Chapter 2

It didn't take long for the healers to arrive. They immediately began a very simple healing to access the damage and to be sure that when they moved the woman to the healer's hall they didn't do any more damage. To the heralds staring in mute shock it was still very hard to tell what was wrong exactly and whose blood was all over the woman.

"Well? What has happened to her?," Selenay asked the healers after waiting a few minutes.

"It seems she is unconscious from loss of blood, my lady," one replied. "She seems to have been injured on her neck and most of the blood is coming from a severed blood vessel on her thigh. We have stopped the bleeding for the most part but we need to get her inside so we can heal her fully."

"Alright, please do the best you can. Have your companions contact Caryo as soon as you get her settled. I need to go speak to the remaining heralds at the collegium to let them know what has upset the companions so."

Not too many hours later the healers had finished getting the girl settled into a room with a constant guard, just in case she woke up without a healer present. They healed her physical wounds fully, even extracting a small strange bit of metal from her thigh that was slightly lodged into the bone. They kept the metal, along with her clothes, to show to Selenay after everyone had calmed down some. Selenay soon arrived to question the healers fully and discuss her condition.

"Will she recover from this?"

"She should Selenay," the chief healer stated, "although, at this point in time we are most worried about her state of unconsciousness. She lost a lot of blood through her leg so it might take time for her to become conscious again. If and when she does wake up she could forever have a limp. We took this piece of metal out of her leg; we believe it is what caused the injury." The healer handed Selenay the small piece of metal.

"This is very strange," Selenay replied looking at the healer. "You say it was in her leg?"

"Yes, it was partially lodged into her bone. We removed it and then helped knit the bone back together to make it stronger."

"Well, hopefully she can tell us what it is when she wakes up. Caryo tells me that all the companions are still somehow linked to her, thought I am unsure how. They must be trying to heal her mind while you healed her body."

*It is more complicated than that Selenay. But we will tell nothing until she has awoken.

*What are you going on about Caryo? She can from the grove, how can you not tell me anything? Selenay acquired the look on her face that said she was conversing with her companion, so the healer waited patiently.

*I am sorry chosen, I cannot reveal what has happened, not until the time is right.

*You Caryo are being cryptic.

*You should be used to it by now. Caryo replied with a mental smile.

Turning back to the healer Selenay told him "I am sorry; Caryo will tell me nothing about her. She says we must wait for her to awaken. I will be waiting for news whenever you have any. "

"Ok Selenay, there will be someone here with her at all times; just to be sure nothing happens."

Selenay nodded and moved out of the young girl's room, back to her life as the Queen of Valdemar, back to the monotony of the council chamber.

While Valdemar was busy with its usual day to day affairs Trinity was drifting in and out of consciousness. She never fully came awake but she was aware enough at time to realize that wherever she was she was at least safe it seemed. Her leg and her neck did not seem to hurt as much as it should. But she could never seem to stay awake long enough to come fully conscious, gently falling back into the darkness that kept surrounding her. Even in the dark though, she felt a presence of something good all around her. She felt safe in the darkness, and eventually allowed herself to relax and that was when she began to dream.

She was walking in a hallway, barefoot and in some kind of overly large white shirt. The hallway wasn't a normal hallway either. It seemed as if it was made of stone floor, walls and ceiling, and all the doors she saw were fairly large, and made out of some kind of very old wood. The doors did not even have doorknobs as she knew them. There were rings instead and a very old locking system that might have used a very large iron key. As she walked down the hallway she came around a corner, and encountered a young woman. The first thing she thought of was a maid. The woman saw her and immediately started to talk to her, but Trinity could not hear the young woman. Trinity fell back into a deep sleep but not before she saw the eyes of the young maid widen in fear.

The next dream had Trinity out in some kind of stables she guessed. But there were no doors on any of the stalls and every horse she saw was pure white. They all looked at her and she noticed that their eyes were all blue. A very unusual color for a horses eyes, but somehow they looked a lot more intelligent than any horse Trinity had met before. And again Trinity fell back into a deep sleep, but not before she heard a faint chuckle in her mind.

The dreams went on and on. She never held a single dream for more than a few minutes. She was in what she assumed were kitchens, somehow shocking the people there by her presence. She was in a library, but all the books looked very different and very old. There was a wooden floored room that had walls surrounded by mirrors and some kind of training equipment strewn all over the place, with a scarred man teaching children how to fight. There were so many places that Trinity began to lose track of them all. In them she never spoke a word and could only faintly hear voices, but never understood what was said to her. Eventually she stopped dreaming, and that was when she finally began to come awake.

Selenay was back into the young girl's recovery room. They still did not know her name, nor anything about her. It had been a week to the day that she had arrived from the grove and she was getting disturbing stories from the staff and heralds around the collegium and palace. Stories of seeing a young woman, unknown to anyone, barefoot and wearing a simple white shift appearing out of nowhere and disappearing before people's eyes. Many believed the apparitions to be a ghost, but Selenay knew it was no ghost for the girl was alive, just unconscious. All Selenay could think of was that maybe she had some unknown form of mind magic. She hoped the woman would awaken soon; all these reports were driving her to sleepless nights.

"Have you seen any change in her? Any at all?" Selenay asked the healer that was available. It was a young healer by the color of her robes.

"None at all Queen Selenay. She has not awoken nor even stirred since she arrived. We do not know why she won't wake up, all the signs say she should be awake now but she is not.

"What about these apparitions? Could she somehow be leaving this room to roam around?"

"No, there is someone in here at all times with her. She has not moved at all."

"What kind of mind magic is this then that can make someone appear and disappear, all without the body moving an inch. I have heard nothing like it, not even from outside of Valdemar."

As Selenay was speaking to the young healer Trinity was coming awake. She could hear what sounded like a woman talking to a young woman. They were talking about appearing and disappearing and something called mind magic. From what Trinity could understand, and thanks to her love of reading science fiction and fantasy books, it sounded like they were talking about astral projection. But that wasn't real. It was magic, and magic wasn't real as much as she wished it were. Trinity was fighting the darkness again, but this time she felt stronger, she felt that she must awaken to find out what had happened. As she stirred and began to move on the bed, trying to come fully awake, Selenay and the healer didn't notice her.

When she was fully awake she looked around the room for a minute but her eyes immediately went to the older of the two women discussing something else near the door to the room she was in, their backs turned.

"Why are you talking about what sounds like astral projection? Magic isn't real," Trinity stated before the two women even noticed she was awake.

Selenay and the young healer turned around, mouths agape, looking at the young woman in the bed. They hadn't heard her awaken so focused on their discussion they were. Selenay very quickly gained back her composure.

Looking at the woman on the bed she asked, "What is your name? And what is astral projection?