The Parallels
NINE

My hands burn. I kick off the blanket and step to the hearth. Delicate tree markings have been branded on my palms. They’re almost identical to the markings on my chest and look exactly like the tree on the edge of the Stirlarst Lake.

“Didn’t think even you could sleep through all that.” I jump at the sound of Darius’s voice. I spin around and replace him seated at the table.

“Where’s Miriam?” he asks again. It’s too dark to read his expression, but his voice is the edge of a knife, sharp and deadly.

“Miriam,” I whisper. “Miriam left us. She said she was going to visit Arthin.” I don’t tell him that I came to know this from a dream, where light coming from the ground swallowed me. “Who’s Arthin?” I ask.

He sighs. “Her sister.”

“Why does she want me to see Arthin? What happened to her?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know the answer to your first question. If Miriam wanted you to see Arthin, then she had a good reason.”

“And the second question?” Something tells me he skipped over that answer on purpose.

He doesn’t say anything for a few moments, and even in the dark, I feel his eyes searching for answers that I don’t have. “Arthin was locked in a dreamweave almost fifty years ago.” I clench my throbbing hand, feeling sick to my stomach.

Before the Breaking and the disappearance of magic, a dreamweave was reserved for the worst criminals. Only stories remained of punishment so severe that those sentenced to it would beg for the Fade. It was a prison of one’s mind; the convicted stayed asleep in a constant nightmare of which there was no escape.

“Who did that to her?” I ask.

“Miriam,” he says quietly.

“I don’t understand. Miriam placed Arthin into the dreamweave? Why would she do that?”

He leans against the door frame. “For protection,” he says plainly.

“From whom?”

He sighs and glances around the cabin. “I think if Miriam wanted you to see Arthin, that she may want Arthin to answer that question herself.”

“And where is Arthin?”

“We must travel to the Barrens to replace her.” It figures that the most uninhabitable place in Lanel was the one place we needed to go to replace answers.

“Get some rest,” he says, and leaves the cabin.

The next morning we’re up before dawn breaks. Darius insists that we cover ourselves entirely, including our faces, which hide beneath think scarves that bear tiny slits for our eyes. We secure the last of our belongings and step outside. The moment our hands touch, the cottage disappears, and in its place lies a field of scorching maroon sand that stretches deep into the horizon. After five minutes of trudging through the sand, my throat feels like sandpaper, my legs like leaden tree trunks and I’m sure I’ve gone partially blind from the glare. Finally, when sweat coats my body, Darius presses his mouth to my ear, blocking out the raging winds.

“It’s just ahead!” His breath feels cool compared to the sweltering heat.

I’m not entirely sure how he knows where we are, considering I see nothing but a sea of sand bordered by more sand. We walk for another hundred feet or so until he stops abruptly. I follow his gaze to a tiny turquoise rock that sits undisturbed atop a mound of sand. Darius pulls a small container from his bag and dumps its contents onto the stone. I crouch down by his side only to hear him whispering. I’m about to tell him that I haven’t heard a word he’s said when the sand and sky around the rock bleed together. I blink in disbelief, sure that dehydration is to blame for my hallucinations, but sand and air swirl violently in a circle of muted colors.

We stand, and he shouts over the wind. “Once we see the door, you need to move quickly!”

“What do . . .” Before I can finish an extreme wind smacks into me and the desert falls away. The sun vanishes behind thick flurries of snow. I reach toward the storm, but Darius grabs my hand.

“Not yet,” he holds my hand back, “this magic is finicky and made to be as such. Wait until….” he pauses, “ah there! Go!” He pushes me forward just as a dark green door appears in midair.

“How do we get in?”

His expression softens. “You are the only one who can enter.”

I’m shocked. “What? Why?”

“Because Miriam gave you her magic, the last of her magic, and it’s the only way to break the dreamweave.” He looks back at the door. I want to ask him how he knows about Miriam and the magic festering under the skin of my hands, but he guides me forward. “We don’t have much time!” He pleas.

“Is this the only way?” I shout.

He nods. “Place your hands on the door. Miriam’s magic will grant you entry.”

“And then what?” I yell as the wind gains momentum around us.

He tightens his grip. “Then you break the dreamweave.” He doesn’t say how because he doesn’t know. The only person that knew is gone.

“And if I can’t?” The wind whips around us ferociously.

He brings my hands to his chest and holds them there. I needn’t be an emotionalist to read his expression. “Then you’ll be trapped for eternity.” I try to mask my emotions, but he sees right through me. “Don’t be scared.” He squeezes my hands. “Miriam chose you for a reason.”

The wind picks up, thrashing against my ears and drowning out everything but its furious tirade. “I will see you soon!” I shout, releasing his hold.

I spin around and slam both of my hands down onto the wood. My blood simmers with Miriam’s magic, but it feels different than Rhian’s or even Oz’s. It’s a sunny day on the shore of Stirlarst Lake. It’s a winter’s night tucked away in front of a roaring fire. It’s comfort, and I need it now more than ever as the door dissolves and a familiar scene lies before me.

