The benefit of failure is an objectivity that success simply can’t offer. ?Maria Konnikova
Seven leaps into the swirling silver, dragging me by the hand behind him. I rush after him, my feet landing on a squishy, wet floor of questionable constitution. I almost stumble. I find my footing but lose my breath at the sheer magnificent beauty that surrounds us.
This tunnel isn’t the molten silver I expected it to be from the anteroom. The reflection is fragmented, composed of swirling night. Stars twinkle and jet across the sky above me. They cascade along the sides of the tunnel, sparkle, fizzle, and darken at my feet. I’m inside a galaxy spiraling on fast forward. I feel small but connected, like a very important barnacle clinging to the side of a whale.
I’m tempted, oh so tempted, to dive into that sea of stars. If Seven’s hand wasn’t gripping mine, I’m not sure I could avoid sticking a finger into the whirl of twinkling energy that pulses around us. It beckons, a universe to be discovered. I can imagine what it would feel like against my skin, the cool hands of a lover, the lap of gentle waves. The velvet darkness between the silver promises the sweet oblivion of deep sleep. Oh, how I long for it. I deserve a rest after all I’ve been through.
Shadows shift in the beyond. Silhouettes dancing just out of sight, causing ripples in the silver stars. Ghosts reach for me. I lift my hand to reach back.
Seven’s warm grasp tugs me forward harder, and I see the field beyond. It looks dull in comparison to the glittering world we are part of. I want to stay here! I want to touch and taste what lies within. I pause, but Seven isn’t having it. Luck rushes through the connection of our touch, and then with one last tug, I’m flying out of the mirror and landing on my stomach in a field of bright green clover.
“Breathe, Sophia!” Seven removes my pack, then rolls me over.
I try to pull air into my lungs but can’t. Have I forgotten how to? Black spots circle in my vision.
“Sophia! Come on, breathe!” Seven commands, slapping my cheek. Both his hands land on my chest. He works them under the collar of my shirt until his palms are skin to skin against me. A bubbly rush of luck flows into me, seeming to inflate my lungs from within. A loud, eye-popping gasp breaks my lips. Seven removes his hands from my bare skin, leaving two cold spots in their wake.
“That’s it,” he says, softly brushing the hair from my face. “Deep breaths.” He stretches out beside me. I’m seized with chills and shiver hard, my teeth clacking together. Seven pulls me against him, wrapping me in warm limbs and blasting me with another bubbly rush of luck that feels like direct sun on an eighty-degree day.
“Ahhh.” I moan at the feel of it.
I feel his lips press into the side of my hair.
“I’m okay. I’m okay.” I rotate in his arms to face him. I’m shocked at the level of concern I see on his face. A tear escapes the corner of my eye. I wipe it away with a trembling hand.
“I don’t know why I’m crying,” I admit, although he never asked me. He strokes my hair, and the feel of his touch and his silence are like a truth serum. “Being in that tunnel, I felt… full. And now I just feel alone.” I rub my chest.
“You’re not alone,” he says softly. “I’m here. I won’t leave you.”
Warmth returns to my bones, along with an acute awareness of how close he is. The clover under us is soft as a feather bed. It matches his eyes. Sun bakes my skin, its light drawing out the copper and blond highlights in his toffee-colored hair. Gods, he’s beautiful. Beautiful and powerful and at the moment entirely focused on me.
“Did you feel it?” I ask. “The draw of it?”
He nods. “But it was different for me.”
“What did you feel?”
His brow furrows, his expression going serious. “I felt entirely in control, as if I could command my own fate.”
I snort. “So like always then.”
He gives a low laugh but doesn’t respond to that. Some part of me acknowledges that I should get up, but his fingers are still in my hair, the palm of his hand is now cupping my face. I can’t bring myself to move.
“What was that anyway? I saw figures beyond the stars.”
“Niflheim. It’s the Norse version of the afterlife.”
“Would have been nice if someone warned me that the tunnel would try to tempt me to my doom.”
“Elred did. He told you not to stop until you reached the meadow.”
I groan. “Oh yes, that fully encompasses the danger of walking through eternity,” I say sarcastically.
He tucks hair behind my ear. “They say it draws you in with the promise of delivering you from your greatest fear.”
I recall the feelings inside the tunnel, like I was surrounded by people who knew me. People I could trust who would never betray me. “So my greatest fear is being alone, and yours is losing control.”
“More or less.”
