Page 8 of Veinblood
I force my head up, vision blurring. An elderly man hovers above me, wearing a heavy coat and wire-rimmed glasses. Beyond him, I catch glimpses of …storefronts?Glass windows reflecting light. The smell hits me again, that acrid scent I should know.
“I—” The words stick in my throat.
Where is Sacha?
He was beside me only seconds ago. Now there’s only empty air where he should be standing. This doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense.
“Did you fall? Should I call someone?” The man leans closer, reaching toward me.
“No.” The word feels awkward on my tongue.
I push myself to my knees, then unsteadily to my feet, taking in the scene around me with mounting confusion. Buildings lined with glass windows. Signs I can read. People bundled in winter coats, their breath visible in the frigid air.
“Thank you. I’m fine.”
The lie burns my throat.Fine. As if anything about this is fine when I don’t know where Sacha is, whether he’s alive, or whether he’s facing Sereven’s rage alone. And I’m …here.
How am I here?
“Are you sure?” The question drags my attention back to the man beside me. A slight frown wrinkles his brow as he takes in my clothing, and I follow his gaze down, seeing what he sees. Fitted hand-stitched leather vest, travel-worn boots. Meridian clothing, designed for a world of hardship and brutality, but absurdly out of place for where I am now.
“I’m sure.” What else can I say, really, without sounding like I’m insane?
He stares at me for a second or two longer, then backs away, clearly deciding I can be someone else’s problem. I don’t blame him. I must look deranged with my strange clothing, and the way I collapsed on the ground.
Shopping bags are scattered across the sidewalk around my feet, their contents spilling into the snow. My mind moves sluggishly as I stare at them, recognition dawning with sickening certainty. These are the same bags I was carrying when I was snatched from Earth and transported to Meridian's desert months ago.
My purse sits among them, the leather damp with snow. I snatch it up, fingers clumsy with shock. Inside are my keys, subway card, breath mints, a favorite lipstick and random receipts. All items from an existence that belongs to someone I used to know, before I learned what it really meant to fight for survival.
It all belongs to the life of a woman who worried about sales and Christmas gifts, and measured her world in paychecks and weekend plans.
The world around me refuses to make sense. Christmasdecorations shine in store windows, garish after the subtle natural beauty of Meridian. Holiday music drifts from open doors, cheerful and meaningless after the Veinwarden songs that spoke of freedom and loss. Traffic crawls through thickening snow—actualcars—while in another world, Authority forces might be preparing to attack Stonehaven, and the people I’ve come to care about.
These streets … Iknowthese streets. The spacing between street lights, the way buildings line up, the smell of the bakery on the corner mixing coffee and cinnamon into the winter air. My feet know where to go even while my mind struggles to accept it.
How can this ordinary scene exist in the same universe where I fought alongside Mira and Varam? Where magic flows through certain bloodlines. Where Sacha commands shadows with a thought.
Sacha.
His name sends a shock through me.
Where is he? What happened when our powers touched the crystal? Is he still in Thornspire facing Sereven alone?
The thought makes my stomach twist.
He’s not dead. I know that. I’d feel that absence like a wound. But where is he?
Light flickers beneath the skin of my wrist, and I jerk my sleeve down, heart racing, looking around to see if anyone noticed. The power followed me back. Proof that Meridian wasn’t a dream or a hallucination.
Someone brushes past me, muttering an apology withoutstopping. The contact forces my mind to focus on the immediate problem. I need to get somewhere safe. Somewhere private. I gather my shopping bags before I attract more unwanted attention.
No. This can’t be right.
But my feet carry me forward anyway, turning corners without conscious thought. Three blocks. The number rises in my mind. My apartment is three blocks from here.
My apartment. How is that even possible?
Three blocks to privacy where I can process what happened. Where I can break down, or rage, or plan without pretending everything is normal in a world that can’t be real.
