Page 53 of Shadows in Bloom

My brain had melted to overtired mush by the time Alandris and Zorinna awoke for their watch. I’d traced the symbols over and over again, hoping to find some commonality between them, but nothing made sense. A circle in one symbol meant one thing, and yet something entirely different in anothersymbol. A mark. A line. It was all the same. A jumble of scratches I would never manage to comprehend.

I shoved my papers into Alandris’ arms, happy to be free of them. “They represent cities. Five of them done.” My words were groggy with exhaustion. It took everything in me to keep my burning eyes open. “I have tested theories for the other three, but I can’t make sense of it.”

He dared to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear, a secret moment of tenderness that I was too tired to worry if it bore witnesses. “You’ve done amazing. With your notes, I’m certain I will have the remaining three by morning.” His fingers trailed down to my cheek before he cleared his throat and pulled back his hand. “Get some sleep, Nairu.”

I did as he said and curled into my bedroll with the phantom warmth of his touch lingering on my skin.

Chapter 27

The taste of salt water coated my tongue as I squinted awake to blaring sunlight. Gulls cried in the sky overhead, circling the area around the dock for prey. My head was an iron weight, plastered to the wooden deck. It took all of my strength to prop myself up enough to glimpse the woman seated beside me.

Her face carried a wistful expression as she stared into the vastness of the water ahead. Her hair whipped in the wind behind her, dark and wild, tamed only partially by the loose braid that ran down her back. A curved blade hung at her side, as well as a myriad of daggers, I noted. Various shapes and sizes of scars decorated her freckled, light brown skin. A warrior, no doubt. Though when she turned to smile at me, I saw only kindness.

“Have you finished your nap? The sun has shifted. You’re going to burn up if we don’t get you below deck.” Her voice did not match her fierce appearance.It was lovely and gentle, much like her smile, and it made me feel safe in her presence.

In previous instances when I had dreamed, I experienced a certain level of influence over my words and body, but in this particular case, I was just a bystander. I could not alter the words leaving my lips. “How long was I out, Lyssa?”

“Only an hour,” she said, helping me rise to my feet. “The ship isn’t departing for another hour yet. The captain went into the city proper to gather some last-minute supplies for his crew. We should lie low until he returns.” Her voice trailed into a whisper. “I do not trust the eyes of Tempestas. There is no loyalty in this city, only self preservation. If the Divine Council comes looking for us, offering a satchel of coin to these heathens, the people of Tempestas would happily provide a personal escort to our location. Trust no one, not even the captain.”

“Why are you helping me escape? It is not only the Divine Council we run from—you know that. It is our own people, as well.”

Lyssa exhaled and grabbed my arm, urging me down the steps to the cargo hold. “The wind will carry our voices. Come.”

The hold reeked of fish piled in barrels along the walls. Aside from the cargo itself, there was little room for anything more than a few hammocks. “Are we going to sleep here?” I shuddered. It smelled worse than the cheapest inn we’d ever stayed in.

“Don’t go getting soft on me.” Lyssa grinned, plopping herself down on top of a small crate. “You’re lucky we convinced a merchant ship to harbor two women as strange looking asus all the way to the Isles of Azora with as little coin as we had left. Don’t let the stink of fish change your mind.”

I sat down on the crate beside her. “You still need to answer my question. Is it pity? Is that why you help me?”

The grin vanished from Lyssa’s face, replaced by a gaze so serious, my body became paralyzed. “I care for you, Nairu. You are my dearest friend, and I may be your Keeper, but I do not lack empathy for the situation you are in. I will not bear witness to what they wish for you to become and pretend that I hadn’t played a role in it.” She stretched her legs out in front of her. “Instead, I am choosing to free you from them. I will live in Azora with you. Only death will await me back in our village if they find out I lost you. This will be a new life for the both of us. It is my chance just as much as yours.”

