Page 7 of The Sundered Realms

The pain was unbearable now, but it had always been more than she could bear. She’d heal, if she lived. She didn’t know what her future would hold. Maybe it wouldn’t be better, but at least it would be not this.

And she would know she’d tried.

At least she would have that.

Liris stared at the circle of the cactus.

She’d always wondered if this was the real test, to prove that ultimately, there was no duty Serenthuar would demand of her that she wouldn’t do.

Well. If this was a test, she was going to fail it.

Liris had a secret.

And she had never in her life felt a rush like she did when she leapt through the circle in the sky that was actually a nearly unknown Gate and tumbled into another realm.

Chapter 2

Gates are perfectly circular and always invisible, but they’re typically surrounded by some structure that marks them. Sometimes that demarcation is “natural,” like a tree branch that’s warped in shape to not pass through the center of the portal. Others, humans have stumbled into and then built ring-shaped decorations around.

Maybe if I’d been allowed to study spellcraft, I’d know why the universe loves circles. But searching for them—and, memorably, finding them—is probably the root of my preoccupation with patterns.

The thing about leaping through a magical portal was there was no way to know what would be on the other side.

There was no reason a Gate couldn’t have been so high in the sky Liris would have crashed to her death. She could have landed in a cave full of angry bears too big to fit through the tiny cactus Gate.

So Liris was actually relieved when she merely landed on her shoulder with about the same force of impact as if one of her martial arts teachers had successfully thrown her.

She rolled through an incredible sludge—mud—no, mud and slime, there were lizard-green swirls through the gloppy brown mess—and got shakily to her feet.

Liris ran through her mental catalog of things in muddy climates that produced iridescent green slime and stared at her caked and now glowing body. Her skin wasn’t burning or numb, which was good because she didn’t have any supplies anyway. She hadn’t been willing to risk the delay. Probably it wasn’t poisonous? It looked like she was going to live for at least the next few seconds, and if anything in her immediate environs was actively trying to kill her, she didn’t know about it yet. So that was settled.

Good, fantastic. Abandoning her entire life was off to a great start.

Liris took a breath and looked around—and her eyes pricked with tears.

She stood on the bank of a murky pool of water surrounded by spindly, crooked trees, everything twisted together and overlapping, and she had never seen so much life, and green, all in one place. Even if it wasn’t clear whether the plants were trying to choke each other or were growing out of each other.

Even if it was all shrouded by haze she couldn’t see far through.

Even if she could hear all kinds of noises that were probably horrible insects that did in fact want to kill her.

It didn’t matter because it was different and thus perfect and she’d made it.

Liris looked back in the direction she’d fallen from, at the branches of different trees that had grown twined around in a circle. The center was the only clear gap in the swamp.

She had no idea where she was, which direction to go. But she was alive, for now. She had to make it count.

Liris carefully peeled the last of the petals off her hands. She couldn’t leave a trail. Grimacing, she shoved her tunic and sash into the mud at her feet to cake them and cover the blood, and put them back on. Wherever she ended up, no one was going to argue against burning her clothes, which would mean fewer questions about how she’d gotten there.

Then she pulled herself out of the swamp and started running.

When armed guards accosted Liris, bound her wrists and ankles, and tossed her into the back of a cart, she knew she’d overstayed her welcome in Yenti.

She didn’t bother fighting—partially because she was laughably outnumbered, but also because she needed to find out how, after a month of no problems, she’d caught anyone’s attention. The best way to do that was to find out where they were taking her.

Once the cart got moving, Liris carefully sat up. A middle-aged blonde woman with a forbidding expression, forbidding arm muscles, and even more forbidding glint of sharp steel within easy reach glowered at her, but made no move to shove her back down when Liris peered over the side.

Mossy mud, tree branches that reached out like they were trying to grab her, yellow slitted eyes peering at her from the darkness, that was all fine. Just normal swamp things, she’d totally been handling this.

---