“You look like the Rune Master,” I rasped through a throat as dry as the cracked earth beneath my fingers. My lips stuck together and peeled apart, leaving small cuts in their wake. I winced slightly at the pain and touched the abused skin lightly before carefully pushing to a sitting position.
“I thought this place wasn’t supposed to hurt. Isn’t it just my soul that’s here after all?” I grumbled, hoping that Fate might provide some insight into this place.
“Yes, but your soul came here to heal. It’s just as battered and bruised as your physical body right now,” the woman said after a beat of silence where Fate simply stared at me.
I turned my head fully to her now, flinching at the pain in my neck that shot down my spine and settled somewhere in my lower back.
“So you’re saying I get to feel this pain twice? Once in here because of my . . . soul, and a second time when I wake?” I asked, not thrilled by that prospect.
The woman shot me a tight smile. “We’re taking care of your body in Elyria. The come-to there should be . . . less intense.”
I chewed my abused lower lip in thought before narrowing my eyes and cocking my head in her direction. There was something so eerily familiar about her.
“Are you going to answer my first question?” I asked dryly, still consciously ignoring the immortal being to my left. My annoyance at his disappearance after I shattered the mountain in Meru and released the gods returned with a hot-blooded vengeance at his sudden emergence.
“That was not a question, just a statement,” the woman said with a shrug as she pushed to a stand before holding out a tattooed hand for me to grab. With a roll of my eyes and a slight groan, I let her pull me to my feet.
We were roughly the same height, which allowed me to gaze directly into eyes that reflected the same eons-old intelligence that I saw often in my friend.
“You’re Faylinn’s mother,” I stated with raised eyebrows. “Right?” I added the question at the end, hoping it would force her to respond.
“I told you she was persistent, if a bit petulant,” Fate finally said, breaking his silence. I almost felt a twinge of sympathy at the tiredness in his voice.
Could an immortal being even get tired?
The woman sighed before nodding once. “I am, yes.”
“Then how are you here?” I gestured to the Dreamscape, making sure my arms encapsulated the whole of the place—from the cracked dirt and the barren trees to the crackling sky and disintegrating mountain in the distance.
Faylinn’s mother blew a wayward curl from her forehead—a move so eerily similar to Faylinn—before shooting me a sly smile. “The same way that he is here”—she lifted her chin in Fate’s direction—“the same way Solace and Kaos could be here if they chose. The same way Torin could come here . . . the same wayyouare here.” She raised her eyebrows expectantly at me, and I blanched at the reveal.
“You’re the Bondsmith.”
Her smile turned triumphant. “Indeed.”
I dropped my hands back to my sides before crossing them against my chest, trying to create some sort of shield between me and the truth I was having to face much quicker than I desired. The Bondsmith’s statement brought back a rush of unwelcome memories from the battle—of Solace and I locked in a heated fight, one I was rapidly losing before Kaos suddenly transported me to a different part of the courtyard.
I frowned as I recalled Solace’s words.
“Solace called me a godling,” I said, turning so I could see both Fate and the Bondsmith. “It was something I’d heard Faylinn mention in passing as well.”
“And? What is your question?” Fate asked, exasperation lacing his tone.
“Am I?” The question was directed at neither immortal being, and, unsurprisingly, it was the Bondsmith who chose to answer.
“Only those with Original Magic flowing through their veins may access this place.”
I rubbed my forehead with my finger and thumb, combating a quickly rising headache.
Or maybe the headache was always there, and I was just finally noticing the incessant thumping.
“Original Magic?”
Fate nodded once before gesturing to himself. “I’m the original deity. She”—he pointed to the Bondsmith—“is my only offspring by traditional methods.”
The Bondsmith snorted at his explanation of her conception, but Fate ignored her.
“Solace and Kaos are my last remaining Children that were created from pieces of my being.”
