AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Born between realms, forget not that you are eternity given form. You are never alone. Seek me, the Guardian of Life, to find your home.”
A wave of overwhelming… kismet washed over me.
Nakoa’s mother was part of this. Just as Miroslav was.
How?
From within my mind’s eye, a dizzying sensation overtook me as the perspective of my life’s events, from birth to present, radically shifting. I stumbled, and Leilani’s hands, with surprising strength, gripped my arms to support me.
Leilani’s voice distantly registered as a great power that seemed to sink into my very DNA. The glamor shielding my wings since we’d begun travelling fell. My wings shot out as though bursting free of shackles. Leilani leapt back to prevent herself from being knocked over by them, gazing in awe.
“You’ve already begun to shift,”she affirmed with no small amount of awe.
Words escaped me as what felt like the hand of destiny reached into my soul and pulled taut the cord connecting all the events of my life, finally aligning them so they hung in unwavering linearity, revealing how even the smallest of events had been an imperative part of the journey that had led me here, to this moment.
The images I’d been shown in Phaedra’s shrine passed before my eyes. Tears spilled from my cheeks as I watched again in awe.
A talon of fear scraped sent my heart galloping as this destiny opened up before me and beckoned me towards a path I would never have chosen.
Something is still missing,some internal internal voice warned me. An image from my dreams returned to my mind.
“Where is the pythos?” I asked, barely above a whisper as I tried to steady myself.
“Pythos? I don’t know anything about a pythos…”
I searched her gaze, and she gave me an apologetic look.
“What is its significance?”
“I… I don’t know yet.”
“That is often the case with visions initially. Though, eventually, it will be revealed. Don’t worry.”
Leilani nodded in understanding as she slipped her hand into mine and walked me to a darkened corner with a rather large, perfectly circular, gaping hole in the floor.
As we neared, I realized it was not a hole but a well. The water within reached precisely the edge of the cave floor, making it look like it could have been a pane of glass. Instead of reflecting the dim faelight that flickered behind us, it seemed to absorb it.
A rectangular floor pillow, nearly as long as a bed, lay beside the stone cave floor, surrounded by more crystalline stalagmites. Leilani led me on a narrow path between them before gently pulling me down to join her on the pillow.
Leilani began to chant in that ancient language. The placid water of The Well shuddered and began to ripple until her words quieted. I stared, waiting for something to happen, and just when I began to grow unsure, I noticed a tiny pinprick of light at the bottom of the seemingly bottomless well.
My enhanced sanguinati sight strained to understand what I was seeing. The pinprick of light gradually grew and spread across The Well like beams of light until it filled the entirety of The Well. Shining an iridescent white so bright that I had to shield my eyes. When the light dimmed, and I looked back into The Well, I saw…
Myself.
As if by some unknowable force pulling me, I leaned forward on my hands and knees. The cave around me, Leilani included, disappeared, and I suddenly found myself standing in…
Queen Zurie’s bedroom…
Zurie lay on her bed in a pool of blood that framed her hips with the covers pulled back. Her ordinarily perfect, unruffled appearance and indifferent demeanor were gone. In its place are sweat, tears, and blood.
So much blood.
And a tiny infant lay nursing on her breast.
My breath caught… The dark umber wings, the dark hair, the dark golden skin…
Nakoa.
