Page 121 of Daughter of No Worlds

My mouth opened.

I was going insane.

{You are not.}

My mouth snapped shut.

Silence, save for my pounding heartbeat.

I waited.

Nothing.

My head lolled, throbbed. But then, just as I felt myself begin to drift out of consciousness again, I heard it, as if coming from very far away:

{Perhaps he will return for me,}the voice mused.

“Who are you?”

Maybe the better question was…what?

{Reshaye,} it answered, simply.{I am many things.}

I was definitely going insane.

{You are not. Do you frequently repeat yourself?}

The weapon will become a part of you, Zeryth had told me.

You talk about it as if it is a person.

A dawning realization bloomed, scalding up my spine.

{Have you been enjoying my stories? I still have many to tell.}

It swung in and out like a dangling lantern, the light casting garish, shifting shadows on the recesses of my mind. It was as tired and disoriented as I was. I could feel it.

{Yours feel familiar. You smell like a touch I knew once long ago. Or maybe a story that I have since forgotten.}

Images shuffled through my vision again — pausing at a brief memory of my hands running through those famous Threllian plains, letting the tall grass tickle my fingers. Backwards. Then again.

“You know Max?” I whispered. Stupid question. I knew the answer.

A purr of familiarity slithered in the space between my thoughts.{You do know. So why you do ask?}

Again, that childlike confusion.

{Why?}it pressed. I realized it wanted an actual answer.

“Don’t you see my thoughts?”

{There are many things I see but do not understand.}

“Me too. And that is why I asked.”

The presence sighed — or at least it felt like it. Like an exhale. It made my skin crawl.

{Maxantarius and I have nothing but each other.}

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