Page 56 of Heir to a Curse

He studied me for a few seconds and nodded. “Stay.” He touched his stomach. “Okay?”

“Yes. I could stand to lose a few pounds anyway. We’ll call it intermittent fasting.”

“Intermittent fasting…” he repeated, the phrase obviously completely foreign to him.

“Not important. Let’s go see this world, yeah? Just don’t let me get eaten by a giant snake or anything.”

Near the door there was a stash of dozens of sandals. I found a set that fit okay, and waited for him to open the door. It was an odd shift to the room. Like opening it, even temporarily removing that barrier, let a whole mess of magic into the room. A prickling sensation rolled over my skin, raising goosebumps on my arms and making me shiver. I glanced back at the space, Xiang’s sanctuary, but he stepped out into the light of the day and the expanse of walkways. Once I followed him, he tugged the door closed and pressed his hands to the wards. The paper wards glowed for a few seconds, and that last edge of peace given by the sanctuary vanished, leaving me with a weight on my chest, and anxiety churning in my gut.

Xiang turned to me and held out a hand. I took it, squeezing it, and really holding on for dear life. Being alone in this world was not something I would survive. Xiang was stronger than I could ever imagine being. Which made my heart ache again, realizing I was truly the weakest link. If not for me, would he be in this situation at all? Even if it wasn’t the current version of me’s fault, I would have liked to think I’d been smart enough in all these years to figure out how to help him. Instead of leaving him to suffer, over and over again.

We wandered through the buildings and along the pathways, not in a race to go anywhere. The sun was still high in the sky, which I took to mean we had time. I found a completely different place in the daylight. Yes, it stretched on for a distance with broken doors and empty rooms, but now I could see the signs of battles waged. Scratches gouged into the sides of rooms, doorways shattered, some rooms with roofs caved, the first few little more than rubble as we finally reached the main steps.

Standing there, on the top of the steps strewn with debris, and looking outward, I couldn’t help but be awed. I’d expected, I don’t know, perhaps a wide space looking into overgrowth or something. Yet we stood as though on top of the world, looking out over an endless space of glowing plants and in the distance, lights. Like looking at the Earth from a space shuttle.

For a moment I was caught up in the ethereal beauty of it. Gasped at the colors and scenery. Like standing on the top of a mountain and looking out over lushly forested land, it went on forever. Sky blue, peppered with clouds edged in pink and green. I almost imagined it was a fairyland for a few moments. Something out of a book, yet there I stood, breathing it all in, awed and yet terrified. Did the lights mean there were more people here?

Xiang tugged me down the stairs. I followed, apprehension growing in my gut. Maybe not people. And that was an even more terrifying thought. The plants, the lights, the expanse of endless space stretching forward, was it filled with monsters? Things Xiang had to fight every day to survive?

Surprisingly the stairs didn’t last as long as I thought they should. We arrived at a path, well worn, wide, with plant life pressed and trampled like something large had recently been through. “You’re sure it’s safe?” I asked.

Xiang nodded. He tugged us in a weaving path through endless thickets. It almost felt like the rose maze for a few minutes as we passed a wall of thorns so large a man could be skewered on them. We paused briefly in an opening that looked out over a fountain which appeared manmade, but didn’t actually go closer.

I could hear voices. It took a few moments, but I could finally make out enough to determine they were speaking French. There was no one to be seen anywhere, but distinctly, I could hear their voices, as though we stood somewhere that people frequented, only on the other side of some dimensional divide.

“What?” I asked Xiang. He shrugged. Were these all portals to the mortal world? Why so many?

He tugged me forward, guiding me through a dozen small areas. Some with Asian voices, some American, some European. I didn’t know enough languages to keep up. Finally we stood on the edge of a small lake, the greenery around it so large I couldn’t tell if there was another way out somewhere. But the area felt familiar, even though I couldn’t hear anyone.

Xiang tugged me along the edge of the lake, close to a thicket of trees intertwined so thickly, they could have been a wall. And then I saw it. The doors to the shrine. The new ones, not the old ones. Surrounded by trees and branches woven so thickly into them, they appeared to have been there forever, blending into the brown expanse. If I hadn’t known what they looked like, I might have missed it completely.

“Home?” Xiang pointed.

I shook my head. “Not yet.” I swallowed hard, knowing on the other side of those doors was the life I’d lived for forty-five years, not always easy, but not the hardship of Xiang’s existence. On the other side of those doors waited loneliness. “Unless you want me to leave?”

He shook his head, then sighed, looking sad. “Soon.”

Yeah, I wouldn’t be able to stay. We both knew that.

“All these places, are they linked to shrines?” I wondered.

“Family,” he said.

But Sofia had given me the house, did that mean the doorway would vanish? The wild life did seem to be trying to reclaim it, but I hadn’t noticed any doorways in the other areas. Not that we’d done more than pass by them. I put my hand to my chest. “I’m not family.”

He shook his head, put his hand over mine. “Family.”

“Sofia put my name on the wall but…”

“Family,” he repeated.

I swallowed back the ache of losing Sofia again. She’d meant a lot to me. Had she known about Xiang? Perhaps even realized that we were somehow meant to be together, even if it was doomed. I gripped his hand and tugged him away, back to the main path. We were so deep in the overgrowth I couldn’t see the palace. “Can we go back?”

The unease in my gut was so intense it hurt. More than hunger, and more than the feeling of helplessness. It was like something woke the fight or flight sense in my brain, telling it we were in danger, lighting all my nerves on fire.

“Please?” I asked. I would rather spend time in his garden, than explore a world I could almost feel stalking me as prey.

He nodded and we wove our way back. I had no desire to stop. Not at any of the many places that seemed to allow him to listen in to the modern world. In fact, most of those areas radiated with menace, like a red flag warning us that if we got too close, something would leap out and eat us.

It wasn’t until we reached the door to his inner sanctum that I finally relaxed a little. He had to renew the wards, add new talismans to the door. It took blood and energy. He sagged into the door when it finally opened and I practically carried him inside.

Once shut, the seal returned, peace settling over us. But Xiang was visibly exhausted. Not from the trip, but from the wards. I carried him to the bed and burrowed the two of us into his tiny space, delivering kisses to his face, and soft caresses over his skin, which seemed to twitch like it hurt, so I stopped.

He sighed into my lips. “Stay a bit,” he said.

“I plan to,” I promised, pulling the blankets up around us. Time was not on our side, but I’d take whatever few moments I could spare with him.