Even in my dreams, the people I was supposed to trust spoke in only vague riddles that only they knew the true meaning of. With Kallistra’s slip of the tongue, I knew now my God wanted to use me as a vessel to reach the mortal plane. For what purpose, I could not be certain. I couldn’t piece together what my village’s curse had to do with it, nor did I know exactly what the curse entailed. For every mystery I solved, another popped up in its place. It was frustrating, tortuously so.

Dream me must have had the same feelings. “Tell me the truth,” I whispered. Liquid rage filled my veins, and I stood from the crate, planting myself in front of Lyssa. “You are no better than them if you continue to lie to me! You care for me? Care for me? My entire life, I have been kept in the dark. If you truly care forme, you will tell me what I am. What is it they want from me? What is this curse that plagues our people?”

Lyssa stood, taking my shaking hands in her own. “It is not only the village which is cursed, it is you, Nairu. Our people will remain hidden in the Northern mountains until you succeed in fulfilling your role as vessel. None can enter and none can leave our lands. Only you and I have the freedom to go as we please, so that we can make the pilgrimage to strengthen your power enough to ensure that your body does not get destroyed in the process. It is a taxing process. The sheer strength of his magic could rip you to pieces. The ritual would fail.”

I stepped back, freeing myself from her grip. “Why only us?”

Lyssa seemed hesitant to say more, but I made no moves to back down, and she eventually continued. “The women in my family—our bloodline—we are cursed to act as your Keepers. My Grandmother, my aunt, and my nieces after me. And you… you are cursed to live and die again and again until you succeed. That is what our beloved God has cursed us with. He will not free us until he is free to roam the mortal plane.” The words left her tongue like a bitter poison, though it wasn’t directed at me. “But I’m going to get you away… We can live as we want to, free from our burdens. Azora is freedom.”

“This life… this is not the first time…” The words were barely audible as I inched back, back and back, until I hit the wall of the ship and slid down to my butt. My ears were ringing, my vision turning blurry with anger.

Lyssa knelt down in front of me. “This is your sixth life. It takes years before you are reborn… always a random baby in the village, but it’s always you. Hair devoid of color, skin as pale as snow, and those impossibly red eyes. You look exactly as you did the first time our God appeared before us and chose you, when he cursed us during your first life and disappeared. Our elders say it was as though his magic sucked all the color—all the life—from you. It took a toll on your body.” She looked almost excited to tell me, a gleam in her eyes as the weight of carrying all of her lies for so long lifted from her shoulders. But it didn’t feel that way for me—I felt sick.

I took in a shuddering breath. “You knew all this time. You kept this from me. And for what? So that I would walk willingly into selling my soul to a God I worship only because I have been instructed to from the day I was born?”

She startled, as though she couldn’t understand why I was upset. “We have tried to tell you the full truth in the past, Nairu. It caused your memories to flood you all at once. It drove you mad. His magic—your magic—exploded out of control. You did not survive the havoc it wreaked on your body. It was more than that. You do not understand the power you possess. Your failure to control it resulted in the loss of so many innocent lives.”

As if in response to their mention, shadowy tendrils wrapped around my arms, seeping from my fingertips. “Why now?” I hissed. There was a distorted cadence to my voice, as though he were there with me, lingering beneath the surface of my consciousness.

Lyssastood and began to back away from me. “I-I thought you’d be ready. Your dreams have been more frequent lately. You may not have understood them to be memories, but…” She tripped over a gap in the wood and fell onto her back. “Nairu, you need to calm down.”

I laughed, so sickly and twisted that I didn’t recognize my own voice. “Did you expect me to be grateful to you for helping me escape my fate? You are no better than the village elders who tore me from my birth parents’ arms as a baby and forced me to grow up unloved in a stranger’s home. You are no better than the monster inside of me who wants to use my body and soul for what I know, deep down, are terrible, horrible things. You are the same—using me to clear your guilty conscience after years of stabbing me in the back.”

“Nairu...” Fear filled Lyssa’s eyes for the first time. Her lower lip quivered as she reached for the blade at her hip. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Get a hold of yourself.”

I laughed bitterly, that deeper, darker voice layering over my own. “I am more in control than I have felt in a long time.”

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