Providence: Memoria (The Providence Chronicles)

By Anorin Arssinous

"What do you see when you close your eyes, witch? Is it war? Is it famine?

Do you bear witness to prisons? Horses galloping across a field of iron and blood?"

Our gazes were locked as I refused her

• Language: English
• Publisher: Midnight House Press
• Release date: Oct 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781737186236

Book preview

Chapter 1

Samsara

Prayer…

IN ANOTHER LIFE, prayer would hold sway among the stars. In another world, the hushed hope would resurrect the dead of our battlefields, planting seeds—not flesh—into the earth. Amen the spell crashing into the atoms of the universe, reaching across every map of Time to find us.

To bring us back home…

In another life, in another world, you have your soul and I have my mind and we would not be at the mercy of a prison of prophecy and providence. The space between us, paradise lost…

Prayer was a wasted whisper whimpering between my lips, falling to pieces when it should’ve defied gravity. Sparking cinders and chains at the edges of my skin. At the edges of a truth that was doomed to repeat no matter the lie…

Prayer is a bullet.

Useless until you load the gun and lethal when you pull the trigger.

And, my God, how we love to pull that fucking trigger…

This forest, this island… its scent bloated with secrets and samsara. The honeyed musk of it seeping into every open wound left unhealing in my flesh. My blood a crimson halo in the weeping earth quivering beneath me. A thousand eyes watching the broken half-breed clutch to sanity. Maybe she’d snatch it from the stars. Maybe it’d fall from the canopy of branches carrying the mystic wind.

Maybe, just maybe, I’d forget everything and let the monsters of this place swallow me whole.

You broke me and I don’t think I’ll ever know if killing me would’ve been a kinder fate. A better choice. One less evil than our love.

Less, but still evil.

Tell me this is a dream. The words fell from my quickly healing split lips. The island resurrecting me when I could not.

Isn’t this a place of old magick, Vincent? Why am I still injured, then? Why am I in a land between realms? A land where you conveniently cannot tread. How far back in time did you fucking banish me?

And that was when I remembered why it hurt to breathe…

Pain.

It’s not what you think it is. It’s more. It’s Time…

Time lost. Stolen. Erased…

Every single moment, every what-if torn from your clutches and set aflame. It’s not the loss that hurts. That brings you to your knees. It’s everything that could have been. A burning house of bodies, bittersweet and beloved. Your world and mine—they were never meant to cross. At least, not like this. Not like two people damned. Am I your punishment? Are you my crime? It cannot be love, can it? Who would sanction thousands of deaths, a war of empires across realms… for love? It’s more than that. There’s always something more hidden between the pages. I’ll find you. Sooner or later, our threads will tangle and I’ll free you from my curse. If it’s the last thing I fucking do, I’ll free you from me.

But I can’t do a damn thing, can I?

You’ve protected me from so much and you still are. And me? I’m stuck in this forest, barely able to sense gravity let alone control it. This forest you sent me to—you are protecting me, aren’t you? Your banishment is my shield…

And my banishment, yours…

Memories sank into the deepest part of my stomach. Ships slowly drowning. Their lights flickering out one by one. My fingers tightened around the book; its weight pressed against my cracked armor. Broken bones and skin stitching back together beneath.

Your grimoire’s energy rattled against the iron across my chest. Daring me to read its pages. But I’m a creature that doesn’t need to do something as human as read. Your words have already screamed in my mind a hundred times over. The strokes of your pen marking every inch of my skin. Your tears breathing in my eyes…

Empath.

What a soothing name for a thing that suffers all.

Then again, I was built for suffering, wasn’t I?

Pity, party of one.

I managed to sit, resting my dislocated shoulder against a tree trunk before popping it back in place. Curling into myself, I let the tree cradle me, too fixated on the silver light emitting from my armillary ring to take note of the fact that the tree, nor any other living thing on this lush, wooded island, dreaded my existence…

Why am I wearing this damn ring? When did I even put it on?

Why aren’t any of you running away? I held Vincent’s black grimoire tighter, wiping the blood from my nose and chin. Curious. So very curious… I said with a cough. The book rattled against me again, nearly electrocuting me. "If you have something to say to me, say it yourself. In flesh and blood and bone. Bastard doesn’t have a cellphone so he’s passing me notes? The book shot out a blue arc of electricity, shocking me. You little shit!" It fell on my lap, my hands smoking, my eyes wide at the words on the opened page before me.

