The Last Archer's Return

By Scott Cimarusti

After a fateful confrontation at the mystical crossroads, Serena Vasperan has mysteriously vanished and appears to be beyond rescue. Meanwhile, the provinces continue to descend into chaos and lawlessness without their self-proclaimed champion. Wounded, despondent, and heartsick for his lost Serena, Cade Seagram embarks on a last-ditch effort to find the rumored Necromancer who might be his only hope for finding Serena. All while Joanna Faromere keeps the torch of hope lit in spite of the ever-growing hopelessness that would extinguish it.
Can Cade or Joanna find Serena in time for her to fulfill her destiny handed down to her by her father and mentor before the nameless and ageless agent of chaos can wield its most powerful weapon against them?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scott Cimarusti
• Release date: Mar 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463159217

Scott Cimarusti

Scott Cimarusti was born in 1970 and lived in the Chicago area until heading downstate to attend the University of Illinois. He now works at his alma mater and currently lives in Champaign. An avid reader of all genres--mainly horror, suspense, and sci-fi--Scott started writing short fiction as a hobby while in college. "The Last Archer of Laummoren" was his first novel. (http://lastarcher.com) Find Scott on the web at http://scott.cimarusti.com or on Facebook, Twitter (@scimarusti), and LinkedIn.

Book preview

Part I: Fortitudes

Demonstrated

He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

- Lamentations 3:12

(King James Version)

Days of absence, sad and dreary,

Clothed in sorrow’s dark array,

Days of absence, I am weary;

She I love is far away.

- Jean Jacques Rousseau

1

Cade Seagram can hardly believe he is finally holding Serena in his arms. He has traveled so far and endured so much to find her.

And yet here she is.

Their respective travels and travails have left their mark on both of them, but neither seems to mind or even notice, so relieved are they to finally be reunited after far too long.

The last time Cade saw Serena Vasperan was at the mystical crossroads, where they had confronted the sinister shape-shifting entity that had been stalking them all in one form or another—and overshadowing Serena since her birth. Cade feels that familiar pang of guilt as he remembers their trusted friend and companion, Diana Perinova, whose mind, body, and soul had been ravaged by the unnamed malevolent force. But Diana had been strong...strong enough to offer the ultimate sacrifice of her own life so that they might gain enough of an advantage to survive the ordeal. She shot and killed herself with a pistol that Serena had taken from a thief back in the town of Leavesden. And by doing so, Diana had imbued the gun with the blood of an innocent—her own blood—which seemed to grant the weapon additional power against the nameless and ageless adversary. Having suffered so much and for so long under the torment of the unholy being, Diana probably had more reason than anyone to want it vanquished—no matter the cost.

Then Serena had tried to purge the withered and weakened form of the entity through fire from a broken lantern. Except the flames had only served to burn away the entity’s façade—that of a wizened old crone—and reveal the evil force’s true shape: an enormous gargoyle-like winged shadow-demon with blazing red eyes. Even now, in his mind’s eye, Cade could see Serena dwarfed in size and shrouded in shadow as she faced off against the self-described force of discord, ruin, and chaos and posed to it a challenge.

A final showdown on its own terms in its own realm.

That was when the portal between realms had opened up unexpectedly at the intersection of the crossroads.

And when Cade and Serena had each finally professed their secret love for each other.

Sealing it with a kiss.

Then Serena had disappeared through that portal, lost to Cade for what seemed an eternity. He had been so grief-stricken by his heartsickness for her and his own despondency at having failed to protect her as part of the pledge he had made to himself and to her. Though, thankfully, the entire time he had spent searching for her matters little to him now—because he has finally found her; his oath fulfilled.

His vision is suddenly blurred by a welling of tears of the purest gratitude, and Cade can feel a smile spread across his face—an unfamiliar sensation for him of late—as he notes that Serena’s eyes are just as green as he remembers them in his dreams. They seem even more vibrant, in fact; so bright compared to her too-pale skin—like twin gemstones set in an alabaster statue. Whatever mental, physical, and perhaps even spiritual exhaustion Serena must have endured on the other side, waging battle against the unnamable entity, the toll it has taken on her is evident.

Cade tenderly brushes back a wayward curl from Serena’s forehead, watching as the setting sun glimmers in the strands of copper and gold woven through her otherwise chestnut hair. Then he traces his finger down her cheek to her jawline, gently cupping her chin between his thumb and forefinger. He can feel his heart hammering in his chest as he watches her expression melt into a dreamy smile of anticipation, her eyes slowly closing, and her lips parting ever so slightly as she readies for their kiss.

