Cold Steel

20

Death wasn’t all bad, because it felt a lot like kissing Vai. Our embrace distracted me for longer than it should have. Then I remembered what had happened. Still clutching him, I broke off the kiss.

Inhaled.

I could not breathe.

I could not breathe.

I could not breathe.

An undertow sucked me down.

The abyss of the past is a black chasm. It is too dark to see clearly, yet its waters run all through us.

I am six years old. In the drowning depths of the Rhenus River, my papa and mama are dying. As the water closes over my head, my mother’s strong hand slips out from mine. She has lost me, and I’ve lost her. I open my mouth to cry for her, but all that rushes in is smoke.

We were going to die in the smoke unless I could find a gate and cut our way out.

“Mama,” I whispered, clawing my way through dense fog toward a half-glimpsed beacon.

For there she was, she and Daniel, in the shadow of the ice cliff. They were striding across a stony shore to meet the men who were pushing a boat down to the ice-gray waters for their escape.

“Mama,” I said, louder, finding strength in desperation.

She halted, dragging Daniel to a stop. “Did you hear something?”

He looked up at the face of the ice. “Just the wolves and the wind.”

“No, something else.” She rested a hand on her belly and extended the other arm as if hoping to touch something she could not quite see. “A child. I heard a child calling to me.”

Blessed Tanit, keep me in your heart. Do not let me die.

I will not die.

I bit my lip hard enough to raise blood as I reached for and grasped the memory of her hand.