What was I supposed to do, Devi? I had two impossible choices and I chose the evil that would kill me but save you… I chose the evil that would take you from me alive, not dead. Do you understand? I chose the evil that would take you from me alive… And if eternal damnation is the price I pay for your life, so be it. Because… because there is no version of reality where you are not known to me… I will find you, Devi. I will find you and I will kill you.

It’s only a matter of time…

I know, Vince. I know…

In the dark of twilight, my tears illuminated the ink with silver stains before I slammed the book of spells shut. I took off my armillary ring and threw both it and Vincent’s grimoire into the pocket of space beside me. "Take stock of where you are, Devi. Why is nothing afraid of me here? Why is there so much magick and why the fuck won’t I heal?"

Get up. On your feet you stupid girl. Stop crying. Nothing’s afraid of me…

What did I do in my past life to render this one? What crime did you and I commit to be subjected to such cosmic punishment? We can’t even try again, can we, Vince? There is no resurrection for immortals. So, we’re left with this life and its particular brand of mercy and wrath.

But maybe, just maybe…

In another life, in another world, there is a version of us asleep in each other’s arms. Your heart beating in time with mine. My breathing calming yours. And we are happy. We are safe. We are home… And if it is in this other life, this other world, that we have this, that we have peace, then that is enough to ease the pain of not having you in this one… If only for a moment.

"Devi, I want that for this life. For this world. I heard Vincent’s voice this time but had no idea where it originated from. It echoed until his words vibrated in my core. I don’t want to hear your voice! I want every version of you and I ever created to collapse back into us. This is not how our story ends, Devi. Where I live in a world that breathes your death… I forbid it. So, let them come. Let them take everything left of me and more. Let them choke on their belief of victory… For I will find you, and we will remind them why they called out to armies of deities and demons to protect themselves from us.

This is not how our story ends. This is how it begins… I will find you again. I will always find you. It’s only a matter of time…"

His voice vanished as quickly as it had come to be, but it leveled me.

I was two feet into the dirt, his every word a hammer to my bones, before I regained my bearings from the fading stars. Had the cursed poison not taken him whole yet? Did some part of our tether survive or were those words a premonition? It doesn’t matter. You weren’t trained to operate in conjecture, Devi. You weren’t trained to act off circumstantial evidence. You were trained to see the truth and accept it.

Bare teeth and all.

No one’s coming to save you, Devi. Get up. I forced the words through hopeless lips. I was a hurricane with daggers for wings and madness for blood. A trail of bedlam and bodies in my wake. What hope did I ever have but drowning the earth with embers and ash? What hope did I ever have of being human? Of being someone worth saving? Of finding my way back home?

So, I screamed…

And screamed and screamed and screamed…

Devi, put the knife down! I don’t want to shoot you! Josh’s shouts bore through my core. I looked down to see the hollow, lifeless body of the man I’d just murdered. But he was no man…

And neither was Josh.

There was no SWAT team pointing their muzzles in my direction.

There was no here and now.

There were only the voices clawing inside my skull. Their words echoing, pounding, over and over.

There was only my blade plunging up through my jaw, fracturing bone and piercing into my brain as it all went black…

MUTED, PRISMATIC LIGHTS rhythmically flashed beneath the bed. Heavy, leather-scented breath saturated the air. The patient in the bed beside mine was fast asleep, lithium boiling in her veins. When the blanket tugged at my feet, I jerked my head to the foot of the bed, eyes wide, jaw clenched.

"Do not come out. The command came out in Latin, Greek, Hebrew… When a deep, wet growl answered me, I commanded it again. You are not welcome here. Cantonese, Assyrian, Gaelic, Latin again. A hissing laughter scratched at the metal bedframe underneath. Give me your name." Now, unless you have experience with this sort of thing or, you know, you’re me, don’t ever engage with any malevolent entity or ask it its name. It pisses them off.

Speaking it, however, that’s a fucking hoot. For me.

Still pisses them off to no end.

The language I used didn’t matter. It was my command that flipped my bed, throwing me across the room and into the steel door. My blood spat across the glass window, a tooth cracking to pieces as I slid down to the laminate tiles.

I got to my feet, but the room spun, and I dropped to my knees. My body went rigid when its saliva dripped onto my hands. I found my eyes meeting the creature’s, and it licked its lips with a vicious grin.

The Khorlai.

