Lost Soul

Chapter Twenty-Six: Resurrection

I'm not sure how long I drift in and out of consciousness in the mage's home.

Or rather, the mage's shed.

Don't get me wrong, it's a comfortable shed. Decorated with a plush couch, which I lay on, a desk with a computer that's surely been knocked out by the Fae, a rocking chair with a crocheted blanket laid on the back, and weed growing all around the edges.

Sorry, 'catnip'. That's what the mage's two children believe it to be, at least.

The mage talks to me while she works. She tells me about running from Ebony when one of her brother's followed their youngest brother here after he was kidnapped. She'd tried to hold what remained of her family, her two mothers, together, but couldn't.

After things fell apart, the mage tried to find her place in Ebony, but mages aren't welcome in many places. Especially with a war going on.

She left Ebony entirely. A part of a mage's powers include being able to teleport and create portals through realms. She traveled through the realms for a while. When she reached Ivory, my realm, she was attacked and injured. She was left for dead.

Then, a kind man by the name of Halsey found her. He took her into his village and helped her recover.

They fell in love, but Andelain was scared of being found by people from Ebony. So, she created a veil with her powers. The veil is invisible to the naked eye, which is why we couldn't see her home. It'll ward off most people, except for people with a lot of magic.

That's why she came out of her veil when she felt the magical poison surging through me. She feared the day had come that she'd have to fight soldiers from Ebony to protect her new life.

I'm sure I've missed pieces of her story. This is the most I've been able to patch together while flickering in and out on the plush couch.

She's got me hooked up to an IV and spends what feels like hours every day muttering in a foreign language over my body.

I don't recognize the language as any we've ever spoken in Ivory.

When she speaks it, her hands glow, and the poison in my back starts to boil.

The first few times she did it, I screamed so much my throat went raw. From then on, I couldn't scream any more. So, I laid there and silently sobbed as she tried to save me.

I'm not sure anymore if I want to be saved.

Coming back from the dead hurts. It's agony. It hooks into your skin, and burrows under, and eats you alive. It threatens to tear apart everything that made you what you were. It rips out the pieces of you that you were proud of and it eats them.

It makes your skin someone else's. Like you're just a ghost who took over a body that doesn't belong to you.

I think that's why Andelain talks so much. She'd started with small things. How her kids, Callum and Kinzey, were the light of her life. How she liked watching old Doctor Who reruns for days on end. How she learned to crochet to calm her fears about... well, everything.

She gives me something to hold onto. Something to keep me tethered to the here and now.

Without it, I would've drifted back to Death's arms days ago.

When I wake up, panting, I still feel like I'm in the wrong body. The roof above me is foreign. The humming of the mage isn't something I'm used to. The gentle caress of her hand over my forehead is jarring and makes my skin crawl.

She smiles when I try to pull away. "Good morning, sleeping beauty."

I try to talk, but nothing comes out except a high-pitched squeak.