Chapter 46: 55. The Path of Light

Pak

(Incorporeal)

 

Incorporeal…

I limp through the city, into the setting sun, following the light on the ground. It’s the busiest time for the roads, when the Plateau casts its shadow across the basin, cooling the air and turning this miserable bowl of mud into something hospitable.

People walk through me. I feel their heat intimately as they pass. I wonder if they feel my chill.

I drip with every step, leaving a subtle trail of red, far too subtle for busy eyes to see. The Portal’s gentle incline strains the muscles in my legs, adding to the burning and stinging and sweating. I stumble, sputter and crawl up this infinite path… drifting…

I glimpse myself from some place outside of my body: I am a pulsing red entity, neither a spirit nor a person, shambling through the city like a demon seeking to feast. The people are no longer real. I cannot fear them. It’s not a matter of courage or bravery – I have lost the ability.

Something snatches me back. Before long, I drift again. Over and over. In and out.

Hours pass. Darkness reaches the Plateau long before I do.

The manors built for single families are large enough to hold twenty. The gardens are eerily perfect, the fruit of the labor of thousands of people deemed not good enough to sleep in soft noble beds. The fountains and statues and finely-cut shrubberies could have been food for Iridan’s poor, but nothing can satisfy the nobleman’s appetite for pretty, expensive things. The flowers crumple beneath my feet… I don’t quite understand it.

The moon reaches the center of the sky – a crescent, unusually large and eerily bright – and I feel its glow on my skin. I wonder if its light somehow reveals me. Red still veils the air, coloring everything I see. I drop my gaze to the ground and teeter on like a drunkard. A trail of crushed petals scatters behind me, glittering in the moonlight.

The world blurs, fading in and out, skipping across time, just like when I was a child wearing those stupid over-sized shoes. How much longer?

My eyes flutter open, and I find my face inches from the belly of a man. He takes a step back – whether by coincidence or whether he can sense me, I don’t know. The magpie on his tunic watches me with one judgmental eye, tightening its grip on its pearl. It squawks into my melted ear:

 

Welcome home...

 

I creak upright, leveling myself with the tired, dark eyes of the nobleman’s dog, glossy, not a flicker of recognition or astonishment in them. He can’t see me.

“Leave…” I wheeze.

He jumps, gasps, and shakes his head like he’s just come out of a terrible dream. I want to cry. Why do I want to cry?

“I don’t want you to get in trouble…”

 

you’re wasting time

 

I blink and check behind me. That voice… why do I recognize it?

I shake my head, look around, and realize I am elsewhere, in a parlor room. The floor is a marble mosaic with an eight-pointed starburst at its core. Bits of dust dance in the air, illuminated by what little moonlight leaks through the sheer curtains. It feels as though nobody has been in this room for decades. Even the hanging plants in the corners are, browning, shriveling. The table at the center shows no sign of wear. The cushions on the surrounding sofas look like they’ve never been disturbed. I follow the path past a table, around a cold fireplace, into a hall… This place, I remember. The hideous purple carpet, the bleak gray walls, the floral embossing, the window – they haven’t touched a thing.

Something encroaches on the edge of my awareness, something invisible. It sends little ripples across the tense surface of my skin.

 

The gray child’s door is closed.

His soiled clothes are still crumpled up in the dark corner of his room.

 

What is this feeling?

You are reading story The Thief’s Folly (Book One of the Bloodlines Duet) at novel35.com

The hallway stretches and warps, sucking me in.

I fall to my knees. I can’t breathe. What’s happening? This is it, isn’t it? This is where I die. Everything hurts so much…

 

breathe

 

I shoot upright and whip around, startled by that same familiar voice. It’s gentle, a cool cloth, soothing my burning skin, whispering over my shoulder. Who is that…?

 

It’s not real.

 

I twist to my right to face the cold voice, and my ribs creak. A sharp crack of lightning zips through my chest. I cry out, stumble, whimper and gasp, gripping my side – try not to cry—

 

it’s okay

keep going

 

I pause… Let the pain ripple away. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Where am I?

The bleak hall. The window. The door. The path…

The weapon burns in my palm.

 

The nasty old woman rips the child from his room,

flings him into the stranger’s way.

He stumbles into the wall,

skitters away like a roach in the light.

 

I turn away before the vision swallows me.

The path leads to the stairs, the ones with the hovering panels, leading to the hall with the portraits I visited as a child. I hobble to the stairs and test the first step. The light holds me aloft.

 

The gray child climbs the steps like a cat,

terrified of falling in the cracks.

You can find story with these keywords: The Thief’s Folly (Book One of the Bloodlines Duet), Read The Thief’s Folly (Book One of the Bloodlines Duet), The Thief’s Folly (Book One of the Bloodlines Duet) novel, The Thief’s Folly (Book One of the Bloodlines Duet) book, The Thief’s Folly (Book One of the Bloodlines Duet) story, The Thief’s Folly (Book One of the Bloodlines Duet) full, The Thief’s Folly (Book One of the Bloodlines Duet) Latest Chapter