These demons were rare among the DeKenna and one of them wanted to play with me and I’m bored…

The Khorlai were the worst of humankind. Serial killers, pedophiles, rapists, racists. Fathers who loved their children with an extra hand, and mothers who stole love by proxy and alligator tears, and more.

So much more.

Most stay in the various circles of Hell and its neighboring underworlds ruled by their gods. But a select few are groomed by the Titan Lucifer himself to become the Khorlai. Minions to the DeKenna Knights and playthings for the devil princes Lucifer generously allows existence within his empire’s perfect circle.

The eyes of the demon working toward autonomy and human anatomy belonged to the Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez…

A tremor climbed down my spine, and I knew it was too late.

His clawed hand grabbed my throat and squeezed.

Blood spat all over his leathery, scarred face and he laughed. I fought back but broke my hand in the process. It wouldn’t heal… He gurgled and growled as he threw me across the floor. I cracked my skull against the brick wall. I tried to get up, but my balance was shot. His breath hovered in the room like mist. He stood naked over me, though his newly formed legs gave him trouble. His skin was slick but burned, and when he jumped to the floor, his fangs gleaming silver in the dark, I almost wished he’d kill me then and there. I didn’t want to go back. I knew what he wanted, and there was nothing I could do to stop him.

The Khorlai gripped my ankles and pulled me beneath him, his oily curls dragging across my stomach. He tore off my pajamas before his talons slid out of his fingers, bloody and jagged. That’s when his body became human enough to grow something between his legs. His sneer widened. The corners of his mouth rose unnaturally high, his fangs never dulling. After not speaking for a century, Richard choked on his tongue, but when he pinned me with my arms above my head and dug himself between my thighs, the smell of sulfur fell with ecstasy with his first words.

I want to play with you… He dug his talons into his chest, pulling out a dagger made of iron and bone. The demon put my wrists on top of one another above my head and drove the blade through my flesh. Now that he had me pinned in place, Richard’s eyes widened, the skin stretching to his skeletal temples.

"You’re sleeping, Devi. Wake up. This isn’t real, I said to myself, but his tongue lapped warm and moist across my thighs, my blood pooling beneath my head, the scent of it making his lanky body tremble and his dick grow harder. You’re asleep. This isn’t real. It’ll be over soon."

Richard slid his silver tongue inside of me and dug his fingers into my hips, breaking them. He quivered at the sound.

This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.

So hungry… so thirsty. He tugged at my hips as his mouth fevered for everything between my legs. My wrists nearly severed from his dagger. "Mmmm… You drip on my lips. I want more… he managed and mounted me. Life sparked in him when he caught sight of my blood and pushed himself inside of me, effortlessly holding back my kicks and headbutts to his face and chest. You like it violent, don’t you? Is that why you’re so fucking wet? I like it when they’re wet…"

Why are you fighting back? Ignore him. He’s not real. You’re in this fucking asylum for a reason. The Paladins would never let this happen. You’ve simply, completely lost your fucking mind. Those voices screeching at you are from the dead. Normal people can’t hear ghosts. A normal person wouldn’t still be alive after this demon plunged himself so deep into you, he broke your spine…

A normal person wouldn’t feel all the pleasure he’s feeling as if it were their own…

"I. Want. More! He hissed and dipped his hands into my blood and spread it all over his newborn flesh. Are you coming? Is that why you’re burning up?" He pumped into me, over and over, and I couldn’t help but laugh… He cocked his head ferociously and plopped back on top of me, taking the dagger from my broken wrists. Do humans giggle now when they reach orgasm? He licked the blood from the weapon and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. He pulled out of me, wrapped his hand around my throat, and shoved the sharp end of the dagger inside of me…

Not again.

Not that.

Never again that…

That tickles, I said with a snicker that slapped him across the face. "I’m sorry. Was that supposed to hurt? I lifted my head off the ground. Was fucking me with your dagger supposed to get me off because your sorry excuse for a dick couldn’t? Oh, I see. You’re trying to scare me…" I wrapped a limp, bleeding hand around his wrist in between my legs and pulled… the dagger shredding me. "You want me to beg and scream and moan for you? You want to feel? Try harder."

He panted, the scent of his lust and my insides filling our mouths, and I laughed in his face. His eyes wild and wide with fright he miserably masked as fury.

All that rebellion. All that insolence… The Khorlai twisted his DeKenna dagger, shoving it so deep, the hilt of the weapon—and his fist—slipped inside of me, warm blood blanketing his new skin and seeping onto the tile.

