Page 126 of The Last One
I don’t feel any particular pull toward anything yet. And my hands aren’t hypersensitive.
Stop doubting yourself, Kai. You just started.
“Compassion suits you.”
The woman’s voice causes me to startle and topple forward, landing facedown in the dirt. At first, all I see are the tips of boots covered by mail. I follow the draped chainmail up to find Sybel standing before me, her face as sharp as an eagle’s and as soft as a lamb’s.
I scurry to my feet. At the sight of her, my chest loosens and my breath flows freely from my lungs. The trees now have space between them, and their vines keep to themselves. We are no longer in the woods near Veril’s cottage.
“I’m looking for my amulet.” My pulse bangs against my neck. “Am I in the right area? Are there other clues you can share?” I hear my desperation.
Sybel touches the top of my hair. Something in me stretches toward something in her, like one of these vines curling around a log, like one of the vines of my tattoo. The force of her touch makes me shake even more, and I don’t have the strength to fight it. Whatever she’s doing to me, I pray she just does it quickly. Let it be done. I’m so tired.
Instead, she says, “You’re just like her. Your mother. Her name was Lyra.”
Sybel’s words make me dizzy, and that dizziness rushes from my head to settle in my heart. A dollop of joy chases that bout of vertigo, and I want to respond to Sybel, but joy sweeps away all my words, all my thoughts and questions. I’ve been so hungry for this information, desperate for it. I lift my head to face her, eager for more.
“Lyra was lovely,” Sybel says. “Not just her countenance but also her spirit. She was a romantic at heart. While that—being a romantic—became a shard of glass in her eye, that infinite well of love made her a wonderful steward and guardian of her realm.” Sybel’s smile grows distant for a moment, and her focus falls as she whispers words that I can’t hear—a prayer?
She takes my hands and pulls me to stand. “She loved you so very much.”
This time, Sybel’s touch is more than just her skin against mine. It feels like a cool draught alleviating fever and pain, a tonic that seeps through my skin, bones, and heart to purge all the bad things. And as all those bad things bubble to my surface, a sob erupts from my gut, and tears spill from my eyes like a stream. And that vine-like tugging between us becomes more insistent—poison being drawn from my spirit.
My weeping eventually softens into hiccups and sniffles, and my breathing normalizes. The sharp burrs behind my eyes, the constant ache in my shoulders, stomach, and neck, and the taste of copper dissipate. The pain of every injury I’ve endured since my first day in Maford fades like snow melting beneath a sweltering sky.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
“My job.” Her face shines like diamonds and starshine. “Tending the forests and animals in this realm. Helping heal the land and the creatures who live upon it. You are one of my charges, Kai, and I’m bringing you peace. Lyra had a similar job. She was a daughter of the Eserime.”
Is it possible for breath to leave your body and fill you up at the same time? Because that’s how I feel. The exhalation of solace and satisfaction and the simultaneous inhalation of wonderment and revelation. My knees weaken, not because I’m weak but because my thankfulness weighs so much.
I am just like my mother.
I am loved.
I belong to someone.
Finally!
Finally.
A daughter of the Eserime.
Immortal.
I’m more than human. I knew it. I felt it.
Wait.
“You speak of my mother in the past,” I say, my neck prickling now. “Why?”
Sybel’s face dims. “Because she was taken from us long ago. Her realm, Ithlon, was destroyed. She, along with it.”
My face fills with blood, and my periphery darkens. “Who did it? Who destroyed Ithlon?”
“What would you do if you knew that answer?”
Kill them.
