Homecoming

Joree woke up feeling cold. That was unexpected. He was used to waking up in agony and exhaustion and fear, but not cold. His chamber of torture had always been a neutral temperature. Except for that one day. When he’d been on fire…

He snapped his eyes open, trying to push away the memory before it could seep back into his mind.

He blinked several times. It was dark, as he’d expected, but the ceiling was covered in little dots of light. What kind of strange new torture was this? Were those dots what made it so cold?

Wind blew across his face. His vision cleared a little. He could feel the pain now, coming at him with a vengeance. He almost wished it were a little colder. Maybe then his body would go numb.

Then his mind finally registered the oddity. He could feel wind.

He struggled to sit up, feeling a sudden urgency. Had they taken him outside for some reason? Maybe they had left him here to die. But…that didn’t really make any sense.

He could barely lift his head. Groaning, he tried to roll onto his side to at least see what was beside him. He managed this, barely, and then lay in a very awkward position, unable to move his arm out from under his body.

Someone was sitting next to him. They were facing forward and didn’t turn to look at him as he shifted. He frowned. This person was small, too small to be any of his torturers. He couldn’t lift his head up enough to see their face, but he could see a bow lying across the person’s lap.

I’m dreaming, he decided groggily. He tried to pull his arm out from under his body, grimacing. If this was a dream, then his pain must’ve been seeping over from reality.

Suddenly, the figure beside him shifted. He could feel their eyes on him, and he felt his breath catch in his throat.

The person, apparently, decided not to say anything. But neither did they turn away. Joree groaned softly, closing his eyes. Moving shouldn’t be this hard. It was a decidedly terrible experience to be betrayed by one’s own body.

He closed his eyes, wishing he could block out the world. Part of him was curious, even desperate, to know where he was and why. The other part just wanted to fade into blissful nothingness.

Behind his eyelids, the image of a burning figure flashed across his consciousness. He shuddered at the sight. Where had it come from? Some terrible torture-induced nightmare?

No, he realized, suddenly feeling a pit settle in his stomach. That was real. His mind slowly pieced together the blurry, intense events into a vaguely cohesive memory. Aniah, attacked by Aluri. Aluri spontaneously bursting aflame.

And then a strange newcomer, dashing into room in time to save Aniah from the man who would have killed her with cold dispassion. Joree had blacked out soon after that. He vaguely remembered hearing shouts and clamor around him, of briefly opening his eyes to see flashes of light or movement.

Dared he hope…

“Joree!”

Instinctively, he tried to jerk his head towards the voice, his heart leaping in his chest. Of course, his body didn’t respond correctly, so he barely managed to twitch before wincing at a pain in his neck.

“Mom?” he whispered uncertainly. It was her voice, he had no doubt. But still, it was too good to be true.

“Oh, Joree.” A hand fell on his shoulder and gently pulled him onto his back. He found himself staring up at the most welcome sight he had ever seen.

“Mom!” he exclaimed weakly, voice hoarse.

She just laughed, leaning down and hugging him tightly but gently. It jostled him a bit and bumped some bruises, but it was worth the cost.

His mother was here. But…

“Why?” he asked, barely even realizing he was speaking out loud.

“Well, you didn’t think I’d just leave you here, did you?” she asked, voice strained even as she tried to sound light-hearted. “That would make me a rather poor mother, I would think.”

He gaped, grasping for words. “But…how?” A million other questions tumbled in his mind, but his sore throat and general exhaustion left him speechless.

She took one of his hands and squeezed gently. “It’s a very long story. The important thing is that you are safe, and we’re going home.”

I’m dreaming, he realized, staring up at a sky full of stars. Or hallucinating. Maybe his brain had finally snapped from the pain and pressure.

But then, someone had come to rescue Aniah. Of course, that person had clearly been a man. And not one he’d recognized. Of course, if his mother had found help, it would’ve been someone from outside of Ranteel that she’d met after escaping. So it made sense for Joree not to recognize him. But all of that was too farfetched, really. More likely, he’d hallucinated the whole thing, including the mysterious rescuer.

“Lanae, go get Sackrin. We need to move Joree closer to the fire. His hands are freezing.” The figure next to him shifted, moving the bow out of their lap and rising to their feet without a word. He frowned.

“Lanae? Sackrin?”

His mother smiled awkwardly. “Ah, yes. I…um…named your friend. She didn’t seem inclined to share, so I took it upon myself, and…” He could almost feel her blushing.

It took a moment for her words to make sense. “The Delani?” he whispered. Narissa nodded.

“She…wasn’t supposed to come. She must have followed me, although I didn’t even realize it until she started shooting guards down to cover our escape.”

Joree just grunted. With everything else that was happening, this new development was maybe third on the list of oddities.

“And…Sackrin?”

Narissa placed a hand on his forehead. Her fingers felt icy against his skin. He probably had a fever.

“There is a lot to talk about,” she said softly.

“Hmm,” Joree replied lamely, letting his eyes slip closed again.

“Is he awake? The stupid Delani won’t do anything but gesture and stare at us pointedly. He doesn’t look very awake. What do you need? It better be quick. I want to go back to the fire. Arkadia’s Halls, it’s freezing out here.”

Joree cracked one eye open at the new voice, trying to follow the torrent of words. Aniah stood above him and Narissa, arms folded around herself, shifting from foot to foot in an almost nervous way. No, he realized. She’s just trying to stay warm.

“He’s awake, but very tired,” Narissa said gently, her voice strangely affectionate. “I need Sackrin’s help moving him closer to the fire.”