Miriam’s cabin, or at least a version of it, sits cozily tucked away under the shade of nearly a dozen large elms. It’s winter here, wherever that may be, and a steady stream of smoke billows from the chimney—someone’s home. A turquoise fence surrounds an abandoned garden nestled against the cabin’s southern wall. Stirlarst Lake is an unmoving tundra covered with at a least a foot of fresh snow. On its edge stands a thin woman whose hair is braided loosely, billowing down her back in thick, black waves. She’s taller than Miriam and stands so erect that I fear a swift breeze could knock her over. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and it’s not because of the crisp air—magic is at work.

“Julianne,” says the woman. She does not turn to face me but keeps staring at the imprisoned water. “That was quicker than I expected.” She speaks slowly, taking her time to pronounce each word. I suppose that’s all she’s had here: time.

Her arm stretches out from her side toward the cabin. “We created this place in almost an exact mirror image of our summer home, except I’ve always preferred winter myself. Miriam couldn’t stand the cold of course. She’d spend those short days curled in front of the fire.”

She lowers her arm slowly, then finally turns around. Everything about her face is sharp and as hard as the ice covering the lake, everything except her eyes. They are Miriam’s eyes, warm and welcoming with an upward slope that looks as though she’s on the verge of smiling. She crosses to me and holds out her hands in a sign of welcome. I place my own atop them, surprised at their warmth. She brushes her fingers over the identical markings on my palms, smiling to herself.

As she stares at the design, she says, “Near everything is the same about the cabin though we agreed that it needed an extra room.” She laughs to herself. “Two sisters in one room during summer solstice when magic burned the brightest was not without its difficulties.” She squeezes my hands and gazes into my eyes. I replace her stare unnerving, as though she can see parts of me I don’t understand. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Julianne.” I’ve never met anyone with so much effortless grace. She could have told me to dig a latrine hole, and it would have sounded like poetry.

“Arthin, I presume?”

“Not unless there’s another Arthin locked in this dreamweave that I haven’t met.” She laughs easily. I stare back at her blankly.

“Was that funny? I’ve been alone so long it’s hard to tell.”

This time I laugh. “You’ll be back in the swing of it in no time.”

She beams. “We’ll get along just fine, just as Miriam said.” My stomach drops at the mention of Miriam’s name.

I look around. “She visited you here?”

“Ay,” Arthin says. “Every night so I would never be alone for too long.”

I avert my gaze and look back toward the towering oak behind us. “Arthin, it was easy enough getting here.” Her crimson lips are pulled back into a dazzling smile when I face her again. “Why is it so difficult to leave?”

She guides us toward the cabin. “Getting outside of the weave requires going through all of the layers.” The image Miriam drew in the dirt flashes in my head. “The weaver creates traps between each layer, making it near impossible to leave.”

“Traps?” I ask, following her into the cabin.

It appears exactly like Miriam’s, save for another door adjacent to the bedroom Darius slept in only the night before. Arthin tucks her feet under her as she takes one of the two seats nearest the fire.

“Personal traps that only the weaver and the prisoner would know. Before a dreamweave is created, the weaver scans the prisoner’s mind to discover what hurts them the most, what frightens them the most,” she pauses, tilting her head to the side. “Only the weaver holds the key in and out of a dreamweave. Once the weaver decides to dismantle the weave, the traps slowly disintegrate, layer by layer.”

I stare down at my hands, still uncertain about my dream and why Miriam gave me her magic. “How does someone break the weave?”

She stares intensely into the fire. “A dreamweave was created only under the direst of circumstances. It’s a fate for those who take another’s life or worse.” She continues before I can ask what could be worse. “If the Primaries elected to place someone into a dreamweave, they did so knowing that the weaver agreed to forfeit his or her magic.”

I feel as if I’ve been punched in the gut. The first thing both mages and inerts learn is that magic is finite. Draw too deeply from the well and risk depleting it all together. This reality created a balance in the Parallels, it insured that a single mage could not become too powerful. It’s what made Blackthorne so terrifying. It was as if he had an unlimited supply of magic even though everyone knew that mages had a finite well of magic to draw from.

The soul and magic are eternally bound, so after Passage, no matter the next vessel a soul chooses in the Mire, its magic would always stay with it, carrying memories of past lives deep within its most hidden depths. If a mage used all their magic, that was it. Only the soul was left to carry on, and the mage would be born an inert in the next life. They’d never know magic again.

Arthin takes my hand. “She knew, Julianne. She knew the risk when she created the weave.”

Miriam chose to break the weave and left me with the last of her magic to do it. Everything I touch falls away to ash. I stare at my hands, the beautiful designs of Miriam’s magic imprinted on my skin. There’d never be a day I wouldn’t remember the price she’d paid.

