The Keepers of Eternity

XLVIII

Abreigelle was hallucinating. She had to be.

It had started with Lenore's voice, and now Sid was here. Sid. The last time she saw him, he was still dressed in his Swordfellow uniform back in Shah Neurn.

Hells, her leg hurt. Though, she wasn't sure if it was actually hurting or just a phantom pain from imagining how badly it was broken. Mostly, it just felt numb. It must be that bad, if she was now seeing people that were hundreds of miles away. She was so tired...

         Dazedly, she watched "Sid" and wondered why he was asleep. He wasn't dead , was he? No, he was still breathing. Or...was his chest just moving from the rocking of their carriage?

   When Thadan noticed her transfixed on her friend, he reached out his arm and brushed his hand over hers. His fingers were abnormally hot, but she didn't try to move away from his touch. Just put me to sleep again. Make the pain go away.

And he did.

...

It was mostly dark when she woke. Abreigelle groaned and flicked her eyes open, noticing a distinct dampness and dusty odor in the air. She was in a cave again.

"Abreigelle?" said a soft voice. It was very obviously Sid's.

He sat on a small pallet in the corner of room. A dim lantern rested on the floor in front of him, casting all sorts of strange shadows on the grimy, stone walls. Voices echoed somewhere in the distance. Where in the world were they?

Abreigelle turned her head to get a better look at her surroundings. This particular chamber of the cave was empty, save for a few chests overflowing with miscellaneous trinkets. The only means of entry into their chamber was a small porthole which had been boarded up with wooden planks. The rock formations above, however, did provide an opening large enough for a person to squeeze through, but from this side, there was no way to climb up to that height.

That is assuming I can climb.

Finally, she focused her attention on her friend. "Sid...is that really you? What are you doing here?"

"Yeah, it's me." Sid said. "I'm so sorry about all of this, from the very beginning. You should have never left Shah Neurn."

Abreigelle had never blamed him. "It's okay. I'm okay with it."

He explained everything to her, from leaving the Varners' manse, to chasing the bats across Rvyn, and visiting the Violet Governess; to meeting Blaise, and chasing Thadan and Purlip. It was so insane to her that this entire time, Lenore and Evadrian and Monfreid and Sid had been following. Why in the world would they do that? Why would they leave everything they've ever known to follow her?

"I thought it was such a strange coincidence that you and my disc were missing." Sid explained, "I figured, wherever you were, so was my disc. I was able to lead the others right to you."

Abreigelle let out a slight laugh, "You idiot. You could use a disc this entire time and you didn't even tell me! Of all people, I would have liked to know."

"Well, it really wasn't worth sharing. I don't really know much about them, or what I'm even doing, which is why I decided to let you hide it for me."

"Blaise kinda gave me the run-down on discs. I could teach you." Abreigelle had never thought about teaching other humans how to become disc operators, but now that she thought about it, it seemed like an encouraging idea.

"It's...okay." Sid replied, "I don't want to use it."

Abreigelle sighed. "Alright. Alright." She looked towards the exit. "In the meantime, we're going to have to do something about this situation."