Chapter 25

Chapter

Twenty-Five

MIRANDA

T he woods were absolutely oppressive.

It was so dark. So quiet. So still and cold. Black trees loomed above her, caging her in. The wind had stilled, casting the forest into eerie silence. Her footsteps were muffled by the damp, fallen leaves.

Her throat closed and her fingers flexed. She reached around to hug herself around the waist, and she sucked in sharp breaths of the crisp night air through her teeth.

She was not on Earth. She was not in a vent or underground. This was a forest. A forest in a place called Faeda. That’s all.

And she had to follow that light.

The bright white light in front of her illuminated the forest enough that she could see without tripping over any branches. The red and orange leaves were washed out and the muddy ground was reflective from the damp.

Miranda slowly followed, allowing the light to draw her in. It was so unusual for this all-natural world. No fire could produce such crisp, perfect light.

So, what was it? And why did it feel like she’d seen it before?

Because you have .

She edged around a log and scoffed at herself. Of course, she had seen it before. On Earth. Earth had plenty of bright white lights.

But she wasn’t on Earth. Earth was gone. It only lived in her nightmares now.

Was . . . this a nightmare?

Miranda looked up again, through the trees. Her heart seized in her chest.

This was certainly not Earth. Nor was it a nightmare.

A spring lay before her, crystalline and blue, outlined by moss-covered rocks and cream-colored sand. The ripples on the surface swayed melodically as if some unseen music beckoned. The trees around were illuminated, making their orange and red leaves seem to glow.

And the illumination came from the spring itself. Bright white light poured from the surface, flooding her, drowning her.

A deep sigh broke her wonder. “So, you found me then.”

She blinked as an orc stood up, revealing himself. He’d been crouching behind a large boulder to her right. He was slender, white, bald, and his eyes were milky.

But not necessarily unseeing.

The seer.

The light dimmed, and Miranda’s stomach churned with confusion and dismay. “W-wait, what was that light?”

The seer, who’d been brushing off his long gray cloak, paused and tipped his head in her direction, a single eyebrow raised. “You could see that?”

“Yes,” Miranda said, even as she took in the scene again. The crisp blue water was going black and the illuminated forest was slowly plunging back into darkness.

She couldn’t be in the dark. Her mind quailed and her pulse quickened, and she wrung her hands, unsure of what to do.

“Strange that you are so afraid of the dark when that is how I have lived almost my entire life,” the seer snorted, clearly amused.

But he raised a pale hand toward the spring and the light within brightened again, so bright this time there were hardly any shadows in the clearing surrounding them.

“What is that?” Miranda asked. “What kind of magic?”

“It is not magic. It is communion.”

Communion? “You’re . . . talking to the Fades?”

“In a way. It is a very one-sided conversation.”

She nodded slowly. “They must have guided me here.”

“Your curiosity guided you here, woman. Though, it is odd you can see the communion. I do not recall any other human ever being able to do so.”

Miranda said nothing, just continued to watch the light as it rippled and swayed with the gentle flow of the water.

“How is it you can see it, Miranda? Tell me, from where do you truly come?”

She wrung her hands together, stomach sinking with anticipation and anxiety. She needed to find her babies. She knew they were here on Faeda and she needed to save them.

Only the seer could tell her where they were. “Do that dredge thing with me, and I’ll tell you about where I’m from.”

The seer snorted. “I’m blind, not dumb.” Her stomach dropped as he scrutinized her, eyes narrowed. “You still aren’t ready.”

A bubble of hope burst around her. One she hadn’t even realized she’d built. “Can’t we at least try ? — ”

“ No.”

“But I have so many questions. Or, one really important one?—”

“Yes, and you steadfastly refuse to even think about anything else. You work to bury yourself rather than heal.”

“What do you mean?” Miranda asked softly, even though she knew. She absolutely knew.

But the seer spelled it out for her, regardless. “You have to stop hiding from your past, Miranda. The answers are in it. How do you think the dredge will work if you cannot even face the memories it will bring up?”

“But...” She didn’t need to remember the horrors of Earth. She didn’t need to remember the blank spots in her memory. She could let the mystery remain forever. As long as she was able to save her babies.

The seer needed to tell her where they were. That’s it.

“It hurts. I know. And it’s nice to sleep on your male and let him soothe and distract and care for you at every turn.”

Her stomach twisted.

“He likes it too, Miranda, so stop with the guilt. He likes it too much. Govek has his arms so far open it’s no wonder you fall into them at every opportunity. Not that he can be blamed for this. It is not his responsibility to deny you comfort. It is you who must put the work into healing.”

“I don’t . . . need to heal.”

“What?” The seer’s shock was almost palpable and, under alternative circumstances, it might have made her laugh.

“I don’t need to remember what happened on Earth. I just need you to tell me how to find my family.”

The seer’s brow screwed up.

“ That’s why I’m here. Why I want to dredge with you. To find them. My...” Her throat closed and her eyes prickled, and her breaths came in short pants.

“Miranda, listen to me.”

His voice sounded odd, like a vibration. Like two voices overlapped to create one. The sound of it rolled over her skin and made her arms break out with goosebumps. The light from the spring grew so bright she felt like it was absorbing into her.

