Page 5 of Ruby & Onyx

“Yes, yes, sure. Give me a moment, will you?”

“Of course, take all the time you need.” My words come out with a little more sarcasm than intended, so I widen my smile even further to compensate. A gesture that he never turns around to see.

I wait while he fiddles with one of the crates, shaking it back and forth like he’s shaking out the dust from it. One after the other, he inspects and then shakes the boxes. It’s a gruelingly slow process that doesn’t seem to end. My patience starts to run thin, so I call out to him, “Just one bundle of coffee, please.”

The grouch’s bony hands finally reach for the coffee beans. He proceeds to measure each scoop meticulously, making sure that each one holds not even a single bean more than intended. One by one, the beans fall in a maddeningly slow process. Finally, once the bundle meets his measurement standards, his thin eyes meet mine as he extends the bundle toward me. I try to grab it, but he holds it tightly in place with his spindly hands. I tug it again but to no avail. For such a frail-looking man, he sure has good grip strength. The wrinkles above his brow crinkle with the widening of his eyes – now vacant and aghast.

“Paul?” With his arm still extended, his hands begin to tremble. Several seconds pass in an eerie silence, so I repeat, “Paul?”

His terror-stricken stare is fixed on something unseen behind me. I turn around, but there’s nothing unusual there, only the typical weary vendors and a couple of wandering patrons. Not a single soul is paying him any attention, and yet, you would think that he’d seen an entire row of archers aiming their bows directly at him.

I start to turn and walk away, coffee be damned, until he breaks the silence with a guttural gasp. Then his voice lowers to a rasp as he says, “The time for your homecoming nears. Your seat shall be returned to you. The nations shall bow to you. Return! Return!”

I blink rapidly as his eyes come back into focus and the terror fades away, returning him to his typical grouchy countenance. All vestiges of that ghostly demeanor disappear in an instant. “Are you going to take it or not?” He asks, as if he didn’t just ramble on about absurdities like a fortune teller from the depths of the crypt.

“Excuse me?” I snap, unsure of what words would even be appropriate for this situation. “What homecoming? What seat? Why on earth would nations bow to me? Does he have the gift of sight?” Or is he losing his mind to the gods?

He dismisses me with a puzzled shake of his head, as if he has any right to look confused after that nonsense. “I got you your damned coffee, now would you like to take it?”

“Where were you suggesting I return to?”

“Take it or leave it.” He drops the bundle on the table between us and turns to grab a melon from his cart, mumbling curses just loud enough for me to make out a few words. I take the bundle and drop my lone coin on the table.

I stumble out of the market with confusion burning a hole inside of me. It feels as if my nightmares overtook my waking life. What on earth is going on here?

Chapter 3

Alegion surrounds me on every side. Female warriors creep closer and closer with their hands extended as glowing blue power levitates above their palms. They’re cradling that power, nurturing it to grow, and waiting for something. A command, perhaps. The area around them is obscured by plumes of thick red dust kicking up in a hazy cloud. The sky is dark, but the space around me is alight with the glow of their power. It swells and bulges with an unquenchable anger. A thirst for vengeance.

At some invisible cue, the soldiers halt. Their orbs of power begin to rise into the sky one by one, lifting higher and higher until they are directly above me. The orbs merge into one behemoth of light, like a pulsating star. Before my eyes can trace the outline of the swelling power, it cascades down, forming a dome that surrounds only me. Everywhere I look, I am surrounded by that eerie dome. I can feel it leeching the strength from my bones. Pulling, ripping, shredding me from the inside out.

My knees buckle, and I tumble onto the cold earth. I lift my head to the sky, begging the gods to save me, but no savior emerges. I am the only one who can save me. I am the only one.

In unison, the soldiers continue their march inward. Each step they take causes the dome to shrink around me. They pull in closer and closer…

I try to claw at the cage’s seams, but it only worsens the pain seething inside me, sending sparks zapping through me. The mud beneath my boots makes it harder to stand as I sink deeper and deeper into it. I cannot let them win. I cannot give in.

Their approach is slow, steady, and calculated. It almost makes me laugh. All of these cold-blooded soldiers are hidden behind a forcefield. It’s all of them against one powerless woman, and yet, for reasons that I do not understand, it is their eyes that are coated with fear.

Cowards.

I summon the only remaining strength left in my weak, deteriorating body to propel myself to stand. If they want a fight, then I’ll give them one. I release the scream welling up inside of me, desperate to summon power from the deepest part of my soul, but when my mouth opens, no sound escapes. Only the sound of footsteps moving closer and the huffs of tiring soldiers fills the dark, all-consuming silence.

The cage is shrinking.

I am shrinking.

They won.

A sharp burst of pain jolts me awake, and the familiar briny taste of sweat meets my lips. I raise the back of my hand to wipe my brow as I struggle to breathe. The familiar glowing red eyes lingering at the edge of my bed remind me that this was nothing but a nightmare.

“Screw you,” I yell to the vanishing crimson orbs as if they could understand me. I know that they can’t, but it helps to release the tension welling up inside of me.

I rub my head, which is violently fighting against the effects of the whiskey that I downed last night. The sun pierces through the window, worsening the throbbing in my temples. My gut is writhing with a menacing melange of hangover and anxiety.

Gods, I’m never drinking again.

Between the prowler being reduced to ash and the nonsense that Paul spewed in the market, my mind is caught in an unrelenting current, an assault on my better senses.

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