I’d asked my dad once if it was possible – if I’d ever be able to go back. I didn’t get any kind of definite answer from him. He just said that the link between our worlds was no longer necessary. For a while that had been as a good as a “Yes!” but as time dragged on and nothing changed, my optimism shriveled up and died a sad lonely death. Why did things have to be so difficult? How was I supposed to live with my heart cut straight in two?
I rolled onto my back and sat up, glaring at my reflection in the mirror across the room.
Enough of the melodrama, she said. Whine, whine, whine. Grow up. Nobody else gets a fairytale life, so why should you?
She was glowering at me, just like I deserved. Still, I wanted to chuck something the size of a small dinosaur at the mirror. I escaped the disapproving stare by burying my face in my hands.
“You have forgotten me.”
I jerked my head up, my gaze freezing on the mirror.
Yatol. Right there. Right behind me.
I leapt to my feet and spun around, staring all around the room, tears streaming down my cheeks, heart hammering. Empty. The room was devastatingly empty. The mirror was empty too, besides me in my ridiculous dress, hair all a mess, streaks of mascara under my eyes like some kind of lame perfume commercial.
He was here.
I sank down in a puddle of fabric at the foot of the bed, my whole body racked with sobs. He’s dead, I kept telling myself. You’re imagining it. But I didn’t want to believe it. My thoughts riveted on that image, that briefest flash of an image, trying desperately to capture every detail before its vividness began to fade.
Yatol, eyes radiant, fixed so sadly on me. The dark cloak he’d worn the first day I’d seen him, the hood drawn up. Hands held out, gripping the Blade of Heaven.
Then the image started fragmenting. Had he been holding the knife, or were his hands buried in the cloak? Was it his dark cloak, or the sand-hued one we had worn on our rescue mission? Was he wounded? Was it really him?
“How could I forget you?” I wept into the emptiness. Then, bitterly, “You abandoned me.”
I pushed myself to my feet and went into the bathroom to salvage my horribly ruined appearance. A cold washcloth helped the puffy circles around my eyes and the oh-so-dramatic mascara streaks. I touched up my makeup and tugged a brush through my hair. It had gotten impossibly long, but I’d never wanted to cut it. I twisted it up into a fancy kind of knot, stabbed two chopsticks through its dusty brown mass to hold it in place, and left the room to find everyone.
J. Leigh Bralick is a fantasy novelist and a perpetual student. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys listening to music, fencing, costuming, and inventing languages for her worlds. She currently lives in Texas with her dog Madison and three birds.
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Check her page on Smashwords for info on upcoming titles.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – Change
Chapter 2 – Discovery
Chapter 3 – Confusion
Chapter 4 – The Ungulion
Chapter 5 – Darkness
Chapter 6 – Dawn
Chapter 7 – Akhmar
Chapter 8 – The Lord Master
Chapter 9 – Questions and Answers
Chapter 10 – Kurtis
Chapter 11 – Connections
Chapter 12 – Fishing
Chapter 13 – Friends and Family
Chapter 14 – Flight
Chapter 15 – Rescue
Chapter 16 – Camp
Chapter 17 – Aniira
Chapter 18 – Operation Troy
Chapter 19 – Choices
Chapter 20 – Healing
Chapter 21 – Elekeo
Chapter 22 – The Blade of Heaven
Chapter 23 – Truth and Myth
Chapter 24 – Royin
Chapter 25 – The Gift of Fire
Chapter 26 – Sea and Stone
Chapter 27 – Alone
Chapter 28 – End Game
Chapter 29 – Goodbye
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Down a Lost Road Page 30