It whispered that Maiya wasn’t real.
Vir wasn’t even sure if he wanted it to be fake anymore. Yes, something strange was happening to Maiya, and her presence here put her life in jeopardy. Had he a choice, he’d send her away at once.
But if this really is all a dream, or a hallucination… It’d mean their time together here never really happened. That it was a made-up figment of his imagination. He’d awake, and just like a dream, it’d all be gone.
“You were… very brave,” Vir said haltingly, earning him a scowl. They stared each other in the eye for a long moment before bursting out laughing.
They sat together atop a grassy hill in peaceful silence, Maiya resting her head on Vir’s chest. The spot bore a striking resemblance to Rabbit Hill, their hangout spot in Brij. It, too, was adorned with a large tree, though the scenery it overlooked was incomparable to the backwater village.
Floating islands drifted lazily before them, the peaceful scene betraying none of the chaos that had taken place earlier.
For that brief moment, Vir forgot the world. Content to be reunited after so very long. Longer, Vir suspected, than Maiya had, owing to the time effects of the Ash.
“I’ve… really missed this,” Maiya said after a while. “More than I thought.”
“Me too, Mai. Me too.”
Maiya cocked a brow, smiling coyly. “Mai, huh? Since when did you start copying my parents?”
“Since… now? I guess?” Vir honestly hadn’t even noticed. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“I like it,” Maiya said, smiling gently. “I liked it when Mom and Dad used to call me that. I liked it very much.”
Vir wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her semi-translucent figure closer, though even as he did, he worried he’d somehow break her if he grasped too hard. Like she was made of glass.
“That demon back there?” she said after a moment. “You said it was Ekanai? Was it the Ekanai?”
Vir sighed. “Do we really have to talk about that right now?”
While he knew this blissful moment couldn’t last forever, he dreaded it coming to an end.
But when Maiya looked into his eyes, confused and distraught, Vir knew the feeling was a lie. There was no true bliss here, only willful ignorance. There could be no peaceful reunion until Ekanai had been dealt with.
“I wish I could tell you, Maiya. Ekanai should’ve died a long time ago. He had to have died for me to have been born. Did he hurt you?”
“No, nothing like that,” Maiya said, looking away. “I was… at an Orientation Camp with the Children of Ash. It was going pretty well, too.”
“Really?” Vir asked with suspicion.
“Well, as well as such a camp could go. They made us do this leap of faith—we had to jump off a cliff into a pool of blood far below.”
“That’s…”
“Insane? Yep. Welcome to my world. Thing is, they moved it when we jumped.”
“They tried to kill you!” Vir asked in alarm.
“Sure seems that way,” Maiya replied. “I’ll have to dig into that when I get back. Whoever they are, they can’t hide from me for long. When the three of us jumped, I was afraid that was it, for them at least.”
“Wait, who are these people?”
“Ah, right, I haven’t told you about them, have I? So, Yamal, he’s a real character…”
Maiya spent the next minutes filling Vir in about Yamal and the Silent One, and how they met and became close.
Vir was suspicious of the man, and when Maiya mentioned how he was useless in a fight, Vir grew anxious.
“Hey,” Maiya said with a smile, squeezing his arm. “Relax. He knows not to make any moves on me. Besides, having a group that’s loyal to me is really useful in an organization like that. Despite Yamal’s issues, I feel like I lucked out. He and the Silent One are among the few sane ones in my batch. He’s pretty smart, too.”
Vir exhaled. “I know. Just… I wish I could be there for you.”
“Me too,” Maiya said quietly. “Anyway, we jumped together. I knew we wouldn’t make it, so I relied on my Blunt Force Protection orbs to absorb the impact.”
“Did that actually work?” Vir asked. Mejai defensive armor wasn’t designed to nullify falls like Light Step did. He’d never thought to try using the magic protection in that way.
“Sorta?” Maiya grinned sheepishly. “It did keep us alive… But I kinda broke some bones. And one of my B Grade Life orbs. Oops!”
She stuck her tongue out and winked at him.
Vir rolled his eyes. “Most people would be in tears over losing such a precious orb, you know? I guess you’re just swimming in seric, aren’t you?”
Maiya waved away his concern. “It’s fine. I can get as many of those as I want. Problem was, I only had one left, so I healed my broken leg, but couldn’t heal my ribs.”
“Your ribs are broken?” Vir asked in alarm.
“That’s the thing. They aren’t. Not here. I’m not even wearing the same clothes! I was wearing a faded brown robe, not this old one-piece. I haven’t worn this since Brij! And I’m obviously not in the practice of walking around barefoot,” she said, wiggling her toes.
“So, how did you end up here?”
“We missed the pool, but we crashed through the ground, into a large shaft of some kind. That led down into a tunnel that was protected by Children guards.”
“A secret lair?”
“Who knows? I took out the guards and entered the room they were defending. There was this tree… except it wasn’t like any tree I’d ever seen. It was like the trunk became the ground, and continued up, making the walls. I… can’t remember much of what happened after that. My mind went fuzzy, and I felt myself moving, like a trance. I think I might’ve touched its trunk? Next thing I knew, I was in those caves.”
A tree that functions like an Ash Gate? Vir thought, looking over Maiya’s form. No. This is something else entirely. If she were really here, she’d have died from prana poisoning already. What could that room have been? And why was it under guard? Is there more to the Children of Ash than I thought?
“It’s so bizarre,” Maiya said. “What are the chances there happened to be a tunnel leading to that lair right where we landed, right? What are the chances the Children held their Orientation Camp at that exact spot?”
“You’re saying someone wanted this to happen? That they orchestrated these events?” Vir asked.
“Seems that way, doesn’t it?” Maiya asked. “But who or why… I haven’t a clue.”
Vir had to agree. Except he didn’t know if it was a who, or a what. After all, who could have timed it such that Maiya not only touched that tree, but Vir did too? At the exact same time? There were far too many coincidences for it to have been mere chance, and yet, such a feat was far outside the means of any mortal.
Was it Janak? Or another god, perhaps? Vir’s head swam with questions and no answers.
“Once I got here, I roamed around for a bit,” Maiya continued. “I heard a sound, so I went towards it. That’s where I found that demon, standing hunched over in that room. He attacked me without warning.”
“He attacked you?” Vir asked, panicking. Was I too late? Is that why she’s this way?
“Don’t worry,” Maiya said hurriedly. “You came before he could do anything. But, er… I can’t use magic, Vir. It’s like all my blood, sweat, and tears have come undone. Like… it’s been a waste.”
“It hasn’t,” Vir said emphatically. The more he heard, the more it felt like some third party was at work here. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but something brought us all together. Ekanai’s dead, Maiya. It’s impossible that he’s here. And, to be honest, the same goes for you. All I can say is we shouldn’t jump to conclusions just yet. I wish I had the answers, but I don’t. And until we know more, you can’t say things like that, alright? Maybe you’ll just wake up and this’ll all have been a bad dream.”