Swan Song

Chapter 7 - Sophie

"You don't remember?" I asked incredulously. 

"I remember everything before the void, and vaguely of my time in the void but no details. Just small things, like the feelings. Nothing else." Jolie shook her head, shivering. "There was something..." She trailed off. 

When Elwin came in he let out a yelp when his eyes landed on Jolie. His eyes were wide as he stared at her, his body was plastered to the wall. He choked out a few words but gave up when it only came out as a mumble. His wild eyes trailed to me, then Edaline and Grady. Finally, back to Jolie. He cleared his throat, "Jolie? Jolie Ruewen?" He asked. 

She nodded, "Yeah, I know. I'm suppose to be dead."

"Does- does the council know?"

"Not yet." Edaline answered, "We only just saw her. They will have a lot of questions of course."

"Well, obviously. She just freaking came back from the dead!" Elwin exclaimed. 

"Not necessarily. I wasn't dead, just... lost." Jolie said hesitantly. Her voice was slowly recovering, but still sounded to raspy. 

Finally Elwin seemed to clear his head and walked toward her, leading her to a bed. "I should check you, it looks as if you just got out of a fire."

"I did." Jolie seemed to remember something, "Brant. Is he okay? Did he get out of the fire okay? Where is he?" She frantically asked as Elwin started flashing lights around her head.

Every one was silent. Jolies eyes glazed over. "Did the fire kill him?"

"No." Grady finally said, "When he found out you had died... his mind broke." He left it there.

"But he's alive?" 

Everyone hesitated once again. Finally I stepped up, "When Brants mind broke..." I sighed, not knowing how to explain it. "Even before the fire he was with the Neverseen. But with his mind broken he was kind of crazy. He learned how to spark ever blaze-"

"Everblaze? What is that?" Jolie grabbed the water Elwin hand her and gulped it down.

"Its an unstoppably fire. Only quintessence can put it out. The accident that made Pyrokenetics illegal, that was ever blaze. But Brant was taught how to do that, we found out he was part of the never seen and that he knew how to bring down Everblaze. Ever since then he's been trying to capture us. He has nearly killed us several times. They destroyed Lumenaria."

Jolie gasped, her face paling. "No, Brant wouldn't do that. He wouldn't."

"Like I said, his mind was broken. He wasn't himself, and the Neverseen were already working on him. He..." I gulped down the lump in my throat and blinked the tears away. "He was trying to kill Mr. Forkle. But Mr. Forkle pushed him away and the ceiling crushed him."

A sob shook Jolies body. "Who is Mr. Forkle?" She asked when she recovered. 

"Master Leto." I answered. 

"He's Master now?"

"Yeah, Madame Cadence is in the council now so he moved up." I explained. 

"Why is she in the council? Who left it?" Jolie asked. 

I looked away, "Councilor Kenric. He- he was killed in a fire. We were healing Fintan's mind-"

"Wait healing? The old councilor?"

"Yeah, he's with the Neverseen. We had to do a mind break, and they wanted me to heal his mind afterwords."

"Heal his mind? Thats not possible, the Black Swan is working on fixing that but they couldn't have already..." Jolie blinked, "Unless... Your the Moonlark?"

"Yeah. I am." 

Jolie hesitated, "Apparently more time passed then I thought."

"What do you mean?"

"How long have I been in the void?" She asked as an answer. 

"Sixteen years."

She ran her hand down her face, "For me its been less then a week."