by Ward, H. M.
I sat alone in the darkness, cross-legged on the floor. Slowly, I glanced around seeing nothing but a single flame flickering in the darkness. Rising to my feet I moved towards the light, but it moved farther and farther away. Panic flooded the dream and suddenly I was running—running towards the candle as it was being carried away. I had to find it. I had to stop it from leaving. But, it was already gone. I pressed my eyes closed, and blinking slowly, reopened them.
The dream changed and as my eyes focused in the dimly lit room I could see golden walls covered in flickering candlelight. My senses went into overdrive as the lightness I’d felt vanished. Confused, I blinked again and continued to look around. Where was I? I thought I was dead, but this looked like the Lorren. Fear pooled in the pit of my stomach. Spending eternity damned in the confines of the Lorren made me stomach twist. But, that’s where I was. Golden jewel encrusted poppies lined the walls. This was definitely the Lorren, but it wasn’t the place I’d fallen. There was a cold hard surface pressing against my back. My fingers pressed into the golden slab I was laying on. Someone must have moved me from the place I’d fallen. My mind was still foggy. Whether it was the after effects of the poison or death, I wasn’t sure. I just knew that I should have been dead, and instead, I felt quite alive. Blood rushed through my heart, which was racing in my chest. The surreal feelings that had overcome me after I fell were gone. My body and my soul were glued together again, and my pain was nearly gone. My eyes flicked through the large room looking for answers. It became very clear that I was somewhere else within the evil maze of temptation. And someone was here with me.
The boy leaned over a work table with tiny tools, at the center of which was a single jeweled rose. Its stem and petals were deep blue, with the exception of a few petals, which gleamed bright silver. The boy crafting the rose was tall and slender. His black hair hung in his face as he worked, meticulously grasping the slender stem between callused fingers. A dingy black tee shirt hung two sizes too big to his body.
He spoke without turning towards me, “So, you’re awake.” It wasn’t a question. He turned around to look at me. A shiver ran down my spine. There was something about him, something intimidating beyond anything I’d ever felt. His pale skin and dark hair seemed otherworldly and his brilliant green eyes shone like emeralds.
I tried to sit up, but my head felt like my skull was cracked open. Weakness limited my movements. Instead of responding, I moaned and closed my eyes.
The boy spoke again, “I wouldn’t move around too much. You had a nasty wound there.” He pointed at my chest. My hand rose to my breastbone and I slid my fingers across my chest. There was a long, thin welt on my skin. Before I could speak, he answered my question. “Yeah, there’s a scar. But you’re lucky. Very lucky. That crap almost killed you. But I knew how to save you.” He twirled the blue rose between his fingers. It was an odd movement. He’d just been so careful with it that it seemed wrong for him to twirl it so carelessly. Maybe he didn’t care if it shattered if it slipped between his fingers.
So this guy saved me. I stared at him wondering how that was possible. He was a scrawny nobody twirling flowers in the Lorren. My throat tightened as I wondered if that flower was someone. The Lorren’s lined with flowers that were people who’d not made it out alive. The whole situation seemed too weird to be true, but here I was. So what happened? Who was this guy and why was he in the Lorren? And more importantly, why did he save me. He just stopped me from preventing the apocalypse. Irritation shot through me. Arrogance flowed off of him in waves, as he smirked smugly at me.
My voice rasped as I slowly sat up, holding my throbbing head, “You have no idea what you did.” My voice was level and unfeeling. I didn’t know how he healed me, who he was, or what to do next. Shit! This wasn’t supposed to happen. I effonated to the Lorren because I was the only one who survived it. No one else could enter without the magic of the Lorren screwing with them and eventually killing them. And yet—here was black-haired boy looking at me in all his Goth glory.
“Yes, I think I do.” He answered. He smiled that smug smile again, “You just made the biggest mistake of your life. And I fixed it.” Walking towards me, he carelessly twirled the blue rose between his fingers.
I glared at him from my place on the golden slab. “Who are you? What’d you do to me?” I wished I was able to stand, but I couldn’t move. My head felt large and too heavy to remain upright on top of my shoulders. It felt like a lead balloon and I was having issues holding it up. I blinked hard and felt the room sway. Apparently I swayed, because the boy caught me in his arms and laid me back down.
“Easy there. Quit trying to get up. You’re too weak. And I’m not quite done yet.” He reached for my neckline and I swatted at him, slapping his hands away.
“What are you doing? You can’t grope me, you perv.” I couldn’t believe this was happening. This insane boy had revived me and was trying to grab a feel. My head throbbed so badly that I wanted to close my eyes and stop thinking. As it was, it felt like rusty gears scraping against each other in my brain just to form a sentence.
He laughed, shocked, and shook his head. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m using this to make a sieve and draw the poison out of you. Where’d you get this wound, anyway? It was pretty nasty.” Feeling confused, I swatted him away again as he reached for my neckline. “I liked you better asleep.” He frowned at me and folded his arms.
My jaw was hanging open. “I was dying. I wasn’t asleep. And you screwed me over.”
