by Lindsey Duga
“You’re too weak. You can barely lift your head. But I can go. The barriers are lowering—I won’t need to leave my body behind.”
He was shaking his head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“We don’t have any other choice. Besides, you said yourself that this fire gate has been calling to me this whole time. I’ll find it.”
His brow furrowed and he tilted his chin at the raging inferno at the other side of the lake. “You’d literally be walking through fire.”
“Nothing I haven’t done before. And I’ve got a friend who can help with that. I just need you to guide me back.”
“Briony…”
Although the very concept of walking around in a world where physical matter was not supposed to exist was scary as hell, I believed that I would make it out okay. As long as Alder was there to pull me back. I’d come to rely on him, and in more ways than one, I needed him. It wasn’t just to win something as unimportant as a relay race at a swim meet. It was to save a whole valley—a mountain range and the homes and lives of everyone in it. In the face of all that danger, I would’ve never been able to trust that we could make it out alive.
But I did now. And it wasn’t just because I had to. It was because of something you had to possess when dealing with gods.
Faith.
I cupped his face, staring into his brilliant gold eyes, his silver hair and copper skin—all beautiful, precious metals. “I’ll come back home. With your help.”
“What if I can’t find you?”
“You will.”
After all, it was how we’d met.
That night in the garden, I’d ask about our past and he’d told me that he’d found me lost in the woods.
But there were other times, too. That brief memory of us playing hide-and-go seek. When he’d found me at that old, burned house when I’d been so lost and looking for answers. He’d also found me and saved me just before Ashka had been about to claw me to pieces.
He was always finding me. He would be able to again.
My thumb stroked his cheek and I gave him another smile, stronger and brighter this time. “You’ve always been able to.”
In answer, Alder drew me into a firm embrace. And then I felt his spirit envelop me. It was the mountains and the forests and the rivers. The rage and wildness of a thunderstorm, the calming current of a brook, the scents of the wildflowers like honeysuckle and monk’s hood. And finally a human boy. Scared, lonely, but brave. Happy, despite everything.
He drew back and stared into my eyes. “Once you find your mom, you need to get out—as fast as you can. If we’re able to get your mother out far enough from the astral plane, the fire god can’t follow you and it will lose its anchor.”
“How will I know where out is? If the worlds are merging, it might be hard to tell where one ends and another begins.”
“The lake. Get to the lake.” Then he lifted his arm, using his teeth to tear at the worn threads keeping his bracelet tied to his wrist. With nimble fingers, he took the bracelet and looped it, tying it around my wrist. I watched in fascination as I felt a strange sensation of an energy current flowing over my skin. There was a translucence to my body that hadn’t been there before. Mana wasn’t just inside me. It was all around me like a second skin.
“This bracelet has been absorbing my mana for ten years,” he said. “It has much of my spirit inside and I should be able to lead you home as long as you have that bracelet.”
“It won’t leave my wrist,” I promised, then I leaned in and pressed my lips to his. Once again, I was able to ignore the mana that came with his touch and enjoy the sensation of a simple kiss. His fingers tightened around my wrist that he still held after tying my bracelet, and I could taste his fear for me among the passion.
Before I lost my nerve, I pulled away and rose to my feet.
Starting my trek over the water, leaving wet footprints in my wake as the mana supported each one of my steps, I reached out to a spirit a fourth time. Prayed. Offered up my spiritual mana and felt it rise into the heavens. Help me, please.
In my short six years, I don’t think I’d ever asked for help as many times as I’d done in the past few hours. There was always a part of me that flinched at the idea of being let down, of having the pain of rejection followed by the snap of a back door. But it was a risk I had to take. A risk that everyone had to.
I got closer to the flames on the side of the lake, and that familiar anxiety started to creep up. Maybe they wouldn’t come—maybe they thought like Ashka. You’ve dug your grave, now lie in it. My mind was already racing through other ideas, when the shrill call of a hawk split the air. I craned my neck back to see the air god swoop down over the slopes of the mountain, bronze feathers reflecting the orange and red glow of the fires while their tips trailed blue mist across sections of raging forest fires. I ducked on instinct as the great hawk spirit soared overhead and flapped its massive wings once.
A blue mist tempest gusted toward the raging inferno, clearing a distinct path through the flames and into the encroaching mist of the astral plane.
…
The astral plane was a world of fog. I walked upon solid ground, but the ground was only possible because the barriers were almost completely gone and the physical matter of our world and the ethereal were blending together. Like three stories of a building falling into one another. And, like a building, they would crash into one another, sending debris and rubble flying everywhere, causing destruction in the wake of the collision.
I had maybe minutes left before the barriers completely disappeared.
Alder’s bracelet glowed on my wrist and his mana rippled across my skin like a protective shell. More than anything, though, it felt like I had his spirit inside that hole in my chest. Almost like I had him here, walking beside me.
I traveled into the mist for a long time, and the anxiety frothed and turned in my stomach like a living demon. Whispering in my ear that I shouldn’t have come here, that there was no way I was going to make it back, and that Alder wouldn’t be able to find me.
