Chapter 23: Chapter 22

“Would this be a good time to talk about it?” I asked Sheena as I set up in the bed. She was already sitting at her desk; the room was dark save for the green lamp-glow from her desk that illuminated her face. I watched her look up from her papers, black hair glowing softly in the lamplight as she shot me a look that was nothing short of a silent lecture.

“You ought be sleeping,” She told me. “You’ve got another hour before you need to ready yourself.”

“I’m not tired,” I shrugged, and then I thought better of it and laid back down, pulling the covers up to my neck.

“Lyra,” She said, and I opened my eyes. “We can talk.”

I crawled out of the blankets and shifted my position so that I was facing the opposite end, my head resting on my hands as I looked up her with a grin plastered across my face. Sheena looked to me and then burst out laughing.

“What?” I asked.

“You,” She chortled. “You were so stiff before, and now you act like a little girl. It comes so naturally to you.”

“That’s bad?” I frowned, tensing a little. 

“Not a bit,” She rose from the desk, straightening a pile of papers, and then stepped over to the bed to sit beside me. She was dressed as I was, in a white shift, her black hair flowing down past the middle of her back in a thick braid. I shifted in the bed, onto my side so I could see her face more clearly. She rubbed my shoulder and I rested my head on her leg. “What do you want to talk about, dear Lyra?”

“When we were riding on the airship, you didn’t even want me to speak to Balthasar without your permission so I thought maybe that I wasn’t supposed to do anything unless you said so. But now you want me to have more freedom. I don’t understand.”

“In your life as Micah, you were exposed to some things, things a child should never be exposed to, Lyra. Here you have a chance to start over. You are just seventeen years old, it is not too late for you to be a child, and as your previous life seems to be fading, it is even more realistic a goal. I did not wish for you to obtain information from Balthasar that would compromise your newfound innocence. I need you to be Lyra and you need you to be Lyra. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” I nodded. “So all that stuff about the Stormveil and things, I should just forget about it.”

“In a manner of speaking, Lyra,” She told me. “There will come a day when your knowledge of the Stormveil could be necessary, but you must remember that as Micah, Balthasar was in there with you, he remembers much more than you and they have gleaned everything they need to know from him. Your work in that area is done.”

“Wait, he remembers?” I frowned. “but-”

“You see, Lyra,” Sheena cut me off with a wave of her hand. “This is where I will tell you what you can and cannot do. You will enjoy your time as a teenager, and as you grow, we will increase your knowledge and your world view. This will happen naturally, do you understand?”

“I do,” I really did. She smiled at me and stroked my hair; I closed my eyes and drank in the feeling of her soft fingers against my scalp.

“In two hours,” She said. “You will undergo the procedure, and when it is done, you will have a new start, a fresh start. Lyra there are…things that I don’t fully understand about you. Why you seem to be forgetting your life as Micah. I did ask Balthasar but…Lyra, important as I may seem to you, I am still just a servant, albeit a higher ranking one. There are things that I am not privy to know, and perhaps that is for the best. I did ask him if you were safe, and he told me that you were.”

“So what does that mean?” I asked her, shifting my position a little. 

“It means, Lyra,” She said. “That you will undergo this procedure, and soon, you will become her entirely. I have no idea how much of your memory you will retain, and I have no idea why you are losing it, but Balthasar tells us it is for the best.”

“But what’s going to be left of me? Sheena…I…I’m afraid,” I could feel myself shaking almost uncontrollably; she laid her arm over me and used her free hand to stroke my head.

“What will be left, is everything that you have become while you have been here, Lyra,” She said firmly. “You will be the kind, gracious, curious, and happy little girl that I have come to know. You will be the girl that I am honored to call sister and I will protect you. You are Lyra, and she is you, and nothing can take that from you now. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Elder Sister,” I said, feeling a little better, but the apprehension wouldn’t fade. She slid out gently and rose from the bed; the mattress rose a little as she stood and stepped back, beaming down at me with a look of pride. 

“Get dressed, little sister,” She smiled widely. “Today is your day.”

All of my clothes were still sitting in the locker in the temporary servant’s quarters, but that didn’t seem to bother Sheena much. She opened her closet and pulled out a green flowing dress with a white bodice and flowing sleeves. She explained to me that she used it at important family functions, which was exactly what today was. She dressed me, helping me to lace the bodice, and then applied my cosmetics. Once again, she carefully brushed my hair and I allowed myself to relax, letting go of all my worries for a moment as she picked and prodded, styling it as she wanted. Finally, she looked at me and smiled.

“We go,” She extended an arm to me and we walked to the door of her office, out into the wood paneled corridor lined with green lamps. There were memories residing in this corridor, faint recollections of my confrontation with Sheena, nights spent talking and laughing, sitting on the couch with Jen as we discussed the start of my new life. My life was truly beginning and for the first time in a very long time, I was truly happy.

We descended the brief set of stairs and emerged into the hallway near the main concourse where Jen, Kayla, Sophia, and Miah were waiting.

