Page 7 of Veiled Fate
“Hello?” I called into the darkness. “Is anyone there?”
There was no answer. Considering I didn’t actually appear to be anywhere, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I was. Because wherever I was, I was there for a reason. The afterlife was not just me standing in a void for all eternity.
Was it?
I felt neither hot nor cold. No breeze caressed the fine hairs on my arms or teased the loose strands of my braid. The sun was gone, as were the moon and the stars. My feet stood on emptiness—no soft grass, hard rock, or even sand to offer context.
But there was gravity. I wasn’t weightless. I flicked my hair around. The long silver braid settled heavily down my back, like normal.
“All right …”
Reaching inward, I touched my skin, feeling it dimple under the pressure of my fingertips. I could still experience that sense as well. Arms, shoulders, breasts, stomach, it was all there.
My stomach! I carefully examined it by touch, but it was whole and soft, the skin unmarred by something as brutal as a two-foot-long steel blade. No blood smeared under my examination, nor did I feel any agony that would have indicated a wound. Curious, I pinched myself hard.
“Ow,” I hissed, shaking my head. “Great. I’m dead, but I can still experience pain. What a wonderful time I’m going to have here. Not even a good book to read.”
The silence remained, well, silent.
“And nobody to talk to. Wonderful.” I frowned. “Iamdead, aren’t I? I distinctly remember being run through with a sword by the Nehringi. Do Ihaveto remember that? Can I simply forget? I could do without remembering the experience of being impaled, thanks.”
Silence.
“Super talkative in here, aren’t you?”
Silence.
I sighed and sat on the ground, crossing my arms and wondering how long it would take until I went insane. Reaching down, I toyed with a small rock, fidgeting, trying to pass the time until—
Shock zapped up my spine as I stared at the rock. A rock I had foundon the ground. There was ground! I started feeling around wildly, exploring. Maybe I had passed out and was in a cave somehow?
“Hello?” I called.
There was no echo. My voice just disappeared into the ether surrounding me.
Continuing to explore, I crawled forward on my hands and knees, trying to take stock of my surround—
“Yipe!” I cried as my hand encountered empty space as I put it down.
I nearly toppled over the edge, but enough of my body weight was behind me that I managed to save myself by flopping my legs out behind me. Gently, I pulled my body away from the abyss. It could be three feet or three thousand feet deep, but I didn’t know. Gathering myself, I sat up, back to the ledge.
In the air, several feet in front of my face, a soft green light faded in and out slowly.
JADA SAUNDERS.
I screamed, clamping my hands over my ears as the voice thundered in my head, driving me to the ground. The thunderclap of the voice assaulted my eardrums until they threatened to rupture. As it faded, I was left with nothing but a splitting headache.
By the time I stopped rocking back and forth and opened my eyes again, the emerald light bathed the entire area around me, revealing my setting.
“Oh,” I muttered, looking at the ledge, glad I had managed to crawl back over it. At first glance, three thousand feet might have been an underestimate by double or more.
I was on the edge of a mountain. Snow covered the peaks around me and much of the ledge on which I stood. The light grew stronger with each passing second, showing me a cave entrance ahead, flanked on either side by a statue of a wolf stalking its prey. My head barely came to the statues’ ankles.
“Where am I?” I asked the air, my eyes still narrowed against the headache pounding in my temples. “Why are you showing me this place?”
It was obvious I wasn’ttrulyon the mountainside. It was a vision I was seeing in death. That high up, between the howling of the wind and the frigid air, I should be able to feelsomethingon my skin, but I didn’t.
The cave mouth seemed to beckon.