When that wasn’t enough to make me cry out for him, he lowered his fist and forced himself back inside of me, tearing his cock against the blade. Groaning in my ear as our blood mixed with his every thrust.

Do you like that, Khorlai? Here, let me show you how it feels to have someone inside of you… I sat up, tearing my fingers into his throat, ignoring his cum flooding inside of me because of it, and dug my other hand into his ribs. The way he gagged, his limbs quivering, it made my mouth water…

I gripped tight a rib and cracked it, ripping out another dagger. A desperate roar fell from his lips onto mine.

There was no demon raping me. There was no asylum. There was only this blade plunging up through my jaw and into my brain as it all goes black…

Muted prismatic lights rhythmically flashed beneath the bed. Heavy, leather-scented breath saturated the air. The patient in the bed beside mine was fast asleep, lithium boiling in her veins. When the blanket tugged at my feet, I jerked my head to the foot of the bed, eyes wide, jaw clenched.

"Do not come out. The words came out in Latin, Greek, Hebrew… When a deep, wet growl answered me, I commanded it again. You are not welcome here. Cantonese, Assyrian, Gaelic, Latin again. A hissing laughter scratched at the metal frame underneath. Give me your name." Now, unless you have experience with this sort of thing or, you know, you’re me, don’t ever engage with anything malevolent entity its name. It pisses them off.

The language didn’t matter. It was my command that flipped the bed, throwing me across the room and into the steel door. My blood spat across the glass window, a tooth cracking to pieces as I slid down to the laminate tiles.

I got to my feet, but the room spun, and I fell to my knees. My body went rigid when its saliva dripped onto my hands. I found my eyes meeting the creature’s and it licked its lips. These demons were rare. The Khorlai.

Wait…

This, this already happened. Didn’t it? Why do I smell smoke?

Did I have a premonition? Snap out of it, Devi! You’re not human. Do not let this piece of shit touch you. No one will ever touch you like that again.

I shoved my hand in his mouth and grabbed his jaw, ripping it from his face, but not before tearing his tongue out. The moist screech exiting him burned me with satisfaction.

My whole body was on fire.

Do I have a fever?

Before Richard could do anything, I dug a dagger from his chest, lunged on top of him, and stabbed him in the head. The cracking and splintering of his bones music I didn’t know I missed.

When’s the last time I killed someone?

I wasn’t the one burning up, I said. The rage and tears came too quickly. "It was you…"

His leathery skin lit up as I finally realized the truth. The flames licked every inch of him. The smoke of his cooking flesh filled the room. And I sat there, my true LeMehti weight pinning him down, the floor beneath buckling, as he made every futile attempt to crawl back into the portal under my bed. I leaned in, the fire melting the flesh off his bones shining in my eyes, and I smiled. I leaned in, his cock limp with trembling death beneath me, and I smiled. I leaned in, the fires I conjured kissing my lips as they began to char the gray off his bones, and I fucking smiled…

Can you hear me, Your Majesty? The Khorlai twitched, whimpering at my words. I cocked my head, my black eyes putting his to shame. "Do you think your emperor is listening, Khorlai? Do you think he watched what you did? What you were going to do to me? I grabbed what was left of the creature’s skull and peered into its bubbling, blistering eyes. I am not a plaything or a prize. I am a weapon… If you wish to wield me, if you want me, Lucifer, come and claim me…"

Find yourself, Devi.

Murdering flames sighed, giving way to swaying trees aglow with sunlight filtering through the branches of a forest older than kingdoms come and gone.

Who’s— I coughed up blood onto grass that embraced the liquid into its earth rather than fall victim to it. Who’s there? Show yourself. I staggered to my feet, my makeshift iron-and-leather breastplate would do nothing to protect me.

Was it the Khorlai? Was it a woman this time? No. Something was off-kilter about the demon. Or was it the asylum that dizzied the woods I wandered in now?

Find yourself, the disembodied female voice said again. The words floated on the wind and though they did not reveal their point of origin, I could glean enough to know it wasn’t a Khorlai.

"I’d rather find you." I reached for my LeMehti daggers at my back and breathed a sigh of relief when my fingers curled around their hilts, unsheathing the weapons.

Where were you before you arrived in my forest, child? Her voice weaved into the branches, spilling from leaves and rising from wildflowers of an island not of this earth.