“It’s your big day, Lyra,” Jen smiled widely and embraced me. 

“Are you nervous?” Miah asked me. I shrugged a little and giggled nervously.

“I spoke with Caius,” Kayla said to Sheena. “He is prepared, shall we go?”

“We shall,” Sheena nodded, taking my hand in hers. “the High Lady will want to see you after, undoubtedly.”

I gulped a little; I hadn’t seen the High Lady in some time and I couldn’t help but wonder what she would want with me.

“Oh, Lyra,” Sheena said. “During your recovery time, you are to remain under supervision, which means you will have to miss your lessons with Keniel.”

I stopped mid-stride and blushed, my jaw must have hit the floor. 

“You…you knew about that?” I squeaked. She side-eyed me and I heard Kayla snort. 

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“Your lack of understanding of Klocby familial traditions never fails to amaze me, Lyra,” Kaya shook her head and continued walking. Miah and Sophia chatted amongst themselves, their voices imperceptible as we walked.

“Your Elder Sister knows everything,” Sheena informed me. “and your lessons are something that we will need to discuss once you have recovered.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I just-”

“You wanted to have something of your own,” Sheena finished for me, “I allowed it, because at least it kept you from trouble, hmm? But still, we must discuss.”

I couldn’t help but wonder what she wanted to discuss, and I also wondered if I had somehow gotten myself in trouble.

“Do you think we could get something to eat?” I suggested, suddenly feeling hungry. Sheena laughed.

“Lyra, you think with your stomach, do you know that?” She squeezed my hand.

“I do not!” I protested. “I’m just hungry, it’s breakfast time!”

“Remember what Caius said, dear sister, you cannot partake before the procedure. After is a different story.”

“He said that after I would be eating through a straw,” I protested. “A little something wouldn’t hurt.”

“Soon,” Sheena promised me.

 I had little time to think about what I wanted to eat, as we found ourselves in the medical wing, guided by a servant to a waiting room where we sat for perhaps half an hour. I twiddled my thumbs nervously until I was called back to an empty room where I disrobed, and was then taken to a strange room filled with equipment. Glass jars connected to diodes and brass tubes, gauges, leads, containers filled with fluids. In the center, a bed. Caius, the doctor, gestured for me to sit on the edge of the bed.

“Alright, Lyra,” He told me. “First off, I’ll need you to drink this.”

He handed me a glass bottle filled with a thin blue liquid, I eyed it curiously and then looked to him, questioningly.

“It is to prepare your body,” He explained. “The Mah’Kur crystals are effective, but this solution makes your body more susceptible. It is how we’ll be able to do the operation so quickly.”

“What is it called?” I asked him, turning the bottle over in my hand. 

“We call it Arctesonite,” He gestured for me to drink again. I realized, suddenly, that it was the stuff Sheena called ‘Arc’.

“Isn’t this what powers the city? You would have me drink fuel?”

“It can be used for many things, Lyra,” He smiled. “Bottoms up.”

I obediently drank the fluid, gagging a bit and wiping my watered eyes before he took the bottle away from me.

“That should do it,” He said, gesturing for me to lay down. As I did, he secured my feet with leather straps. “I’ll need you to count backward from one hundred for me.”

I looked around nervously as another doctor entered the room, and I squeezed my eyes shut when a brass mask was placed against my face. 

“Count down, Lyra,” Caius reminded me as I began to hyperventilate into the mask. 

“One hundred,” I said, my voice muffled by the mask. “Ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven-”

My counting ceased, and I expected to fade off into a dreamless sleep as they had told me I would, but something happened. I didn’t feel like I was asleep; I felt like I was burning. It was hot, so incredibly hot, and I wanted to scream out in pain, but my body wouldn’t respond. The Mah’kur crystals, the ones they were using to sculpt, something was happening with them, my body was reacting.

“We will begin the procedure now,” Caius’s voice sounded far away, it floated down through the darkness, completely irrelevant in the face of my extreme pain. It burned every inch of my body as Caius and the assistant chattered about the procedure and how revolutionary it would be.

I’m awake! I screamed in my mind. I’m awake, please help me! Help me please!

Sheena, where are you, please help me!

I wouldn’t survive; whatever it was, it was tearing through my body, there would be nothing left. I would never see her again. If only I’d known, if I’d just known that those would be our last moments!

And then, something happened. The pain ceased, but the darkness didn’t come. If felt myself falling through endless space. Darkness, silence. Even my screams couldn’t penetrate the absolute silence that had formed around me as I plummeted from an unimaginable height, twisting and writhing, trying to figure out which direction was up, which was down. It all seemed the same, everything ran together. I was Micah, I was Lyra, I was no one. Then it ended. I found myself standing alone on a lush green hillside, a burning sun in the sky, wind against my cheek. In the distance I could see a beach with towering waves, and far off, further inland, crumbled buildings enraptured by red and gray vines, twisting and writing as they strangled the life from it. 

Where am I? I asked. “Where am I?” 

And then I knew. I suddenly knew. It was the Stormveil. I remembered. 

I remembered. 

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