Then Serena’s silken lips are on his—tentative and yielding at first, then more eager as their kiss intensifies. It is the kiss he has dreamed of for what has seemed like a lifetime of lonely and empty nights.

Serena’s hand glides up to the back of Cade’s neck, her fingers gently combing through the sandy blonde curls there; his hands bracket her hips and work their way up her waist in a rustle of the finest silk. The smooth caress of the fabric against his hand is almost sensual.

Cade’s brow suddenly wrinkles as he realizes he cannot recall ever seeing Serena in a silken gown such as the one she is now wearing—colored a deep forest green that is almost iridescent in the fading orange light of the setting sun. He could swear that when he had first found her again, she was still clad in her customary travel-worn tunic and leggings of a blue so dark, it is almost black.

The color of twilight.

Knowing that he should be focused more on his kiss with Serena, he still cannot help but begin to wonder why he is unable to recall anything at all about the circumstances of his reuniting with Serena. A growing unease begins to stir in the pit of his stomach.

Before Cade can give this lapse of memory any additional consideration, a sudden gust of wind rises with an almost gale force, swirling around the embracing couple, threatening to rend them apart. Cade’s vision is almost instantly obscured by the rippling tangled curtain of Serena’s hair writhing around his head. He shuts his eyes against this phantom wind and tries to tighten his protective grip around Serena to shield her from whatever storm is rising.

But Cade embraces nothing except vacant air—because Serena is no longer there, and he finds his arms are achingly empty once again.

Along with his heart.

Cade Seagram jerked awake with an audible gasp, his faded denim-blue eyes wide open, and a fresh wave of agony surging through his body—originating from both his throbbing skull and his swollen shoulder.

Cade winced and bit back a cry, closing his eyes against the wave of nausea as he tried to slow his breathing enough to lull the reawakened pain back to a tolerable slumber. The last tattered fragments of his dream continued to dissipate like smoke, as if carried off by the night breeze that whispered in his ears while the harsh reality of the cold winter grass prickling against his back like thousands of tiny arrowheads returned to him. The dream kiss with Serena still lingered like the ghost of a memory on his lips, though, accompanied by the familiar ache of emptiness and loneliness that settled back into its seemingly permanent place in his chest.

Gradually, the agony in his head and shoulder began to subside enough for him to open his eyes again.

The sky above him was a vast jeweler’s velvet of shimmering diamonds, and Cade’s eyes immediately found the now familiar star, the emotional residue from the dream still a thick fog clouding his senses.

Serena’s star.

Pelagus, the Hand of the Archer; part of the constellation Sagittarius. The star he had been using as a guide of sorts to find Serena. The only guide he really had—other than his intuition, which he was trusting less and less these days.

His eyes fixed on the star, Cade wondered yet again if Serena could see it, too, from wherever it was she now dwelled.

Cade covered his eyes with the crook of his good arm, fighting back the residual wave of melancholy stirred up by the particularly vivid dream. If only he could veil his despair as easily as his vision.

By whatever gods still existed, he was tired. Physically exhausted to the very marrow of his bones. Emotionally weary to the core of his soul.

As he lay alone and shivering in the frigid winter grass, with the emotional turmoil conjured up by his dream still clinging to him like stubborn spiderwebs, it would have been all too easy for Cade to convince himself that the events leading up to this very moment—including Serena’s very existence—were all part of some elaborate dream. To the point that he was finding it more and more difficult to recall with any certainty any life he may have had before this very moment. His days as the eager apprentice blacksmith to his father now seemed like they belonged to someone else; a stranger.

Even more disconcerting to Cade was the contrary notion that everything he now perceived as his reality—the loss of his companions and even his very purpose in finding Serena again—was the real dream; a nightmare from which he could not wake.

When Cade was attacked by the Brigand ambush a few days ago, a shameful part of him had hoped that they would simply kill him and put an end to his seemingly futile quest—so that an honorable death in combat might earn him passage away from this futile existence, and perhaps even to whatever netherworld Serena currently occupied. Perhaps there he could atone for his inability to protect her in this world by keeping her safe in the next realm.