I-I came from battle. My feet moved but I had no idea where to go.

Which one?

I stopped walking. The scent of water crisp on my tongue. Which one? I fought with a Khorlai… in an asylum.

"Did you? Or will you? Shit… You are gifted with foresight. Cursed with madness. Do not trust all that you witness simply because it has been witnessed… Find yourself, Morsea…" Dead One. Medium of souls, alive or dead, across worlds.

Wait. How—how do you know that name?

"It is no riddle, what you are. Morsea. That name, it is but a fraction of your soul, Lady Death. Would you rather I call you by your true name?"

You already have.

Have I?

Her smirk and that vexing question spread across my lips. I had to slap myself to be rid of it.

Empath. Mimic. Killer of Gods… The voice continued to taunt.

Enough! Who are you?!

"Reaper. Witch. LeMehti. But the blood of the First Immortals does not flow through your veins as it once did. You are LeMehti but, not quite."

The air fell silent, crashing into the earth below. The ancient island devoid of the witch’s voice. At least, I think she’s a witch. If what happened at the asylum in Illinois with that demon was a vision of the future and not the beginning of this story—then where the fuck did I come from?

What is the true beginning?

Holstering my weapons, I touched the makeshift armor wrapped around my chest. The blue fabric beneath too soft against my skin. Neither metal nor cotton revealed the information I sought through my psychometry. How did I get here, and why can’t I remember anything after Vincent sent me back in time?

I rubbed my forehead and walked over to an oak. The island was a realm hidden from those on earth. Those but a select few. With my hand to the tree, I tried my psychometry again. A flood of memories rustled in its leaves. The whispers humming a sweet melody of myth and magick in my mind.

My hand jerked back from the bark. Eyes wide and breath caught, I took a step back. You’ve got to be kidding me… This place, it can’t be real. Can it? I took another step back but tripped over the root of tree, falling backward.

Falling.

Falling.

A CAWING CROW perched itself on my belly and pecked at my cheek. I’m awake. You can stop that now. The crow pecked at my fingers. What? I’m up. See? I showed her my eyes and waved my arms around. She was not impressed. "Do you know why I’m here? Her three friends flew above and she followed soon after, disappearing in the violet and silver dusk of the sky. Well, that was rude."

Do you often commune with animals? Her static voice splintered in my ear.

I jerked away, but there was no one. "Do you often torment those you commune with? I got to my feet and an ancient lament of laughter took to the winds. I had to take a breath, finding my center of gravity before I dared speak again. Give me your name."

Mind your mouth, child. The branches rustled, restraining secrets of the sorceress and the hidden island within the rhythm of their roots pulsating beneath my feet.

"Lady, I am no child. I’ve seen a millennium breathe and bleed and more. I should be getting senior discounts." Did I just say that out loud? I’m over a thousand years old… Does it even count when you can’t remember half of it?

She raised an eyebrow at my words but continued to mock me. "As I said… child."

Give me your name. I rubbed my eyebrow until it stopped mimicking hers.

"My, my. Disrespectful and demanding. The disembodied voice had more mischief than malice riding along its waves. And what would you do with it? If I were to oblige your command, what would you do with my name?"

I made my way through the lush forest, following the scent of water and witchcraft. But this—whatever she was—her soul, her magick predates the craft. She is not LeMehti nor DeKenna. Her sway on the water, her authority in this realm, it is comparable to that of nearly any deity. But would one of them so freely come near me knowing what I’m capable of?

I made it to the lake in the center of the island, but the trees took to life, growing into a barricade, locking me out. I knew I needed to prove my worth. The forest wouldn’t let me enter its most sacred space any other way.

We all know I have the blood of thousands on my hands. A murderer stands upon your land. I’ll make no excuses for my executions. However, I am someone that can be of use. I— The trees groaned, their roots rising and crawling, removing the barricade and revealing a vast lake surrounded by nothing but sylvan splendor. "That was way too easy. Did I annoy them into submission? I chuckled, but a tree branch smacked me in the back of the head. Sorry…" I muttered.

Moonlight shivered, blanketing the lake’s surface, but she was the brightest creature in the lake. Eyes of slate, dress of fog and fury, and skin—the mother of Legend. And when she spoke, ember-etched dragonflies and the quiet echo of Time fell from her crooked grin…

I’ve been waiting for you, Emrys.

PEARLS AND CONSTELLATIONS dripped in her raven curls down to her waist, glittering over the water. And when she raised her eyebrow, the lake flowed across the forest floor and dragged me under.

