Page 7 of Caelum

I’d have said no until two days ago, but now? I wasn’t sure. This world was not what I’d known it to be.

Seeming to have lost patience with my dithering, Merinda released another huff then she grabbed my arm. I tensed, waiting for her to drag me across the aperture, but she didn’t.

“Remember what I told you,” she mumbled. “Just let it happen. Don’t fightit.”

I’d heard my mother tell my sister that before her wedding ceremony to Brother Adam, who was approaching his fifty-second year. Merinda’s words didn’t inspire me with confidence, but I allowed her to drag me across because I wasn’t sure if I had the courage to do so myself.

With a shudder, I felt it the second I stepped from one side of the gates to the other.

Though I’d only taken a single step forward, it felt like I’d been dragged a mile. The wind seemed to fling me into its embrace, mixing with water that tried to overwhelm me. I felt like I was being tossed around like the apples in the bucket we’d dive into at the harvest festival. Juggled around in a vat of water, gasping for air, with no solid ground beneath my feet even though I’d moved barely a foot in front of me.

“Don’t fight it!”

I heard Merinda’s words, and although everything inside me told me to struggle, to not allow myself to be hauled under the tidal wave that appeared before me and me alone, one that felt like it was drowning my soul, I knew that I had to listen or I might not survive. I needed, I realized, to have faith in her.

She’d taken me away from the people who would hurt me when they came to learn what I truly was.

She’d brought me somewhere I would be safe and could learn better control.

She’d gone to great lengths for me to find the community of people who would become my true family, not one who’d sell me off to a man older than my grandfather just so their rank at the compound would improve.

I had to trust her.

The second I stopped struggling, the wind and the water let go of me. My personal storm disappeared, but the earth beneath my feet seemed to tug at me, drawing me down even as flames emerged around me in a tight circle. They licked at my skin, burning hotter and hotter while I sunk deeper and deeper into the earth.

I looked up, desperate to see the sky, but saw nothing but the flames. A gasp escaped me, and I knew I was struggling once more. I forced myself to calm down, to stop fighting, and the second I did, the flames engulfed me, but they didn’t hurt. The ground stopped trying to swallow me, and I was tossed out of whatever it was that had held me and released back into Merinda’s dubious care.

She smirked at me when I caught her eyes, but there was a flicker of something deep inside her gaze that belied her next words, “Not too bad, was it?”

Not too bad?

Dear Lord.

Gaping at her, I rasped, “You mean there’s more to come?”

“Now that you’ve passed, there is.” She shrugged. “Don’t worry, you’ll like the rest. You put up a fight then, kiddo. I’m surprised. You keep up that kind of fight then this place won’t swallow you whole.”

Even as I wondered what she’d seen, what I’d done when the battle I’d just engaged in had to be in my mind since I saw no remnants of the destructive force, I realized something.

“We’re not speaking English anymore.”

That had her head tilting to the side. “How do you know that?”

I frowned at her. “Why shouldn’t I?”

She licked her lips, and more surprise bubbled to the surface before she cast a look at the building beyond. “We speak intongueshere.”

My eyes widened at that. “Like the Apostles?”

That had her snorting. “No. Not like them. Like us. It’s what we call our language. What just happened to you…” She motioned at the gates. “It changes us. Let’s us speak our true language.”

I gnawed on my cheek for a second. “I am a demon, aren’t I?”

“Sometimes you will be,” she teased. “When the mood strikes.”

Dear Lord.

“Now, come on. I want to dump you with your class.” She huffed. “Recruiting cramps my style. I’ve got shit to do.”

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