At some point—though I don’t know when, because there is no time in this place—it occurs to me that I could try to find my way back to wherever I came from. I want to reunite with what I’ve lost. It must be worth seeking for me to feel such a powerful longing for it even here.
But how can I find my way back when there’s no trail to follow, no hint of how to get fromheretothere? When there’s nothing but my own strange existence to hold onto?
Except…thereissomething there. Something attached to me.
I can feel where I end and the something else begins. It’s…warm. I don’t know how that can be in this place of nothingness, but it is. Warm and bright and orange, like sunshine on your back when the leaves shift in the trees, letting the light through. The image is so clear, so foreign in this place, it’s like a beacon.
It’s showing me the way home.
Then words appear in my awareness, rising up out of nowhere:
Come back, Leon. Come to me.
I leap upon them, grasping tight, and let all of it—the words, my feelings, the strange familiar piece of me that isnotme—act as a guide.
The nothingness starts to pull apart, and everything else rushes in.
A million sensations crowd into me. The brush of fabric against my skin, the sharp, clean scent of mint in my nose, the sound of breath reverberating in my ear.
I gasp in air myself, filling lungs as I remember how to breathe, how to inhabit a body I’d stepped out of and have now come back to.
“He moved!” The voice rings in my ears, the thrill of it making me pull my eyes open. Moving feels strange and unfamiliar, but I push past all of that and lift my neck to see a pair of hazel eyes.
They’re beautiful, burning with the same brilliant light I found in whatever void I’ve come back from. And they’re filled with tears.
“Leon,” Ana breathes, throwing her arms around me.
I lift my arms to hug her back, pulling her tighter to me as she buries her face in my neck. Her tears dampen my tunic; her body shakes in my arms.
“Shhh,” I soothe. “It’s okay.” She’s here and in my arms, so the words are true—even if the world is still only starting to take shape around me.
I slowly recognize the sanctuary. We’re in the chamber they used to keep Fairon. He’s standing by the door now, a strange look of awe and uncertainty on his face. There are others—my soldiers, Mal, Lafia, and Tira. I blink at the small crowd of faces, trying to make sense of things. The last time I saw most of them was across a bloody battlefield under a Trovian sky.
The scythe. I remember it cutting into me—and then I was gone, taken to that other place. Until…
I reach out across the mooring, touching Ana’s mind with mine. Something is different. It’s like the link between us has been shortened; we’re not just connected but sealed together entirely until I’m not sure where she ends and I begin.
I want to stop and bask in the warmth of Ana’s soul, to appreciate its welcoming light, but something is wrong. When I look around the room, there’s fear as well as joy.
“What happened?” I ask, leaning back so I can lift Ana’s face and look into her eyes.
“We brought you back,” she sniffs. “Your soul was lost, but we found it.”
So that’s what the scythe cut from me. But a lost soul is no small thing to command. Undoing that magic must’ve come at a price.From the strained silence in the room and the way some of them won’t meet my eye, I know my guess is right.
“My love,” I ask gently, dread creeping into my chest. “What did you do?”
Morgana
Leon’s room inside the palace looks the same as when we left Filusia a few months ago, and yet so much has changed. I can’t take my eyes off Leon or stop touching him. My hands grip his arm as we’re shown into the room. I need to make sure he’s still here, that he doesn’t disappear on me again.
It means I also keep reaching out across the mooring, checking he’s on the other side. I don’t have to reach far. Part of my soul is now lodged within his, and I canfeelit, the way he’s wrapped inextricably around me. There’s no separation between us now.
I try not to think about the other side of the situation. The dark absence in my soul where a piece has been carved away. That doesn’t matter now. It’s all worth it since it brought Leon back.
Leon looks down at me when we’re alone, his gray eyes sweeping over my face with expectation. I can’t hide from that questioning look much longer. Fairon saved us from immediate explanations in the sanctuary, saying we should all prioritize getting a proper rest in the palace.
But we’re here now, and Leon won’t wait any longer.