Arthin’s hand comes to my face and brushes away the wetness on my cheek. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. Sometimes darkness is born where the light is the brightest. Miriam believed in magic, even after everything we’d seen.” A shadow of a memory erupts into her eyes like a winter storm. “Miriam came to me and told me about you. She’d finally found the hope she had so dearly clung to in life, and after all this time, she was ready for Passage.”

She tips her hand to her heart then extends it upward. I do the same, sending Miriam all the light I can muster. Suddenly, the cabin shakes violently. I brace my hands on the chair. Arthin rises and dashes to the window.

“We’ve already started moving through the weave,” she says, pulling back the curtain.

I remain in my chair as the cabin lurches again. When it settles, I join her. The sky and ground bleed together in a swirl of color just as the sand had done before the door appeared.

“What’s happening?” I shout as the air around us roars.

“I can’t say for certain, but I guess that the first trap Miriam set in my mind is gone.” I blink in disbelief, forgetting that we were in Arthin’s mind. I take one more look at the dripping landscape outside and retreat to my chair, feeling nauseated.

“Why did she create this Weave?” I ask. “You don’t look like a criminal, Arthin.”

She remains standing at the window. “And that I was not, at least not before Blackthorne rose to power. As punishment for taking a stand against the Purists, Miriam was ordered to create the dreamweave.”

“And if she’d refused?” I ask.

“At first, she did.” She pauses, then turns toward me. “She came to know just how far Blackthorne would go to get what he wanted.”

“What did he do to her?” I ask.

“He severed her twinsoul bond then killed him as she watched.”

I fall back into my chair, the same disbelief washing over me just as it had done in the tunnels. This is why few rose against the Purists and Blackthorne; the cost was everything worth living for.

The room spins around me as the cabin lurches forward. Dishes smash against the wood floor. Arthin flies across the room and lands on all fours before colliding with the wall. I grip the sides of my chair, wishing for it all to stop. And then it does.

“Another layer,” she says, dusting off her hands.

My knuckles are white, but I can’t seem to stop holding the chair.

“How did Miriam survive? How do you live after something like that?”

Severing a bond was like ripping out a mage’s heart while it was still beating. It was said that the twinsoul bond was the purest form of magic, and the rarest. There were only two eternal codes which all citizens of the Lanel lived by: never condemn a soul to the Fade, and never kill a twinsoul mate.

“After he died, part of Miriam died too. The only part that remained alive was a small sliver of hope she clung to. She knew that the balance would need to be restored, that magic couldn’t allow tyranny to reign forever,” Arthin says. “But as time wore on and nearly sixty years passed, her hope began to fade. When she visited me here in the Weave, I never thought I’d see my sister smile again, never thought I’d hear her laughter, until one visit I knew that something had changed. She’d met a boy, who was far from home with a fire in his eyes and hunger to survive.”

“Darius,” I say.

“Ay,” she says. “Darius made Miriam want to live again. His hope inspired her, and she remembered that magic wasn’t inherently evil. She saw its goodness in him.”

Just as she says this the cabin shakes so violently that the roof starts collapsing. I brace my hands on the table as the mugs topple over and crash to the floor. Arthin glances at the ceiling then back to me.

“There’s more, so much more I need to tell you,” she says calmly, “but if we don’t leave now, we’ll never get another chance.” She rises and holds out her hand.

We cross to the doorway and beyond the threshold lies the same desert Darius and I traversed before I entered the weave. We only take a few steps before the ground falls away and we’re walking over a vast canyon along a hairpin pathway, leading endlessly into the horizon.

“We’re moving through the last layers quicker than I expected,” she says, gingerly stepping onto the path.

I know it’s a dream, but my heart beats faster as I look down to a quiet abyss with no end. I return my focus to the back of Arthin’s head, as we cross over the canyon. A broad, rock face emerges from the ground and a low rumble growls its way from the depths of the canyon below. I push myself against the rock wall. Across the gorge, large chunks of stone fall into the void. I look up just in time to see a large rock hurtling toward us. I grab Arthin and pull her to me just as the rock whizzes by.

“Jules!” She shouts. “This is the last layer, and we’re free.”

I don’t want to be the one to tell her that an insurmountable stone mountain lies between us and freedom. It feels too real to be a dream, and the logical, soldier-trained part of my brain is looking for an exit. Across the canyon more of the rock face tumbles into oblivion. The ground shakes even harder.

“How do we get through this?” I ask, bracing myself from the colliding world around me.

“It’s time for us to jump.”

Against my better judgment, I stare over the edge. Blackness. I reel back, comforted that something substantial remains behind me.

Arthin takes a step toward the abyss below. I grab her hand. “And if we don’t?” I shout, holding her steady.

She glances back and squeezes my hand, leading me forward. “Then we’ll die.” That’s all there is to it. “Don’t be afraid,” she says. She draws my hand to her body. “Remember, it’s all in your head,” she says, as she pulls us over the edge.