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Ellery sat in the cold corner of the too-white space and turned the stones over in his hand. Nara lay along the stone floor, her head on his lap. The woman who had unsettled Nara watched them too closely. She hadn’t taken her eyes from Ellery, and he worried that there was no way back from this if it was their last life.
The impulse to run still filled his senses. That he should take the woman he loved, no matter the consequences or what they might be leaving behind, and just run away. He looked down over Nara’s features, twisted as though in pain, and ran his fingers over the odd mark on his hand as he moved the stones around. He was uncertain of what they might tell him, if anything, but he needed the link to her.
Nara had just dropped, her temperature spiking again, and he feared that she would not wake this time. She squeezed her hand open and closed, groaning in her sleep. If that was what it was. No one was willing to come close. Although Ellery feared they might throw them back out into the snow, they had left them alone.
He ran a hand over Nara’s damp brow and through her loose hair. He had no idea what he could do for her in this life. His stomach growled quietly, and he searched the cavern for a sign of water, like the pail in the last one. He did not want to ask these people for anything.
There was something about the woman who watched him. He couldn’t place what it was, and it wasn’t a face he had seen before. At least he didn’t think so.
He closed his eyes, resting his hand on Nara’s shoulder, and she murmured in her sleep. He held tight to her stones, certain they were smaller than he remembered. He was worried that he would lose the pouch in his pocket, yet he needed to feel the stones against his skin.
Ellery couldn’t get a handle on the world they were in or the reason they were there. The pull—the understanding of danger—was not here. The only sense he had was the need to run and leave this place. Could there be a connection between this life and the last? Manning came to mind, along with the father who had sent him out to die under the guise of collecting Nara. But then, perhaps the man had been sure that Manning could do that. He had unnerved Ellery, but Nara had spotted him as the soldier he was; in fact, she was sure that she had seen him before.
Countless hours beneath the fire tree had been spent thinking over every moment of their last life, including the time before Ellery had lost Nara and she had returned. There was something that connected each life and drove them on. If someone or something understood what they were and could benefit from that, then it stood to reason that it might have been the same in previous lives. There was far more to their continued existence than just killing monsters, but Ellery didn’t know who would benefit from that. How could they be of any other use to anyone?
Nara groaned in her sleep and squeezed her hand closed. He reached for it, finding a fine white line across her palm, highlighted by a redness behind it. He couldn’t tell if it was caused by her fever or the constant opening and closing of her hand. Without thought, he tipped the stones into her hand and closed her fingers around them. She settled immediately, as though she had waited for the stones or was looking for them.
The sword lay beside her. The blade was not as brilliant as usual, and he thought there was something on it. Was it a mark that hadn’t been there before—a reminder of the creatures, the weavers, they had fought when they first arrived?
“Will you help us?” Ellery pleaded, looking up at the woman who still watched so closely.
She sighed, her stare unwavering, and someone else touched her shoulder. Ellery raised his eyes to a man standing behind her. He appeared just as everyone else, as though he could be brothers with the men in the other cavern. And the woman, Ellery thought as his gaze drifted back to her, was something very different.
“Where did you come from?” he asked her.
She gave a slight shake of her head. She was not one of these people, and yet they followed her. They listened to her.
“Why did you pick her up?” he asked, but the woman remained unmoving. “Water?” He looked back down as Nara groaned in her sleep.
He ran his hand over her brow again as a line of blood ran along the blade of her sword. Ellery reached for it. Had it not been in his sheath? Nara had been standing beside him, and then she was falling. Perhaps the sword fell with her.
There were no marks on her that he knew had not been there before, other than the one on her hand. He knew her, he understood her, and he couldn’t save her. No matter how many times he tried, no matter how many times he stood between her and a monster, there was nothing he could do to prevent whatever it was that was coming next.
If there was anything to come next. His fear was that this was the last life, and if he lost her now there would be no chance at trying to save her again.
“Have you seen the tree?” he asked, but he was looking at Nara, wondering if she was already moving back towards the fire tree or if there would be no fire tree for them now. For the tree of stone seemed a dangerous omen.
“You should not have gone where you did,” said the woman across from him. But Ellery didn’t lift his eyes to her.
“Yes,” Nara whispered.
“I’m scared,” he breathed, leaning over her.
She slowly opened her hand, and the stones fell from her grasp. “Run,” she whispered, and her whole body went slack.
The sound of the stones hitting the floor of the cavern frightened him, echoing around the space. Even a weaver lifted its head and looked at him. He scrambled to pick the stones up, slipping them into his pocket, not even worried about the pouch as he climbed to his knees.
Nara slipped from her position against him, sliding effortlessly to the floor. He reached for the sword first, the line of blood gone. He slid it into his sheath across his back, hearing it slide reassuringly against his own sword. The sound grounded him. Nothing appeared as it should since they had arrived here. The feeling of panic continued to push at him, the desperation to leave this place, leave all of it behind and find somewhere they would be safe.
