4. Xeros

4

XEROS

" T hat's an amusing sentiment."

I feel my mind reaching out, making a connection to nothing in particular, as the quiet rush of the wind blows around me, dislodging leaves from the illusory trees. Deep in my hallucination, I could almost see my target in my mind's eye as I guided her.

"She was so beautiful," I think, recounting her strange features.

She was neither like my kind nor like the dark elves that spurred mutual hatred. Something about her grows such utter fascination in me.

The wind brings a strange chill with it as I walk aimlessly through the forest, now unaccompanied by the fragments of my past. The silence is such a beautiful and rare companion in this twisted realm.

But it's all a lie… just another dream within a dream that I've conjured up to pass the time. Surely, I've created this woman as a coping mechanism, rather than conjuring her from the aether. Even as my mind tries to hope, I know that she can't be more than an illusion designed to trick me.

This isn't the first time I've tried to forge my connection with something, before remembering that I am tethered to nothing in this realm. This is, after all, my cell.

"A cell I don't deserve."

How much longer will I abide by this injustice? When will I seize power and find a way to free myself?

Can there even be any means of freedom for me?

I cannot know that my thoughts are real—that my memories are real. I feel myself eroding away with the imaginary elements, fading into the dull gray soup that my mind ponders over. Perhaps I'm another illusion, wandering an existence with no meaning.

The wind blows more violently.

I can hear the rush of a river that isn't there. The strong current unsettles fish, taking them warily downstream.

"Xeros, you flatter me far too much. You know my heart belongs to?—"

I turn my head to see a flicker of Dila, who vanishes and then reappears behind me as my eyes struggle to follow her. She appears somehow ethereal, but she's wearing a strange expression, as though she's concentrating on something. I still enjoy the way her nose twitches when she tries to focus, though it's all a bastardization of reality.

"That's not what she said last time," I muse to myself, slightly disturbed by the revelation.

None of this happened. It's all a concerted attempt to bind me forever—to trick me into accepting my prison.

But I have to wonder if the illusion is breaking before my eyes, or if this is a more intentional design of my captors.

A mirror image of her appears behind me simultaneously, and now they're both speaking at once, but saying different things. My head darts from one reflection to the other, though I wish I could tune both out entirely.

Then two more duplicates appear by my side, their words now dissonant to me.

Doubling still, now there are eight copies, an abomination of an attempt to recreate a distant memory.

If the dark elves aimed to breed insanity in me, they might be succeeding. Around me, the copies of Dila all speak at once, saying contradictory things in similar ways. It's as if I'm seeing different versions of histories that never happened to me, entertaining fantasies and nightmares all at once.

I close my eyes to try to make sense of the noise. Then I realize that the lapses in their words form a new but familiar meaning.

Okta delima propo, vilenci abrada. Porti fre ciso, mileni litumi, librateri al vrida!

Their voices have changed. They no longer sound like Dila, but an entirely different voice I know I've never heard, but which clings to my memory as though familiar.

"It's the chant," I say aloud, feeling the first drops of rain on my face. "The chant nobody will ever speak aloud."

But I shouldn't be feeling anything at all. I haven't felt anything in decades, or centuries, or even millennia.

I open my eyes, seeing that the bright, sunny sky has turned dark and cloudy.

I am alone again. But the wind is almost tornadic, the trees nearly uprooting themselves before my eyes. I could fret for my being, but I know that I am bound and safe, subject only to my own mental anguish.

Seeing a bright light, I crouch out of the way, hearing an almost deafening crash mere feet from me.

I look up at the dim gray sky, still alarmed that the droplets of rain fall upon my onyx skin.

"You missed," I say, wishing whatever force is causing this chaos would just finally strike me down. Then I would have peace of mind. Then, I might join an afterlife greater than this shell of an existence.

Flickers of Astreldi I used to know appear before my eyes, as I walk forward through the stormy forest, indifferent to my own survival but unnerved by the chaos. My clawed talons dig into the soil, and I realize that I can feel the moisture upon my feet.

"But how?"

That's when another flash of lightning nearly strikes me.

Yet this time, I'm not blinded, and realization tugs somewhere at the corners of my mind. I can feel myself adjusting to a new reality against my will.

