Chapter One
The world is an echoing ocean of darkness and pain, and I can’t find my way to the surface.
I’m drowning in it, devoured, rising almost to the wavering limit, so close I can make ripples if I reach out.But when I do, something sharp makes me gasp, and I’m sinking again, deeper and deeper.
I’m never going to find my way to shore.I’m going to die here, alone and suffocating.And yet, how am I breathing so far beneath the waves?I’m sucking in air thick and heavy, my lungs heaving for breath that does nothing to satisfy me.
It takes a long time for the sinking to slow, and by then, I’m on fire inside, the cool nothing that surrounds me doing little to soften the pain.And then I’m screaming, clawing my way up again, fighting the pull of that deep, endless black, contorting myself into physical rejection, my rebellion costing me far more than strength.
Sobs come, often and harsh, and peripherally I feel something clamp over my mouth and nose, and I really can’t breathe anymore.
“…go,” a voice drifts into audibility from a warped, warbling sound to words, “or she’ll die…”
The heavy thing falls away from my nose, my lips, the sharpness coming again, and I plunge one more time into the depths.
I don’t know how many times it happens.I do know that each time I fall, it grows harder to fight, that my strength drains from me into that chill and dragging blackness, and that the pain saps me as much as the battle does.
My rage doesn’t die.What makes me sear in fury never will, I’m certain of it.What drives such anger, I can’t recall, even as the hate behind it bubbles and boils.But the energy I have to burn in its honor dissipates at last, unsustainable, until I’m limp and hanging in the arms of emptiness.
Where only agony holds sway.
Which is why I’m so surprised to blink and open my eyes, to look up at stars that bobble and flicker overhead, to hear the lap of water against something close to my ear, and the harsh breathing that fills in the rest of the sounds.
My breathing.
“There’s another boat,” someone hisses.“They’re still following.”
“Quiet,” another snaps back.Silence goes on for so long that I think I must be distorting time when the second speaker says, “They’ve moved on.Let’s go.”
“We need to take her back.”The third person’s light, female voice is full of terror, trembling with it.Motion near me draws my eyes, though I can’t seem to move my head at all.Small hands lay clasped in a lap, the fearful one crouched next to me, on her knees.“They’ll kill us when they catch us.”
“We’re not going back.”The second speaker is a woman, too, her tone dull and flat, devoid of fear that clutches the younger.I know that voice, I’m sure of it, as I do the girl’s.
Both are sources of the hate I hold so close.
“You knew what you were getting into.”The one I heard first is male and filled with his own kind of panic.I fold him into the internal inferno.
“I didn’t,” the girl wails softly, though far too loudly for the man, it seems.There’s a flurry of motion, the world rocking in an abrupt rush, violent and nauseating, followed by a sharp crack that makes her hands rise, her body flinch.Has he struck her?
“Shut up, Fethest.”A heavy footfall makes my body rock again, and I realize why the air smells like salt and the stars waver.I’m in a boat.Did they rescue me from the water?When I was drowning?I should thank them for that.
Except the hate won’t allow it.Who are they?
Wait, Fethest.Idoknow her.Don’t I?I close my eyes, sighing.I’m so tired, too tired to question.The truth remains, I know her and the other two.I must be safe.
You’re not, a voice whispers in my mind.But you are coming to me now.It was the best I could do.
Who are you?I ask that back in the quiet, but there’s no response.Not in my head, anyway.
“Remalla.”I open my eyes again, and she’s hovering over me, the woman with the dull and empty voice.She’s shrouded in a hood, her face achingly familiar.A lock of blonde hair falls out from her covering, and she slowly, precisely, slides it back after it tickles the end of my nose.“You’re awake.”
That’s the wrong name.She doesn’t call me Remalla.
“Vivenne.”Yes, of course, my aunt.My mother’s sister.General of Heald and my mentor, my beloved teacher and family.
She observes me for a moment.“She’s not fighting.”
“I told you,” Fethest snaps with tears in her voice, sounding angry.Why is she angry?“It’s dangerous to give her so much.”
