The Beast (Black Dagger Brotherhood #14) - J. R. Ward Page 0,148

breathe slowly and deeply. Relaxed the tension in her body starting at her toes and going to the tips of her ears. Calmed her mind.

Sleep arrived in a gentle wave, submerging her beneath common consciousness, setting her free of the aches and pains, the worry and fear.

The guilt.

She gave herself a moment to enjoy the weightless float. And then she sent her core self, her soul, that magic light that animated her flesh, not just off the hospital bed and out of the room, not just down the corridor and free of the training center … but out of the realm of earthly reality.

To the Sanctuary.

Given her pregnancy, it was unsafe for her to travel to the Other Side in her physical form. This way, however, she covered the distance with grace and ease—plus, even as she left her body, she could sense her flesh back under the sheets and was thusly able to continuously monitor her corporeal incarnation. If aught were to occur, she could return in the blink of an eye.

Moments later, she was standing on resplendent green grass. Overhead, the milky sky provided illumination from no definable source, and all around in the distance, a forest ring established the sacred territory’s boundaries. White marble temples glowed pristine and fresh as the night they had been called into existence so many millennia ago by the Scribe Virgin, and brilliantly colored tulips and daffodils were like gems spilled from a treasurer’s satchel.

Breathing the sweet air, she could feel a recharging happen, and it reminded her of her centuries spent serving the mother of the race up here. Back then, all had been white, no shades or variation in anything, not even shadows thrown. The current Primale, Phury, had changed all that, however, freeing her and her sisters to live lives down below, to experience the world and themselves as individuals, instead of as cogs in a homogeneous whole.

Unconsciously, she put her hands to her belly—and had a fright. Her stomach was flat, and she panicked—only to sense her body’s function down on Earth. Yes, she thought. The flesh was with young; the soul was not. And this representation of her was a moving mirage, both existent and nonexistent.

Gathering the folds of her ceremonial robe, she ambulated across the rolling expanse, passing the Primale’s private quarters where the impregnations used to occur, and continuing on until she stood on the threshold of the Temple of the Sequestered Scribes.

A quick look around confirmed what had been true not just since her arrival this moment, but for such a time since the Primale had released them all: As beautiful as the Sanctuary was, as much as it had to offer in terms of peace and refreshment, it was as empty and abandoned as a useless factory. A gold mine with no more veins to plunder. A galley with bare cupboards.

For her purposes, this was good.

And in her heart, it was bittersweet. Freedom had led to an abandonment, a cessation of service, an end of the way things were.

Change, however, was more the nature of destiny than anything else. And much good had come from it—although perhaps not for the Scribe Virgin. Who knew how she felt, though, as none had seen her now for how long?

With a solemn prayer, Layla entered the scribing temple and regarded the simple white tables with their bowls of water, their inkwells, their parchment rolls. In the lofty space, no dust drifted from the rafters to cloud the sacred reading pools or fade the edges of things—and yet it seemed that the observation of the race’s history, which had once been a sacred duty, was now an abandoned endeavor unlikely to be e’er resumed.

And that seemed to make the temple decayed in some way.

Indeed, it was hard not to think of the great library, which stood not far from here, and picture all of its shelves that were filled with volume after volume of carefully recorded passages, those sacred symbols in the Old Language put to parchment as the scribes had played witness to the goings-on of the race in these very bowls. And there were further records there: of the Black Dagger Brotherhood and their lineages, of the Scribe Virgin’s dictates, of the decisions of the Kings, of the observances of the calendar festivals, and the traditions of the glymera, and the respect that had been paid to the Scribe Virgin.

In a way, the lack of any further history record was a death of the race.

But