Something growled in the cavern, although the sound didn’t echo around the space as others had. It did not sound the same as the weavers had earlier, more a grumbling or groaning in the stone. There was more to this world. Something else was coming, and they would likely be used as a sacrifice for whatever that might be.
Nara was heavier than usual when he scooped her into his arms. A dead weight, as though she had nothing left to give, and yet she was still alive, or she would no longer be with him. Unless their fears were realised and this was what death looked like in this, their last life. The pressure to leave this place was greater than he had felt in some time. Not a pull towards something but a push. He knew it would lead in the direction they needed to go.
No one said anything as Ellery stepped forward with Nara in his arms. She was still not dressed for the world outside, and yet he knew they could no longer stay. It was taking all he had to hold her. As much as he wanted to carry her on his back, he knew she no longer had the strength to hold on.
The cold air hit him quickly as they moved out into the bright light. He wondered if that would ever change. No one followed them from the cavern. He stood in the stark, bright white world, desperate for an idea of which way to go.
In the distance, he could make out a large shadow that might be the mountain they had been inside, the one Nara had led them to. They had felt their way through their lives, never knowing what was to come next or even why they were anywhere. This was no different, and yet it worried him so much.
He was waiting for a monster to reveal itself so that he could hunt it out, make sense of the world and the life he was living in. The people they had met so far feared something, despite the creatures they lived with and the weather they endured. There was some danger they did not understand. Or perhaps they did.
Shadow had lied to them. She had known far more than she had shared with them, whether she understood the threat or that they needed whatever was out there to survive in some way.
Ellery shook his head, chasing the racing thoughts away. He rolled his shoulders and tried to reposition Nara in his arms, worried she would slip from his hold and into the snow, which had become deeper and harder to push through the further away from the cavern he walked.
In the second life, the pull was already there from the moment he had found her in that market, held her slender body close, and finally kissed her. He had not been able to do that in their first life, no matter how much he had wanted to. A sense of danger was already taking them in the direction they had to go. They understood the danger and that they were the ones to face it.
In some way, it felt as though they were the danger here. Although Ellery doubted these people would take the time to hunt them down, and the group they had just left had rescued them from the weather. This was something else.
It frightened him as much as the unconscious woman in his arms. He couldn’t do this without her. He had never wanted to do this without her, and he would remain with her for as long as he could.
His foot hit against something in the snow. He stumbled, almost losing his footing and the load in his arms. He paused to try and calm the panic building in his chest. He looked about, but there was nothing. They were as they had been in the beginning of this life, lost in a sea of white nothingness. He could not tell where the land ended and the sky began; he couldn’t tell where anything might be that could help them. Nor where they might need to go. He turned slowly, taking in the world of white around him. He had lost sight of any mountains or shadows on the horizon.
Something rumbled, the sound echoing across the landscape. He couldn’t tell what direction it had come from, but it reminded him that they were not lost to nothingness. Even when they had died and waited for each other, although rarely patiently, there was something around them, the feeling of calm and the safety of the tree. Despite his fear the first time he had arrived there, he’d had the assurance that Nara was safe.
Until he had discovered that she had followed him—that she had lived the same pain he had just to find him. He looked down at her then, at her soft, beautiful features, and longed to see the golden spark in her eyes. Her head hung back, and he tried to move her in his arms to pull her closer to him and make her more comfortable.
Ellery staggered and dropped to his knees. The overwhelming sense to run returned, the need to keep moving—but what was the point if she was lost? Nara was cold to the touch as he allowed her legs to fall into the snow. He put his hand to her face and wiped at the tears that were freezing on his face with numb fingers, realising just how cold he was. He laid her down in the snow, his hands shaking as he tried to pull at the buckles of the sheath, the release a relief of sorts as the weight of the swords slipped into the snow behind him.
He pulled his coat off and then lifted Nara up to thread her arms through it. He pulled it tight around her, burying his face in her neck, but her skin was cold. He lowered her reluctantly back into the snow. It took him too long to reposition the heavy sheath across his back and secure it, his arms too tired and his fingers too numb to work the buckles.
Ellery’s whole body ached, and he shivered as he scooped Nara back into his arms. He held her close, willing her to warm up. She hadn’t moved since they had left the cavern, but he wasn’t giving up. He wasn’t leaving her behind.
The impulse to run was less urgent, but as he staggered to his feet, the cold pulling at his senses as well as his shirt, his foot hit something else. He tried to stand steady. The wind pulled at his thinner clothing and exposed skin. The stones in his pocket, pressed against his thigh, seemed to whisper that running was the only choice. He couldn’t move his feet.
It was then that he saw the darkness in the light. The patch of shadow that seemed to have nothing above it or near it. He pushed forward, the snow deeper and harder to manoeuvre, and he was sure the cold was playing with his senses rather than the stones in his pocket.
