But she was happy for a meal, so she looked up at her father for permission.
“I tell you what,” he said, amused. “Why don’t you have a seat over there? I want you to watch what we do tonight, but just to watch, okay? Eat what you want, but don’t make a sound.”
She nodded impatiently; he’d explained as much to her many times over the weeks aboard the Navigator’s ship. “Don’t make a sound. Pay attention, but if your head starts to feel strange, it’s okay to close your eyes. You need to be brave, and look closely, but not too closely.” Most of her instructions she didn’t entirely understand, but she’d committed them to memory anyway. She was afraid that he’d start reciting them all if she didn’t escape, so she scurried over to the snacks.
Her father and the others began to talk, and she started to relax. The food was delicious, if a little less than fresh, and her father laughed and joked with these people. Three were women and two men, all much older than her parents, which made her father the youngest person in the circle. That was a strange thought: her father, young.
Jyrine was just starting to get bored when her father gestured to her to stay where she was. She almost jumped out of her chair with excitement.
She didn’t know what was about to happen, nor why they’d traveled for weeks across the ocean, but she was finally about to find out.
Maybe she would learn why her mother had tried to stop her from coming.
Her father had changed into a brown robe, though his hood didn’t quite cover his face. All the robed figures knelt around the stack of wood, speaking in another language. That was strange in itself; everyone in the world spoke Imperial, according to her tutors. There was a time when the Emperor had imprisoned people for speaking the wrong words, or even for having too much of an accent, though that was a long time ago. Now tutors like hers, under the supervision of the Witness’ Guild, made sure everyone could understand each other.
Wherever her father had picked up this strange language, she wasn’t sure she liked it. He and his friends sounded like they were imitating the hunchbacked man outside, hissing in through their teeth, though the sound was mixed in with clicking tongues and a few words that she thought she could almost understand. All in all, it was like listening to a snake trying to have a conversation with a swarm of bugs.
Something caught her eye, and she glanced down at the pile of sticks. A green light kindled inside, like the world’s smallest quicklamp. She’d seen shows before where they used strange-colored quicklamps to set the mood, but those were expensive. So expensive that she was surprised to see one here.
The light spread, and she realized it wasn’t a quicklamp after all. It was a fire. But rather than the comforting, homey orange light she was used to, this was a poisonous green flame that cast everything in harsh shades of emerald.
But she wasn’t paying attention to anything else, because the fire was fascinating. How had they done that? Did they burn some alchemy to change the color of the flames, or was one of the robed figures a Soulbound?
She hoped so. She’d always dreamed about meeting a Soulbound.
Jyrine was staring into the fire when the world seemed to blink out. It startled her enough that she looked around the room, to see if the older men and women had reacted, only to find that the room had left her behind.
She wasn’t looking out into the chamber of a golden temple anymore. Instead, she sat on top of a high mountain, surrounded by towering clouds and piles of flawless snow. She knew it was cold from the snow flurries and the howl of the wind, though the temperature didn’t touch her.
Jyrine tried to get up and look over the edge of the peak, but she couldn’t move. She stifled her moment of panic. It’s like watching a play, she thought. I’ll sit back and enjoy the show, just like they always say.
Put that way, she could think of this like a holiday. No play had ever created such a vivid picture as this one, and maybe she’d get to see something that even her father had never seen.
She looked around, enjoying the scenery, when she noticed that there were other peaks around her. There must be miles in between the mountains, because they were hazy with distance, but one in particular caught her eye. It loomed over all the others, and there was something strange about its shape. Jyrine focused on it, and suddenly she could see it clearly, as if she’d moved closer.
This mountain was riddled with holes, like someone had drilled dozens of mines everywhere they could, and something wove in and out of each one. At first she thought it was a giant snake, burrowing through the mountain, but she quickly realized that the skin was too smooth for scales. And its body was segmented in lines, like an earthworm.
It was a giant worm, woven in and out through the rocky peaks as though the mountain were nothing more than a rotten apple.
And as she watched, the worm began to move. It slid forward, displacing rocks in an avalanche, slithering and squirming deeper. It was repulsive to watch, certainly, and her mother would probably have told her to look away. But it was the kind of disgust that meant she couldn’t look away; she was too horrified and too fascinated all at once.
A sense of hunger, of growing dread, suffused the vision like someone else’s emotions were pressing down on her.
“YOU ARE ONLY A PILE OF MEAT,” a voice declared, deafeningly loud and yet somehow still a whisper. Jyrine leaned forward as the mountain rumbled, eager to see the worm’s giant, repulsive head emerge.
Just as she was sure it was about to pop out, the scene shifted.
This time she floated above a field of flowers. Once she adjusted to her disappointment at missing the end of the last dream, she enjoyed the new one; even the scent of flowers seemed to drift up, as delicate and pure as the most expensive perfume. She looked between the petals and realized that the flowers weren’t planted in grass, but rather floating on lilypads. And under the lilies, a red pool.
A coppery smell reached her, underneath the more pleasant notes of the flowers, and she wondered if it was a sea of blood.
Hands reached up from between flowers, dripping scarlet, like human hands but six-fingered and wrong. They groped for the sky, and the scene shifted again.
This time, Jyrine couldn’t contain her impatience. “Go back!” she complained, but no one responded. Were all of these visions going to end just before something good happened?
The third one did the same. She was inside a dim cave, which had been filled by a mound of bleached bones. Tens of thousands of bones surrounded her in waves and piles, and the only sound was a distant crunching sound. It grew louder, until she could see something rushing toward her beneath the bones, like a mole burrowing through the soil. It rushed closer with the speed of a galloping horse, and just when she was sure it would reveal its hideous body in a spray of skulls, the sight changed again.
She’d expected it, but was still disappointed.
More images flashed in front of her, some for only an instant and others for a quarter of an hour. They were all somewhat disturbing, either grotesque or so strange that they left her squinting. One and all, they ended before her greatest curiosity was satisfied.