I realize that the ground beneath me is being pulled apart and that the thunder is not thunder at all, but the unsettled earth trying to swallow me whole.

I'm not going to resist.

I can only hope that when I let it take me, it won't bring me back to this accursed dreamscape. A faint hope lingers in me that this is my release - that in this prison, I'm finally being allowed to die.

My eyes open.

I am encased in a weak mineral coffin, the sounds of the water dripping outside my prison tethering me to reality. My skin is hard and moist, like my more literal cell.

This is not a dream , I think. This can't be a dream.

I cannot move. I am still trapped, but no longer encased within my own mind. I can feel my own body in totality.

Even if I never left this cocoon, I could take solace in knowing I'd joined a more pleasant existence.

I clench my fists and tighten my muscles, then begin to vibrate my being. The rocks around me start to become clay-like, tearing slightly with my every movement.

I feel the cool air of the cavern upon my jet-black skin, hear the cracking of rock as it falls to the cavern floor, and see a faint emanating light beyond the cavern entrance.

I am dumbstruck, expecting the dreamscape to return. The cruelest of all punishments would be to torment me with the memory of what I lost, intermittently teasing me with something I'll never again experience.

But my bright blue eyes reflect against the cavern wall, illuminating me. And I can feel my heart beating for the first time in centuries, though its rhythm is different—somehow stagnated.

"Evangeline."

I say the name aloud, at first not knowing what it means.

I repeat it. It's such a beautiful name, it feels like nectar on my lips.

"Evangeline."

I stride forward toward the light of the cavern, looking out at the distant horizon. My wings are tired and stiff due to lack of use. As the cavern entrance widens, I hear them flap out behind me, begging for exercise.

I am groggy, but I am alive—truly alive. No longer do I yearn for the sweet release of death.

I only hope I'm not pulled back toward my dream prison. I will fly as far away as I can from here to ensure I am no longer bound.

"I should thank her."

I heard her voice in my dreams, I realize. I don't know how I know that it was her, or what her name is, or what she looks like. But magically, awareness creeps into the deepest recesses of my mind, as though she's a memory that's only now returning to me.

What is this connection?

As I flap my wings with staggered remembrance and feel myself gradually lifting off of the solid ground, I ponder over the nature of our bond.

Did I call out to her? Did I succeed in forming a link?

The world is different. I vaguely remember this cavern and the world outside, recalling the vast forest that covered this area. Now it's far more sparse, and I can feel the thickness of the air now filled with a smoke that burns my lungs.

How much time has passed? How long have I been kept in my slumber, perpetually hungering for release?

Are my captors even still alive? Do the dark elves still rule over this realm without mercy?

"They might be looking for me," I realize. "I don't know how long I've slept."

And I bring myself back down to the ground, stopping myself from taking off into the unknown distance.

I long to seek her out. For however long I've slept—what feels like an eternity and a half—she's the only true being I've formed any connection with.

I want to thank her for freeing me, to reassure her of her importance. I long to see her face for myself, to bring my claws toward her ruby cheeks and dark flowing hair.

Yet I cannot. As soon as I leave this cavern, I risk reigniting the same vile hatred that once pushed me into eternal solitude. I risk reopening the wounds caused by lost and stupid Astreldi, who ruined me and brought shame upon my name.

For now, I must cling to this cavern, biding my time in obscurity.

I return to the darkness, looking out over the shambled remains of my physical prison. While I was kept in chains within the confines of my mind, I was literally bound here. The minerals crumble between my fingers, falling like dust to the rocky cavern floor.

"She will find me," I say aloud, feeling the remains of my cell between my fingers.

I cannot see into her mind. The connection we formed is present but dormant.

But I know her. I've peered into her being.

Eventually, she will find me inside this cavern, and I will be able to show her my gratitude in earnest.

What does Evangeline covet? How much has her world changed in my absence?

"For now, I will wait."

I stare out into the vast open world beyond this cavern, content that at least now I live in a prison of my own making, rather than one forced upon me.

And I wait for an inevitable event. I don't know how long I will have to wait. But I know that compared to my time in exile, I will be seeing Evangeline very soon.