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The room was growing far too warm.
I clenched my fist and pushed the magic away before anything got out of hand.
“What was that, miss?” The Priestess pulled me from my thoughts, her windy voice more like a gale before a storm as she stood in the door, a few courtiers and what looked to be Aeinya’s mother already making their way down the long hall toward the ceremony.
“Nothing, nothing,” I sighed, my arm aching as I picked up the dress before taking a step in my boots.
They had set out dainty silk slippers for me, but I refused. Perhaps that was selfish, but if I planned to make my escape I would need good shoes. These boots… they were the first gift I had received in years, and my last of this life... I would never give them up.
Lifting the dress enough that I wouldn't damage it, I made my way into the hall, only to have the priestess shut the door without another word. All of the wiggling knots of my nerves tangled further as that heat continued to rumble beneath my skin, a lightness filling me as though I was made of air.
The sensations of magic were as foreign as they were familiar, but they did nothing to calm the panic that was everywhere.
It wasn’t that I was scared of being alone, although it was a new sensation, I had never been alone before, not really. The Boy had always been there. Now, the knots tightened into a boulder at the image of the guards leaning against the carriage. Of their smiles.
So similar to when they had dropped him on the chaise, when he was dying.
“Please let him be there,” I whispered, keeping my skirts high as I followed the others toward the wedding, the heavily perfumed aroma of the bath following me with every step. Everyone’s clothing were in the muted colors of the sky as they walked down the piercing white of the hall. Sky blues, pale yellows, the pinks and purples of a sunrise. A beautiful sunrise for Aeinya on her wedding.
I walked slowly, careful to keep my boots from catching on the delicate hem of the expensive dress as everyone passed me in hmphs and guffaws at my pace, or perhaps simply at the disaster that I was. I didn’t know which, and I certainly didn’t care. Not anymore.
One by one they held their noses in the air and bolted past until I was the last one left in the hall, and the last one through the door at the end. The large wooden surface was carved with the image of a girl in a forest, long hair flowing down her back as she ran towards something on the other side of the door.
‘Very soon you will be faced with a moment in which you alone can change the course of time.’
His voice echoed in my head, but I pushed it away, along with the magic that was tingling over every part of me now. Wedding first, escape next, and then I could worry about the weird messages left for me by Fae wanderers. Or whatever it was that he had called himself.
The heavy stone was silent as I stepped into what could only be a welcome hall, the short squat corridor of white stone was carved with trees like the Forest of Ok, bright stars twinkling above them, and the very real man standing amongst them.
“Uncle Jahn?” I jerked back at seeing him there, dressed so darkly against the white of everywhere else.
He nodded in answer, his face lined with a grimace that pulled at his face all wrong.
“Uncle Jahn!” My previous confusion and shock turned to glee as I rushed him, throwing my arms around his neck.
My arm screamed at the movement, but I ignored it, overjoyed to see him even if my over exuberance sent us both into the mural behind him. It was only this close that I realized all the lines of each carving were actually words, spiraling swirling words that made up the stars and trees. Or at least I thought they were words, the letters I recognized, but their order made no sense to me.
“Hello, my dear girl,” he whispered into my hair, his hands wide and firm on my back before I slipped from his grip to my own feet. “It’s been an age since I have spoken to you.”
“Because it has.” I was ready to hug him again before he stepped to the side, the long dark cloak he was wearing rippling ominously through the white that was everywhere in this room. He wasn’t wearing his red Catalysts robes. He wasn’t wearing anything that Catalysts were assigned to wear. He was dressed in a stiff black uniform so similar to the snakes it made my muscles tense. It wasn’t just the uniform either, he stood at attention, his posture stiff, his eyes continually darting from side to side, watching either door as though someone would burst their way in and find us.
As though he wasn’t supposed to be there at all.
“Uncle Jahn?” I was suddenly finding it hard to breathe through the knots that were everywhere. “Is everything alright?”
Only then did his focus dart right back to me, the joy of before replaced by something cold.
“You know it isn’t, Elara. You’ve seen your father. If only you knew–” He stopped himself, running his hand through his hair as he took two steps toward the door I had entered through. I couldn’t tell if he was going to stop someone from coming in, or dart through himself. He twitched and jumped, looking over the mural this time as if it was what was listening.
“If only I knew what?” I asked when he didn’t continue.
‘Very soon the fate of magic will be in your hands.’ Again those words tumbled through my mind, again the warning that made no sense echoed in my ears. Although, now they were starting to feel like a drum pounding against my spine.
“Nothing. Nothing.” He waved his hand to the side, his fingers shaking before he tucked his hand behind him. “I came to warn you.” He was still looking at the mural.
“Warn me?”
“Do not go into the forest.”
