Tempest (The Chronicles of Winterset #2) - K.G. Reuss
Chapter 1
He’s dead.
The words repeated in my head, mercilessly bouncing off the walls of my grief-stricken mind. His face lingered in my thoughts, the tragedy written upon it, as I tumbled off the cliff. I kept seeing him fall beside me, giving his life so that I might live. His voice echoed in the darkness, telling me he loved me. I could feel the electricity charging through me, only mine now.
He’s dead.
I wanted to wake up from the terrible nightmare. I wanted to open my eyes and see Calix’s smiling face, feel his energy surge through me, and see his dark eyes shining brightly as he looked at me. I needed his touch, his kiss. I struggled against the force holding me down, against the pain in my heart, the realization that the man I loved was gone all because of me.
I didn’t know where I was or how long I’d been there. Since the evening on the cliff, I hadn’t opened my eyes. It could’ve been a day, or it could’ve been a hundred. It didn’t matter. Time didn’t matter if Calix wasn’t there.
I didn’t matter.
I tuned out the concerned voices whispering around me. They sounded frantic and frightened, afraid I may never wake up. I didn’t want to wake up, but I knew it was inevitable, just like the future that was spread out before me. Calix died so I could live. But if living meant being without him, then I feared I was dying a million deaths.
My throat tightened as tears begin to form. They squeezed out of my eyes in warm rivers and cascaded down my cold cheeks.
A warm touch tenderly brushed them aside. A whisper sounded from far away.
“It’s going to be OK,” the familiar deep voice murmured, an accent now touching what used to sound so different. “It has to be OK.”
I breathed out and let the comfort of sleep take over.
Chapter 2
I winced as the tingling in my chest grew and slowly leaked throughout my body, blanketing me in comfortable warmth. I wiggled my fingers and toes, testing them to see if they still worked. There was something within me forcing me to wake up and face reality.
I hadn’t opened my eyes in what felt like weeks, maybe even months. I shuddered to think how long I’d laid there, how long it had been since Calix held me.
My eyelids fluttered, as I tried to force them open. I needed to know he was really gone. That this wasn’t a horrendous dream, another of my visions. With great effort, I willed my eyes to open.
I stared blearily around the dark room in confusion, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew from the soft, plush bed that this wasn’t my room, and if this wasn’t my room, then maybe everything I’d relived during my slumber had been real.
Wincing, I struggled out of the bed. Gingerly, I rose, only to collapse in a heap on the cold, stone floor. I cried out as I made contact with it, my muscles screaming in agony as I tried to get them to work.
Reaching out, I grasped at a large ornate rug and pulled myself across the floor, grimacing as the pain shot through my body like hot lightning. It felt like I’d been hit by a bus. I had to remind myself I’d fallen off a cliff and that was the reason for the soreness and tenderness in my body. A bus wasn’t really a far stretch.
I continued my journey across the room and managed to almost make it to the door before the muscles in my arms gave out, leaving me in a helpless pile on the cool floor, shivering with tears streaming down my face.
I licked my cracked lips and tried to call for help, but the rawness in my throat made it ache like it had a million tiny cuts in it.
“H-help.” my voice cracked, barely above a whisper, as I tried to get someone’s attention. “P-plea-ease.”
I called out again and again and was just about to resign myself to a night on the cold floor when the heavy doors to the room were thrown open, casting light inside. Footsteps rushed into the room.
“Analia,” a familiar voice called out, the owner kneeling beside me and pushing my hair out of my face. “Go! Get help.”
In one swift movement, the man reached down and pulled me into his arms, lifting me into the air.