A new world and I pray
My old world will be there
When I wake up from this dream
Winter’s world went black. One minute her eyes were on Niall, locked together like they were one. The next, she was spinning somewhere dark and viscous, not knowing up from down. Maybe they’d hit her over the head. Maybe the stranger with the bow and arrow who’d come out of that strange twirling golden spiral had killed her and this was heaven. But no, it had been Niall pushing her inside the golden door. She remembered. It had been Niall sending her away.
Why was everything black? Was she unconscious? Maybe she was asleep and inside a nightmare. She was turning and turning and turning inside a tunnel, her body carried by a force stronger than herself.
And then a golden light appeared from somewhere.
She heard a thud, but she didn’t immediately realise that the noise she’d heard had been her skull hitting something hard. A terrible pain exploded on the side of her head, and she could feel her body again, stiff and throbbing. A wave of nausea hit her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to regain some composure.
When she finally opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was her silver hair and a hand – her hand – covered in blood. A golden glow was reflected on her fingers, and her face felt cold and sore, leaning on something tough and slightly uneven. A confusion of voices made its way into her ears, in her mind – words she didn’t understand, the voice of a woman, then a man, and footsteps – and arms around her shoulders, around her body.
She was too sore, too confused to do anything but whimper. And then she saw the blades pointed at her face, and she froze.
“Chi sei? Da dove vieni?” said a voice. To Winter it was gibberish. She had no idea what language it was. She had no idea where she was. She had no idea who was at the other end of the blades pointing at her face, her chest. She raised her gaze and saw two dark-skinned men. The expression on their faces said that they would not hesitate to pierce her there and then.
“Where am I?” she managed to whisper, her instinct telling her that it was best if she spoke, if she at least told them that she was human and not demon.
“Parla inglese,” one of the men said.
“Who are you?” said another voice, in English. It was neither of the two men. Winter moved upwards an inch, hoping that the blades would move and let her sit up – and they did, but the daggers remained unsheathed and pointed as she replied.
She looked around her. The question in English had come from an older man with grey hair and a white beard, immaculately dressed in what looked like a black fighting suit. His eyes were fearsome, and Winter’s heart skipped a beat. “My name is Winter Shaw. I’m from Scotland.”
“Surari?”
Winter shook her head. It was probably too early in their acquaintance to tell them about her real nature, half human and half water Elemental. After her experience with the Midnights and their horror of what they called half-breeds, she was not keen to reveal her origins.
“Secret heir?” the man asked again. She shook her head once more.
“Human.”
“You came out of the iris. Nothing like this has happened before. Only Alvise comes back to us from the iris.”
Winter shifted uncomfortably on the hard floor. Her head hurt. A sudden noise, like a wave of the sea, rose behind her. She turned backwards to see that the golden iris twirling behind her had gone. She was alone and she had no way to get back. Niall had pushed her in without a word of explanation. He’d sent her away.
To her dismay, tears prickled behind her eyes. She didn’t want to appear weak to these strangers, but she couldn’t help it. Frightened tears began rolling down her cheeks as the realisation that she and Niall were apart rose inside her.
“Are you hurt?” asked the older man.
Winter was too choked to speak. She shook her head again, miserably.
The silver-haired man raised a hand, and the blades pointed towards her receded, but they were not put away.
“Can you stand? And please don’t just shake your head,” the man continued. His English was surprisingly good, though heavily accented. He rolled his “r” like a Scotsman. Who was this man?
“Yes. I can stand,” Winter replied, and climbed to her feet. As she did so, she swayed a little. One of the men came to sustain her, and she saw the admiration in his gaze as he took in her long, silvery hair and the pure grey of her eyes.
“Where am I?”
“You are in Venice. In Palazzo Vendramin. My name is Guglielmo Vendramin. I am the head of this family. Do you know how you got here? And why?”
“I was in the Shadow World . . .”
Vendramin gasped, a deep gasp that seemed to steal all the air in the room. “You were in the world of the Surari?” His eyes were suddenly menacing. Winter froze in fear, and then she remembered what Niall had told her to say. “Onoir, clan agus farraige.” She struggled with the words in the unknown language, and hoped with all her heart she’d made herself understood.
“The Flynn motto. Did the Flynns send you? From the Shadow World? It makes no sense!”
“Niall Flynn sent me here to keep me safe. He told me to say that to you, so you would know I’m not an enemy.”
At that moment, a stream of whispers and sounds and nonsensical words filled the air, coming from somewhere behind her. Winter turned towards the source of the noise, and for the first time since she’d landed on the mosaic floor she took in her surroundings. She was in a huge room, half empty of furniture, with gilded ceilings and long, silky gold and green drapes at the windows. And in the middle of the room, lying on an immaculate bed, was a girl, still, her eyes closed, but whispering, her lips moving incessantly. All of a sudden, the flow of whispers turned into words, in English.
“She belongs to a place of sea and wind and she was in the Shadow World with Alvise,” the girl said, and then started whispering again.
Vendramin staggered. His face lost all colour. “Lucrezia . . . You sent your brother to the Shadow World?” he exclaimed.
The whispering stopped and the girl in the bed spoke, again in English. “I sent him there to fight alongside Sarah Midnight and the brave ones. The seal will help us here.”
“The seal? Who is the seal?” Vendramin asked, but Lucrezia did not answer.
Instead, Winter looked at the old man with her sea-grey eyes. “I am the seal,” she said.