by Jen Valena
“You question my orders again?”
Ithia recognized the commander’s voice. Her new talent for imagining the details of the scene switched on again as though picturing it through a filthy pane of glass.
“Stay away from her,” her cloaked warden said. “Garrick will not want you spoiling his prize with your filth.”
“Watch your words. Or I will cut out your throat to take care of that.” The commander stared down her warden for what seemed like an eternity and then walked away.
The cloaked man waited until the soldiers were busy readying to leave. He kneeled beside Ithia and placed an object in her palm. A sharp edge pressed against her fingertips, identifying it as a knife.
“For defense,” he whispered.
Ithia was taken aback by her captor offering up a weapon.
As soon as his attention was diverted, she began working the knife on the restraints as much as her strength would allow.
The dust kicked up by the horses added to her already dry mouth and throat. Her skin was caked with a thin layer of crusted mud. The insides of her cheeks and her tongue turned into over-chewed gum. The lack of moisture in her body cracked her lips.
She faded again.
✹ ✹ ✹
Water poured over Ithia’s mouth and down her throat. She coughed and sputtered.
The echo of her cough, unmistakably indicated she was now inside a cave.
The pressure on her eyelids and wrists revealed she hadn’t received freedom from her binds. She squeezed her hand and felt sharp metal. Her knife hadn’t been taken.
“He wants you alive.” The commander grunted. “Drink!”
Ithia did, in spite of her fear of him. She was dying of thirst.
A few more slices against the restraints, and she would be free to use the knife to defend herself. She didn’t know if she could do anything more than threaten. The idea of stabbing anyone made her nauseous, but she steeled herself for any action she must take.
“It does not seem that you have fully recovered yet. That is good. Maybe you will not even remember what is going to happen here. Just a little fun, to see why you are so desirable.”
He gently patted her cheek, but his touch morphed into a hard grasp.
She dragged the knife once again along the rope. Her wrist broke free.
Ithia positioned the knife handle in her hand to attack.
“You see, it has been a long time since I had the company of a pretty woman.”
Ithia’s revulsion and response was cut short by an urgent hail, “Sir! Someone is out there.”
The commander cursed and released Ithia’s jaw. He vanished without another word.
Ithia was both relieved and frightened. She heard sounds of combat outside the cave. Perhaps something out there was more than her would-be rapist could handle. However, she was so despondent from her fatigue and dehydration, she could hardly let herself wish.
Her mind longed for the relief of going numb—without warning, a slight brush of fur grazed her hand.
Great, now to be eaten alive by rats!
Instead, it patted her hand and scurried out of the cave. She would have questioned the extraordinary interaction, but she now realized the water the commander had given her had been drugged.
2 ✹ Tyrsten's Vision
Shadowed wings skim my life,
To slip into flight,
To know the feeling of midnight’s feathers on golden air.
— Tyrsten Naren
Tyrsten had given up his meditation to find his missing mentor, Larin. He allowed himself to drift into a trance-like dream.
On a small altar, the remnants of a beeswax candle cooled after burning itself out. Its light had extinguished hours previous, along with the sun’s. The lingering, sweet scent clashed with the palpable tension in the confined quarters.
It was the same conundrum as his other meditations. Instead of a vision of his teacher, he was shown a young woman. He had watched her, hoping for a clue to why he would see her each time he focused for Larin.
He observed her as she readied for the day. She fried an egg. Toasted bread. Simple. He took note of that.
She attended school lectures, but hardly spoke to the other students—only an occasional nod or greeting. She frequently tucked her brown hair behind her ear. Was she shy? It seemed more like introversion, possibly a fear of becoming close.
At home, she had the quirky habit of scrunching her nose as she poured over her books and wrote out scores of notes. She had a thirst for knowledge. Intelligent—he could almost hear her mind calculating life around her.
Every evening, she hiked the undeveloped land near her home to a hill with a grand, wide-sweeping oak tree that graced the hilltop like a living umbrella. The wind soughed and moved the massive limbs arching over the earthen mound. Several of its low branches rhythmically scraped the ground. She seemed soothed by the tree’s charm, and the cover offered from the harsh, yellow sun.
Tyrsten had a vague awareness that he wasn’t the only one who was psychically watching her. He sensed ill-intentions.
Was she the one that he was destined to find?
✹ ✹ ✹
Tyrsten now watched her again from above as she sat alone under her tree. He intuited she grieved for someone she had lost. Or was she the one lost? Exhausted from fighting back her emotions, she lay back to rest. She fell asleep as the sun set on her scene.
The night crept up around her.
A man, soundless as a shadow, swooped in and snatched her.
Tyrsten flinched, helpless.
She was gone.
He knew it was happening now. This was no vision of things to come.
He yelled against the cold shoulder of darkness that pinned him down as he witnessed his fears come true.
Tyrsten cursed his limited talents for not knowing how to find her first. Resentment filled his chest like a drowning. He threw himself off his bed to alert the others.
Already dressed to leave at a moment’s notice, he rushed from his room and called out, waking men from their slumber. With a tense jaw, he said, “We leave now! To find her.”
