Nothing else mattered, but Elenio’s cold, dead body. She’d failed him. She’d failed her family. She deserved to die. Her throat ached, but aside from that, she felt nothing. She was numb. She didn’t want to feel anymore. Everything that had ever mattered to her was gone.
Galena felt it before she realized what it was. It started as a gentle nudge somewhere deep within her mind, buried behind the overwhelming grief that had shattered her. Her head buried on Elenio’s chest, she felt the nudge growing stronger, more persistent. The nudge in the back of her mind became more forceful until her mind felt like it was ringing with the voice.
“You must go on. You have to come back to me.”
“But you’re gone.” Galena sobbed before pushing herself even closer to Elenio. Even in death, he called out to her.
“Come back to me, the world you’re in is not real. Come back to me. Find the sword and come back to me.”
Something in the words registered with Galena and ever so slowly, she sat up, keeping Elenio’s head on her lap. She looked around without really seeing anything before taking in the lifeless form of her love.
The pain welled up inside her once more, but the voice screamed in her mind, “That world is not real. Find the sword and come back to me.”
But it looks and feels real, Galena thought numbly to herself. How could something that she could touch and feel, not be real?
“Find the sword and come back to me. Everything will be alright, just come back to me,” the voice called to her more gently, but still with an air of command.
Galena took a deep breath and gently laying Elenio’s head on the stone floor of the cave, she stood. This proved to be an incredibly difficult task, more so than it had ever been before. She felt completely and utterly drained of life.
She stood looking around for a moment before the voice spoke yet again, “Find the sword, and come back to me.”
Galena nodded wearily. She was broken mentally and emotionally. There was nothing left, but that voice. Feet shuffling, head down, she left Elenio lying in a pool of blood, the sword still sticking up from his stomach in a grotesque manner. She headed toward the tunnel entrance, collapsing when she reached the opening. If she could just lie down and sleep. All she wanted to do was sleep and never wake. She curled up in a ball, head resting on the cold ground and closed her eyes. I just want to sleep and never wake up, she thought blearily.
“GET UP,” the voice shouted, making her ears ring with the sound. “Find the sword and come back to me.”
“Elenio, just let me sleep and join you. I don’t want to go on, I want to sleep,” she cried out, covering her ears from the shouting that seemed to surround her.
“NO. Get up, find the sword, and come back to me. I am not in that cave.”
Tears streaming down her face, she got up, each movement took a huge amount of will power. She shuffled her way down the long tunnel, no longer caring what lie before her, only what she had seen in the past. She saw body after body pass before her in her mind, making the tears flow fast and hot down her cheeks. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and thought about stopping, only to be shouted at by the voice again.
“Please, just let me die!” she wailed as the image of Elenio floated around in her mind. “I just want to die. I can’t live without him.”
“No, find the sword and come back to me,” the voice said patiently.
Galena continued to cry and she faltered many times, but she kept heading toward the light at the end of the tunnel. She found herself approaching the end, no longer fearing what was in the opening. She hoped it would be something that would finish her off. Please be quick, she thought numbly. She was so tired and she didn’t want to do this anymore. How could she have thought that she would be the one to defeat Rau? She truly was a selfish creature.
Stepping into a somewhat smaller area than she had yet been in, she fell to her knees, willing the secrets of the room to finish her off. She prayed to Mira for a quick release. However, nothing happened. The room remained quiet, waiting for her to discover what it held.
“Galena love, look around the room. The sword has to be there. Find it and come back to me,” the voice spoke gently to her, making her cry harder.
She stood, and looking all around, she saw it. It was lying across a giant bolder at the end of the room. Walking across the room seemed to take a lifetime, but finally, she arrived in front of it. Something in her mind registered the plainness of the sword. It looked dull and scratched up, not a worthy blade at all. There were no jewels to adorn the hilt, nothing but black leather wrapped tightly around the handle. The actual blade was the length of Galena’s arm and twice as wide. The metal did not shine in the slightest, but sat there soaking in the darkness of the cave.
