Thousands,Hannelore corrected.
“Wow.”Veda’s eyes grew huge.
“My mentor, Faye, mentioned that long ago the sanctuary used to be bigger, that things were more involved in the care of the mountain.She never discussed what specifically was different, though.It was before her time.She’d only heard stories, never seen it herself.”
Not time yet.Hannelore’s voice rose around them.Must be two.
Daya and her mentor didn’t count as two?Veda asked, frowning.
Two of the same.Not as you.
Veda and I are different types of guardians?Daya asked.
Yes.
She’d gotten that impression at the fortress when Veda had gone through her guardian ritual so early.But the full extent of possibility had been lost on her.Daya was a primary guardian.Hannelore’s connection to the world in the present time.Completely bound.
Veda wasn’t her replacement.She was another guardian.Connected to Hannelore, but not as completely as Daya was.She was meant to interact with the world.A bridge between Hannelore and the world while Daya held its core within her very soul.Their functions—their callings—were different.
Hannelore was waking up.Entering a new phase of existence.The mountain had told her that it needed both of them for what was to come.It seemed that it was now giving them access to things of the past.Things they would need as their roles changed.As the world changed.
Veda can leave, can’t she?Daya pressed the question down a private pathway to the mountain.She’s not physically bound to your shadow as I am.
She is not.
Daya’s heart thundered in her chest.Hurt and aching as emotions overwhelmed her.Feeling trapped for the first time in a very, very long time.Trembling, she stepped back.Her mind began shutting pathways to give her privacy from the others.
“Are you okay?What’s wrong?”Veda asked worriedly.
“I need… a moment alone.Stay and explore.I’ll be back.”
Not waiting for acknowledgment, she hurried out of the sunroom.Her feet moved without thought, taking her up and out of the sanctuary, into the protected valley.
Breaking into a run, she left the glade—usually her preferred place to recenter herself—and didn’t stop until she was back in the forest.Slowing, she looked around and spotted the place her heart had led her.
Against the hillside, a rock overhang guarded a small alcove.Squeezing between the trees, she entered the protected space and sank to the ground.Dropping her head to her knees, she hugged herself.
Connor’s voice rang in her mind.Just breathe, anaiah.
She’d never known hurt like this.Not when her parents died.Not when Draven had been killed and Savian left.
The storm broke inside her.Sinking her hands into the earth, she let the pain break free and cried.For herself.For Connor.For what they’d lost.
“He belongs here!”she yelled.
The response was a rumble deep within the earth that she felt in the physical world where she sat.Not your choice.
Not Connor’s either, apparently.
Given the choice, she knew he would have stayed.Would have chosen her.Veda was free to leave, to visit him.But she couldn’t.It would kill her and destroy Hannelore.She tried to breathe, tried to let go of the intense pain that had swamped her.The feeling that something had been taken from her.
You can’t be the reason,Hannelore said.
She knew that in her mind.Staying for her and not for Hannelore… Connor would have died trying to become something he wasn’t meant to be.It was why she hadn’t let him.Hadn’t confessed that he could try if he wanted to.The consequences would have destroyed her.
Because if he’d died during the process of transformation for Hannelore, it would have broken her.Shattered the pure connection she had to the mountain.
That was what she’d been afraid of, not watching him age.That him staying and dying at the behest of the mountain would have destroyed her along with him.Which would have ended all of them.Hannelore couldn’t exist without her, not fully.
