Page 112 of Polestar
“Who are you talking to?”
“The shaman.He’s not happy all these outsiders are invading the king’s room.”
“I’ll bet,” she murmured, turning in place, trying to discern something, anything that wasn’t just more white space.Or cotton fluff.Or cloud haze—whateverthiswas.This certainly wasn’t the same place Aksel was trapped in.
“The king is still alive, Ana, but just barely.The shaman is using his energy to keep him stable despite his resistance to the sigil.”
“Is he in danger?”She peered in the distance, blinking.White on white movement.She drifted toward it.
“Not just yet.The bear woman and the magician are arguing over what to do while Magnus is fighting his way through the castle.”
“Magnus?”
“Yeah, my god Ana, you picked a big bastard!I’ve never seen such an enormous bear in my life.”
“Antony, you’re a sailor.Have you ever seenanybears in your life?”she said, squinting into the light as the shape took form.
“That’s besides the point.He’s easily bigger than every other bear here.Anyway, we have to figure something out while this woman bear has her knickers in a panicked twist and is taking the other guy with her.Before they do something stupid.”
“Okay,” she murmured, full attention on the rounded figure that continued to move away.
“Okay?Listen to me.We can’t break you out of this thing.It’s hard as marble.You need to find a way out of it yourself.”
“Oh, it’s a bear!”
“What?Ana, are you listening to me?”
“Yeah, Antony, you can’t break me out.There’s a bear here.A white one.I feel like I should see where it goes.”
She dimly registered a roar in the distance.But it wasn’t coming from the white bear in her cotton fluff.It turned to look at her as she drew nearer.Its black eyes and nose were stark and glossy against the mass of white fur.
More roaring in the distance.
Ana was unconcerned.
Antony’s insistent voice grew fainter as she followed the pristine polar bear away from all the noise.
A brush against her wrist drew her attention.Raising her hand, she stared at the garnet rosary her grandmother had insisted she keep.From it dangled both the crucifix and the carved polar bear the priestess had gifted her.
‘When the light is blinding, the bear will guide you.’she’d said.
“Huh.Well, I’d say the light is blinding.”
As she followed the bear, the quality of the light changed, allowing a bit of gray into the mass.Visible color striations pointed the way along a tunnel like structure.
Antony said I wasn’t dead, and yet here I am going down a tunnelawayfrom the light.
She studied the bear as they went, wondering if she could communicate with it as she had with Aksel in the astral.
Color drifted through the structure, mingling to form new colors, then drifted apart again.Threads of black also streaked through the mix of color and white and gray.
The bear stopped at a convergence in the tunnel where it branched off in several directions.The tingling she’d experienced in the white area intensified here, vibrating through her every particle, strongest along the center of her body from the crown of her head down to her pubic bone, reminding her of the Chakra diagram Jack had told her to memorize.Seven in all, with different functions and associated colors.Colors like those wisping through the mass surrounding her and the bear.
Ana turned toward the tunnel with more violet than any other color and stepped toward it.
The bear growled.
Ana blinked, returning her gaze to her guide.“Okay, not that way.Sorry.”She turned her back on the attractive tunnel—and all the others drawing her attention—to focus on her designated direction.