“You could have just yelled for him,” Aniah said with a characteristic huff.

Narissa gave a patient smile. “Some people are sleeping.”

Joree felt more than saw Aniah’s eye roll. “Sackrin,” she shouted. “Get over here. We need help lifting the invalid.”

Joree groaned softly. Whatever had happened to Aniah while they had been prisoners, she didn’t seem any worse for the experience. Or better, for that matter.

A tall figure strode up a moment later, broad shoulders silhouetted against the starlight.

“What seems to be the problem?” The voice was strong but friendly.

“Joree needs to get closer to the fire,” Aniah said bluntly.

“Is he awake?”

“Yes,” Narissa replied.

“Thank the Halls,” the man, presumably Sackrin, said. He bent down close enough that Joree could vaguely make out his face. He was clearly older, probably as old as Narissa, but with strong features and distinctly white hair. His smile was genuine and kind.

“Good to officially meet you, Joree,” Sackrin said. Joree managed a weak smile in response.

Joree felt himself suddenly lifted, as if he weighed little more than a doll. Perhaps that was true. He had eaten very little in the past weeks. He was laid beside a small fire a few moments later, and the warmth immediately began seeping into his chilled skin. His mother sat beside him, resting a hand on his arm lightly and staring into the flames. Someone else sat down on his other side. He turned his head, wondering if it was Sackrin or Aniah. To his surprise, it was the Delani. Or ‘Lanae’. She didn’t look at him, just stared at the fire, legs crossed and bow sitting across her lap. He didn’t even have the energy to make a wry comment about her eccentricity.

***

The human ruler sits on his symbol of power. His face contorts strangely into what must be deep fear. He has reason to fear. He is in danger. But he has also gained a strong weapon, so that fear should be negated. He has a way to survive. A very promising way.

“It worked?” the ruler demands. Obviously it worked. He had been told that it had worked. Why ask again? And why speak with such…energy? Energy needed to be preserved for important purposes, not infused into menial phrases.

“Whoever I put this on will be blocked?”

Again, a question that has already been answered. It does not need repeated. That is energy wasted.

“Call me when payment is ready.”

The ruler nods once sharply, holding the chain before his face. “It will be as we agreed, assuming this works as promised.”

It would.

***

Aniah trudged behind Sackrin, forcing herself to stare only at his feet. She felt melancholy, and that emotion threatened to boil over into snappishness anytime someone spoke to her.

She had been so stupid. All that time, the prisoner laying on the floor had been none other than the backwards farm boy from home, the one she had practically lived with for the past several months. And she hadn’t even recognized him.

But why should she have? He was just a citizen. A rather annoying, unimportant one.

And, apparently, one that had saved her life by somehow manipulating inexplicable powers. Multiple times.

Her scowl deepened and she glanced over her shoulder instinctively. Narissa supported Joree, who still looked more like a skeleton wrapped in shredded skins than a person. Beside him strode the Delani, its makeshift bow over its shoulder. Sackrin’s children walked behind them, bringing up the rear. Those two were vaguely familiar from somewhere, but Aniah didn’t care enough to try to identify where she had seen them before.

Her eyes were drawn back to Joree. What had he done? How?

What was he?

His bright green eyes suddenly snapped up as if sensing her attention. Their gaze locked for a brief moment, and Aniah felt her heart skip a beat. Something in those eyes made her skin crawl. She shook away the sensation, facing forward again.

And then she saw a sight that lifted her spirits nearly to the Halls themselves. A dirt path led out of the trees, and ahead she could just barely make out the distant skyline of a city.

Ranteel. She was finally home.

***

Aniah fell asleep to the warmth of safety and familiarity. Her favorite quilt was tucked up under her chin, two pillow stacked under her head, and the mattress so fluffy it could have been made from angel wing feathers. She was asleep in moments, her exhausted body finally giving in to the feeling of complete security.

She was safe.

Her unconscious mind, apparently, did not agree.

A monster stood before her, grinning wickedly. The expression was foreign, but the face was not. She could focus on nothing but its glinting white teeth, bared into a malicious smile. A laugh broke from the creature, something between a cackle and a growl. She tried to scream but her voice wouldn’t work.

Something lay at the monster’s feet. A blanket? No, it was a body, wrapped in a thin red sheet.

But it wasn’t a red sheet. She could see the edges, and they were white. The cloth was stained with blood.

This time, the scream ripped from her throat. She reached for Will but found only an empty void inside of her where the power should be.

“It ends soon,” a crazed, eager voice hissed. She looked back up at the monster. This time, all she could see was its eyes.

Its bright, green eyes, unnaturally sharp and keen. A lock of golden hair curled on the creature’s forehead just above those eyes.

The creature started to shift, its shape melding and stretching and distorting. It remained abnormally tall but grew broader in the shoulders and chest, its musculature filling out to human proportions. The jawline softened, growing less angular and slightly more squared.

But the eyes didn’t change, and neither did the hair. The face that stared back at her sneered in a completely foreign expression of disdain and disgust.

“You left me to die,” Joree hissed. “You were too weak to defeat even one foe.”

She had no words to reply. Joree’s sneer turned into a scoff.

“Even if you had been strong enough, you only would have saved yourself.”

“No!” she protested. Her voice was weak, distant.

He let out a laugh, one eerily similar to that of the monster before. “Good thing we don’t have to worry about you ever being Highness.” He leaned in close. She couldn’t pull away as he put his lips right beside her ear. “It ends soon.”