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Chapter Seven
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Marissa woke suddenly, gasping for air as the knowledge that things had changed during the night filled her with its oppressive shadow. All of a sudden she felt cold. Bereft. The so very familiar song of her family, her loved ones, had vanished from her mind. Leaving nothing but a deep, dark, painful void in its place. Her soul felt like it was shattering from the severed ties. It was incomplete and without her other half.
Looking around desperately for some sort of distraction from the building pain, she didn't see Shandre'la anywhere and a choked cry slipped from between her parted lips. Desperately trying to fight back the panic and not succeeding as well as she would have liked. She was alone. There was no one else here. There was no one to save her from the frightening cloud of knowledge that she was now totally alone in the universe.
Growing desperate, she tried again to feel her family her worm. Tears burned behind her eyes and blurred her vision. Keeping her from seeing. It simply had to be there. It had to… this couldn't be happening…
But it was… The yawning chasm spreading wide from within her mind was proof of it.
She dragged air faster and faster into her lungs as she fought back the sobs. Tears running down her face and agony knifing sharply through her heart as she flashed back to the memory of her half of the world covered in water. Her bonded, her love, her life was dead.
The door slammed violently open, and she jumped. Unfocused gaze darting to the entrance as Leto quickly strode in with Shandre'la clutched to his bare chest. Their gazes locked for a moment, and she knew he could read the emotions and tears on her pale features, but he didn't acknowledge her till he was looming over the bed. Shifting Shandre'la's limp weight in his arms in preparation to lay her down on the silken bedding.
Move!
Marissa glared sharply at him for his attempt to use the Weirding Way on her, but she did as he ordered. She knew by the cold, black void in her mind Shandre'la had felt it necessary to spare from the pain of actually feeling their world finally die. She had cut her off in an attempt to save her from the brutality of it.
Even though she had known it was coming, Marissa hadn't been prepared for it. For that final goodbye of her bonded. Nothing, not one single experience in her entire life could have prepared her for that. For her fate, her death. How could she have been? It just wasn't something that you could truly ever be ready for.
But looking down at Shandre'la's still form, a surprising rush of purpose filled her. She didn't have time to deal with the grief now. It wouldn't help either one of them. Right now she had to keep her one last link to her world from dying right along with it.
"I will tend to her. Set her down and bring me some spice." Marissa didn't meet Leto's gaze. She didn't want to see whatever emotion it was that might possibly be there. She didn't want to be give her battered heart a reason to break down again. But as he set Shandre'la down carefully she could sense him nod his head in affirmative. Then calling to one of the guards to see to the task.
Marissa pushed her hair back from her drawn face. Only allowing herself to focus on Shandre'la as she quickly removed the over shirt that Shandre'la had on. Flinging it to the side where it fell to the elaborate marbled floor with only the faintest wisp of a sound at its passing.
Her palms came to rest on pale, smooth skin revealed by the deep plunging neckline of the undershirt. Resting above the smooth swell of her left breast and directly above her heart as she went about the task of trying to pump life back into Shandre'la.
Feeling it pulse once, she drew her hand back and brought it down shockingly hard. Hitting her soundly.
Leto moved forward suddenly at the sight of the barbaric action. Thinking Marissa was attempting to lash out at Shandre'la because of her own grief.
But before he could reach out to stop it., his eyes were met by Marissa's gaze… And the raw emotion he saw glittering there brought him up short.
"Stay back!" she hissed angrily. "You have nothing to do with this!" She turned back quickly to Shandre'la. Unaware and uncaring of Leto's sudden realization that she knew the Weirding Way. She backhanded Shandre'la hard across the face. The force of the blow echoing in the chamber. "Listen to me sister. Come back to me," The tears began to run down her face in silent rivulets. "Now more than ever you need to be strong. There is no place for us to go. You know this. I control the water and you the sand. We are the only balance left for this world. I can't lose you, too." Marisa turned when the guard walked into the room. Carrying a bowl of spice.
But when he caught sight of Marisa's expression, he came to a halt. Not even a direct order from Leto could have made him cross the distance separating him from her. Setting the bowl down where he stood, he turned back around and made a hasty retreat. Leto went over and picked up the bowl. Bringing it to her.
