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He withdrew from me pointedly, as if I had shoved him. Hands fell at his sides, and his head cocked in perplexity. Golden eyes looked me over for what seemed like the hundredth time during our short exchange. Behind them, I could see the back and forth of his thoughts: a battle for decision. There was a victor.
“We are in the Well in Leoth,” he said quite anticlimactically. The warmth that had flowed through his voice before was gone. “Armory of the Light faction.”
He removed the thick cloak from a pair of decorative broochesthat clasped over the shoulders of his vest and moved toward me cautiously. When I didn’t startle at his advance, he gently draped the cloak around my naked body. I hadn’t been aware of my lack of modesty until I had seen the immensity of his wardrobe. He kept his eyes on mine while he tied a delicate string near the hollow of my neck. He was, again, searching forsomething. I waited for him to find it, and then make sense of anything that he had said about where we were.
“Let’s get you up and find someone to bathe and dress you properly,” was all he said.
His words seemed weighed down, disappointed, and that guilt I always felt when I had failed to summon my visions, the guilt that blossomed from disappointment, followed me here into this world, too.Already I am failing, I thought, but accepted his hand this time when it was extended and let him pull me to my feet.
I ached all over, and with the wave of exhaustion that I felt approaching me from all sides, I thought it better to comply with the stranger than to make a run for it. Run to where? I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought the cliff of this mountain looked rather tempting, but I was simply too tired, or maybe, too curious, too hopeful. I’d been sure days ago that all hope was lost.
I looked down to smooth the cloak once the stranger steadied me. Beneath my dirt-caked feet was a beautiful insignia etched into the floor. Similar to the one on his belt, polished and gleaming. This one, though, was intricately painted with dull oranges and yellows and blues. I couldn’t make out the design before, but I could see it perfectly now. Two larger ovals inverting on one another. At their center lay a four-point star, the only object that remained untouched by color. Instead, the natural marble of the rock beneath shimmered so brightly one might think whoever made it had stolen a star from the heavens. Maybe it burned so intensely now, whenever the light hit it,trying to illuminate the spot in the sky it had once been.
“The Preserver’s crest.” The stranger satisfied my curiosity as he, too, struggled to pry his eyes from the magnificent design.
“The Preserver?”
I devoured the word. It was one I had grown too acquainted with. I paid careful attention to the stranger’s expression as I repeated it back to him.He knows of my World. It seemed absurd, but here we stood.He knows of my life. His face remained indifferent, but I could see it was an effort for him.
“The Preserver of the Light. It is what we call the Sage who protects—,” he stumbled over the word like it had jumped out in front of him, “Protectedthe faction and all who dwell in it.”
Those eyes averted from mine.
Preserver of the Light, let no darkness befall you, I chanted silently, pressing my lips tightly against one another, trying to keep the words from literally slipping out of my mouth. I tried not to make much sound as I drew breath slowly in through my nose and back out. Could this stranger know how long I had spent walking from day to night, counting, dreaming, seeing?
If he had felt the impact of my realization, he showed no signs of it. He seemed to be looking through me at the long corridor on the back wall of the cavern, eyes darting nervously.
“Come, now,” he said, his mouth drawing into a tight line when I flinched at his reach. “We’ve wasted too much time out in the open. I’ll explain more after you have settled in a bit.”
After I’ve hidden you away, is what his tone implied.
The rough skin of his hand latched onto my wrist, and he hastily yanked me into the hallway. I stayed close to his side, not used to being so completely in the dark. Already, I missed the comforting glow of my sky. No matter where I was in my World, I was never shut out from the light.
A single moment passed, and then the hall brightened from within. Suddenly, out of nowhere. A million tiny incandescents.Like stars. I was truly amazed as I looked for their source but found none. The stone walls that arched around us were smooth and solid. Even if the night had come so quickly since we’d left the landing, there was no way for us to see it.
Next to me, the stranger’s face was tense with concentration. In the glow that now blanketed us, I could see the dampness of his forehead. He kept his eyes focused on a point I couldn’t see, somewhere in the pit of that empty hall. As if he were aware of my attention, he drew his right middle finger up to the center of his forehead, confirming what I had already concluded.
“You’re doing this,” I whispered. It wasn’t a question, simply an observation of what was becoming more and more obvious. “You’re doing this with yourmind,” I explained, to myself, I guess.
The stranger didn’t reply, only hummed in confirmation. I wondered if he had felt the grief emanating from the part of me that felt lost from my World already, or if this was simply out of habit. His strain implied the former. Either way, I was grateful.
“Thank you,” I said low and soft. It was all my voice could manage, and I didn’t want to cause him to lose his grip on the lights.
The hallway went on eternally, even past the reach of my companion’s magic. The natural ridges of the rock in the landing had transformed into a wide hall that ran off into tangential corridors. Every few feet we walked was an opening on either side with stairs. The whole canyon seemed to be a network of tunnels and rooms that led elsewhere, with us at the center. Theotherscould have been anywhere. Suddenly, I was keen to get out of sight. Squeezing the stranger’s hand, I began to walk faster, my feet gliding atop the rock floors.
We walked on and on until we reached a corner and turned left, then right, and finally down a spiral of stairs that landed at a marble door. The stranger dropped my hand and clasped hisarms behind his back.
“This will be your room,” he nodded to the cool-faced barrier. “Do not leave it until you are called for. I will send the handmaid, Rebekah, down to help you get comfortable.”
Room. Such a word tugged on my memory almost immediately. Images of shell-colored cloth and feather-filled pillows were drawn to the front of my mind. A quiet solitude that I had somehow yearned for, though not for a long time. And not right now.
“When will you be back? To call on me, I mean.”
The stranger, who had already turned to leave, stopped at the sound of my raw, guttural voice. His back went rigid as he turned around, his shoulders pulled back with enough tension to snap himself in two.
“When it is safe,” he replied stiffly and began to turn away from me again. My hand shot out from under his cloak to take hold of his arm, fisting his undershirt in angry desperation. He looked down open-mouthed at my assault, clearly taken back by my sudden and inexplicable boldness. I couldn’t believe it either, but I needed more answers.
“Surely you mean to tell me exactly what’s going on,” I said. “You can’t just come to snatch me and drag me through the entire universe, and then shut me in my room.”
