Page 52 of Veil of Vasara (Fate of the Five #1)

CHAPTER 52- NEMINA

I recognised that face.

I recognised it, when I had touched the Captain’s chest, when I had seen that death, those people cutting down those children, the smoke. I had recognised her face.

She was screaming, she was pleading, begging them for mercy, but they had been laughing, laughing as her blood splattered across their clothes, as her body was mutilated.

I didn’t know how. I didn’t remember how, but I recognised her face.

I had been staring at my own hand for the past hour.

I had made it back to my hideout. Somehow, I had stumbled, dragged myself, barely managing to maintain my translucency, all the way back here. The enolith was glowing again in my palm, red, dark crimson, the colour of blood.

I didn’t even have the time to think about how I had left those two men alive. Perhaps it was good they were still breathing. Perhaps I had acted too impulsively but now, two people, two important people, if that Prince had been telling the truth, knew that I was here, in Vasara. They knew I was a sorcerer.

I had heard his words, as he gripped my wrists and shook them. I had heard them, and I could not, despite trying, formulate a reason why the Prince would spare my life, other than the possibility that he was actually innocent.

Had I been about to kill an innocent man?

I huffed and shook my head. No, the Prince may not have been responsible for that note, but he was far from an innocent man.

But I recalled, as I sat on the ground and time passed, I recalled that day when I had been selected for transfer from Audra, when that noble woman, cloaked in black and silver, had come to personally view me, as if I were an animal. I remembered she had reprimanded Marco for speaking to ‘her son' who she said had known ‘nothing.’

And it all seemed so obvious to me at that moment, how very wrong I had been.

But the thought that Baz, that people I had seen, had spoken to, even for a few moments, had suffered that way, made me sick, it made me…irrational.

There was a part of me that knew I was not well equipped to deal with these decisions, to deal with these revelations, but if not me…then who? Audra’s Prince had not even known about this plot. If we did nothing, what hope did we have for survival? At all?

And what would come after that? If we should succeed? A life? I didn’t know what that was. Learning to live, after years of just surviving would feel like learning to breathe after years of drowning. I knew the air would burn lungs used to water. That somehow, there was a bliss in the kiss of suffocation to me.

Was that why I had decided to fight in the end? Was my sense of justice truthfully a veil, for a deeper sense of fear? A fear of living. Fighting was all I knew. I’d turned fighting into my religion. Survival into my sanctuary, a siren I slowly got addicted to.

And now, I couldn’t stop listening.

The revelation rose upon me with my energy. It was time, to discard these thoughts for now, and move. I had regained enough strength, enough power, to use the enolith. I clasped my hands around it and reached out.

But I didn’t need to reach far.

Someone was close. Someone had already followed me here, and they were in possession of this stone’s counterpart. I could feel it.

Hello? I said down the stone.

Nemina? Is that you?

It was Baz’s voice.

You shouldn’t have come, I said.

You’ve been silent for over a week, he replied.

Where are you? he asked.

Go back. I didn’t answer his question.

They want you to come back.

I furrowed my brows, and stood, for no reason in particular.

Why? It’s not completely done yet.

They didn’t expect it to be complete, but they want you to come back. It’s too dangerous now. Things have changed since you left.

I gripped the stone tighter.

What things?

Just tell me where you are, then I’ll tell you.

As much as I wanted to stay here, and see this through, I’d already had my fill of impulsive decisions for one day, and I was exhausted, too exhausted to fight, or to talk, or to argue.

Are you alone? I put to him.

Silence for a few seconds.

No. There’s a Teleporter with me.

A Teleporter? That was a massive risk. Despite teleportation’s lower class, it was the ability that gave off the most energy, the most easily detectable energy. If trackers were around, and they sensed someone teleporting, that would not go unnoticed.

You can’t teleport here.

We have to.

They were here for me. The longer they looked, the more at risk they would become.

