Eternal Sins

•Chapter Nine•

A hiss stirred her.

Deep, far, within her mind it echoed.

Eva wasn't in her mountains, she wasn't in her dream world. She couldn't place where this was, at all. A foreign forest of dark shadows and heavy fog that barely let her see farther then an arms length away.

The gray air hung around her like heavy drapes, making the dark fabric of her dress sag deep against her body, hair puffing it's waves.

The hissing continued, coming from all angles. A low, rolling noise, that made her spin in place, head snapping left and right.

"Hello?" She calls out, but no answer. Recognizing she was on a cleared trail, she follows it forward. Slowly down hill, before it splits.

She stares at the fork, the pressure of the two paths and refuses to choose, standing at the merge.

"You must choose," a voice rolls through the fog to her ear, a voice she did not know. She turns to it, eyes enlarged with worry.

"I won't," she answers into the air.

"You won't what?" Cedris emerges from the path on the left, long legs cutting through the clouds before them.

Navy pants, white linen top, black serpent in his palm, Eva knew instantly who was before her. Her throat tightens at his presence.

His eyes blink over her briefly, waiting for an answer. "You look well," he adds, giving a slight smile.

With the walls of gray surrounding them, Eva lets her eyes fall the to ground, suddenly feeling the fire of where his eyes rested on her skin.

"The roads," she tells him, motioning. "Which way to go. I wasn't sure, there's no direction."

"But isn't there? Your instinct is one of your greatest skills, you know."

Eva gets in a ragged breath, annoyed with the way her body felt, the way she exhaled with relief. Like she had worried for him, missed him. She'd barely lived a whole day awake at home. How was that possible?

Cedris watches her skin crawl, the discomfort that overcomes her as she registers just exactly how she felt seeing him. He knew it was risky coming to see her again, after everything he had done. He just had to one last time, give one last thank you.

"I just came to check on you. Make sure you awoke, else I would guide you." Which wasn't entirely a lie, either.

"I did, I awoke just yesterday."

"That's quite a bit of time, have you done soul journeys before?" Cedris crosses his arms, not having realized she could manage such travel herself.

Eva looks into the fog, trying to see anything, anything else but him. "I have, but nothing as extensive as another reality. Just, removing myself physically from my world. I've done it twice, three times if you count a stasis that I didn't do voluntarily." The dark memories of Solanyn's stasis was something she would never forget, her submersion in the lake earlier in the week even triggering her. The feeling, the pull of those tentacles, the magic it used, it left marks in her. Just like Ben had, trying to enter her thoughts all that time before. It was still in her, dormant.

"Interesting. You're much more powerful than I even realized," Cedris confesses. "Your abilities grow more impressive the more I learn." He takes a step forward, his eyes boaring into her face.

"How is Eva?" Ignoring the step, she turns the conversation purposeful to his wife.

"She is..still gone." His faces falls, grief striking his features. "When you left, she was once again stabbed and lifeless. Maybe I took too long, or maybe it was an impossible mission. Either way, I thank you again for trying."