Legacy (Daughter of War #2)

Chapter 22: Diving Deeper

Music is Just Like You by Celldweller. Play it!

(Also, this is one of the chapters I'm super excited for. So enjoy!)

******

I'm wading through mud—my entire body is submerged in it. Yet I can breathe. My limbs still don't carry a single feather's weight in them, but it's so hard to move. I don't know how to describe this feeling. I just know that I'm being surrounded by magic.

My senses are being drowned as well. I'm aware that my eyes are opened; and I'm fairly sure that I haven't gone deaf. However, it's as though someone has put a stopper to all of my sensory nerves—as though something is truly, literally overwhelming my senses.

I have a feeling that someone is calling me in the distance. Everything is so far away. If only I could just get a bit closer—

Almost on cue, I finally hear a word.

"Abomination."

My senses come to life. Suddenly, I know where I am. I understand what is going on around me.

I'm inside my predecessor's memories.

Or at least, fragments of them. They're all around me—floating around in the form of shattered, glowing lights. If I reach out to them—no. My hand is already extended towards one, but it skirts around my fingers, just out of my grip. Cheeky thing. It's probably assessing if I'm worthy enough to share its most private thoughts.

"Abomination," the word echoes in my mind again.

I look about, searching for the source of the voice.

"No need to search for me," the voice sniggers, slightly raspy with disuse. "I'm inside you. Just call me out."

It sounds nothing like Abner. That's not very comforting. Still, I go ahead and open my mouth, slightly surprise that my vocal chords are still functioning: "Come on out then."

"If you say so."

Something punches me from inside out.

I gasp, the impact and the pain searing into my head. The thing is clawing itself out of me. It's always been inside me this whole time—I instinctively know it. The revelation is horrifying, no less, to have an alien manifestation purging itself out of your body.

Eventually, the pain fades away, and I recover myself enough to see a man's shape slowing moulding itself before me, its features and form as wispy as smoke.

In fact, it rather resembles a ghost.

The features sharpen. I see a harsh, weathered face, a mouth that seems perpetually downturned, and an intense gaze. It's a face that I recognise well from the numerous portraits looming around Castle Larstand—a face that has been immortalised into books regarding the war against Diomedes.

"Lord...Hubert?" I say, half-incredulous that I'm talking with my direct predecessor—the Champion before me.

"So, being a woman hasn't dulled your senses then," he says, sneering. "Can't say that I'm half-pleased to see that."

I stay my tongue. Any arguing with this man would prove pointless. I've barely met him, but I can tell that he's of the sort who believes that women serve no other purpose than managing the household and bearing children. If he were anything like Everest, I might have been able to convince him otherwise, although it might take me half a century to do so. Lord Hubert is an entirely different story.