Opening Shandre'la's mouth with one hand, she poured the spice in her mouth and poured the rest over her eyes. She carefully closed her slackened mouth and turned to Leto. Handing out her slender hand and ignoring the way it trembled slightly.
"Give me your knife." She didn't ask or question whether he would give it to her. There wasn't any time for that. She knew he would do it, because a man who didn't want to save a woman would never have brought her to the one place were she could be saved, or to the only person who would know what to do.
Leto handed her his knife without question and she pressed against the underside of her wrist. Dragging its sharp edge over the delicate, transparent skin protecting the fine tracery of veins underneath. She didn't even flinch. She was beyond pain at that moment.
Her blood swelled a bluish red between the lips of the wound and she held it over Shandre'la's eyes. Watching as her life's essence spilled out onto the dying woman's face.
Wake.
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A ship cut through the galaxy with a speed that broke all laws and regulations. The pilot cared not for the police of the galaxy and proved this by flying past them without hesitation or concern.
When she finally reached her destination, the child brought up a hologram so they would not know who she was. They let the evil into their world with an ease that would soon frighten them.
The child was slowly becoming a woman and her blue eyes were as piercing as any Fremen when she landed on the planet. Taking her time, she shut down her ship's systems. Listening to the cracks and rumbles of the ship's hull as it shifted and groaned under the planets pressure. She only had to wait but a few moments before she could hear the sounds that only a Fremen could make. The sound of their approach feet as they maneuvered through the desert sands, studying her ship were not lost to her. And neither was their curiosity and cautiousness.
Turning from the consol, she made her way to the hatch and let them come. She waited until she saw their blue eyes. It was in that moment when she struck.
Submit to me.
Eyes that were once blue turned a sickly black and the people bowed in submission.
The woman smiled. Curved lips awash with evil intentions. She had work to do, people to kill, and revenge to take. The Golden Path would be taken even if she had to drag them by a leash every inch of the way to their violent, bloody fate.
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The world was white, brilliant white and bitter, bitter cold. Exhausted, she was unable to do more than trust that she was going forward in time. Always forward. She knew that to stop, even for a moment, in this cruel and keening wind would most certainly mean death.
The pain in her side was a freezing burn, and served to be the only thing that kept her from sliding into oblivion entirely.
She was lost in that white globe, blinded by the endless miles of it that blanketed hill and tree and sky, trapped in the frigid hell of vicious snow melded into icy shards in the whip of the gale. White had once been a beloved color, but now… Now she wished for the intrepid color to flee from her sight. Though even the slow, monotonous movements of her horse brought her agony, she did not yield.
At first the cold had been a relief from the scorching yellow sun. It had, she thought, cooled the fever the wound had sent raging through her. The unblemished stretch of white had numbed her mind so that she'd no longer seen the blood staining the planet. Or smelled the stench of her people's death.
For a time, when the strength had drained out of her along with her blood, she'd thought she heard voices in the rising wind. Voices that had murmured her name… and had whispered another.
Delirium, she'd told herself. For she didn't believe that the air could speak.
She'd lost track of how long she'd been traveling. Hours… days… weeks. Time had no meaning here. No purpose. Her first hope had been to wake. But now all she wanted was simply to find a decent place to die.
Perhaps she was dead already and her hell was this endless winter. She knew she deserved hell for not saving her people.
She no longer hungered, though the last time she'd eaten had been before the death of her people. The planet, she thought dimly, where she'd been born. It had been foolish, carelessly foolish, of her to ride from home alone. She thanked the gods that Marisa had stowed away on the ship. She'd left like an avenging angel from her planet and now she felt like a thieving fool. She'd stolen her people's last hopes.
The trio of enemy soldiers had struck without warning.
They would never see home now. It was gone.
Surely this was the land of the dead, or the dying. Or the unforgivable guilty…
When she came to again, the snow was at her back, and she faced a white, white sea. Or so it seemed. Just as it seemed, in the center of that sea, a silver island glittered.
Through her hazy vision, she made out turrets and towers. On the topmost a flag flew in the wild wind. A golden rose blooming full against a field of white.
The sands were fading and that's when she heard it.
Wake.
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