Falling Skyward

Chapter Seventeen: Traveling Worlds

The star ether worked for a while, dulling the poignant ache Lana felt as she dreamed, but it couldn't hold off her nightmares indefinitely. After that morning with the possessed boy, Lana's nightmares began mounting, escalating until every night Lana woke screaming for Gailen. Though Taren spent his nights training Lana on how to protect her mind, how to ward off the dreams, nothing worked.

Since arriving in Altymia, Lana's hope of finding her home ebbed and dimmed until it was nothing more than an anemic flicker. She had told Taren only the barest details about the night she fled, mentioning simply that her last memory was of falling into the sea. How could she describe those horrific monsters or the sickening way they melted through walls? How could she narrate any part of her story without sounding crazy? Was she crazy?

At first, Lana wondered if the ocean waves could have carried her to this strange land, but that was impossible. When Taren found her body shriveled, dehydrated, yet nearly drowned in the stream, she was on the outer rim of the desert that divided the three kingdoms, over two hundred miles from the nearest ocean.

But if Lana's home didn't lie just beyond the sea's horizon, then where did she come from? How would she find her way home? Lana kept asking questions, kept trying to fill in the blank corners and gaping holes in her mental map, but her world was too relative, too dynamic to pinpoint with lines of ink. How can you draw something you cannot comprehend, let alone find its coordinates? How can you reach a home when direction does not matter?

As the helplessness and fear of those blank spaces swelled in Lana's mind, the happiness and freedom of her new life gently filled their lack, lulling her back to contentment.

But, with her dreams reaching a new crescendo, she could ignore the nightmares no longer—Gailen needed her. It was something stronger than her sense of duty that propelled her decision, stronger even than love—it was fear. Despite her teasing and seeming comfort, there was constant anxiety gnawing at the back of Lana's mind—an unanswered question. What had happened to her family? That bitter night she ran away, Lana thought she had lured those mouthless creatures from her home. But what if not all had followed? What if some returned?

A limp shadow, dangling from a tree by its throat while droplets of blood dripped and pooled. That was the image Lana saw every time she wondered about her family.

There was something about her latest dream of Gailen that had shaken her—an urgency, a ragged edge to its seams that spoke of reality, not dreams. She didn't know how or even why, but she felt as though the vision—the inexplicable and inhumane things she watched these creatures inflict on Gailen—was true. And only she could stop them.

That morning at breakfast, with the world still pale in the predawn hours, Lana knew she would not join Emmeline and Taren in the bakery that day—or ever again. She could no longer pretend she belonged in this new life, no longer pretend the uncertainty of her family's fate didn't haunt her at every moment.

Lana distractedly ate her berries drizzled with cinnamon and cream, not tasting the strange tang of exotic fruits as she tried to think of a way to say goodbye, to leave everything—Emmeline, the shop, Rose, the sunlight, the forest, and Taren. She fumbled at her throat, pressing the inspiriting heat of the star ether into the soft flesh of her palm.

"I have to apologize about last night, about this last week . . ." Lana's voice became suffocated with apprehension and layers of secrets. Why hadn't they asked? Why did they let this stranger into their house, who woke them up with screams in the night?

"Hush. Hush, dear," Emmeline said, putting the gentle curve of her fingers to Lana's cheek. "There's nothing to apologize for, and that's all there is to be said about that until you're better."