Fire in the Veins: A Novella (On Hold)

Two

The aroma of burning wood wrapped Selene as a warm blanket when she entered the local library. She ambled inside like a lost soul who had stumbled upon paradise, eyes wide with relief. Besides the librarian, Selene was the only one here. Nathan looked up from his notebook on the reception counter. Selene offered him a polite grin, which he returned with a nod before he continued scribbling notes. They usually barely spoke, but both knew they felt comfortable in one another's presence. Nathan seemed her age—or maybe a bit older—and he looked great with his short black curls and perfect teeth, but Selene could see—in his fidgeting hands, in his hurried gaze—that he didn't feel good in his skin whenever he talked to others. She understood the struggle: to be among books, Nathan still needed to be among human beings. Selene didn't find this repulsive, so she granted him the peace he desired the same way he did her.

Amid a dozen rows of bookshelves, Selene felt as if she was at the center of the universe and now had access to all its secrets and powers. Her fingertips brushed over the books' spines as she passed them by. The whispering voice of her mind foretold her different stories as her eyes scanned the titles, scattering the seeds of cosmic worlds in her imagination. Which story was she going to be part of tonight? Selene thought she had decided on a book, but something rustled on the bookshelf behind her when she extended her hand towards it. A whisper—Selene heard an actual whisper. When she glanced over her shoulder in search of the source, a huge red book tipped over the edge and landed at her feet.

"Everything okay back there?" Nathan asked from behind the reception counter, eyes peering through the bookshelves.

Selene was speechless. The last name of her mother—Barnett—was carved in bold and golden curlicue on the crimson red cover of the book. Noise—warriors clamoring, swords clattering, arrows whooshing—was quietly echoing from it. Selene crouched down to pick it up and blinked in disbelief. Words were surfacing onto blank pages that were materializing from thin air and turning over. As she breathed the book's faint vanilla smell, she stroked a page like the face of a lover she had never met. The page vibrated against Selene's palm and hummed, almost as a warning—one that she didn't perceive as such. Then, the inked paper rippled beneath her hand, like water. Selene's cheeks turned hot-red when her body temperature began to rise. Soon her organs were boiling, but she didn't feel any pain; somehow, she felt whole. Suddenly, her entire body exploded into fiery particles, and they burned through the red book as one lightning bolt. The book fell down again to the light hardwood floor, without a single trace of Selene's presence left behind.

* * *

Selene pinched her eyes shut. Her skin prickled at the sudden drop in her body temperature. Water burned through her nostrils as it rushed inside. She couldn't breathe. Her heart started to pound against her ribcage at the realization of an impending doom. She narrowly opened her eyes in search of any light that would guide her towards the surface of the water. When she found the moonlight faintly reaching down towards her from above like an extended hand, she swung her arms and kicked her legs against the water threatening to devour her alive. Swimming was not her forte though—it had always been Phoebe's—and Selene was quickly losing strength and oxygen.

She exerted her every muscle until only a few meters separated her from the air she needed. But the unforgiving hand of suffocation was tightening its grip on her neck. Selene coughed without a sound as she felt her lungs shrink and the rest of her body give up on her. Every part of herself was now aching to sink down in oblivion. Selene had always known that death was a horrible experience to live through, but now she truly understood the pain—the pain of waiting until nothing inside her could breathe anymore, although her mind was still very much alive. After losing Phoebe, Selene often thought of following her. Now, however, she realized how much she would hate to be no more. She wondered if Phoebe had felt the same way during her last moments. The possibility that Phoebe had suffered like this until her final breath tormented Selene, even more so than the suffocation.

Using what little strength remained in her body, Selene kicked the water again as her lungs panged with a stabbing pain, begging her to give in. Almost there... Suddenly, a hand plunged into the water and grabbed Selene's. A grating succession of gasps escaped her as soon as oxygen surged into her lungs. She writhed onto the brink of the lake and hawked up the droplets of water she was choking on as the hand continued to pull her away from her demise.

"We have to move," told her the man who had saved her, then he released her to let her catch her breath.

Selene coughed uncontrollably and rolled in the mud onto her back to steady her breathing with a hand pressed to her chest. A noisy disturbance was drumming against her ears—the one that had been echoing from the red book in the library—as though a true, medieval war had survived the Dark Ages and was now raging only a few kilometers away from her. Millions of questions were hammering her skull along with a sharp headache as she waited for her pulse to return to normal.

"We have to move now," the man repeated, his deep voice tinged with worry. "Are you alright?"

Selene leaped up to her feet then spun towards him, and her eyes widened upon realizing he was only half-man. "What are..." she trailed away and clasped a hand over her mouth. "Who... are you?"

Shame crumpled the young man's face before he turned his back on her, his four hooves squelching in the mire. "Lysander."

Knowing this creature's name wasn't going to clear Selene's confusion. "I was at a library in Wellspring just moments back. How am I here now? Where exactly is here?" she asked breathlessly, lingering in Lysander's tall shadow as fear invaded her, and squinted through the trees blocking her view in the direction of the battle's scream. "What's happening over there?"

Lysander glanced at her in confusion then looked away. "Lady Barnett, have you never heard of the Kingdom of Pladdevus?"

Selene blinked twice, partially believing him and his kingdom to be the stuff of lucid dreams. "Sorry?"

Lysander ignored her, eyes peeled for the slightest movement in the shrubs of the forest. He crept through the trees overgrown with vines and moss, and, with an arrow pulled taut, he swept the glade that stretched beyond. Selene trailed behind him absentmindedly, pondering how he had addressed her: Lady Barnett. When she was younger, her father told her that her mother had died of an illness. He had avoided talking to Selene about her since then. Sometimes, she felt as though he wanted her to forget she had ever had a mother. Selene knew very little about her, and now, she realized that she probably knew much less about her death.

Word count: 1205