Exile: The Book of Ever

18: Peace And Chaos

With her hands palm down on her knees, Ever tried to focus on her breathing. She had no idea what she was doing, but it felt somehow right. As if taking a moment to seek calm and peace amidst chaos was part of some plan she could only feel but not yet see.

If Thayne wanted to talk to her this way, then she'd oblige him. If the Prophet didn't like what Ever Oaks—Ever Ballard, she reminded herself—had to say, well, that was on him.

Focusing was difficult. When she first closed her eyes there was only confusion and anxiety. After a few minutes, she relaxed enough that her other senses began to compensate for her lack of sight. Her environment became distracting. She could hear Acel moving, shuffling, hear him wipe his nose and draw breath. She could hear Rolan quietly comforting Chy across the way, and the slow drip of water somewhere down the hall. She could smell the rank odor from the bucket in the corner of their cell and the scent of fire and smoke. She could hear distant noise outside the building, a clamoring noise like a gathering or a party. She could feel every pebble and crack beneath her bottom and the scratchiness at the back of her throat from the mold.

And she could hear her heartbeat, feel it pounding in her chest, pulsing in her wrists and ankles and throat. She heard her lungs filling and emptying, and the soft creak of her body as it settled and shifted.

When she finally found stillness, the world of her prison cell shattered and she was somewhere else entirely.

Or at least part of her was: her senses still operated. She could still feel and smell and hear everything, but from farther away, as if her body was in the next room from her mind.

The place she had traveled to was not a place of the senses; she could no more describe it than she could describe God or the feeling of joy. It was other, entirely and completely, and Ever felt utterly lost inside of it. It felt long, and broad, and deep—infinite, if she were being honest. It felt infinite. She was both afraid and excited, as if she were perched on the edge of a high cliff, looking down at sparkling waters below. Something begged her to jump.

She could have spent hours, days, even, familiarizing herself with this place of infinite nothing, but only moments after she had fully immersed herself in its substance something popped. Like everything else about the place it was not a feeling she could describe in the context of the five human senses, but the word felt right nonetheless. Regardless of its nature, Ever knew instantly that she was no longer alone.

I have waited...so long...to find you here.

The voice—voice wasn't the right word, but it was the closest she had—undeniably belonged to Azariah Thayne. It dripped with his essence.

Every word that comes out of your mouth is a lie, she responded.

Not every one, my dear, said Thayne.

Their conversation took place on a plane she couldn't describe, in a not-language that had more to do with thought and image and feeling than words—Ever could feel her brain translating the impressions Thayne was sending her into the nearest approximate verbal translation.

What do you want from us?

What I have always wanted.

I don't know you. I've never met you before. You attacked my people without provocation or reason. Why do you now pretend to know me?

I have always known you, Ever, in some form. I felt the moment of your birth, when I was freezing on the tundra—you were mine even then, as you are mine now. Soon you will be mine in heart as well as in body.