Mind's Eye (The Skyward Saga Book 2) by A.R. Knight

Author:A.R. Knight [Knight, A.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Key Books
Published: 2018-11-09T00:00:00+00:00

25 Ordinary Extraordinary

I step through the halls. A familiar guides me. Its blue hands reach out and hold mine, pulling me along as I try to fix myself. I’m reaching through the stories of my childhood, the ones about our god Ignos, about humans and animals and survival and triumph that provide examples of how to deal with this sort of trauma.

I find nothing.

There’s no Solare story for this. No legend or tale told around the fire that says what to do when you find out how easy you are to break. I was poked and prodded on that platform. Tested and torn. My body made to dance for some unknown reason, for some creature I don’t know or understand.

Which brings me to a question. Which gives me a way forward.

“What was that?” I ask the familiar - my first words since I left the platform.

“I’m getting to know you,” Dalachite replies from the walls around me. The familiar keeps us walking. “The start of a long and fruitful relationship for both of us.”

Fruitful.

Long.

I’m not sure I’ll last through more of those.

As if it’s reading my thoughts, Dalachite continues, “These first conversations might be difficult. Painful, even. But that’s natural. What discoveries happen without such hardship? Where would we be without the willingness to endure strife to gain what we need?”

“I don’t see you enduring anything.”

Careful, Kaishi. This one has the power to kill us at any moment it chooses.

Which might be a relief. In any case, I’ve said the words, so, while we walk, I wait for the voice to respond.

“I’ll forgive you that one, specimen.” Dalachite chooses not to use my name. “What I’ve endured is beyond your comprehension. What I have lived through, sacrificed for the good of the galaxy, is so far beyond your short trial that it doesn’t bear mentioning. Go now, recover, and know that you have much more to give before you can claim yourself a martyr.”

I don’t want to be a martyr. I don’t care about the galaxy - something I didn’t know existed until hours ago. I just want to go home.

Then fight your way back.

I will.

We’re not heading back to my room. I only notice - as most of the hallways look the same - because we’ve been walking longer than it took to get to that terrible platform.

“Where are we going?” I ask, but the familiar doesn’t stop and Dalachite doesn’t respond.

Eventually we reach another door and the familiar opens it with a blue palm on a black box to the door’s right. A whoosh and its open. I freeze. A creature stands on the other side. The pink and gold one. Outside of the jungle, of the panic that consumed us all that night, I can see how beautiful those scales are, even as clenching fear tightens my throat.

Is this another test? Has Dalachite decided it’s my time to die after all? But the creature only stares at me for a moment, then gestures at a high, silver table.

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