Chapter 2: The Echo That Followed Me
Dawn crept in real slow that morning. It had this pale, faded look about it. The light seemed too feeble to push back any of the darkness still hanging around.
I stood out there on the chilly ground just beyond the Citadel gates. I was breathing heavy. My lungs hurt bad. Warm blood trickled down from the slice on my palm.
My coat hung in rags now. It was covered in gray ash. My head pounded hard. It felt like something inside was banging away at my skull.
The world stayed silent though.
No sounds of steps chasing after me.
No soft voices brushing close to my ear.
No strange shadows pulling long across the dirt.
For those first few minutes, I nearly convinced myself that I had gotten away clean.
Nearly...
Those Gates of Ash loomed closed right behind me. They rose up tall and solid. A thin mist wrapped around their base.
It clung there like fingers that would not release their hold. I promised myself right then that I would stay far from that awful place forever.
That is when I caught it.
A weak, ragged breath came to me. It sounded just like Liora's.
So gentle
Full of fear
It came from directly at my back!
I whirled around quick.
No one stood in sight
Just the fog drifting over the stone path.
My heart slammed hard inside my chest. I put a hand up to my temple. My mind felt crowded somehow. Like I held another persons words trapped in there. A deep hum ran through my whole body.
Liora's final word repeated in my thoughts.
"Run!"
I had done just that.
Yet something else had kept pace with me.
I stumbled along the trail leading from the Citadel. My lantern trembled in my grip. Each gust of wind made my shoulders tense up sharp. Any change in the mist had me snapping my head side to side.
The Citadel kept its eyes on me still,distance did not matter.
Down at the end of the Wailing mile, the fog started to clear a bit. The air grew warmer around me. That bitter ash smell began to lift.
For the first time since the night before, I drew in a breath that did not catch in my throat.
I figured perhaps the whole bad dream had ended at last.
Then a shadow shifted up ahead.
It was not some person.
Not any kind of creature either.
Just something slim and quick. Pretty small too.
It slipped between the boulders and disappeared before my eyes could follow.
I halted right there. My breaths came out ragged and short. I clutched the lantern tighter.
No, I muttered under my breath. You did not come after me. You should not be free out in the open.
Deep down though, I realized I fooled only myself.
The Citadel never released what it claimed.
It had made that clear to me.
"You will return, Elias"
I pushed on further to steady my nerves. That shadow might have been my imagination playing tricks.
Dawn light could fool anyone like that. Or maybe my mind had cracked under the strain.
Still, the whisper returned then. It stayed soft and distant. Yet I knew it without doubt.
"Elias"
My blood turned to ice in my veins.
I turned back real slow
Nothing waited there.
Just the wide empty stretch of land behind.
I picked up my pace,I nearly ran at points.
I did not stop until the Citadel faded into a blurry shape lost in the morning mist.
My legs burned with the effort. Terror still squeezed my chest tight.
Time slipped by in hours. Or perhaps only moments. That haunted spot had shattered my sense of it all.
When the shape of my village finally showed up way off in the distance, a wave of relief hit me strong. It nearly dropped me to the ground.
I had reached it
I had broken free
At least that is what I believed.
The village looked off when I entered it. Far too hushed. Far too motionless. It seemed like the whole place sensed trouble had followed.
Mrs. Dalren usually swept her front steps each morning. She was nowhere in view.
The kids who chased each other by the well every day had vanished. No wagons creaked along the dirt lane.
The spot felt like it held still. As if waiting for what came next.
I kept my eyes low as I moved through. My outfit was ripped up. Soot clung everywhere. Folks would want details I could not share yet.
I got back to my place without crossing paths with a soul.
Once I closed the door, some heavy burden lifted from me. I sank down against the wood. I sat there gasping,my body shook once more.
I lived through it all
Gratitude should have filled me up.
Instead, eyes seemed to follow my every move.
My house stayed simple. Just the one room held a bed and a plain table. A basin sat for washing too. Nothing in there ought to seem out of place. Nothing should carry a wrong feel.
But everything did.
The air carried a flavor now
Ash lingered in it
Mixed with a sharp metal tang.
Exactly like back in the Citadel.
I struck a match and lit the candle on the table. I cleaned the blood off my palm in the basin. The wound ran deeper than I first thought. A bit of glass from that mirror had buried itself in my flesh.
I sucked in air through my teeth. My fingers trembled as I dug the piece free.
When I let it fall into the water, a sharp hiss rose up.
Smoke curled from the surface,that stopped me cold.
I picked up the glass fragment again. I raised it toward the candle flame.
It no longer looked like ordinary glass.
Its edges throbbed just a little. Almost as if a pulse beat within.
I let it drop quick. My gut churned. I stepped back from the basin fast.
Something from that place had slipped out with me.
More than a mere shadow.
Beyond a simple voice.
Part of the Citadel now rested right in my own space.
I dug into my coat pocket. I drew out Liora's folded letter all wrinkled. The paper quivered in my hold.
Whispers fill my sleep now
They rise out of the mirrors.
Her script shook across the lines
That moment brought the change
The candle flame danced wild.
The room grew colder fast.
My mirror, the little one fixed to the far wall, clouded from within.
I went still
The fire reached out toward the glass. It stretched like drawn by force. Walls and pictures acted that way inside the Citadel.
Not in this spot
Not inside my walls
The reflection turned black.
A dim shape formed on the surface.
One I knew well
The face of a young woman.
Air stuck in my throat
"Liora!" I breathed out.
The shape pressed nearer from the glass side. A white hand flattened against it. Just as she had done deep in the Citadel.
I moved closer step by step.
"Liora,Can you hear me??"
Her lips parted
No voice broke through.
It matched what happened before,yet I made out the words form.
"Help!"
My chest squeezed tight. My hands trembled bad.
"I am trying" I said low I swear it.
I had a look of pure terror
Then, her expression shifted
She mouthed another word to me.
"Behind"
I froze in place
I didn't dare turn around just yet,my heart hammered against my ribs.
"Liora" I whispered, "please tell me I'm just imagining things."
Her hand slammed against the glass with such force that it cracked.
The air behind me seemed to ripple.
Cold air
Heavy
A hungry feeling
I turned slowly,far too slowly.
A shadow loomed in the corner
So tall
Unnaturally tall
Its thin arms stretched down, long enough to brush against the floor.
It had no eyes.
But somehow, it was looking right at me.
It was a piece of the Citadel's darkness, some creature that had slipped out with me when the mirror shattered.
It took a single step forward
The candle flame flickered and died
The room plunged into darkness.
My pulse roared in my ears. I stumbled backward until my shoulders bumped against the wall.
The shadow tilted its head, studying me.
Its voice was like the grinding of stone.
"You left too soon"
My throat constricted.
"You… you can't be here," I choked out. "This is my home."
The shadow's limbs stretched out, touching the floor, the walls, the ceiling.
Home?
It laughed,a sound like bones cracking.
"This is only a doorway"
A wave of cold rushed toward me,my breath caught in my throat.
Then a sharp crash shattered the silence,the mirror behind me exploded into fragments.
Liora's reflection screamed without a sound.
The shadow recoiled from the exploding glass, hissed, and dissolved into smoke, slipping under the door and vanishing into the morning fog.
I stood alone in the wreckage
My heart still pounding
My knees weak and trembling.
Liora's final warning echoed in my mind:
"Run"
But something deep inside me answered that warning.
Not this time
Not anymore
Because now I understood something the Citadel hadn't intended for me to see:
"Liora was still alive"
"Trapped there"
"Reaching out to me
And I wasn't running away again
Not even if the Citadel swallowed me whole