Page 55 of Haunted

Two thousand years in which my heart grows in sorrow, in darkness.

In loneliness.

An ache that never dies.

From spiritual wounds that never heal.

The empress is on the other side of the Great Divide.

Still.

She haunts me, rules Morvith with an iron fist.

I try to forget her, but I wake screaming at night.

My torment never ends.

I believe we’re still linked. Somehow she slides into my mind at night, just to torment me.

I grow weary of fighting her, of trying to make my mind a fortress from her influence.

Generations of my loyal followers come and go. I’m kind to my people, so they trust me.

A few close reliable humans, my only companions, buoy me up when I’m in despair, but I’m flailing.

I know no other half-emrys.

They all exist across the Great Divide.

And life is as it once was. I watch everyone die—

While I live on.

It’s depressing.

I sulk in the evenings, on the wall of my citadel. The city spreads out below, and stars speckle the sky.

I scan the horizon to the west, north, and south. But I always hesitate to turn east—toward her realm.

Inevitably, I close my eyes and open my inner sight to the lights of this world. I’m relieved when the empress’s realm is still veiled from my sight.

A blessing.

If I cannot see her, she cannot see me.

As I sweep my mind over the realms opposite hers, a realm to my south and a realm to my west, I don’t expect more than the dull lights of humans and animals. There’s nothing else. No other immortal as far as my inner sight can see.

Just three realms all to themselves, away from her sickening influence.

I stretch my sight far into the southern realm. I have tentative relations with their ruler, mostly because we don’t interact. A mountain range divides our lands. No one bothers crossing it, usually.

This night, this breezy fall night, I search the skies again.

Without warning, to the southwest, a light burns into existence.

A brazen light.

A light only seen by my inner sight.

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