Galena reached for the hilt and picked the blade up easily. The sword barely seemed to weigh anything at all, but the instant she touched it, she felt a bolt of energy course through her, making her limbs and body tingle and her mind clear. Holding the sword up so she could examine it better, she realized that although it did not look like much, this blade contained a great deal of power.
This is not the Sword of Lumina I expected, she thought to herself as she continued to gaze at it. Glancing back at the boulder, she noticed a scabbard lying there and removing her own blade and scabbard, she placed it where the famous sword has once laid. She took care to make sure the new sword was strapped securely to her belt. As soon as the blade was safely strapped to her, she noticed the cave seemed lighter, almost as if the sword really was lighting it up even though it was sheathed. Interesting, she thought.
Turning back toward the way she’d come, she grimaced and shuddered at the thought of walking past her loved ones again. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew they weren’t real, but their images would haunt her painfully for the rest of her life. No one should have to see their loved ones die in such a fashion whether in reality or dreams.
Squaring her shoulders, she strode purposefully across the cavern and into the opposite tunnel making quick work of it. It took a considerable less amount of time to get through on the return trip than it had when she had first traveled it. Taking a deep breath, she walked into the room that she knew would hold her love’s body. She was determined to keep her eyes focused on the tunnel that led out, but she couldn’t help glancing down as she passed by the area she knew he would lay. There he was, face white, blood surrounding him, sword still pointing out in an awkward angle. Tears sprang up to her eyes, although her grief remained in check. Before her eyes, he seemed to dissolve away into nothingness, leaving behind a dark place where his blood had spilled out, draining him of life. She stifled a choke, realizing that this was the cave’s way of saying that she had won. She had bested her worst fears and was worthy of taking the Sword of Lumina as her prize.
Holding her head up, she crossed the room at almost a run and traveled through the next tunnel, desperate to get past the bodies of her family and to get out of this horrid place. Entering the next cavern, she didn’t bother to avert her eyes, but instead sought out the bodies of her family, hoping to see them dissolve away just as Elenio’s image had. She found them quickly and was rewarded by the quick disappearance of their bodies as well. It was like watching rain fall up instead of down, the result of particles leaving the solid form of their bodies and disappearing into the magic of the cave. She took a deep, shaking breath, thanking Mira profusely for this small comfort. The ragged, broken mess her heart had been, started to heal, her mind becoming whole once more. She would be able to do this. She would avenge her father and brother’s death, for she remembered they had really died in the world beyond the cave.
She found Venia and Jamin’s bodies and watched as they too, rejoined the cavern walls and surrounding air, never breaking pace as she did so. The cave’s entrance was not far off and she knew she would find the real Elenio, safe and waiting for her just beyond the mouth of the cave. She quickened her pace, anxious to get out. Her heart still ached with the rawness of what she had been through and she somehow doubted if her mind would ever wholly heal, but she’d passed the test. She’d proven she was worthy of wielding the Sword of Lumina.
Ahead a ways off, she could see the light of day shining bright, tempting her with its false warmth as she knew it was still the dead of winter. Each footstep brought her closer to the light, changing from a tiny dot to something more real, something she could easily reach. The blood that had soaked her clothes was drying now, rubbing against her skin in an irritating sort of way.
I am going to burn these clothes the first chance that I get, she thought wearily. Other than the sword, she wanted nothing surrounding her to remind her of the horrible events that occurred in this magical place. As long as she lived, she would never tell of the horrors that awaited her inside the cold stone walls.
Moving quickly, the sword at her side, she took the last few steps toward the mouth of the cave. Using a hand to test the barrier that had been there at the start, she was relieved to discover her hand easily penetrated it now. The test was over. She could leave the cave behind and continue with the final part of her journey. Taking a deep breath to calm her racing and worn heart, she stepped through the invisible barrier and into the light of the clearing.