess it all up. You knew this was a stupid quest all along. I should have just listened to you.”
The tears rolled down my cheeks, and a dozen images of Agnan popped into my head then. I could hear him laughing at me, telling me how I wouldn’t amount to anything without him. I felt the crack of Agnan’s slap against my cheek as he hissed in my ear that I was worthless, and my tears poured freely down my face as I released all the emotional stress I’d been clinging to for years.
He was right. I’d always just be a throwaway kid, some disposable brat that got picked up by a warlock for nefarious purposes.
All the emotions overwhelmed me now, and the tears refused to stop pouring down my cheeks, sliding off my chin to fall onto the mulchy ground at my feet.
“Miri, please don’t—”
The ground began to shake, and I yelped, reaching for Zen as he grabbed for me protectively. Another tear fell from my cheek to the dirt and cracked the earth where we stood. In unison, we dove out of harm’s way, the floor of the forest opening beneath us.
“What the hell…?” Zen rasped.
I gawped, bug-eyed, at the phenomenon before us. Clinging to one another, we stared in disbelief as the entire ground parted, but it wasn’t an earthquake we were looking at.
Slowly, laboriously, something began to rise from the depth of the soil.
“Stay back, Mirielle,” Zen growled in a low voice, his body poised to shift as if he anticipated an attack from within the ground.
I held out my hand, holding him back as I sensed something much different erupting beneath us.
“No, don’t,” I breathed, my heart in my throat. I understood what was happening, even if I couldn’t articulate it. I had seen this before, in another life, somewhere long forgotten to me.
The beautiful, wood-and-stone cottage slid up from the earth and shifted into position, the rumbling ceasing as it did. More tears filled my eyes as I pointed at it, but these weren’t tears of defeat.
“Oh,” I mumbled, stumbling forward.
“Miri, wait!” Zen cried, rushing after me. “Don’t touch it! It might be dark magic!”
But I wasn’t concerned, my heart hammering wildly inside my chest as I recognized this.
I knew what it was.
“It’s not dark magic,” I breathed, falling forward to touch the intricate stonework on the façade. My fingers trailed over the white shutters, and blurred as my vision was with sentiment, I realized it was exactly how I remembered it.
“Mirielle, what is this?” Zen demanded, reaching my side warily, his sidelong vision studying me as he tried to watch for dangers.