Grabbing his pack, Tyrsten headed for the door. His inner circle, Huldo and Feron, were the first to meet him.
Nolan, an accomplished warrior with a swagger, approached and flashed a fierce gaze at Tyrsten.
Ready to defend himself, Tyrsten asked, “What?”
“Is this wise?”
“Are you questioning my instincts?” Tyrsten turned to square himself with the challenge. His nostrils flared as he assessed his opponent. He took another step.
Nolan blocked Tyrsten’s path through the doorway. “Would Sauvant Larin have wanted us to gamble our lives going after this woman and confronting Garrick’s soldiers? Others have gone missing. Why rescue her? You risk everything. You risk divulging your existence for questionable visions.”
“We did not have any information on the others. However—I sense her. She is different.” Tyrsten’s eyes focused in the distance for a moment, then he redirected a glare at Nolan. “Stay behind, if you like, I do not care.”
Nolan set his jaw and stormed off unsatisfied.
Following Tyrsten’s instincts, they headed west. Experience had taught the men to trust Tyrsten’s tracking. If his vision was accurate, their mark lay a hard day’s ride to intercept.
They rode for several hours through a forest filled with pines and aspens. Tyrsten stopped and jumped down from his saddle. He placed his palms flat upon one aspen’s smooth, white bark and performed a silent chant—a plea to the tree.
He waited in silence.
The leaves of the tree began to flutter. Then another tree and another until a line of trees shimmied without wind to move their foliage. Tyrsten mounted and charged off, the others in close pursuit, adjusting their course to the trail of whispering leaves.
Hours before dawn, they began their ascent up a bluff. The only noise was the faint gritting of sand under their horses’
hooves. Stealth was a required skill of all his allies. Just before they reached the top, they dismounted their horses and continued on foot.
Tyrsten and his men scanned the bluff’s caves—a series of hollows at the summit of the climb. The mouths of these caves were illuminated by campfire. Each opening was large enough for two horses to comfortably seek shelter and led to an undetermined number of room-sized caverns.
Six soldiers sat around the fire, half-sheltered by one of the expansive niches. Tyrsten knew there had to be at least one other soldier guarding the woman somewhere inside.
As they positioned for attack, Tyrsten signaled for his men to halt. Something was odd. Tyrsten scanned his foes for a source. There was a presence he couldn’t place as if something was muted that should have shone brilliantly.
One soldier whispered into the ear of another. That man gave a nervous glance to the night-shrouded landscape and disappeared inside a cave. Others silently communicated with nods.
Aware their position was compromised, Tyrsten’s men drew their swords and rushed into the circle of fire-light.
Garrick’s soldiers converged on Tyrsten—although they shouldn’t have known who he was. Tyrsten’s men fended them off.
Huldo deftly found his way to the other side of the fray undetected and stole into one of the caverns.
Tyrsten fought his way through the blockade with his combat staff. He had no time for the skirmish. His goal was to get into the caves to find the young woman.
Tyrsten caught sight of the commander rushing from the caverns and glimpsed into the man’s mind. He knew what the commander intended to do to her.
A rage overcame Tyrsten. He charged upon the vile man.
The man grunted and drew his sword.
Tyrsten charged forward, sidestepping the soldier’s overthrown swing, and delivered a shattering strike to the man’s head.
The man dropped instantly. Blood flowed.
Huldo emerged from the caves. “In here!”
“Is she unharmed?”
“She is in bad condition.” Huldo led Tyrsten deep into the maze-like cavern, until they came to a terminus.
A dying fire dimly limned her wilted body.
She was bound to the stretcher. She was covered in a thick layer of dust.
Tyrsten ran to her side.
He fell to his knees.
He had to see if this was the woman who haunted him.
There was only one way—look into her eyes.
Before Tyrsten knew what he was doing, he had pulled off her blindfold.
All he wanted was to confirm that this truly was her.
Tyrsten was not prepared for what happened next.
3 ✹ Ithia Falls
20,000 light years away there is a red super giant at the outer edge of the galaxy. A star that didn’t expel its outer layers that would have created a supernova. Scientists believe that the surface temperatures are probably no hotter than a light bulb.
So one day, before I expire like a star, I am going to touch it.
— Ithia Sydran
Afraid of what she might be facing after all the commotion, Ithia hesitated before opening her eyes to see her new captor. And the only thing she saw was a pair of black irises.
She had the vague impression that they were in fact accompanied by a face. Beyond that, there was no other thought. A voice in her mind whispered, It is him.
Ithia couldn’t look away. The same was true of him. A hypnotic link pulled her deeper into those black orbs. However, they were not solely black. A midnight sky. Hundreds of tiny stars twinkled within them.
This midnight sky above her opened wide. Too wide. Like a mouth hyper-extended until its insides were out, until fear turned into anticipation, until reality turned into dream and dream into reality. The sky opened so wide, the atmosphere pulled thin. So thin that it no longer held oxygen.
Gravity had no hold on her heart, her body, her mind.
Nothing existed except for his eyes.