But that remote possibility, tempting though it could be for him at times, still could not deter Cade from his solemn pledge to Serena and the promise of seeing her again. Some impulse within him—perhaps simple stubbornness, even—refused to surrender to the quick and easy death by a Brigand’s bullet. So he instead fought valiantly and with surprising cunning—fueled, in part, by that single-minded focus that still drove him so relentlessly. And perhaps there was even an underlying bitterness that served to motivate him, as well. A seething bitterness that threatened to consume him in his weaker and lonelier moments when he felt most alone and forsaken; the last of their trio and separated from his love, the one he had sworn to protect.

Whatever it was that had compelled him, Cade had somehow managed to beat the odds by single-handedly defeating all three of the marauding Brigands. Using Serena’s bow and her last remaining arrow, he had handily disposed of their leader with a remarkably accurate first shot straight into the thug’s thieving heart. Then he had wielded the bow as a club to bludgeon the remaining two, killing one by breaking his nose and sending splinters of bone into his conniving brain. The third he left teetering on the brink of death—not out of mercy, but rather out of exhaustion. Thankfully, the aim of the gun-toting thieves had been as poor as their choice of weaponry; none of their bullets had found Cade on the rare occasions when their rusted and ill-kept pistols did not misfire. Unfortunately, their crude weapons had still served as efficient bludgeoning tools—with one particularly well-timed blow to Cade’s skull. He must have blacked out briefly at some point during the melee, because he still could not recall how he had also injured his shoulder.

A gnawing sense of unease made Cade wonder if the blow he had sustained to his head was not at least partially the reason for his increasingly unreliable memory. He had only the vaguest idea of how much time had passed since that fateful night at the mystical crossroads—or about almost any other event since then; including the Brigand ambush. His hunger and thirst seemed to be his only semi-reliable methods for marking the passage of time anymore. But that, of course, was by no means accurate. Once you reached a certain level of weakness from food and water deprivation, anything beyond that seemed immeasurable.

As if his injuries and lack of provisions were not enough, Cade’s mobility was further impeded by the slaying of his adopted horse, Diablo (which had once been Diana’s), by a Brigand’s bullet that had undoubtedly been intended for Cade. So now Cade wandered the featureless landscape on foot, seeking shelter and sustenance as he stubbornly continued his quest to find Serena somehow.

Sleep was the one thing, however, of which he had a surplus—probably too much; which was something that should have concerned him had he given adequate consideration to his head injury. Though his was rarely a restful slumber. Whether brought on by hunger or thirst or fatigue—or his mind’s stubborn insistence at remaining active in spite of his broken body—Cade’s dreams were extraordinarily vivid, which only served to increase his level of confusion between his waking and slumbering lives.

He dreamed mostly of Serena, not surprisingly. And in these pseudo-nightmares, he found himself wandering an ashen and barren wasteland, the sky above filled with leaden clouds broken only by the occasional flash of sickly-green lightning—like the bizarre green fire he had seen during the Black Count’s assault to take Vasperan Manor.

(and like the green dress Serena had worn in his dream, or the green gemstone he had lovingly polished for her)

Often, there were voices carried on the wind in these vivid dreams; cries, curses, and lamentations—sometimes Serena’s voice, sometimes Diana’s. Other times, his parents’ or his sisters’. But even more unsettling, was the faintest metallic tinkling sound of tiny bells—like those a

(gypsy)

dancer might wear on her wrist or ankle bracelet. Slightly off-key and just loud enough for Cade to hear, the sound of these bells

(jingling jangling gypsy bells)

was enough to drive him mad—even in his dreams.

Madness.

Which reminded him of one of his one relic from the confrontation at the crossroads. He reached for it now, finding it in its customary place, tucked in a hidden pocket in his travel-worn beige jerkin.

A card.

Not a playing card—for it was larger in size and missing the customary array of clubs, spades, hearts or diamonds familiar to gamblers through the ages.

No, this card was different in so many ways.

The back of it was solid black—blacker than midnight despair. The front of the card resembled a standard Tarot card rendered in the style of a woodcutting, but unusually vivid in color. It showed the figure of a man clad in tattered rags, bracing himself against a fierce rainstorm. Sometimes when Cade stared at the card too long, he swore he could almost hear the rumbles of thunder as he blinked against the imagined flashes of lightning. The figure’s shoulders were slumped as if burdened by an unbearable unseen weight, yet he still defiantly brandished a guttering torch against the onslaught of rain while shielding his haunted eyes with his other arm. His expression was eerily emotive considering the medium, his face a grim mask of weariness and emotional torment—yet still infused with stubborn purpose. And all too often, in the grips of his nightmares, Cade saw his own haunted face staring back at him from the bewitched card.

