than any statue of the Brother, and near to them, a lady, but not the Goddess Aron thought he knew. This woman’s splendor defied all description and understanding, and she was infinitely more beautiful than he had ever before dreamed.
They took no more notice of his presence than Dyn Altar’s Great Rocs would acknowledge a gnat. These beings were so magnificent, so huge that Aron could scarcely perceive them, so vast that he knew he wasn’t really seeing them, but only the bits of their essence his faculties could comprehend.
He opened his mouth to cry out from the flaming pain of their existence, but that fast, they were gone—and in their place stood copies of the beings, smaller and meaner, more realistic, and infinitely more … human. Even the stag now had the presence of a person clinging to its fur and horns, a person almost familiar to Aron, no matter how hard he worked to project the image of hooves and discerning, feral eyes.
Aron’s mind spun as the lady of the group drifted toward him, revealing herself as the Goddess of his dreams.
Yet everything about this was wrong—and real—and he knew this with every fiber of his graal and being.
My boy, the shimmering lady said, her words echoing and enhanced, as if she might be borrowing power from many other voices. You’ve come. Welcome.
Aron’s essence flowed away from her, countering her progress measure for measure. He didn’t want her any closer. The man and stag followed her lead, each approaching Aron, and he knew he was in serious trouble.
He should make a break for his earthbound body—but what of Nic, still sending up desperate flares of crimson to light the other side of the Veil?
Nic was in trouble, and likely Snakekiller with him.
The lady reached out a long-fingered hand. Once more she spoke in that awful, enhanced voice. Don’t think to defy me, Aron. We’ve come too far together, you and I.
Aron intended just that, absolute defiance and disregard, but the first vision hit him like a boulder to the side of his head.
Harvest. The last time he saw his father, his mother, his family, as they disinherited him and allowed him to be taken by Stone. His heart almost broke at how close they seemed, how tangible. If he took a deep breath, he was certain he’d smell his mother’s spiced bread, or the oil of the leather straps in the family barn.
Something like tears formed in his real eyes, and the essence of his eyes as well. Was he still breathing? He wasn’t certain. Couldn’t feel the air flowing through him anymore. He wasn’t even sure he cared.
Next he saw the pile of bodies and bones, all that was left of the people he loved, languishing into decay on a forest floor.
Don’t make more mistakes, Aron, the lady he had taken for a goddess chided. Through her strange voice, Aron thought he could hear whimpering and crying, as if her presence might be hiding dozens of miserable children or wounded animals—or both. You have caused enough death, enough disaster for one lifetime.
Aron stopped moving away from the woman, overcome with the force of his own grief and recriminations. If he faced her now, took her on and put a stop to her, or whatever game she was playing, would that somehow begin to make up for all the lives lost in his name?
The mane of his brother Seth wavered beside him now, whispering just at it had done the night Aron saw him.
“Where are you, brother?” Seth—or what was left of him—asked, his inquiry eerily silent when it should have been so loud. His eyes were empty, and his mane’s fangs were already beginning to extend as the lady moved ever closer. “We have to find you. We can’t leave you behind.”
“Please,” Aron said aloud, aware of the boom of his voice. “Don’t leave me.”
The words came unbidden, an echo of what he told the carnivorous ghost of his brother after Seth died—but this couldn’t be Seth’s mane. Stormbreaker and Dari had dispatched his family’s essence that terrible night.
The lady was almost upon him now, arm still outstretched, cornflower eyes blazing with a new and hateful light. Her companions, the false stag and the man Aron supposed was designed to represent the Brother, marked her step for step, each staring at him with increasingly malign intent.
Aron’s essence sank to his knees beside the horrible image of his brother, his heart aching so badly he was certain he