Chapter 14
My eyes opened slowly, still foggy from sleep. I blinked the film away, and my eyes snapped open.
"What the…" I mouthed, disoriented. I was lying down in some sort of grove that only extended twenty or so feet in every direction, after that it was just white space. The grass was lush and beautiful. There were two mini trees about seven feet tall and one large boulder placed next to one of them. There was a kind of garden pond not too far from me, surrounded by stones.
I sat up and didn't feel any pain, which was weird considering the fight I just had. I must be dreaming, then.
"Hello, Canaan." That voice…
A figure passed over my body. A feeling like the sound of paper being torn into two, pierced my brain. My eyes clamped shut as I winced at the pain, grabbing at my temple as the scene with Murphy in the mines played in my mind.
The figure had a long black hooded cloak on, that looked like it was made of scales. Long, pearlescent hair that flowed past her shoulders down her back. She had unblemished almond skin, her facial features were sharp, but she wore a soft expression. Two pointed ears poked out from the sides of her head.
The inside of the cloak was made from a purple material, and under it she had a plain black dress.
"Mom…" My vision blurred, and I felt something wet hit my hand. I was so all over the place that it took me a few seconds to realize I was crying. My lips quivered, unable to contain the fugue of emotions. From being too weak to help Dean, losing the queen, not knowing what happened to Cal after the fight, confusion about what was happening to me, and an overall sense that I had been drowning in this new world.
She smiled softly at me, peeling away at the layers of suppressed emotion. Her amethyst eyes filled with a maternal love. She kneeled and wrapped me in her arms, my body heaved as I grabbed the back of her cloak, squeezing, praying that she would stay and that this wasn't just some dream.
Her embrace scrubbed away the pain like a washcloth over a stain. "It's ok," She cooed, petting my hair. "Come now, let me look at you," She said, resting her hand on my shoulder. I leaned back, my face wet with tears, sniveling. She brushed the tears away with her thumbs.
"You have your father's hazel eyes, although I suppose that wouldn't have changed."
"A-are you real?" I asked, starting to calm down.
"I am, but we're in your mind." She stood and walked over to the rock and sat. I tried to fight the urge to investigate, knowing I should be fully present in this moment, but my thoughts raced as questions started spiraling into other questions.
"I know you probably have many questions, and I wish we had the time for me to answer all of them." She started, her gaze fell to the ground, and she rubbed at the side of the rock.
"Mom…i-its Dad he's…"
"I know," She said, meeting my eyes. "Your father is a strong man. He'll be ok for now. But the druid you met, Siva, the one who took him, is dangerous."
Then both our heads turned upward after a pulse of energy reverberated through the space. A distortion rippled outward like a rock thrown into a pond, a few feet above our heads.
A spray of white frost-like mist projected from the ripple, coalescing into a fist-sized wisp. The cloud emitted a soft glow before slowly expanding and shifting color, transforming into a small girl with porcelain colored skin coiled into a fetal position. She had long black hair that flowed as though it were under water, covering her unclothed body. She floated downward gently, like a feather, shaking her head and stirring awake.
Her eyes opened, sending out another wave of energy. Her eyes were a deep shade of midnight blue, with the depth of the ocean. They had a hollow quality about them. She wasn't even looking at me, and I found myself swallowed up in their depths. She floated down in front of Elise and gently rested her hands on the sides of Elise's face.
"Aurora," Her voice betrayed her appearance completely. It had an aged quality about it. The timbre of her voice was dark and thick, but she spoke the name melodically. She had a regal benevolence to her. Her presence felt similar to the druid but completely different at the same time. Was this another one of them?
She smiled at Elise, radiating a grandmotherly warmth. Elise's eyes were wide and reflected confusion, but something else as well. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Her hand half stretched towards the little girl, and the girl's body flickered and vanished, reappearing in front of me, hovering upright.
"Canaan, wake up." She said with a commanding tone. Her voice echoed throughout the dreamscape, shaking it. I glanced at Elise, whose expression returned to that same tired smile I met her with. She was saying something, but I couldn't make it out. Everything started to blur. The sound of muffled wheels crunching over dirt became steadily more pronounced, growing in volume. Alternating images of the grove and some dark wooden space flashed in front of my eyes with each time I blinked.
There was a thud, and a sharp pain shot through my body, causing my eyes to shoot open. Ok, that was definitely the pain of being alive. I was supine again, this time my hands were tied behind my back, and my feet were bound as well. There was also something covering my mouth. I was in a horse-drawn wagon, judging by the sound of the hooves clacking against the ground. The wagon was filled with other people, around ten from what I could see.
Each breath left me with a dull throbbing pain, leading me to believe I had broken some ribs. My whole body was sore. Where am I, and what just happened?