Beneath the eerie visage, spidery letters branded this tragic figure as THE TORCH-BEARER.

Despite the card’s fiendish significance, Cade had grown to rely on this mysterious talisman to keep him focused on his purpose, at times when he might otherwise falter. Not just because the invitation to meet at the fabled crossroads had been scrawled on the back of the card in silvery iridescent ink (though there was no trace of the writing on the card anymore). Cade also kept it as a warning of sorts to himself; a caveat against the tragic figure he himself might become under the weight of his seemingly futile quest to find and rescue Serena from wherever she was.

There was one more reason why Cade had saved the card—though he would have denied it to anyone, including himself. He thought he sensed a power infused in it… A power that he naively hoped might serve him somehow—if only he could divine how to wield it.

Cade tucked the card back in his pocket and breathed through the waves of pain and hunger pangs until they finally began to recede somewhat. Another glance skyward at the steadily sinking moon reminded him that the night—and time in general—was rapidly slipping away from him. Bracing himself against the inevitable pain, he boosted himself up into a sitting position using his right arm. He could still barely lift his left arm because of the bad shoulder, so he kept that arm cradled to his chest by a makeshift sling fashioned from a torn strip of Serena’s black cloak that he now wore. He would be of no good to himself or anyone else with only one usable arm, so he hoped that by keeping it immobilized, it might heal more quickly.

Cade had to blink back a wave of dizziness as he rose and stumbled gingerly to his feet, his brown leather boots crunching down the frozen blades of grass that had been his bed. To steady himself and regain his focus, Cade reached for the one other totem still in his possession... The one that never failed to renew his dwindling hope—even when he was at his most hopeless.

The bow slung across his chest.

The bow he now carried that had once belonged to Gideon Mortriste, Serena’s mentor and the last of the Archers of Laummoren. Though it was now useless to Cade with only one good arm, he still carried it for reassurance and as a reminder of his pledge to return it to Serena.

Even now, as he placed a hand on the flawlessly polished wood of the bow, Cade thought he could sense some of the weapon’s innate power coursing through him, compelling him to carry onward—even against seemingly insurmountable pain, fatigue, hunger and hopelessness.

Drawing on that power now, Cade took a deep shuddering breath and raised the hood of the black cloak that had once been briefly Serena’s, but which he now wore. Then he stumbled onward in the direction of the sawtoothed silhouette of the Amaranth Mountains off in the distance—toward his hometown of Darrowdale, where he hoped to find rest, fresh provisions, arrowheads, and hopefully healing before he resumed his quest to find Serena.

And he muttered a silent prayer to whatever gods still existed that he would make it there before the next moonrise.

2

As Cade continued to make his slow and arduous journey, he was unaware that his passage had not gone unnoticed. From a cave high in the foothills of those Amaranth Mountains many leagues away, a figure oblivious to that silvery skull of a moon marked Cade’s progress with great interest through a pair of sightless eyes with vision far beyond that of ordinary human sight.

3

Elsewhere in the provinces, in the fortress that had once been Vasperan Manor, an imposing man of formidable size and temper sharpened his sword with uncharacteristic loving care.

What do you mean, you can’t find her? he growled from deep within his black armor. He posed this query to a man across the desk that had once been the prize of Lord Vasperan, Serena’s adoptive father.

We have seen no sign of Serena Vasperan since we took the Manor three weeks ago… the other man stammered. A menacing figure himself, the man was clad all in black with a black armband encircling his left bicep, marking him as one of the Black Count’s elite Ravagers.

The Count continued to sharpen his broadsword methodically, the rhythmic oily hiss of metal against whetstone almost as ominous as the Count’s own gravelly voice. As long as the Vasperan bitch still draws breath, the population of this region still clings to hope and rallies to her cause. He paused for dramatic effect, his eyes smoldering embers from under the shadow of a cruel brow. The sheep flock to their shepherd… So until we can slaughter all the sheep, we must scatter them by killing their shepherd. A malicious smile spread across his bearded face. And parade her pretty head through the countryside.

The Ravager eyed the Count’s blade warily, a nervous tremor creeping into his voice. Yes, My Lord.

The Black Count’s gaze remained focused on his task. Dismissed.