Use the stone as the location, a Teleporter can do it, I instructed him. At least, I had been told this before, by Nyla.

Moments later, the air in front of me began to blur, similarly to the way the environment may look behind the distortion of a flame. Only then, a small, dark red light bloomed at its centre. It spread out further and further until the circle was a door, and through that door, stepped Baz…and a woman.

The portal closed behind them, and before I had the chance to ask who the woman was, Baz ran towards me and…hugged me.

I lifted my arms up in the air, uncomfortable. It wasn’t Baz who made me uncomfortable, but the touching and the closeness he had thrown upon me.

“I thought…I was worried you might be dead,” he said into my shoulder.

“You…” I was about to tell him that he was being ridiculous, then thought back to my actions a few hours ago.

That, and the woman watching us, made me play along.

“I’m not.”

Baz let go of me and looked at me oddly. “I know that now but…still.”

I patted his upper arm awkwardly. Having to pretend we were a couple in front of other people was draining. I smiled slightly at him, but he was too perceptive for me.

“What happened, Nemina?” He sounded upset.

“We need to leave first. We can’t risk being found here.”

Baz nodded and took my hand. It was an effort not to snatch it away, but the woman’s gaze lingered on us.

“Who are you?” I asked her, frowning as I realised it had sounded cold.

“I’m Faina,” she replied.

“She’s nice,” Baz said, trying to reassure me. Faina smiled slightly at his words.

She seemed the kind of person Baz should have been spending his time around, not me.

“Great,” I said. “Thank you for the…” I made a circular motion in the air.

She nodded, meekly, then repeated the teleportation process.

This time we were shoved onto a pile of dark…sand, that seemed blacker than bronze under the night sky.

Sand. We were on sand.

There was only one Kingdom where sand existed.

I stood and looked down at my feet, my breathing quickened immediately.

Of all the draining centres I had been dragged to, Audra’s had been the worst by far. Tapping into memories of the place felt like flicking thin ice layered over a frigid lake, ready to crack and swallow me at the slightest intrusion.

I could not go back there again.

I would not go back.

“Baz…?” I looked at him, pulling down my hood. I could see without it, but it suddenly felt stifling.

He came over to me and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Don’t panic, we’re not staying here for long. We aren’t—"

“Why are we here at all?” I asked, fretfully.

“We’re meeting someone.”

Suddenly, an intense suspicion seized my thoughts. Was this really Baz? Was that woman really an ally? What if…they were illusions? What if, whatever had happened to me when I had touched that Captain was still affecting me?

I stepped back from him, my boots crunching into the golden grit beneath me.

“No…no, you…he wouldn’t bring me here…he wouldn’t.”

“I’m sorry…” He sounded remorseful. “I didn’t want to but—"

He reached out to me, but I pushed him away. The woman behind him, Faina, was watching us, wide eyed, and anxious.

“No. Don’t touch me. Who are you?”

“Nemina…it’s me.”

“That’s…no…” I sounded erratic, I could hear. It was difficult to, on one hand, be able to tell I was panicking, and on the other, believe the reason for my suspicion was justified.

That paper, that paper had come from here, that message.

I wouldn’t go back. I wouldn’t.

I lifted a blade out from my cloak and held it to my own throat.

“What?” His voice rose frantically “Nemina…what…. what are you doing, put…put it down! It’s me! It’s me!”

I looked at him, and at the woman, who was approaching me slowly as well.

“You’re not taking me back there.”

“I’m not! I…nobody’s taking you back anywhere…I told you, it’s me, and we’re here to meet someone and talk, that’s all, then we’re going back.”

“Back? Back where?”

“Remember…I said that something had changed? We were attacked on the border of Kalnasa. Vasara it’s too dangerous, and Zeima… it’s too far, and they’re still searching Jurasa after last time, but…but we…we’re in Kalnasa now. It’s not good there. It’s too crowded. We only came here to meet someone in private…and—"

“Meet who?”

