Page 85 of Between Soul and Vessel
“Why is he like this?” I inquired.
“Because there is a veil over top of him, which does not allow him to connect with the world, and therefore he cannot connect with himself,” she answered.
“Remove it.”
“I need to bend down to do so,” she grated at me.
“Don’t get any ideas,” I warned, pulling the blade from her throat.
She knelt beside Soren, her hand moving to the middle of his chest. With a plucking motion, she pinched at nothing, but when she pulled her hand away, a sheer bit of fabric emerged from his skin. She discarded it to the side, and it dissolved on the ground.
Soren came sputtering to life.
I grinned down at him. “Hello,Soren.”
Sage
The air was different that morning.
It wasn’t cold and bitter and full of spite, as winter could so often be. It was warm and peaceful, with a hint of something in the light, breezy wind—something fresh and full of promise. Like the earth was stretching her arms after taking an exceptionally long nap. Iknewthat scent. It made no difference that I was in a different realm, it smelled the same as it did back home—
“Spring,” I whispered, breathing it in, savoring it. Although the ground was blanketed in a good layer of snow, I could sense the life waiting to sprout below.
“Smells good, doesn’t it?” Artemesia exclaimed as we walked alongside the frozen river. She had a fishing rod in one hand, and our lunch, packed in a basket, in the other. An ax was tucked underneath her leather belt, a sword on the other side.
I carried a fishing rod and a wooden tackle box—full of different types of fishing supplies. “It really does,” I hummed in reply.
Artemesia eyed a spot by the river, a few large rocks—perfect for sitting on—resting there. “I caught rainbow trout like crazy over there last week.” She nodded to the spot. “Should we give it a try?”
“Might as well,” I answered, starting toward it.
A short while later, after we’d taken turns using her ax to carve out a sizable hole in the ice, we were perched on the rocks, and our hooks were in the water.
“It’s a bit surreal,” Artemesia started. “Sitting here with you, fishing. Just like we always used to do. It’s nice.”
I smiled. “Itisnice. The only thing missing is Father.”
“He would have loved to be here with us.”
I nodded. “He would have.”
Eyes shifting to the sky, I watched as the cottony-white clouds drifted lazily by. They moved slowly, as if they had all the time in the world to get where they were going—wherever that was. It made me wonder . . .
I finished the question out loud, “In the Three Realms, when mortals die, they end up in Von’s Spirit Realm. When mortals die here, what becomes of them?”
“It depends on who you ask. Some believe that mortal souls go to Elysium, a place full of golden, swaying crops and azure skies as far as the eye can see. Others believe that when a mortal soul dies, that is simply the end, nothing comes beyond it. I suppose that belief would align with what we believe happens to immortal souls—that when their souls are crushed,it is truly the end.” She paused for a moment, jigging her rod. “When immortal souls die in other realms, they return here, just as you did. I suppose for immortals, the Mother Realm is their Elysium. Or at least, that’s how it should have been.”
I glanced down, the space between my brows crinkling—
When immortal souls die in other realms, they return here, just as you did.
I gasped, nearly dropping my rod. My face swung toward hers. “Wait, our child would have been immortal. Does that mean their soul would have returned here as well?”
Artemesia shook her head slowly. Sadly. “You were too early in your pregnancy for them to receive their soul.”
“But Ifeltthem.” My fingers splayed over my stomach.
“What do you mean?”