Grateful to have been spared a harsher punishment from the ruthless Black Count, the Ravager turned on his heel to leave—only to pause upon hearing the Count’s voice again.

Oh, and one more thing… the Count hissed.

The Ravager turned around to find the Black Count had risen from his chair. There was barely enough time for his brain to process what his eyes saw: a smooth, silver arc of the sword’s blade slicing through the air between them.

Then the Ravager’s head was separated from his torso in a crimson waterfall, and the eyes saw no more. The head tumbled and rolled into the corner by the door, while the rest of the Ravager’s body remained upright for the briefest of moments before toppling to the stone floor.

Without bothering to clean the blade, the Black Count resumed his seat and continued sharpening his sword, the closest thing to a smile of contentment turning up the corners of his cruel mouth.

INTERLUDE I

The young woman feels as if she has just awoken from a half-remembered dream, but she cannot remember having slept. Something about a kiss shared with a young man with sandy blonde hair and crystal blue eyes…

Though that is not the only thing Serena Vasperan is unable to recall with any clarity.

Specifically, she can remember nothing about how she wound up stranded alone in this barren and desolate wasteland where time seems insubstantial and immeasurable.

Even more disconcerting to her, is the fact that she has had no way of marking the passage of time. Counting the days has been impossible since she cannot recall the last time she saw the sun or the moon rise. There is only the seemingly endless pewter gray sky above, thick with ominous storm clouds broken only by the occasional flicker of pale green lightning followed by a grumble of thunder. Were she not already so emotionally weary and disoriented, she might have mused thoughtfully about how dependent one can be on environmental cues to mark the passage of time.

Serena runs an ivory hand through her hair to brush it back off of her forehead, fighting against the insistent breeze that is still somehow powerless to move the pall of clouds above. The grim and gray desolation has robbed her chestnut hair of its customary color, tarnishing the strands of copper and gold that usually shimmer and blaze in bright sunlight. Her indigo blue tunic and leggings have been drained of their color, as well, rendering them a dull black that almost matches her ebony boots. Even Serena’s eyes—which are usually a vibrant shade of emerald green—seem dull and lusterless in this perpetual gloom.

The only thing that has not seemed to have lost its color is the bright green gemstone that Serena discovered in her pocket. How the stone came to be in her possession is yet one more thing about which she has no recollection. Even though she does not know the stone’s origin, she still associates powerful feelings with it and keeps it grasped tightly in her right fist.

Feelings of comfort and safety and contentment.

And love.

And even bittersweet loss.

When Serena can quiet her racing mind long enough, the act of holding the stone in her hand and staring into its viridian depths occasionally grants her the briefest glimpse of a memory—no more than a flicker, not unlike the flashes of lightning above.

And in those all-too-brief glimpses, she can sometimes see a man clad in green and silver, his shoulder-length brown hair swept back from a strong brow, one of his eyes eclipsed by an eyepatch, a scar running down the length of his careworn face. The man proudly brandishes a bow of old and a quiver of lethal arrows, and there is something about his weapon and his manner that conveys to her that he is a man of importance.

Of legend.

A hero of old, perhaps.

Serena feels an odd mix of awe and pity and love for this mysterious figure who looks like something out of an ancient myth.

Other times she sees the young man she thinks she may have kissed in her dream…with eager eyes the color of an April sky, his hair the color of autumn straw. She senses a deep sincerity in this man’s gaze, a gaze that can seemingly peer into her very soul. But she feels no shame at this, oddly enough, for she trusts this man wholeheartedly for reasons that she does not comprehend.

Serena is confident that she could and would entrust him with her very life if it came to that.

She wonders if she already has.

As she absently rubs the ball of her thumb over the gemstone’s smooth and cool polished surface, Serena senses a connection between the stone and the young man—though she has no idea why.

Then there are the other visions that parade through her wearied mind… A woman in white with loving eyes and long golden hair… A proud man with a well-manicured gray beard and a cloak of royal blue trimmed in gray and an ancient pistol slung at his hip… A grandmotherly woman with soothing brown eyes that hint at a fathomless inner strength… A young woman with hair the color of cinnamon and haunted eyes of silver...

Though she does not recognize any of these figures, their emotional impact on her is startlingly disconcerting—perhaps even more so because they are strangers to her. Whoever they are, they arouse in her unmistakably positive sensations. So much so, that they have been the very thing that has kept her motivated to persevere in her quest to hopefully find something familiar in this ashen wasteland, something to stir a memory of who they are.