Baz looked behind my shoulder and straightened up. “I’m sorry…she’s…” he said to someone behind me.

I whipped around, dragging my hood over my face as I did. I stretched the blade out in front of me, wincing at the movement. The Captain’s stab in the back hadn’t fully healed, I hadn’t been able to extract the fragmented parts of the blade out of my flesh.

“The same as usual,” a displeased voice emerged from a blue wave. Ullna stepped out of the portal along with Yaseer and two figures behind them I did not recognise. One of them was the Teleporter, a tanned woman with a dark braid, who closed it behind her. The other was a tall figure, a man, heavily cloaked, his face hidden.

I squeezed the handle of the blade tighter and said nothing.

“She thinks that this is a trap,” Baz explained quietly.

“If she were so particularly worried about a trap, she wouldn’t have been so careless,” Ullna replied.

I glanced at the four figures in front of me, trying to understand what was happening.

Ullna’s figure stepped forwards.

“We have a Navigator in Vasara, there for entirely different reasons. But, just hours ago, they communicated to us with their enolith, which they managed to keep on their person, that they had sensed a large wave of energy coming from the Palace. Acciperean energy.”

I gulped.

“We’ve had to extract every agent from within the city, because of your stupidity.” She came closer, completely undeterred by the dagger I was holding.

“Ullna,” Yaseer said to her calmly, “This is not the time.”

Ullna scoffed and pointed at me. “What did you do, girl?”

I kept my blade in my hand and remained silent…I wasn’t even sure what it was I had done, how to answer that question.

“Please…she’s—" Baz started.

“Quiet,” Ullna said to him, “Answer me,” she demanded.

My mind was both empty and addled. I still hadn’t decided whether or not I trusted what I was seeing. The pain in my back was growing sharper, and memories of what I ‘had done’ were tormenting and confusing me, all at once.

“I…I don’t know—"

“What do you mean you don’t know? Any Navigator or Tracker could have sensed it, something that large and powerful and yet you…do…not…know?" She stepped closer to me again.

I stepped back.

Yaseer spoke softly. “This is not an illusion, Nemina.”

I glanced at him. “Here…Here?”

“Nemina…please…” Baz approached me from the side.

I looked at him, through the cloak, still holding the blade in front of me.

“Nemina,” he whispered.

I bit my lips so hard I could feel the skin begin to bleed.

“How am I supposed to know?” I asked.

“Why…is she like this?” the woman who teleported the others asked quietly.

“This is normal,” Ullna sounded disappointed.

I turned to face her. My eyes darted between everyone. They were all looking at me cautiously, except for the cloaked man, who remained far behind, whose eyes I could not see.

“How else would we know all of this?” Ullna said.

“You just said it yourself, my…I…whatever I did set off an alarm. So, for all I know, this is an illusion, set by them…and I’m not going back there. I’m not.”

“What is she talking about?” the woman with the braid said.

It seemed I was making less and less sense to people. And to myself.

“Don’t you think a tracker would already have attempted to apprehend you? Employed the powers of several sorcerers to do so?” Ullna asked again.

“I wouldn’t know, I can’t remember the first time!” I shouted and jabbed my hand forwards to make my point.

I hissed through my teeth as I did, and bent forwards, winded.

“Nemina?” Baz came closer to me.

I stumbled back and stood again.

“We don’t have time for this,” Ullna said. “Do it,” she said to Yaseer.

Yaseer sighed. “This is not the best course of action.”

“We cannot linger.” Ullna turned to look at him, her words snapped in the air.

Baz came closer to me now. “Nemina, I know you’re frightened, and you don’t want to be here. Neither do I, alright? But we need to hurry, otherwise we’ll all end up dead, ok? Didn’t we say that we were going to be allies? Come on, don’t leave me here alone.”

Each breath I took ached, causing a crushing sharp pain in the back of my lungs which was worsening with each inhale.