Let me go!

You can breathe within my waters. Good.

I thrashed, kicking my feet to get to the surface, but just before I broke through, I let myself sink.

Find yourself, Emrys.

My name… is not… Emrys.

Cease your rambling and allow my waters to return all your magicks to their rightful place. That Paladin of yours… the two of you together. So careless. So reckless with the universe. With each other’s souls. Stay under for as long as you can bear it, child. For bear it you must…

A shock wave pulsated from my core and boomed through the lake, bending every tree… When I opened my eyes, I was face down in the grass and dirt turned muddy from my waves.

What happened?

You have reawakened. But it seems, not entirely. She clicked her tongue and sat beside my resurrected body. I rolled on my back, the night sky riddled with the light of a hundred thousand stars newly born… Do you not wish to heal?

Of course I—you don’t believe me, do you? She shook her head with an elegance I envied. Luckily, the subject was not pressed but I changed it all the same. When, I mean, what year is this? Those stars, they’ve been dead for millions of years where I come from.

Ah, the stars… Have you ever been? I turned, half panting, face fully formed in a question of what the fuck? Do not disrespect me with such a grimace, young one.

"Have you set foot upon a star, Lady Nimuë?"

Oh, I’ve not heard that name in ages.

"It is not your true name, though, is it?" I managed to sit up, her blush complexion and the sprites watching from the treetops glimmering in the evening air.

Nimuë is nowhere near my true name in the same way that Devi is not yours nor Vincent his. Young one, did you believe a being as old as that Reaper—of course. The Lady of the Lake shook her head, glitter and waves of her aura trickling to the emerald earth. "Alas, not even my magick can heal what was done to your mind. You cannot know what you cannot remember."

I don’t understand.

How could you? But you will. Soon enough, when your powers return, fueling you, reigniting within you all that has been stolen… you will understand. You have become far too human, but that ends tonight.

Exhaustion from her magick ran me thin as it coursed too wild through my bones for me to argue with her any further. My eyes roved over the lake, catching glances of cobalt will-o’-the-wisps as they flew past. But it was the Revs hiding in the tree trunks and wildflowers that gave me pause.

Do you recognize them, Emrys?

The witches and fairies? I shook my head. Am I supposed to? I’ve never been here before. The second I said the words, I sensed it. The shift in the atmosphere. How the Revs longed for a closer look at the witch sitting beside their—their Goddess… What are you?

"Should you not ask me what you are?"

You listed every last thing that I am. What more is there?

A wisp landed on her knee. Its glow bleak in the presence of its guardian. Can you name this island, Emrys?

I gritted my teeth at the name, but the sneer from the little ball of fate-changing bog gas told me to answer Nimuë before an army of wisps tickled me to death.

They wouldn’t actually tickle me to death. I’m still immortal. Well, enough not to die at the hands of tiny

fairies. But they have ties with Fate herself, so… This is the realm of Avalon.

Your mother wanted to name you after this island.

My blood ran so cold, so fast, it began to snow…

The Witch of Avalon. Nimuë caught snowflakes in her palm, the forest creatures reveling in the oddity.

My mother, was— Was my mother the Witch of Avalon? I curled my knees to my chest, my hands doing what they could to keep my limbs in place.

Nimuë laughed, the lake rippling with the harmonic sound. "Keres? A witch she was, living on this island, but your mother, she was my high priestess. My Counselor. You, however, you were—"

Wait, Lady Nimuë, was I—

"Were you born here? No. You were born in the human realm to a human mother and father. Is that what you wish me to say?"

"I wish for you to tell me the truth." I scratched my nose, avoiding her gaze.

Veritas. She waved her palm and my freak snowfall ceased. Nimuë got to her feet in fluid motions and held her tattooed hand out for mine. You were born in the same realm as your parents.

Parents… I took her hand and in one flap of a sprite’s wing, we were back in the human realm.

I did not bring you here to gawk at the sword, Devi.

We stood beneath a canopy of vibrant emerald and oaks. Sunlight filtering in through the branches. Igniting prisms of color across the metal and iron in the center of the clearing.

"You’re mad if you think I’m touching that thing, my lady."

"There are answers hidden within, Emrys. You would do well to seek them out."

"The sword is not mine for the taking."

"The sword is mine to give to whomever I deem worthy. You said you wanted the truth. Your grimoire