A Princess for the Witch Doctor (Legends of Rahasia Book 3)

Chapter Seventy-Two

            My dreams. My nightmares. They're all the same lately.

Floating in shadow, holding my broken pieces together.

"Kaliya?" I ask, sensing a presence join me in this place. This place that exists outside of me, yet also internally, as well.

I'm dreaming. I have to be dreaming. But what, the last thing I remember was breaking a curse, and Rangda...

"I'm not Kaliya, but close."

I see her eyes first, again. One blood-moon, the other like night.

"Ode..." I bow as much as I can, existing in this strange, in-between form. "You came to claim me, didn't you?"

She smirks, pushing back at her lioness's mane of hair. "You wish for death?" She laughs, crossing her well-muscled arms over her chest. "Warriors in my day wanted to postpone it so they could find death gloriously." She helps me to my feet, but I panic. How could I not panic? I'm walking on nothing.

Falling as I am, I cling to her body, my legs free-wheeling.

"Please," I beg, "don't let me fall."

She laughs, helping lift me as much as possible. My arms are burning, even here. Staring down beneath me, I see nothingness. "I thought you wanted to die. Why the change of heart?"

I swallow, trying to pull myself up as much as possible, wrapping my legs around nothing at all. My arms shaking. Quivering. "Is that it?" I stare at the yawning abyss. "Is that all there is to death? Nothing?"

In her eyes, I see the same eternity as Barong. As Kaliya. As Cato, even. I see infinite power and might. I see that which cannot be comprehended by human thought, nor quantified.

"Do you see nothing when you look into my eyes?" She blinks, and for the briefest moment, I see eyes that shift to the color of clay. I see a golem girl. Then, just as suddenly, I see a sultan with a handprint marking his face. No less perfect for it. I see them all. Mawar. Dasha. Malala. Pari. Tawil. Ryu. Elio. "Do you see nothing when you look into theirs?"

"What do you want to hear?" I scream at her in fear and frustration, spitting out the words. "I need his name! I need his name to save them from the nothingness."

She smiles at me, so serene.

"Wake up." She whispers.

And with that, she shoves me away.

And I fall into the nothing.

Reborn.

***

Readers,

It's about to get real.

-Sophia