“ Everything is connected,” the seer said slowly. “ Everything. Your past, present, and future blend together to create the whole of your life. You cannot live that life in parts , Miranda. And I cannot dredge in parts.”

“But... I only need you to tell me where they are.”

“I can’t do that,” he said firmly, and her hopes were dashed, shattered like icy glass at her feet, slicing open her skin and making it difficult to breathe. “Not now.”

Not now . . . that meant . . . later?

“What... what do I have to do?” Miranda straightened her back. She’d do anything.

And she could do anything. She’d healed from trauma before. In her childhood. After her family died in the car accident and she’d been left all alone. Sent to live with children that had come from much worse situations than she had. A place where adult attention was divided so thinly it felt like trying to drink water from a cup of dry sand. Where you could be surrounded by dozens of people and were still overlooked.

She’d spent her entire career working to make sure the babies at Riverside Daycare never felt like they were unwanted or unseen.

And then she’d abandoned them?—

No! No! She hadn’t. She knew she hadn’t.

They were here. On Faeda. She’d do anything to find them. Even face the horror of what had happened on Earth.

“Please,” she insisted. “Tell me what I have to do.”

“It won’t be easy,” the seer said, turning back to the spring and brightening the water again. It was odd, but the light never hurt her eyes. Never felt blinding. Even as the tree trunks turned almost white from the bright illumination and the leaves went colorless and the sand glowed like the sun.

It was so bright. So bright .

And familiar.

“If you want your answers, you’re going to have to sit with the horrors that you keep pushing away and accept them instead. You will need to work through your pain and shed light on the places of your mind you are trying to keep in the dark.”

“But... every time I try to do that, I panic. ” Miranda focused on the glowing water. “I can’t move or breathe or even think . How am I supposed to heal when I’m so consumed by pain it makes me shut down?”

“As I said, it isn’t easy.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” Miranda whispered. On Earth, even with therapy, it took months. Years.

Was she going to be able to heal before the seer left the Rove Woods?

“You have time,” the seer said as if reading her mind and, as unsettling as that was, Miranda couldn’t help but feel soothed by his assurance. “I’m not going to be leaving Rove anytime soon. Unless that fool of a warlord does something incredibly daft.”

“What do you mean?”

But the seer didn’t answer, instead he pointed off into the dark forest. “Go that way.”

“What?”

“Go that way and sit on a log.”

“Go and . . . why?”

“You want to spark your healing. That’s what you need to do. But mind, it’s going to hurt.”

“Hurt? Will I be injured?” Miranda’s stomach twisted up.

“That I cannot see. I cannot say what exactly will happen. I only know that something will. Something… initiating.”

“Initiating.” She said slowly.

“Yes. It would be much easier to take it slow and soothe naturally, but if you’re insistent about pushing on, then…”

She gripped her hands. She didn’t have time for this to go the natural way. She needed to dredge now . Her babies were somewhere in this world and she needed to find them. Before it was too late.

“So, I just sit and wait... over there?” She pointed to her right.

The seer snorted. “Ah, nothing like those sweeping gestures I cannot see.” Miranda dropped her hand even as the seer raised his. “That way. Go. You don’t have a lot of time.”

She took a deep breath and nodded, “Thank you, seer.”

“I’ll see you again.”

Her heart thundered at the confirmation. They would have another chance. She just had to put in the work first. That was fine. She’d done this work before. Her whole childhood was spent in and out of therapy appointments.

She said a quiet goodbye to the seer and turned away from the light of the glowing spring, turned her back on the comfort and security to face the pitch black of the woods.

Miranda took her steps carefully. Frost crunched under her feet, but the damp leaves cushioned her stride. She could hardly see anything. Wet, chilly foliage kept brushing at her hands and cheeks. Her hair caught in a bramble once and yanked hard as she moved away.

Finally, she came upon a downed tree and sat atop it. The icy chill of the log soaked through her clothes, but at least she didn’t get wet. The cloak Govek gave her was pretty well waterproof.

She hoped this was the right log. She didn’t see any others nearby but…

She wondered if Govek would come for her soon. The dark was churning around in her like a stalking predator. She would have loved to lean into Govek, let him drown out the fear.

“It is not his responsibility... It is you who must put the work into healing.”

The seer was right. She had to do this to move forward. She couldn’t lean on Govek at every turn.

And he had his own demons to battle. He was battling one right now . Speaking with his father in a hall full of orcs who thought the worst of him.

They thought he tortured animals.

Someone, perhaps many , had lied to make Govek look like a monster.

How many other lies were discoloring Govek’s reputation? How many other lies were forcing him to be an outcast?

And who had started them?

She waited. Brooding. In the quiet. In the dark. The rustling of leaves and the cracking of branches and the swirling terrors of her mind all made her flinch.

Feet pounded up right next to her so fast she couldn’t even flinch.

Something wet and sticky splatted on her face and mouth.

Miranda yelped and staggered to her feet. Some of the liquid got on her tongue. It was pungent and bitter. She swiped it off, lost her footing, and tripped backward over the log.

Her head spun, her throat closed, and her body quaked.

She was no longer in the woods.

To Be Continued . . .