Page 44 of Between Soul and Vessel
“What are you?” I asked, my voice breathless.
“I am a vuleerie. My kind is loyal to Nockrythiam and by extension, you,” she answered, floating above me.
I did not lower my blade, keeping it firmly pointed at her. “Why are you here?”
“We received a message from an unknown source, written on a scroll with information about you, that you had returned and the empress was sending you to this arena to have your soul crushed. A white hair was wound around the scroll. My niece tasted it and confirmed that it did indeed belong to you. And so, we have come to rescue you,” she replied.
Avriel.That’swhyshe’d needed my hair. She must have been the one to send the scroll to them. And somehow, it had worked. The priestess seemed to believe that the vuleeries would help me. I took a breath, hoping she was right.
I dissolved my sword, and asked, “How do I get out of here?”
“I’ll take you,” she said, flying over top of me.
With surprising gentleness, her talons clutched onto my shoulders. My hands wrapped around her scaly legs as she lifted me. She flew us out of the blazing arena, high up into theazure sky.
Sage
“Where are we going?” I asked the vuleerie, unsure if I had made the right decision as I peered down at the sprawling hills. We were very,veryhigh, and if she dropped me, I’d be flatter than roadkill.Scratch that.I’d be microscopic Sage splatter. I squinted. How did that work with immortality, especially when I couldn’t heal myself? Would I spend an eternity like that, misted upon the ground?
I swallowed uncomfortably.No. Nope.I didn’t like that thought.
“To the Moriel Forest,” she answered, voice as disturbing as ever.Lovedthat for me.
“What’s there?” I inquired curiously.
“Not what, butwho,” she replied.
I decided to bite. “Whois there?”
“You’ll see,” the spectral creature said, then her beak snapped open and she let out an eerie sound. I realized witha degree of horror she was . . .chuckling.
Fuck me.
What had I gotten myself into?
I took a breath, forcing it inside my frozen-stiff lungs, and tried not to lose my shit. Which, all things considered, I think I had a right to lose.
I was in an unfamiliar land, ruled over by an evil empress who wanted me dead-deadfor reasons I didn’t fully understand—reasons, I surmised, attached to yetanotherpast life I’d clearly had. Not to mention I’d lit an entire arena on fire, burned a giant alive, and now, I was being flown to an unknown location by a shadow-ghost-skull-faced-bird who laughed like a homicidal lunatic.
I repeated—fuck me.
It was all so much to process—too muchto process.
Forcing an exhale, I focused on my breathing and tried not to think abouteverything. Instead, I lied to myself. I was just enjoying a leisurely flight to a cottage in the woods. Nothing more. Nothing less. I breathed again. Repeated the lie. Another breath.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
In truth, the only thing that kept me going was Von’s promise—
I’m going to get you back,his words repeated inside my mind.
In the arena, when he had knelt before me, I had struggled to decide if he was real or not, but something within me told me that he was. So I leaned into his words, letting them be the spark that ignited the fire within me—tofight, to make it out alive.
Deep down, I believed we would be together again.
I believed we would find our way to one another.
I just had to stay alive long enough for that to happen, which meant I needed to keep my wits about me. I needed to stay alert. Track my surroundings. Form a mental map and learn the geography of this foreign world. It probably wouldn’t hurt if I tried to recover some of the memories from my past life too.
