I opened my eyes. The light was bright after the darkness.
I was at the rift. I was alone. Well, unless you counted the arcenciel in human form, sitting on a rock, her feet in the water. Her silvery-lavender hair had a single lose purple strand over her left ear, the rest was twisted up in a chignon, her diaphanous dark purple gown weighted down by moisture. She had been here a while or was working to give that impression. Having no idea who she was, or if she planned to eat me, I was uncertain what to do next. I looked down to see if I was dressed, and I was. Sorta. It was mostly rags but it covered the important bits. Oddly, I was in my half-form, the shape I had been in when I went into the water, pelt, knobby joints, tiny waist, not my human form, but I could deal with that later.
I floated, watching the arcenciel, keeping my toes out of the current I had dropped into and, seemingly, swum back up through, my body still beneath the surface. After a while, I figured if she intended to eat me she would have tried, so I pulled myself out of the water and sat as she did, clawed feet in the warmth. My hair was loose, wet, and hanging plastered to my shoulders in a long black veil. The smell of mineral water was strong on the air.
I patted my clothes and found the Glob in the belt I had been wearing in my vision quest and, even more weirdly, was still wearing here. The traditional scarf/tie/belt was green like fir trees and was the only thing I wore that wasn’t ragged. The new Anzu feather gifted by Gee was gone.Le breloquewas tied to the ends of the belt, but when I touched it, I could tell the crown was different. Not exactly inert. Not quite empty of magic. But more than just a hunk of shaped gold. I had tiedle breloqueto the Glob with magic. Now it was a timewalking, storm-bringing crown bound to an energy-eating weapon made out of the Blood Diamond, a sliver of the true cross, a bit of the iron of Golgotha, witch sacrifices, witch magics, lightning, and my body. Ducky. Another thing to deal with.
I pulled out the neckline of my shirt and looked at myself. I was skinny as a rail, no boobs to speak of, but nopelt on the boobs I did have, so that was good. I ran my hand over my belly to feel only smooth skin and good muscle tone. I was mostly the size I had been when I was eighteen, when I first discovered my skinwalking gift, before I became Enforcer and the Dark Queen. Before... Before Dudley. I retraced my belly.
No magical star in my middle.
No Dudley.
No Dudley.
Excitement pattered through me on tiny paws, pricking my skin into goose bumps. I ran my hand over myself again and there was no pain. I was... healed? When I shifted to human again would I be myself again? My heart raced, my breathing sped, as I considered the way I felt. Energetic. Normal. Like my pre-Dudley half-form. I felt healed.
A breeze blew across me. It smelled of warmth and the end of winter. I reached up and didn’t encounter the medicine bags. Just my doubled gold necklace and its usual focals—the gold nugget and the mountain lion tooth.
The breeze touched my flesh, drying my clothes, drying me. From somewhere I heard birds singing, chirping, the notes sharp, intense, and raucous. Heard water dripping and falling. I smelled the mineral rift water, the wet of stone and the green of bracken and moss. I smelled the magic of the arcenciel. I breathed through my mouth, flehmen response, and tasted pollen, the hairy sensation of squirrel and rat, downy baby birds, delicate flowers of springtime.
My mind and my body felt raw and hypersensitive and very in tune with the world.Healed...
But what had happened to the others?
I had a lot of questions for the arcenciel, but when I opened my mouth, the words wouldn’t come. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about Bruiser yet. Or how long I had been gone. Or what happened to the Flayer of Mithrans. All that was too scary to ask aloud when I felt so sensitive, so peculiar.
I blinked at the arcenciel. She hadn’t moved. Suddenly, I wasn’t certain if I was alive or if this was a new vision. Or some kind of dream state.
The air felt warmer than before I fell into the rift, maybe in the midsixties. The breeze smelled different. My body felt stronger, with a denser muscle mass. And healed. I could feel the grit of sand beneath my fingers, the frayed ends of my pants on my pelted legs.
If this was reality, then I was different. And I had been gone awhile. The unknown rainbow dragon and I studied each other to the accompaniment of nature plinking and dripping around us. Reality or a vision?
Eventually, the arcenciel must have decided I wasn’t going to speak because she said, “You make strange decisions for such a bloody creature.”
“Oh?” That seemed as good as any other reply I could give.
“You freed her from her restraints. You gave her access to the rift. She is free.”
Several breaths later I figured it out and guessed, “Soul?”
“As you call her. She is not called that by us now. In your pitiful language, she is called She Who Claims the Rift. She is called She Who Seeks Peace. She isrevered.” The arcenciel didn’t seem happy about that.
“Okay.”
“But she is still hated and feared by a few of us.” Meaning her. Got it. She leaned in to me, watching my face as she said, “I don’t like her.” The arcenciel sounded young and petulant. Maybe not quite stable. Kinda like Soul when she had been trapped in human and mer-form.
I didn’t see a silver anklet on this one, but there might be one elsewhere. Or maybe she was just rude. “Okay.”
The arcenciel scowled at me. “I have been assigned by She Who Seeks Peace as emissary to your court. I have been told that your man and your brothers and your court are waiting for you.” She pointed a finger beyond me. “They left you that.”
Glancing away for all of a single heartbeat, I took in the open area of the crevasse to see a ring of blackened stones and ash, the remains of a fire that had burned a long time. Hanging above it was my large gobag. The arcenciel hadn’tattacked, so I pulled my feet from the water, stood, and lifted skinny, pelted arms up, taking down the gobag and setting it at my bare paws.
I opened the bag to find the contents were in large zippered plastic bags. There was a change of clothes and a lightweight jacket in one. Water bottles in another. A dozen chocolate bars and protein bars and turkey jerky were packed tightly in another.
There was a cell phone and a charger in another baggie. Not that I had a signal down here. In another baggie was a brand-new medicine bag. I touched my chest and felt a pang of grief. Both were really gone, my father’s and my own. This part felt more real, less visiony.
I hesitated.Beast?
