The Evolution of Fae and Gods (Chronicles of the Stone Veil #3) - Sawyer Bennett Page 0,104
my face, and then… whoosh… I’m standing in the caves of the Underworld, looking exactly as they had when I dreamed of them.
“Hello?” I say tentatively, the echo carrying down a path that rounds a bend I can’t see past.
“Finley… are you in the Underworld?”
Zaid’s voice.
Very close by.
I turn around in a circle, but I’m not in the library. I’m most definitely in the caves.
“Zaid… are you in here with me?” I ask hesitantly.
“No,” he replies, his voice clear, sharp, and, thankfully, grounding. “You’re still in the library, and so are we. What do you see?”
“The caves,” I tell him, tentatively reaching out to press my fingertips to the obsidian walls. They feel cool to the touch, and it’s hard to reconcile that I’m still physically in Carrick’s condo.
Yet, this is different than my last visit. Before, I knew I was in a dream.
Now, I know I’ve projected my conscience here.
“Should I go to the Caverns and look for Zora?” I ask.
“I don’t think you need to,” Zaid replies. “I think you just need to try to make mental contact with your sister.”
I frown, turning around to study the caves while struggling to see any part of the library, but I don’t. It’s just the Underworld that I see. “How?”
“Think of her,” Zaid instructs. “Remember what she looked like. Remember what her power felt like inside of you. Then reach out to her.”
It felt so very dark… that power.
And part of me liked it.
Part of me wanted to destroy Deandra with it.
“Zora.” I don’t say this aloud, but only in my head. Not that I’m trying to keep anything from Zaid or Rainey, but, somehow, I don’t think my sister will hear me otherwise.
Using my soul as well as my ears and mind, I strain to listen, waiting for a response. I don’t hear anything, but I do sense something.
A presence.
As if someone is listening.
“Zora,” I repeat in a projective greeting. “It’s me… I was inside your body a few days ago. I was able to see the Underworld through your eyes. Could you feel me at all?”
Ever so gently, I feel something probing back. As if prodding my very essence to test around my edges to discern if I’m real.
Then I’m zapped with something that doesn’t quite hurt, but does make me stumble a few feet backward. Almost like a repellant of some sort.
There’s a warning within it… to stay away.
“You don’t need to be afraid of me,” I say urgently to whoever is listening, my sister hopefully. I probably should have started off with that now that I think about it.
The response I get is overwhelming. A booming female voice echoes in my head, rattling my brain. “I am afraid of nothing. Who are you?”
I almost cry out in relief because that voice, as ominous as it came to me, is my voice. She sounds exactly like me.
“I’m your sister,” I say, reaching out my hand to press it against the cave wall to feel a little grounded. “Your twin. Identical to be exact, but my hair is red while yours is white.”
She doesn’t say anything—doesn’t probe or send a shock to ward me back—but I can tell she’s still listening.
“I’m in the Earth realm. You were born here and stolen by the Dark Fae, and they left a changeling in your place. I was born shortly after.”
Utter silence, but she’s still there.
I take in a breath. “I just found out about you not too long ago. Somehow, I managed to see you in a dream, and then I felt you—”
“I don’t believe you,” her voice blares so loud inside my head that I have to clap my hands over my ears. It’s a futile gesture, though, because the sound is only in my mind.
She starts to recede, and I call out in desperation. “Wait. Don’t go. I need to explain everything to you.”
“Stay away from me,” she orders, her voice softer but so resolute that I feel she might be lost to me forever.
“Zora… please,” I call out in desperation. Somehow, I instinctively know to pull on my power—the angelic kind—and try to pull her closer to me.
I’m answered with what feels like a bolt of electricity entering into my head and sizzling all the way down my spine, seemingly frying every nerve in its wake. My legs go numb and give way, and I tumble to the cave floor.
And then… she’s gone. It’s an emptiness inside of me that lets me know she’s not coming back.