So she can remember who she herself is.

And as powerful as these images are in lighting her way through these endless moors, there are still other visions that would rob her of that light.

The first is of an exotic looking gypsy woman with skin the color of coffee, raven-black hair and eyes, crimson lips and a smile as seductive as sin. She is wearing a scarlet silk blouse that reveals her taut belly and a blood-red jewel in her navel. A rainbow of brightly colored scarves are knotted around her hips, just below her hourglass waist—offsetting her midnight black skirt with some color. Garish gold hoops dangle from her ears and silver bracelets adorn her slender ankles and wrists.

(with jingling jangling gypsy bells)

This woman is the very embodiment of a dark and perverse sexuality that is disturbing in its ravenous intensity.

The other vision is a stark contrast to that of the gypsy; it is that of an old woman in a tattered cloak the color of mourning. Sparse spiderweb wisps of white hair frame the crone’s sore-riddled skull, and her eyes are shrouded in bluish-white cataracts—yet her gaze is still somehow penetrating and all-too-knowing. Her skin is the color of ageless parchment, wrinkled and almost transparent, vined with grayish-blue veins. Her withered liver-colored lips part to reveal jagged and yellowed tombstone teeth set in an inky black maw.

More than any of the other visions, this hag conveys pure malevolence without any pretense.

Serena closes her eyes and shakes her head in an attempt to clear it of these persistent haunting images—yet the churning cauldron of the associated emotions will not be so easily quelled.

On impulse, Serena sits down by the side of what passes for a path—though only in the vaguest sense. She curls her legs under her in a pseudo-lotus position and begins gathering the stones within reach, stacking them in a loose pyramid. For reasons she does not quite understand, she finds this activity helps distract her from this waking nightmare in which she has found herself. And she harbors a hope that in such a distraction, she may quiet her mind enough to recall more than a mere flicker of memory—but some clue to help her remember who and where she is.

When she has constructed a pyramid of stones to her satisfaction, she sits back and admires her creation—a hint of a smile on her face.

But something is missing.

She ponders this for several moments as another burst of lightning flashes overhead, followed quickly by the inevitable hollow rumble of thunder.

Then Serena realizes what her pyramid is lacking.

She delicately balances the bright green gemstone atop the apex of her pyramid, careful not to topple the fragile structure.

She hates to part with the stone—even for a few minutes, but she leaves it there, anyway, marveling at how brightly the stone glows, even in the murky gloom.

It reminds her of a beacon of sorts.

Like the lighthouses she used to read about when she was a child; the beacons of safety relied upon by ancient sailors on raging seas.

And there it is: a fragment of a memory.

This image sparks another related memory from deep within the recesses of her mind: reading by a crackling fire, perched on the lap of a woman that Serena associates with feelings of unparalleled comfort and protectiveness—a woman she recognizes from her visions. A kind woman dressed in regal-looking garb of violet and gold; a woman with gentle eyes and soft hands that often guided Serena’s own with an inked quill, a mixing spoon, or a sewing needle. Serena’s mother, perhaps… Though she cannot be sure.

But it is still a memory—however vague and insubstantial it may be; and her heart lightens with hope. Because it is yet another found piece of the fragmented puzzle of her psyche.

But Serena’s reverie is soon broken by an especially bright flash of lightning that briefly burns the negative afterimage onto her eyes. She blinks rapidly to restore her vision, and in doing so, she happens to look up toward the distant horizon, and she catches a glimpse of something that she cannot recall seeing before.

Perched atop a gently sloping hill, Serena spots a sprawling estate of squat buildings; the promising glow of lamplight or firelight from within shines like a

(lighthouse)

beacon to her. Though she does not recall having seen these buildings previously, she is starting to realize that she cannot be certain of anything in this place—wherever and whatever it is.

Yet there is something vaguely familiar to her about the sight of those buildings, and she desperately tries to remember what it is, but the memory remains stubbornly elusive. Though she has an inkling that the buildings are somehow related to her mental image of the woman with the kind eyes and gentle hands; the one that used to read to her.

And if that is indeed the case, perhaps she may find that woman there—or if not her, one of the other denizens from her dream visions.

