Myron chuckled. “Yes, really.”
I took in a deep breath and exhaled. I didn’t have to relive it. All I had to do was show him the door, and they could walk through.
“Are you ready?” Caius said to my right.
At this point, I was done with it looming over my head. Nodding, I looked to Myron and said, “Yes. I’m ready.”
Chapter 29
Deja Vu
My right hand was nestled in Myron’s, while my left was in Caius’. I had to pretend that we were valenning somewhere to get my body to cooperate, though that didn’t stop me from breaking out in a cold sweat.
We were now in a full circle with everyone holding hands. On the other side of Caius was Artton, then Sidrick, his little brother, Fiora, Myron, and back to me.
“Okay, Nyleeria,” Myron started. “Take a moment to think about what you want to share with us, then wrap a bubble around the memory. Once you’re done, let me know by squeezing my hand.”
Letting out an anxious sigh, I closed my eyes and did as instructed. I slipped into the memory instantly, my body trembling now as it had when I’d walked up the steps to the training room. Unwilling to go deeper into the memory, I focused on placing the memory in a bubble like an oracle looking down at a glass globe. Once the memory was fully contained, I gently squeezed my right hand letting Myron know my part was done.
His powers surrounded him before settling on me, and like it had when we first met, his magic probed, searching, questioning, onlythis time it didn’t intrude. The moment it found the sphere, it slowly coiled itself around it, and then… nothing.
I’d been kicked out of the vision as promised.
Relieved, I opened my eyes, finding us encased in a dome of cool spring morning mist, the marble floor now lost to it. The thrum of power pulsed through the group, and if I concentrated hard enough, I could see microscopic threads of Myron’s lime green and golden magic weaving around us. It was hard to reconcile the memory they were witnessing with the beauty on this side.
One moment I was lost in the radiant threads; the next, a gasped cry came from Fiora. Within a heartbeat, both High Lords clutched my hands hard enough to hurt. My eyes darted to the others whose pained expressions told me that something was wrong.
I tried to let go in hopes of freeing them from the memory, but Myron’s powers wrapped around my hands like vines as if protecting everyone from being abruptly severed from the anchor—from me. The spark stirred as if sensing danger, but I tamped it down. I couldn’t risk losing control with everyone in such a vulnerable state.
It was Artton who cried out this time, the sound doubling my panic. The commander was many things, but weak was not one of them.
Closing my eyes, I frantically searched for the memory. It took a few tries, but I finally found the crystal ball. The vision was obscured by Myron’s power, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t break past his barrier.
Ignoring the pain of my hands being crushed by Caius and Myron’s punishing grip, I focused on my own power source, coaxing her to help. She obliged, slowly creeping toward the sphere covered in threads of light. I didn’t force the spring magic to relent its death grip on the memory; I’d learned the hard way that honey was better than vinegar. Instead, I soothed it—let it see that we were one in the same. That source has come to help.
Like a switch flipped, Myron’s powers were replacedby mine in a blink.
Reorienting to my surrounding, I instantly regretted my decision.
The scene was all too familiar, and one I’d relived again and again. Only this time, it was different. I wasn’t in my body; I was watching it from a bird’s-eye view. From Myron’s perspective.
Instantly, I realized that the memory had glitched, as if caught in an infinite loop from the exact moment Thaddeus had begun to take everything.
It started with my feet dangling almost a foot off the ground, my back arched, my mouth agape in silent agony. And while that sight was disturbing enough, what made my stomach churn was how it played on a five-second loop, over and over and over.
My feet start on the ground. Thaddeus pulls for more. My body contorts, back arches, and then just before the me in the memory is about to arch in agony, someone else takes my place.
First, it was Sidrick who took my place, then sweet, innocent Kaelun. I tried to turn away knowing what came next, but I couldn’t, and the instant I heard it, I knew I could live ten thousand years, and I’d never forget the way Fiora screamed.
I needed to get them out of this hell-loop, and fast.
I tried everything I could think of, to no avail, as I watched the vision claim their agony—their screams anything but silent as it rotated through each of them two more times before I began feeling a sense of panicked desperation.
Forcing my focus past the deafening sounds vying for my sanity, I steadied my breaths and called on the Mother for her guidance. I’ll never know if it was her who gave me the horrible idea that came to mind, or if I’d conjured it all on my own, but I somehow knew what I had to do—and fuck me I wished there was a better option.
When I’d offered up the memory to Myron, I’d separated myself from it by the sphere as he’d told me, but for some reason it was as if it needed an active participant, and because I’d failed to offer myself, it’d taken whomever it could—only it clearly wasn’t satisfied with the substitutes.
“Fuck, this is really going to suck,” I murmured, and as if the others could hear me, I felt their focus shift in my direction.