He laughed, “You mean you wanted to die? There’s no way you’re that stupid. I mean, I’ve heard things about the awesome Ivy Taylor, but that would be truly idiotic. There’s no way you would have tried to kill yourself. ” He slid up onto a golden ledge similar to the one I was laying on and looked at me.
I have no idea what expression was on my face, but his words made me pause. He knew who I was. And he seemed to think my death would be a bad thing. My eyes became narrow slits as I growled, “Don’t pretend you know what you’re talking about or what just happened to me. You don’t know! You just came along and screwed it all up.”
Slouching, he gestured toward my chest—ignoring my comments—and tilted the flower toward me. “Can I finish this or not?”
Glancing at him out of the corner of my eye, I pressed my lips tightly and didn’t respond. The boy was leaning forward, dangling his legs over the edge of the golden slab he sat on. Suspicion raked me. Maybe I was horrible, but there is no way anybody who chose to be in the Lorren was up to anything good.
His words bounced around in my brain until I was asking myself questions; what did he do to draw out the poison? How did he do it? I didn’t think it was possible. Everything I heard about sapphire serum said it was lethal. I never heard of someone removing the poison from infected blood, but I was new to all this. So maybe he could. But the thought that clattered the loudest as it bounced through my head was this one: why did he think that sacrificing myself was a mistake?
From his comments, he seemed to think it would be utterly stupid. And that I should have known better. But I didn’t. There was no mistake in my mind –removing me from the equation was the only option. No more Ivy, meant no more prophecy. At least I thought it did, but now I wasn’t so sure. Not with this arrogant boy sitting here inferring otherwise.
He stared at me until I finally nodded. Part of me was curious to see what he was going to do. The other part was tired of feeling the pain. And if I was going to finish what I started and impale myself with a Guardian fang again, I needed to know what he knew about the prophecy.
And me.
He slid off his perch and took long strides toward me. His green eyes locked with mine for a moment as he stood above me. It was intimidating.
He was intimidating. I just couldn’t understand why. He was tall, but he was lanky. It wasn’t his size or his appearance that put the fear of God into me. It was something else, but I had no idea what.
His emerald eyes fin
ally broke away from mine before gazing down towards my chest. Flinching at his touch, he slid his fingers under my neckline slightly as he pulled it down and revealed a long scar. The scar formed a gash that marred my skin from the center of my breastbone up to my shoulder. The gentle scoop of the tank top I was wearing covered the entire scar.
His hand drifted to the beginning of the scar just below my neckline—to the place where the fang first pierced my skin at the top of my breast. That was the only part of the wound that still contained sapphire serum. I could see it. A faint blue line was buried deep inside of my skin.
The black-haired boy didn’t glance up at me as he carefully placed a silver petal against my skin. His rough hands handled the flower delicately. His attention was solely fixated on the rose and the wound. As he touched the flower’s stem to the only part of my wound that still contained sapphire serum, I could see the silver petals slowly soak up the blue. Streaks appeared in the silver, veining it in tiny intricate spider-webs through the metal petals. His fingers worked deftly, twirling the rose while touching it to my chest lightly.
Petal after petal veined and then turned blue. As the poison was drawn out of my body and into the rose, the pain that ravaged me subsided. My nails had bitten into my palms because I had my fists balled so hard. As the pain eased, I noticed the ache in my cramped fingers and the nail marks in my flesh.
It was uncomfortable to have this guy hovering over my exposed chest drawing out poison like that, but it seemed to be working. And he didn’t try to feel me up. He didn’t ask me about my missing bra, tattered clothing, or the blood stains that covered my outfit. Instead, he focused on his fingers and the flower, saying nothing while he worked. The flower twirled and slowly I felt better.
But, before the serum was completely gone, the process stopped. The blue veins drawing the poison out dried up before the rose was filled, leaving it with a single silver petal. The boy stopped twirling the rose. He lifted it from me and maneuvered it to try again.
I waited to see what would happen. But as I watched, nothing changed. It was like the stem broke and the silver rose had reached its poison threshold. He shook his head and lifted the flower away from my skin, flipping over the rose to look at the tip of the stem. He bit the side of his mouth, pulling his lips into an odd expression. Flipping the flower over again, he glared at me with those haunting eyes.
He blurted out what he was thinking without sugar-coating it, “What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with your soul?”
CHAPTER THREE
Out of all the questions that I expected him to ask, that wasn’t one of them. I visibly flinched. “What? Nothing.” He was looking at me oddly. Not quite judgmental like the Martis, but still not a good look.
His brow creased, as he examined the rose between his fingers. “No, there is something definitely wrong with your soul.” His gaze shifted from the rose to my horrified face. His voice was stern and certain. “This rose is made from Celestial Silver. I used it to draw out the sapphire serum. The rose holds the venom in its petals. The silver rose is the only thing that can hold the serum. Sapphire serum is poison and destroys everything it touches, except this.” He spun the rose in his fingers. “It would have killed you. Once that stuff gets into your blood, the poison multiples and gets very difficult to draw out.