I told the whisper to shut the hell up.
Eventually, I realized the white mist was growing darker, thicker, pulsing with agonizing energy. It was like the poison ivy, except it was in the air and I was breathing it in. I wanted to cough, to expel it out of my lungs, because it burned like fire inside me.
My scars throbbed on my lower back—burned, actually. It was like playing a game of hot-cold. I moved in the direction when my scars became more and more painful, knowing that I had to be getting closer.
The smoke and mist blew into my hair. It spun around me, thrashing against me like the gales created by the air god at the top of the mountain. Like they would send me flying over the edge.
She’s close. Call her.
For a moment, I wasn’t sure if that was my own instinct or Alder’s spirit speaking to me.
“Mom!” I screamed into the mist. “Mom!”
At first, I heard nothing, just the wind and the mist that turned gold and orange and red with hot, fiery energy.
It singed my skin—or would have if not for the layer of thick mana that protected me and repelled the poisonous, wild, chaotic energy that wanted to consume me.
“Mom!”
My throat was raw from calling for her.
Hurry, Briony. Hurry.
That one was definitely Alder. His spirit calling to me. Urging me forward.
I started to run.
But before I could stop it, a memory rose to the surface of my own dark depths.
Fire and flames thick all around me, smoke billowing out the windows and an animal-like claw drawing four long slashes across my lower back as it began to pull me, and I was helpless to follow, bound by its gravity like a moon to a planet.
A woman’s voice calling on the other side of the door, a poundin
g like she was trying to break it down.
A boy crashing through the window, sending a wave of silver and blue mist that dispersed and displaced the flames so close to me. He tugged me to his side, but still the fire licked the roof and ate at the wood.
The door burst open, and the woman with dark hair ran to me. The boy disappeared, and she picked me up, cradling me to her as she ran back through the house, back through flames and smoke, her body trembling.
A voice called me from the memory, soft and weak.
I ran faster, deeper into the red mist and the raging storm around me. “Mom! Mo—”
I almost collided with her.
A woman, slender and beautiful, with dark hair and hazel, vixen-like eyes, wearing jeans and a sunflower top. Her body was translucent. I grabbed her arms and she breathed my name.
“Briony?”
Somehow I was able to touch her, even though she was a spirit without a body. The barriers lowering seemed to be making me into a spirit, too…
When the lines between what’s real and what’s not become blurred…
I coughed through the smoke and fog and reached for her hand. “Mom. Come with me.”
Her white, ghost-like hands skimmed over my face. “You got so big,” she whispered.
A roar shook the mist around us. A tree materialized next to me. Soon there would be more. The whole forest. The whole valley.
At my lower back, I felt a tugging. My scars ached and itched, and I could feel it. The whisper of the fire god’s call.
I tugged Mom forward, and she stumbled with me, but she could walk. I turned inward to Alder’s spirit, and he was loud. Yelling at me inside my chest.
Briony! Hurry!
I ran with my mother, pulling her and supporting her as much as I could. The mists chased after us like a tsunami, impossible to outrun.
More trees materialized around us, bushes, wild flowers, all columns of smoke and vibrant, mystical, ethereal energy. Leaves and thorns whacked against us, but it was difficult to feel anything but the poisonous wild energy in my lungs.
I only focused on Mom’s spirit and Alder’s. They were the only living things to me.
Closer. Closer, Brye.
But I couldn’t move much more. My legs were sluggish, even though they’d never felt lighter.
Mom twisted around in my grasp, and the mist blew at our backs, knocking us forward. We both tumbled to the ground, the very earth feeling like a hot stove. It was so energetic and magnetic that it was like lying in a bed of poison ivy. I started to try to heave myself up, my forearms shaking, but it felt like a cord was attached to my lower back. My scars burned and scorched, and my strength gave way. I was unable to get up, unable to continue.
I writhed on the ground, rolling over and looking up into the astral world. It was like being caught in a storm on Mars. Red, crackling energy, no oxygen, poisonous atmosphere. I gasped, inhaling it.
Maybe energy-infused air should have given me strength. But it was too much. My human body couldn’t take it. My vision blurred, so I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, trying to summon strength.
“Briony!” Mom yelled beside me.
The fire god was close.
I could feel them calling my spirit just like Alder’s was calling. I was trapped in an angry tug-of-war.
But why did I have to choose? Why did I have to feel separated by both?
I already knew these mountains were a part of me. Along with Alder’s voice, Gran’s echoed inside.
This valley is you. That boy didn’t give you that magical energy or whatever it is…he brought it out. That’s all.
I wrenched my eyes open and saw the astral figure looming above me, a sight that should never be seen by human eyes. The shape of a humanoid creature. They didn’t have a real body—just energy that looked like a shadow amid their own storm—a living embodiment of the sun. Two bright white wisps stood out where their eyes were supposed to be, and their outline kept shifting and breaking apart and reforming. Tendrils of their “skin” curled upward like smoke, disappearing into their astral domain.