"His eyes opened."
As my vision began to focus, I realized the others were Grishan prisoners. They were unshackled, though.
"Hey, don't try to move. You're pretty beat up," Another voice cautioned. I tried to speak, but the words were caught in whatever gag they had me in, turning them into a muffled drone.
The horses started to snort and squeal erratically, causing the wagon to shake…or was it the horses? The rough movement made my sore body scream. There was a low rumbling as the shaking intensified. Another tremor?
"We've been heading east up this road for at least a few hours. How can we still feel the tremors?" A voice from the front asked.
A few hours? How long have I been out? And where's Cal? My thoughts then drifted to Marin and Emry. I can't do this to them. I started to wiggle my arms, but another shock of pain rang through my body, emanating from my right arm. I groaned, then heard the sound of a cork being removed from a bottle. A hand drifted in front of my nose with a dark brown bottle.
"Just go to sleep," was the last thing I remember hearing.
***
I awoke with a feeling like I had just come to after a three-day bender of nonstop drinking. It even hurt to think. I was in a bed, inside a wooden room, against the back wall facing the door. There was a chair placed by the entrance. I gingerly sat myself up against the headboard, noticing the window behind me with a small plant on the sill.
My forehead and right arm were bandaged as well as my torso, and I was wearing a plain white tee and pants. I glanced out the window. I couldn't see much, but it was light out. The architecture was different from Telenor. Flatter roofing with terracotta tiles, pointed archways, buildings with tracery, and there were more canals than roads. Domes and spires also stood out against the city skyline.
East… They said something about traveling east.
There was a thick fog over my mind. Memories like blurry images on a strip of negative film. I bit down on the nail of my thumb.
Was that dream with Elise real? And that girl called her Aurora, the name the druid or Siva said before he took me.
And what about Marin and Emry? I cursed in my head and slumped back into the bed.
"Ok, one thing at a time, Cane," I said in a breath. I looked to the side, and there was a small table that had a tray on it with bread and a cup of water.
"Wow…I mean—it's literally just bread and water…" Is this a prison? Then again, I don't know how long I've been out. Maybe the nice food had already been taken away. I took a painful scooch trying to close the distance between me and the tray. I winced but kept going. I reached out with my left arm. "Just a little more…" My tongue poked at the corner of my mouth while I concentrated.
And then…I slipped.
The tip of my finger grazed the edge of the tray, and I fell, crashing into the ground with a loud clunk, barely able to brace myself with the forearm of my uninjured arm. The pain radiated up from the ground through my arm, then to the rest of my body, causing my teeth to chatter. My legs were still on the bed, and my torso was twisted into an uncomfortable position from the fall.
The door creaked open. A little girl with an expressionless face walked in, her eyes tracked across the room, then to the bed, and eventually to me. My shirt slid down, covering half my face. She wore a beige long-sleeved shirt, with brown trousers tucked into laced-up knee-high leather boots. She had short black hair that fell just past her jaw, with wispy bangs. Her eyes kind of reminded me of how Emry's had been recently, empty. They were shades of purple and coral, the tones mixing like the flame at the end of a match.
She stared at me for a few beats and then moved toward me in silence. She slipped her arm under mine and got me back into bed. I think I was too embarrassed to speak. She pointed at the tray, and I shook my head, indicating that it was indeed what I was after. She picked it up and waited for me to get in position before placing the tray on my lap.
"…Uh, thanks," I said, picking up the piece of bread. She had no outward reaction and turned to leave the room. Weird, I thought, taking a bite out of the bread.
A few minutes passed, and another figure walked in. This time, a not-so-young woman—or not as young—she looked to be in her early thirties. Emerald eyes, messy short dark brown almost black hair, with beige skin. She had a lean, muscular build under the same attire the girl from earlier was wearing.
"You're finally awake," she said, leaning against the doorpost with her hands behind her back. I stayed silent, inspecting the woman.
"Oh, come on. Don't be like that." She leaned off the wall and brought her arms around, revealing my sword. She withdrew half the blade, eyeing it. "You're pretty good with this thing…for a kid." I think those hooded attackers would say differently. Wait…the orb! I didn't see it in the room, but I could tell it wasn't far, somehow. When did that become a thing?
"Where am I, and what do you want from me?"
"He speaks!" She remarked. "Calm down, kid. We're not enemies, and you're safe. You think your enemies would bandage you up like that?"
"I don't know. They would probably cart me across unfamiliar territory, bound, broken, and unconscious, though." I shot back. She raised an eyebrow, most likely caught off guard by my response. Then smirked.
"Fair enough. You're in Whiteren. With the Grishan Liberation Front, and there's someone who wants to meet you."