“When I found you, you were a lost cause. The venom had spread throughout your entire body and was messing with your brain. You were barely breathing. So I grabbed you and brought you back here. I knew that the poison likes silver—it’s drawn to it the way an iron filing is drawn to a magnet. So when I touched the silver to your wound, it pulled out the sapphire serum, little by little, until there was only this small amount left. But, it’s like I can’t draw out this last bit of poison. It’s as if your soul has been taken—like part of it is missing.” He shook his head as if he didn’t believe his own words.
I looked away embarrassed and asked, “Why would that matter?”
His eyebrow shot up into his hair line as he regarded me for a moment. “Because. It’s not natural for a being to have part of her soul missing. Sure, souls can be ripped from the body, but when that happens, the part of the soul that was taken dies. It’s just gone.”
I stiffened, “A Valefar took most of my soul.” That was true. Jake took almost all of it, but I had a feeling that wasn’t what he was talking about. The entire conversation, and the look on his face, made me squirm.
Shaking his head he said, “No, that’s different. A soul devoured by a Valefar dies. It goes to the Pool of Lost Souls for a reason—it’s lost. A dead soul cannot be revived. It’s dead. But that’s not the case with you. The rose just can’t do it. It’s like part of your living soul is somewhere else, but that’s impossible…” he arched an eyebrow staring at me, waiting for an explanation.
I squirmed under his gaze, and tried to sit up again. I managed to pull myself up slowly without falling over. The boy didn’t help me. He just stared with a hard look on his face. I didn’t like this guy interrogating me. Who was he anyway? He totally screwed up my plan and I sure as hell didn’t want to stab myself again. It took more courage than I had the first time.
“Why isn’t that possible?” I asked. “And who are you anyway? And stop looking at me like that!” His jaw was slack, and his mouth was hanging open slightly. He was shocked.
By me.
He pushed his hair behind his ear and shut his mouth. “It’s not possible, because a soul can’t be torn in pieces and remain alive. That’s just it. Damage like that is deadly. There is no natural separation of part of the soul from the body. It’s not like we can just tear it in two and put part of it somewhere else!”
Um, that was news to me, because that was exactly what I did. I had given a piece of my soul to Collin. This kid was going to flip out if I told him. Instead I demanded, “Answer me. Who are you? Why’d you save me?”
The boy folded his arms and stared at me, equally stubborn. He didn’t like my tone, but I really didn’t care. I wasn’t apologizing for it.
His expression hardened. “I saved you because I could. I assumed you wanted to avoid propelling the prophecy into motion, so I saved you. You can’t die, not like this. Don’t you see? Can’t you tell what would have happened?” His voice became louder and louder as he spoke, yelling at me like I was an idiot. “Part of your soul is somewhere else. If you had died, your body would have died, and the remnant of your soul—wherever it is—would receive your powers. You have powers, right? The prophecy one is supposed to have great powers, and that’s you. Killing yourself would have shifted all of your bad-ass power straight into that piece of soul that isn’t inside of you anymore.” He was quite for a moment. Thoughts were flying through his mind, and he began to speak them, putting the pieces together in front of me. “But, that piece of your soul is still alive… And for it to be alive, it has to be inside a living being—someone else. Ivy, did you give a piece of your soul away?” He looked horrified, as if there was no way I would ever do such a thing. His hard gaze and shocked expression didn’t make me question my decision to give a piece of my soul to Collin, but it did make me feel ashamed.
I looked away sharply. “I had to.” My voice was faint. “I did it to save someone. He would have died without it.”
The black-haired boy studied me. “Who? Who has your soul inside of them? Who will inherit your powers when the poison spreads through your body?”
Coldness filled the pit of my stomach, as I realized the magnitude of what he was saying. If my body died and my soul ceased to exist in this body, a piece of me was left elsewhere. That person would absorb all my powers. They would naturally flow into the only remaining piece of soul. And the person who had it was possessed by a demon.
“Collin.”
The boy arched his eyebrow at me and shook his head. “You’re a hot mess, aren’t you? Good God! No wonder why you’re the one who causes this whole disaster. You have no idea what the hell you’re doing!”
He looked incredulous; like I shouldn’t dare challenge him. He was obviously a Valefar who’d made a hideout inside the Lorren. At first I thought he was an idiot, and then I realized that was something I would do and lost all of the bluster that I was ready to spew at him. Instead I asked again, “Who are you?”
He stared at me, with his emerald eyes locked on my face. He bit his bottom lip for a moment before answering. It seemed to be a nervous tic, a gesture that he didn’t realize he had that surfaced when he was tense…or afraid.
Silence surrounded us until he finally told me. “I’m Lorren.”
Annoyed, I felt my eyebrow pinch as my mouth opened. Did he really think I was that stupid? He wasn’t the Lorren. The Lorren is a maze. The Lorren’s made of gold. The Lorren kills people. What an ass. I folded my arms and cocked my head, allowing my annoyance to become visible. “You’re not the Lorren. Nice try Valefar-boy, but I met the Lorren and he doesn’t play this way. So who the hell are you?” I stared up at him with my arms folded over my chest.