Serena can feel her heart race as she snatches her precious gemstone, unintentionally toppling her pyramid of stones in doing so, and leaps to her feet. Suddenly infused with energy of purpose, she begins walking briskly toward those buildings on the hill—and to what she desperately hopes might be the very thing that can fill her empty heart and restore her lost memory:

Home.

4

As morning dawned in the village of Leavesden, a woman stepped out from her back door carrying a bouquet of fresh flowers, shielding the fragile blossoms from the rising wind. Ideally, she would have had to look no further than her own backyard to have her pick of just about any color of the rainbow to gather into a floral arrangement to her liking. But with this being the dead of winter, her prized garden still slumbered in hibernation—so she had to resort to a selection from her modest greenhouse, which she cared for no less lovingly than her outdoor garden.

For reasons she did not quite comprehend, she had assembled a bouquet of one of the more peculiar flowers she tended in her greenhouse:

The asphodel.

A stalk of white or sometimes yellow flowers with petals bisected by a thin stripe of reddish-brown.

A tattered fragment of an old memory danced in Joanna’s mind like a wayward autumn leaf buffeted by the wind… An old story about how the underworld was filled with meadows of asphodels. Which was why they were will still sometimes placed on graves.

Maybe that was why she selected such a somber flower for such a somber occasion.

Joanna Faromere raised the hood of her powder-blue cloak against the bitter chill. She continued through her withered garden, heading for the rear gate which led to a vast untamed field just beyond her property. Ordinarily, she would have lingered to inspect her hibernating plants to evaluate which ones were more likely to re-emerge in the spring—which seemed so impossibly far off with the icy talons of the winter wind ripping at her cloak. But this time, Joanna was too intent on her purpose to allow herself to be distracted. Even her spoiled and mischievous cat, Rhiannon, had given Joanna a wide berth, lest she be trampled under Joanna’s purposeful stride.

Struggling against a sudden ferocious gale of wind, Joanna forced open the back gate with a squeal of hinges on the verge of rusting. She watched as her own gloved hand was speckled with snowflakes just starting to fall.

Clasping the hood of her cloak with one hand near her throat, she raised her eyes to the lone elm tree she sought—now little more than a skeleton compared to its spring and summer grandeur—and the meticulously arranged pile of stones at the foot of it.

The cairn she had constructed with Cade what seemed like forever ago. A cairn to mark the grave of the troubled soul that Joanna knew all-too-briefly.

Diana Perinova.

Joanna would never forget the events of that night at the fabled crossroads almost a month ago, when the brave and beautiful girl with flaming red hair—who had been tormented and tortured by the unnamable evil they had encountered there—somehow found the strength and determination to sacrifice her own life so that Joanna and Cade and Serena might survive.

Recalling that fateful night brought fresh and bitter tears to Joanna’s soothing brown eyes. A midwife since she was a naïve and wide-eyed teenager, Joanna saw it as her calling to nurture life and help usher hope into the world (hence her gardening hobby). And though she knew all too well that death was a natural part of the cycle that she helped begin, she still stubbornly refused to accept what she deemed the unnatural deaths of those who were denied the expected passage into old age as the sun gradually set on their time in this world.

Poor Diana was one such example.

Another young blossom that had withered too soon was Serena’s real mother, Corinne Rosewood, whom Joanna had lost to the Reaper during Serena’s birth.

Joanna still wondered if the tragic tradition had not continued and Serena suffered a similar fate when she vanished into that bizarre portal that night at the crossroads.

Upon their reluctant return from that fateful confrontation, Joanna had insisted to Cade that they bury Diana close to her house—so she could tend to the girl’s grave the same way she still tended to Corinne’s, which was beneath another tree in this same field, closer to town. Cade had been too preoccupied and heartbroken to offer any protest—so he complied.

Joanna now knelt by Diana’s grave and gently placed the flowers by the cairn she and Cade had erected in her honor. Then she folded her hands and closed her eyes in silent prayer. But before she could recite the prayer to completion, something made her pause: an unusually bright light from outside her closed eyelids.

Opening her eyes, Joanna discovered that the pinnacle of the cairn of stones marking Diana Perinova’s grave was glowing with an eerie green light.

Joanna blinked repeatedly in disbelief, certain that this must be a trick of the fading light or some other visual hallucination. But every time she forced herself to look away before returning her gaze to the cairn, the emerald green glow remained—and even seemed to brighten.

Transfixed by this strange phenomenon, Joanna slowly extended a hand toward the stacked stones.

As soon as her fingers made contact with