Baz’s hands were in a pacifying position in the air. I looked at him and could feel my lips quivering slightly. This night had been too much. Too long. Too hard.

“Were you one of them?” I asked him suddenly.

“One…” Baz side eyed Ullna and Yaseer. “One of who?”

“One of the people…I heard screaming.”

Baz’s face fell, and became so serious, so cold, that I was almost sure in that moment I was in fact, in an illusion. It looked nothing like him at all.

“This is bad, Yaseer, her mind—" Ullna started.

“How did you know?” Baz asked, cutting her off.

Ullna stopped speaking, and I could see her shocked expression out of the corner of my eye.

It was so quiet here, so still. There was only a warm, musty breeze, drifting over the sand, scattering it against our clothes.

But in this moment, in this stillness, everything had shifted.

“So, it’s true,” I said, and put my arm down.

“What is true, boy? You had better explain,” Ullna shouted.

But Baz and I were looking at each other, so intently, that her voice had blended into the breeze for us.

Only he and I knew, only he and I had memories that seemed to rest in the very sand beneath our feet, seemed to torment us from below, where Audra’s draining centre lay.

Baz looked down at that sand, his eyes were so lifeless.

“Why didn’t you—"

“Because I have nowhere else,” he said.

Where else could an escaped Vessel go? Let alone one who was once human? He would be too dangerous for non-magic wielders. Too useless for the sorcerers. He had been afraid, I understood, that if this group discovered his truth, they would have discarded him. Perhaps they’d try to now.

Suddenly, I couldn’t see.

I lifted my blade up again, gasping.

“What are you doing?” Baz asked someone.

Yaseer’s voice rang out. “She is too unstable—"

I couldn’t see. How couldn’t I see?

“What have you done to me?” I waved my blade around in the air.

“It is only temporary Nemina. Please, relax,” Yaseer replied.

Relax? Fucking relax?

“We cannot have you harm someone,” Ullna said.

Is that what they thought? That I was dangerous? That I was some wild beast they had to cage. To chain like the creatures of sorcery bound to each Kingdom.

“No…let me see, don’t—"

“Can’t you see this is making it worse?!” Baz shouted.

The pain in my back throbbed, so intensely I let out a cry, and fell to the ground.

“Nemina!” Baz shouted.

“We don’t have the time for this!” Ullna shouted again, "Baz…use your abilities, put her to sleep.”

Ullna’s voice became higher in pitch as she addressed someone. “What…where are you going?”

Someone’s footsteps sounded from my right. They were quick and light, but purposeful.

Their owner knelt beside me. I tried to move away but they placed a hand on my shoulder. I jerked and slapped it away.

“Don’t…don’t touch me,” I said to the mysterious figure in the air.

“Move away from her!” Ullna shouted at the person.

Completely ignoring her, the person spoke. “Where does it hurt?”

It was a man’s voice, cool and soft. It was a voice I did not recognise.

Meaning, that it had to be the cloaked figure who until now, had been surveying this scene from a distance.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at his question.

Where does it hurt? Everywhere. Every muscle, every bone, every tendon, every corner of my mind, my chest.

I let out a weak laugh, that sounded as if it was brimming with the promise of tears.

“She’s dangerous, can’t you see!” Ullna said, coming closer.

The person sounded as if he rotated around. He didn’t say anything, but for some unknown reason, Ullna became quiet, and backed away.

“Let her see,” he said.

Yaseer sighed. In the next moment, my vision became clearer. The figure next to me was tall, and his cloak, now I could see it more clearly, was not black, but dark grey.

I looked up at him. He had a hood on near identical to mine, only darker. He reached out slowly towards my own.

I jerked away.

“Don’t—" Ullna started, but the man turned around to face her. She swallowed and gritted her teeth, instantly silencing once again.

The man’s hand was hovering by my face, “May I?” he asked.

Unfortunately, I could think of no-good reason to refuse, and I was keen to keep my five senses.