As his foot hit the edge of the shadow, he realised it was not just a shadow; it was a hole in the snow, a drop. He stumbled forward into the dark, trying desperately to cling to Nara. The first real feeling that he was headed in the right direction surrounded him, pulled at him, and he allowed himself to be pulled forward into the dark.
After the blinding light of the snow, the dark seemed overwhelming. Too complete. He couldn’t make out anything other than the jarring sense as his foot found solid ground again. It wasn’t quite as cold as the world outside, yet he continued to shiver. He wanted to draw his sword and hold Nara’s stones, but he couldn’t put her down, couldn’t release his hold on her. Perhaps he wasn’t really standing on solid ground, and it was some further ploy from whatever was pulling him in this direction. Perhaps the moment they were separated, he would never have the chance to hold her again.
Pulling Nara close, Ellery put his cheek against her nose, trying to feel for anything that would indicate she was still alive. Despite the number of times they had wanted this way of life to end, he did not want it to end here in this way. There was a faint breath against his skin, or was it his wishful thinking? The air was cool around them, but he couldn’t feel any breeze or movement in it.
He closed his eyes against the dark, focusing on determining whether Nara was alive. The impulse to run returned; despite the pull that they had to go forward, there was something that indicated he should go back.
“Enough!” he bellowed into the darkness, frustrated that he was alone and didn’t know what to do. Something glowed in the distant darkness, flashing bright, and then dulled somewhat. Had he seen something like this before in the dark of the mountain? Like an eye watching him? It gave him the sense that he was far from where he wanted to be and yet right where he needed to be.
He stepped forward, his feet unsteady, and wondered if he was simply weak from watching over Nara for so long. He stumbled, trying hard to hold her close as his knee hit the stone ground hard. He released Nara’s legs and put a hand to the stone floor, cool and ridged. He wondered if he had found some other way into the same place he had been before or if it was not the same place at all. The glow before him increased, and he tried to lift Nara back into his arms and find his feet. His knee burned from the pain of hitting the stone floor as the golden glow revealed a tree before him.
It was not the fire tree, he knew that with everything he had—and yet it was very much the fire tree. He wondered then if they had managed to die together in the cold snow and the Fates had finally brought them here together. As he reached the tree, the feeling of relief was lost. They would never find it together, he realised. No matter what their lives were or how many they lived, the Fates had other plans for them, and he would never be able to change that.
Despite the soft orange glow, the tree was stone and produced no heat. Ellery sat Nara down beneath it, trying to rest her against the white trunk, but she kept slipping, so he laid her down. He worried about the cold stone circles on which she lay, but perhaps it was too late and she was already gone. He stood and looked up at the tree before him. It was very much like the one he had found before, and yet it wasn’t the same.
Instead of the grey stone bark and branches, it was white stone, appearing just the same and yet different. The leaves appeared like flames, like the tree he had spent far too much time beneath. He reached for a leaf, and it remained steadfastly where it was, not allowing him to pluck it from the tree.
He looked down at the mark on his hand, the impression of a tree that appeared both familiar and foreign. Perhaps this was their safe place. As he sat down beside Nara, the world seemed to move around him. Stone grinding over stone echoed around them. He leaned over her as leaves rained down from the branches above, each turning to dust when it hit him or the ground around them. Ellery wanted to glance up and see if the world was coming down over them and that was the danger—and yet there was nothing here, no monster, nothing they could fight.
The sound of moving stone changed again, as though something grated against it. He remembered something about a stone man. Who had said that? Ellery had wondered if it was to do with whoever had taken the stone from Shadow and her people, but that might have been one of her lies. She had a stone; she had people around her. But when he had returned to collect Nara, the crevice with the stone was gone.
Something pulled at him, physically tugged at his clothing. He drew his sword and looked about the dimly lit world just beneath the tree. Just like during his time beneath the fire tree, nothing was visible outside it. Then he saw the pebble in the crease in the stone on the ground, the same ridges and spirals he had seen elsewhere. As though the world moved along those predefined lines.
And yet, the world was not as it appeared to be. And the idea of an easy, guided life was a false one. The pebble moved, just a little but enough. Ellery had followed one before, but he refused to move this time, despite the impulse to run pressing in on him again. The same pulling sensation tugged at him, and he felt the draw of the stones in his pocket. He brought them out to look at them in the light of the tree, and in that moment it was as though the stone closed around him.
Stone moved around his wrist, locking him in place, and he closed his hands over the jade in an attempt to keep the stones safe. As the sound of stone moved around him again, the jade stones fell from his grasp, clattering across the floor and disappearing into the dark.
He cried out, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t bend or run or reach out. He turned to Nara to find her still sleeping beneath the tree, unmoved by the cold or the movement of stone.