They opened what looked like might be a mouth and moaned, their arm reaching toward me. Looking at their clawed-shaped hand, I felt their…longing. I knew that deep ache all too well. Of wanting an anchor to this valley.
As I pulled myself up to sit on the burning ground, wind and energy blew through me, tossing back my hair and batting my clothes. Looking up into this god, desperate and reaching, I couldn’t help but see my own god—Alder. He stood between the planes of existence. A foot in one world, a foot in another. Not truly belonging in either.
It was…the same.
This god didn’t necessarily want me or my mother. They just wanted to be connected.
To this special place where spirits dwelled.
What must it be like to have an astral body? To exist in an entire world all alone. This god wasn’t just an all-powerful entity. Like the others, they were a sentient being.
And maybe they were lonely.
It was such a human thing to feel. Maybe that’s why they felt like they needed a human spirit to feel connected to the valley. And maybe that was true. But they didn’t need to take my spirit…
I’d give it to them freely.
I began praying to the fire god. I don’t remember any words I used, but the message was conveyed. The sentiment.
Plumes of mana rose out of me, off my skin and into the wild chaotic storm of the energy of the astral plane. My mana, and also Alder’s, seeped out of me. I was bleeding it.
I offered my spirit and felt the valley’s spirit rise to meet my own.
The cry of a hawk flying over mountains. The taste of sweet wild strawberries. Night winds sweeping through the sky and shaking the stars. Storms echoing as every individual rain drop hit every surface. Flashes of heat lightning in the far distance. Raging white water rapids, and the scampering paws of raccoons, the thump of rabbits, and the pounding hooves of deer.
The fire god drew back, the shadowy outline momentarily encased in pearly white mana. I wondered then if they were feeling what I could feel every time I touched Alder. The senses of the valley racing through like lifeblood.
Now’s my chance.
Standing, still pouring mana out into the raging storm, I helped Mom to her feet, and we continued to run.
Glancing behind my shoulder, I saw the god in the same place, not crossing anywhere…just staying there, ensnared by my mana. I understood the feeling strangely. It had been the same when I’d first touched Alder. While the Smokies ran through me, I hadn’t been able to even move.
I hadn’t needed to. I was home.
Pulling myself to face forward, I ran faster with Mom right beside me. Alder’s call was faint now, as more and more of my mana flowed out behind me in a jet stream. I didn’t know if I was going the right way, didn’t know if I was running out into the ethereal plane, or deeper into the astral one.
But I had faith that he would find me.
Wherever I was.
I’m not alone.
Water sloshed around my ankles, and the juxtaposition between the fiery wrath above me and the cool serenity at my feet grounded me. The lake. I must be close.
As soon as I thought that, as soon as I hoped, crisp autumn wind blew against my hot skin, tossing back the wisps of my hair, rippling my singed top, and rolling the mists across the surface of the lake, driving back the astral energy that encompassed us.
And Alder was at the center of it.
Still gingerly holding his side, he held out his other hand, controlling the energy around us and calming the storm. He stood on a small island in the middle of the lake, a big silhouette behind him. About the size of an elephant.
Bruley.
Mom’s body. The bear spirit had brought her to me.
Just as I
turned to tell my mother’s spirit that she needed to go back to her body, she disappeared in a shimmer of white mana. For the briefest second, I panicked, thinking I’d failed. After all that, I hadn’t brought her back. I hadn’t stopped the three worlds from colliding.
But it was just for a moment, because in the next, the mist receded. The smoke and the fire storm pulled backward, retreating like all of the astral energy was being sucked into a black hole. It converged against the backdrop of the distant blue mountains, outlined by the rising sun, and for just a breath, it was quiet. Still.
Then the worlds separated, and the barriers went back up. At least, that was my guess, because waves of white mana rolled across the lake and up the mountainside throughout the valley.
The fires were gone. The smoke that had been climbing toward the stars was gone. And now, all around us, the trees that were once charred to the point of ash were now alive and growing rapidly. Grass sprouted at the lake’s edges. Buds of flowers peeked through and their petals unfolded, fully blooming all in the span of seconds. Grass grew higher and higher, and trees broke through the ground, twisting and transforming into full-grown behemoths. Leaves uncurled on branches. The mountains burst with color and life.
In fact, I could see the mana glowing in an aura around each plant and tree, see the silver mist ripple in the breeze and feel the water mana brush against my shins.
We were in the ethereal plane. It made sense for us to end up between the two. I only hoped the physical plane was just as healthy. The wisps would have stopped taking on the fire element, but would the fires already burning have stopped?
Any other worries briefly flew out of my mind, though, when I saw Alder climb off the island and run toward me, a smile stretching across his face, his bare feet kicking up splashes around his ankles.
Throwing my arms around his neck, I let him pick me up and spin me once. As he held me tightly, his arms wrapped around my lower back, I asked, “Is Mom okay?”
He pulled his head back, just far enough to brush a wild strand of hair away from my face. “She’s fine. The minute she got close to her body, her spirit returned. You did it, Brye.”