I didn’t speak, and the man took that as confirmation.

His hand was ungloved, it was pale, slender, but muscular, and long. It was unadorned but looked smooth. He was probably not an ordinary member of this group, whose hands were all cut, bruised, calloused, and dirty.

As I was evaluating his origins, his hand made contact with the crimson fabric of my hood, and slowly drew it back.

Everyone gasped, except for the man, who remained silent.

I avoided looking at them and focused on the upper part of the man’s chest, trying my best to avoid looking at his pointed chin.

“Your skin…” Baz said.

Yes, my skin was still healing from the burns I had suffered.

“It’s…” I laughed and glanced at Baz’s feet. “It’s far from the worst thing I’ve experienced.”

Baz’s hand was over his mouth. I dreaded to think how I appeared. My eyes were cast down. I didn’t wish to see the horror in their glances.

A hand came to rest at my chin. It was the man’s hand. He held it with his index finger and thumb, and slowly, tried to tilt my face up. I tried to resist him.

“It’s far from the worst thing I’ve seen,” he said, echoing my words, in a tone that was only ever used when people were trying to comfort another person.

Not that I had heard such a tone very often.

I let out a shuddering breath, and let him guide my face upwards.

He stopped, his jaw clenched, his thumb pressed ever so slightly harder into my chin.

“Can you…?” Ullna said, directing her statement at the man.

Can you what?

I moved my eyes in her direction briefly, then looked back at the man, who still seemed tense. “So much for being ‘not the worst thing you’ve ever seen’,” I grumbled.

“It is not that,” he said quietly.

He moved his hand up so that it came towards my cheek.

His hand had been on my face for a long time. I didn’t have good experiences with people touching my face.

Unconsciously, I jerked away again.

“He’s trying to help you,” Ullna said, surprisingly softly.

“I’m…” I glanced back at him. His hand was hovering over the left side of my face now, which had been burnt.

He sat there patiently, not demanding anything, just waiting.

“I’m just not…I don’t...” I stuttered.

Ullna scoffed. Again.

Baz tutted. “Is it so hard for you to guess why?” He sounded angry.

Ullna crossed her arms and said nothing.

The man moved so that he was fully in front of me now, blocking Ullna out of my view. He was crouching, his knees bent.

I didn’t move. I examined his face, where his eyes might have been. I knew he was looking into mine, despite not being able to see his.

I nodded yes.

His fingers moved up my left jaw and rested there, his thumb softly pressed against my cheek, next to my nose. It was difficult for me not to shudder at the touch, from its unfamiliarity, and the pain it caused.

“I know,” he said, “But it won’t be long.”

Within a few seconds, my face started to feel warm, but gently so. It prickled in the way the sun probably felt against people’s skin, people who were used to its light, and could stand its heat. He withdrew his hand seconds later.

I reached up with my own and touched my face. It was completely smooth and healed. It hadn’t just been my cheek, but my lips and the eyelids and the hair on that side too, that had been singed.

I understood then.

“Healer,” I whispered.

He nodded.

“Where else?” he asked.

“Aren’t we supposed to be discussing—" the woman with the braid said.

“That can wait,” the man in front of me answered. Again, the woman was instantly silent.

I regarded him, squinting. How was it that he commanded so much authority?

“My back,” I said quietly.

He moved around to my side and placed his hand on my shoulder blade.

After touching it, he drew it back almost instantly, and came to my side.

Without asking for permission this time, he grabbed my chin, and looked at my face much more deeply.

“What…let go of me,” I said, but it wasn’t his touch distressing me now, more his demeanour.

“What’s the matter?” Ullna stepped closer to us.

“Who attacked you?” the man asked me, his voice was still soft, but now, it was pressing.

“I…” I hadn’t planned on telling them.

“What is—" Ullna started.

But the man answered, his voice raised so everyone could hear.

“She has Noxstone in her back.”