Chapter 61: City Of Glass

Three suns hang above the horizon.

One burns a pale gold, one is amber and the third one is so soft that it almost disappears into the morning sky.

I squint to look at them. Every time I see them, I’m hit with an odd sensation in my chest. They should be beautiful, they should make me feel light and hopeful.

Instead, I lower my head and keep walking.

My bare feet sink into damp moss that cushions every step. I look to my side, eyeing the silver petaled flowers that seem to be everywhere in the grass and along the trees.

The petals turn toward me, as if I’m their source of light and food. Frost gathers over them before melting again, following the rhythm of my breathing.

When I first saw them do that, my heart leapt into my throat. But now, I don’t even notice their soft, gentle movements.

Weeks have passed since the portal tore me away from everything I love.

I stopped counting after the first few days. Time means nothing when every sunrise begins with the same thought.

Maybe today he’ll find me.

And it means even less when the hopeful thoughts don’t enter your mind with every sunset. I no longer tell myself that maybe tomorrow will be the day. Now, I just know that it won’t be.

Hope is a cruel thing.

It survives far longer than it should. Until one morning when it simply doesn’t wake up with you anymore. I feel its absence through every inch of my body.

My skin pricks, goosebumps lining my arms and trailing down to my toes. I always hear it in my body before I hear it.

“There you are.”

The voice carries through the wind, washing across the blades of grass.

“Anointed.”

My head snaps toward the sound, but there is no one there. All I can see is the long stretch of grass beneath the three suns, like an endless meadow.

I keep walking, letting my toes sink into the dirt. Kaan only lets me walk so much on my own, and I take every second I can.

“Anointed.”

I stop where I am, closing my eyes. The whispered word slivers down my spine. I lift my head, turning to the side. This time I catch the brief outline of an elderly woman standing beneath a crooked tree.

Her long dress moves in a breeze I can’t feel. The rest of the world is completely still. When I look over my shoulder to see if Kaan is there, and turn back, she’s gone.

Ever since crossing the portal, the glimpses have become more frequent. They never stay for long, and they never speak directly to me. But I can see them like a dream, there one second and gone the next.

Always fragments.

The first time it happened, Kaan searched the hills for whoever I kept turning toward. Now he doesn’t even ask. He can’t hear them, only I can. But that doesn’t matter, it’s not like I can tell him what they’re saying.

The absence of my tongue feels less like an injury now and more like another part of me that’s gone.

Like Dastan.

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to imagine Dastan in front of me right now. I refuse to let his face fade, retracing the lines of his jaw and his cheeks until the memory of him is strong.

I know every jagged edge of his scar, the sound of his voice when he speaks to me and says my name. I hold on to every detail until my chest hurts.

I wonder what he’s doing. If he gave up after I crossed the portal. Is he looking for me? Did he cross?

My heart drops to my stomach. I’m not sure it matters, not sure if he’ll ever catch up to me. Thoughts of him no longer fill me with certainty.

“Keep moving.”

Kaan’s voice cuts through my thoughts, and I grimace. I wrap my arms around myself to stop the twist in my stomach that makes me feel sick.

I don’t look at him as he passes me, expecting me to follow him. He slows his pace, and I start walking.

He never walks beside me anymore, having learned his lesson the first three times I tried to run. He keeps his distance now, always out of my reach.

We walk for a few minutes when he slows his pace to a complete stop. He’s watching the horizon, eyes moving across the distant hills, searching.

His jaw flexes with impatience. “It has to be here.”

He takes another few steps, getting higher up the hill before stopping again. I stay behind, watching him as his entire body stiffens. He drops to his knees, lifting his arms up.

“Yes! Yes!”

My stomach knots, and I force myself to walk up the hill to see what he sees. I follow his gaze, my breath leaving my lungs.

A city stretches just beyond us, across the valley.

Except it doesn’t look like any city or kingdom I’ve ever seen or imagined.

White towers spiral from the ground up into the sky. They’re tall, seamless, and completely out of the ordinary. There are bridges that look as if they’ve been made of crystal stretch between buildings. I can even see people walking across them.

The surrounding walls and buildings don’t look as if they are made of stone. They’re almost translucent, letting light pass through but no visible shadows.

For one impossible moment, I forget about Dastan. About Kaan and the blood. The city steals every thought from my mind.

The whispers return, this time like a full force, like a wave.

“She’s here.”

“The Anointed.”

“Can she hear us?”

“The lost daughter.”

The voices come from everywhere and tears prick my eyes. I look toward the city, over the people that cover the streets. An overwhelming sensation of belonging brings me to my knees.

I don’t welcome the feeling, like it’s a betrayal to everything I have ever known. It’s a battle inside me. It’s everything I was searching for that night I left my home. But now that I’m faced with it, it pains me.

I turn rigid when a person walks out of city, heading toward us. It’s a young girl with long black hair that floats in the wind.

She’s laughing, talking aloud as she turns to face someone. She hugs them, but there’s no one there. Her arms wrap around nothing but air.

It takes me a moment to realize that she’s not alive.

My heart pounds painfully against my ribs.

I blink, and she’s gone.