My head was too full, and my blood was still up over Charles’s violation.But I forced myself to incline my head, just slightly, in respect.Then I took Charles’s hand and guided him towards the door.
“It’s in my head.”Charles’s breath was a rasp, and his shoulder wavered into mine.I slipped an arm around his back and supported him as I’d done a dozen times after nights of drinking.
Nitha and the other novice rose and followed us.
“Let’s get you some place quiet,” I soothed, pulling one of his arms across my shoulders and patting him gently.“All will be well.”
“It’s awake.”Charles’s voice faded out on the last word, then rasped back to life as he added, “I’m not alone in my head.”
OTHERBORN—A broad term referring to all creatures born from that Other plane, including ghistings, morgories, dittama, huden, implings, and their ilk.Mages are often referred to as Otherborn, though this is not strictly true.While a mage’s power is sourced in the Other and they are born with an innate connection to that place, they themselves remain as human as their non-mage counterparts.See also:BEASTS,OTHER.
—FROMTHE WORDBOOK ALPHABETICA: A NEW WORDBOOK OF THE AEADINES
TWENTY-SEVEN
Aeadine, the Middenwold
Twenty Years Ago
SAMUEL
The Midden Ghist continued to stare from his coffin-like trunk as the Black Tide cultists danced and the taste of sour milk lingered on my tongue.He stared as the world began to diminish, the Black Tide worshippers dimming, the wind ceasing, sound muffling.The trees began to transform, shifting from the oak and pine and poplar of the Middenwold to a rawer, darker variety—trees without leaves or needles, trees with their roots in the sky.
Water began to seep up from the ground, flooding the forest floor like spring melt.It ran cool about my ankles, dark and full of stars.No, not stars.Full of the reflection of the thousands of dragonflies that lifted from the knotted root canopy and took flight around me.
I was in the Dark Water, a place I had rarely ventured unaccompanied since my training as a Sooth began the previous year.
I was alone now.Ben’s light lingered at my side, but it was vague and distant, his body outlined in the red of his Magni power and his awareness still in the human world.The Midden Ghist was not truly here either, just a memory etched upon my vision.He had no tree here, no roots that pried through the divide between worlds and knotted in the Other’s dark sky.
I knew, intrinsically, that this region of the Other was not his home.
I blinked, and his staring eyes finally faded.A little more of my connection to the human world went with him, and I felt the brush of a strange wind on my cheeks, saw the light of three sliver-thin moons peering at me through the canopy.
My eyes began to burn with tears, my blood bubbling with disoriented terror.My hand reached out instinctually, desperate for touch, for consolation.Not for my mother, but for Benedict.
My hand passed through his arm like vapor, and I recoiled.That turned into full retreat as Ben’s signature in the Other flickered and began to fade.As little as I knew, I knew that was not right.He was a mage.No, I should not be able to touch him, but he should always be visible here, visible tome.
I glanced back at where the Midden Ghist had been in the human world.I saw only other trees, other ghistings not yet connected with my realm, some of whom had begun to materialize and study me.Their light danced across the surface of the water, interrupting the pulsing, punctuated darts of the fireflies as they took on forms.
But their forms here were not like the ones ghistings in the human world would take.There, they were men or women, wolves or serpents.Here, they were distorted imitations of Otherborn beasts—creatures of claws and tentacles, skewed proportions and far, far too many eyes.
I turned and fled.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Sanctuary
SAMUEL
Ilay in my cot that night with a full belly, a warm blanket, and the sound of Ben’s gentle breaths drifting across the small chamber we had been given.He looked younger, not simply because of the dim light or the fact that we had both shaved and bathed.There was a vulnerability to him that reminded me of countless childhood nights, sharing a room just like this.
From beyond the door, I heard the echo of a soft, gentle singing.Night prayers.The Mereish the Servants of Adalia Day sung in was old and complex, but I picked out phrases.It was a song to the moon, to the forest.To the ghisting that was their saint.
When I closed my eyes, the sound shifted—merging with another, simpler song sung by a long stream of robed strangers on the night my mother, in her madness, had destroyed Ben and I.
A chill swept up my arms, raising gooseflesh, and I rolled onto my side.Mary was right not to trust this place or the ghisting Adalia Day—my Sooth’s senses affirmed it.Still, I could not regret coming here, not with all our wounds tended, a warm bed, and all that I had learned from Scieran.
Someone approached our door.A touch at my Sight told me it was Mary, and my thoughts promptly dissipated.Was something wrong?Did she need me?