She wasn’t sure if she was lost in them for seconds or hours or days. However, she was sure she was falling forward into those eyes, pools of infinity.
Unfamiliar images of places and people flashed through her mind so fast that she couldn’t see any of them clearly.
She floated in an abyss of stars and nebulas. Even though she was certain she had died, she was reborn. In that moment of dying, she was freer than she had ever been in life. She was happy. She was amongst the nebulous stars—her notion of heaven.
Although completely unprepared, Tyrsten was aware of what just happened. Stunned, he didn’t understand how it was possible.
There was no time to think about the implications. Without warning, Ithia’s body began convulsing. Tyrsten scooped her shaking form into his arms and ran out of the cave. He called for his horse, Lewana, which trotted to him.
Tyrsten didn’t even notice that the fighting outside had stopped that his men were tying up their prisoners.
Instantly at his side, Huldo helped negotiate the unconscious, shuddering Ithia onto Tyrsten’s horse.
Huldo stole another peek of her face. “Has what I think happened, just happened?”
“This is all wrong!” Tyrsten clutched her close. “I must go to Samara to save her. If she heals, then I will travel immediately to Charlan to see Tancreed. Meet me there. Remember we cannot trust anyone with what has happened.” He nodded pointedly at Ithia.
“One of them escaped,” Feron called across the recent battlefield to Tyrsten. “Nolan went after him.”
Huldo frowned. “This does not bode well for us. Nolan will hopefully track down the soldier. I intend to get what information I can from this lot. Regardless, I will be in Charlan no later than four day-cycles from now.” Huldo clasped Tyrsten’s forearm, fearing the woman’s demise. “Fates be with you.”
At full speed, Tyrsten rode southeast in the darkest of night. His heavy, brown cloak whipped from the speed he demanded of his horse. The moon had already set, but he didn’t need it to find his way.
His head filled with images and emotions that made no sense, cluttering his mind. He wanted to write them off as delusions. But he knew that wasn’t the case. His tangled thoughts were a consequence of what had just occurred when he had looked into her eyes.
An hour into this journey, Ithia’s body stopped shaking. In a panic, he searched for a pulse at her neck. His trembling fingers found her heart was beating, but weakly. He urged his horse to run faster. She had to hold on long enough to reach the Healing Springs.
Tyrsten arrived at the perimeter of the Springs just after dawn.
Dressed in a white robe, Samara greeted Tyrsten outside a small hut covered with climbing vines. She had heard the vibration of his horse’s hooves. Tyrsten lowered Ithia down into Samara’s receptive arms.
“I believe she was given an immobilizing potion.” He turned his head, wishing to avoid Samara’s reaction. “And an Actuation was performed.”
“An Actuation?” the Springs’ guardian asked, “With a potion! How did that occur?” She searched Tyrsten’s face and found the answer. “Oh no. This is not good.”
His eyes glazed over. He became unsteady on his horse.
Samara evaluated his impaired condition. “You are not well either. Come.”
“Never mind me.” Tyrsten slid off the saddle, shaking his head. “Take care of her.”
“No. You are coming as well. Do you have enough strength to help me carry her?”
Using his last bit of fortitude, Tyrsten carried Ithia inside.
✹ ✹ ✹
That night, Ithia opened her eyes to an unfamiliar view. Everything was blurry, but she definitely wasn’t in her bedroom. She was inside some sort of thatched hut.
She remembered dying in that man’s astounding eyes.
Ithia tried to move to see if her paralysis had worn off in death. She wiggled, but she was still bound in some way. Ugh. Even in the afterlife she was tied up.
Tyrsten heard her stir.
He was at her side in an instant.
Ithia wasn’t startled by the sudden appearance of an undefined face. She was proud of herself and figured she was taking this whole death thing in stride.
She couldn’t focus her vision on him and wondered if people—beings—uh, spirits—appeared hazy after death. It would explain the appearance of ghosts.
She wouldn’t have guessed being dead would seem an awful lot like being intoxicated, but that was how she felt. She gave up pondering the mechanics of death and in a lazy tone asked, “So who are you?”
“Are you all right?” He asked, ignoring her question.
“Aren’t you all-knowing?” Ithia fogged out of consciousness momentarily. “Well?” She pursed her lips.
“I foresee some events, but I am far from Omniscient.” He kept his tone soothing, since she was obviously disoriented.
“I asked you a question.” She said as the room swirled.
“I am called Tyrsten. And you?”
“Ithia. But that still wasn’t my question. Whooo are you? I sound like that damned caterpillar in Wonderland.” She gave a delirious chuckle. “Okay… wait, wait… What are you?”
His face sharpened in her vision.
“I saved you from Garrick’s soldiers.”
“So, what are you, a guardian angel? I guess it makes sense, you’re beautiful, like how artists paint angels. By the way why did I die? I don’t know how that went. I heard fighting, then someone, well—you appeared. And I died.”
Tyrsten almost choked at the idea that she thought she was dead. He restrained himself and steadied his voice, “Ithia, you are not dead.” He studied her face for signs of understanding, but she was still delirious from the combination of the potion and the Actuation.