And then there was silence. I stared up at the dais with the rest of them but saw nothing but ranks of hooded heads against the softly flickering lanterns. The minutes passed in silence as I attempted to meditate with something I didn’t entirely understand.
The scent of incense was so much stronger down here, making my head swim a little. I felt Sarai flip around, a soft, burbling feeling in my stomach, but then she went quiet, too.
Then it happened.
The hum that had been building in my bones, an almost imperceptible tug at my heart, intensified until I felt almost seasick, like I was being pulled out of my skin and off the floor.
But I felt the pillow beneath me, the solidity of the ground. I was still in the temple of the Chain… and yet somehow, my soul was being pulled out of me, exhaled on my breath and spiraling into the swirls of incense overhead.
The Chainlings’ chanting grew stronger, a murmur that built on the echoes of itself until it sounded like distant thunder.
My head spun. The entire room swam, and I closed my eyes to reel in the dizziness, to block out the sight of the chains weaving like snakes and the flash of eyes in the dim light.
I exhaled again, feeling the tug in my chest shift and move, and the Chain ripped me away.
11
Melisande
I tore upwards, ripped straight out of my body and into the stone overhead.
The temple flashed by, followed by the arena, and the Chain yanked me through Dis, bits and pieces of everything flashing by. It felt like it was wrapped around my incorporeal body, holding me tightly bound as I raced along invisible paths.
Tiny glints of light caught my eye as I exploded through Dis, straight through buildings, demons, and into the desert. I was sure I was screaming, my lungs exploding from the lack of air, but all I heard was the wind rushing by.
The little sparks of light grew brighter, tracing the pathways, and I realized what I was seeing.
Chains.
Chains everywhere, long, short, connecting demons and places. Some were gold, others silver, iron, ebonite… it wasn’t a forest, but a massive tangled web, so dense that once I realized I could focus on seeing them, almost everything else was obliterated by their light.
Some of them extended far into the sky overhead, but the Chain that had a grip on me kept pulling me further and further from Dis, far from being able to see where they went.
The air tightened around me, becoming almost thick like glue, but still I flew through everything, seeing slivers of time long after the fact: a god of night reaching for the stars, a goddess crying a river into existence, a woman with golden hair, stripping off her jewelry and clothes as she passed under seven arches in a wasteland darker than Dis…
The wastelands vanished as I zipped and jerked through the massive web, riding the links to who knew where, and suddenly there was green everywhere. Green grass, leaves on trees, a blue sky with the sun overhead…
My chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with the Chain itself when I realized what I was seeing. It was a world I thought I’d never see again.
Earth.
Earth as it was before the Apocalypse, before the final days when blood filled the rivers and oceans, before everything was eaten to dust, before Wormwood fell and the bodies piled like mountains…
My eyes burned, but there were no tears in this incorporeal body. Just a tight, deep ache in my throat as the Chain pulled me over dense forests and the true sun shone on me.
It was like a painting, this Earth, so real I could reach out and touch it, and yet such a distant memory it couldn’t possibly be real. It was only a relic, a leftover vision from the time before.
The Chain tightened around me gently, squeezing my chest like it meant to comfort me.
The sun glittered off the windows of skyscrapers in the distance, and before I knew it the forest below had vanished, giving way to towns, to sparkling blue water, to houses lit with warm light.
A faint memory tickled at me, but it was gone as the Chain ripped me through a building of glass and cement.
As I blew through one of the rooms, I saw a woman in a chair. Her face was so familiar, and a sharp stab of pain