Page 146 of The Cruel Dawn
Before I can understand where I am, the room blurs again, and I find myself caught between this world that I recognize and the certainty that this place can no longer exist. The realm known as Vallendor is no longer. Unless…
The Between?
I’ve been infected with Vallendor—its rot and decay have infiltrated my body, its death entwined with my life, and I can no longer dwell anywhere else—including Anathema. So I must’ve been shunted to this place instead.
I don’t want to be here.
I turn my head, but fire spreads down my neck and floods my chest. I gasp but almost immediately am distracted from that acute pain because the man with golden smoky eyes has appeared at my bedside.
“You’re here,” Father whispers. “Rest.”
“Here”? Where am I? I try to ask, but the pain returns, and I can’t form the words.
I can’t move toward my life or to my death. In the Between, I can’t see a path to either, and I don’t know where to climb.
I close my eyes and let the healers decide.
…
I rest in a field of bluebells that stretches on forever. The daystar casts warm golden light across an ocean of blue, and the petals glimmer like sapphire. The meadow smells sweet, and I take deep breaths, filling my lungs with crisp, clean air. I reach out to touch the flowers around me and am startled by my hands. They’re too smooth, too soft, too small. A child’s hand.
Elyn sits cross-legged beside me, grinning, her hair in two smoky white braids. She is also too soft, too small; she is also a child here. “You keep breathing all the air,” she says, wriggling her nose.
I smile and lift my chin. “Nuh uh. You said that last time, so I asked Veril and he says we will never, ever run out of air. I can breathe as much of it as I want. So…” I close my eyes and take a dramatic whiff.
Elyn laughs, and together we lie back, our heads touching, on the soft grass in this field of bluebells. The daystar bathes us in warmth and security. Petals brush our skin like our mothers’ kisses as puffy white clouds drift across the blue sky and morph into soft shapes—lions, boats, faces. Vallendor Realm will live forever as long as Lumis and Selenova make their treks, dawn to dusk, in the heavens.
I lift my hand to shield my eyes—Oh!My hand is bigger now.
“Do you see?” Elyn asks. “You’re changing, Kai.” Her voice is light, like a bird chirping at dawn.
“Yes, I see,” I say. “But I don’t understandhow or whythis is happening. Will you help me?” My voice is deeper than hers, like new smoke wafting from the earth.
“Will you helpme?” Elyn says. “I asked you first.”
“Yes, I’ll help you, but—”
She pulls one of my many braids. “You got a big butt.”
I snort. “Who came up with that stupid game?”
“Dunno. Stop saying ‘but.’”
“I’m not strong enough yet,” I say. “I’m not…all of me yet. What will happen to me, now that Vallendor is no more?”
Elyn and I roll onto our bellies to face each other. Now, she is a little leaner, her face narrower. She wears one braid instead of two. She peers at me with those gold eyes and says, “Youareall of you. You just think some parts of you don’t count.” Her voice remains bird-like, but the bird has grown and lost the worm despite her early rising.
“You’ve proven yourself to High Lord Megidrail and to the Council of High Orders—”
I cock an eyebrow. “Do you have actual proof that the Council believes that—?”
“Listen to me. You shouldn’t regret what you’ve done to save Vallendor. Your efforts were sincere and accomplished with your whole heart.”
She didn’t answer my question.
“But Fihel,” I say.
She pulls the end of one of my two braids. “Stop saying ‘but.’”
