The Legend of Valtera: Chapter 26
Kael’s feet carried him without command, drawn to the woman as if a cord connected them. He sped into a run and lost sight of everything else, including Carr. His mind had yet to catch up; raw emotions and instinct controlled him now. Words caught in his throat as he tried to call out to her, sure that this was just a dream. Eventually, the name escaped his lips and Carr’s head snapped up at the sound.
The boy stood frozen on the docks, confused by Kael’s sudden outburst. He quickly caught sight of Kael running and his eyes followed the direction, searching the crowd to find the cause. What he saw had him bolting like a bandit up the dock, dodging cargo and men on his race to reach Kael.
Kael reached her in a matter of seconds, wrapping his long arms around her petite frame and his heart sighed at the feel of her. His thoughts raced and he was speechless, but he knew for a fact that this was not a dream. Her eyes widened in surprise, her muscles stiffened in fear and she tried to pull away, but Kael’s hold only tightened. Her arms remained pinned to her sides and she struggled against his grasp before she managed a small cry for help. Carr arrived and grabbed her by the waist which yielded another cry of surprise.
“Get…” she tried to yell.
Kael released her at once, suddenly overcome with an enormous sense of déjà vu. Something was wrong, she shouldn’t be acting like this.
He stepped back and seized Carr by the arm, dragging him away as he examined the woman’s face. It held the familiarity of his own, but at the same time was different. It was Prea; he would know her anywhere and this was her. But a new scar was visible; fresh and pink, it extended from the edge of her left eyebrow down past her cheekbone before trailing off by her ear. Worst of all, she was looking at him with fear in her eyes – fear, shock and confusion. His stomach rolled over and his heart constricted with the realization that she didn’t know them.
Carr was attempting to break free as he reached for his sister. “Prea, it’s me. It’s Carr,” he exclaimed. “What’s wrong? Don’t you remember me? I’m your little brother.” Kael watched in horror, noting the relief and sadness of Carr’s expression and the deepening confusion coloring Prea’s face.
“I’m sorry, do we know each other?” she replied, glancing from a dejected Carr to an uncertain Kael. “I don’t remember you…either of you.”
Carr had accepted that he was never going to see his sister again. But now that he had and she didn’t remember him, it became too much. The calm, composed boy was gone and Carr began to cry, leaning into Kael’s side for support.
“Yes, we know each other,” Kael murmured, his arm snaking around Carr’s shoulders in comfort. “This is your home and this is your brother,” he explained.
The shock and fear had left her emerald eyes. Now they were locked with Kael’s as she searched for an answer to an unspoken question. Trust. She found it in his open and unguarded expression. Prea had always trusted her instincts.
“All right,” she responded finally. “You’re the first people I’ve come across that know me. Or claim they know me. That’s good enough for me,” she concluded. “So this is my home?”
“Yes. Your family home is just up the road at the top of the cliff,” Kael answered, pointing over his shoulder. Carr’s tears started to dry up once his sister had accepted what they told her.
“Come on!” Carr exclaimed. Breaking free, he grabbed Prea’s hand and pulled her in the direction of their house. “We need to find Alvie.”
“Who’s Alvie?” she asked Kael, following along behind Carr.
“She’s your sister,” Kael answered simply.
They walked in silence, everyone too shocked to speak. Carr had Prea by the hand, leading her along and Kael couldn’t help but sneak sideways glances at her. It was unbelievable. He had watched her fall through the ice into nothingness, and yet here she was walking next to him. He wondered what else was different about her and detected, though she tried to hide it, that she had a noticeable limp.
Kael watched Prea closely as they reached the edge of the property, looking for any type of reaction, no matter how small. He held his breath and waited, but there was none. Carr threw the door open and pulled Prea across the threshold, yelling for Alvie. Kael entered behind them, closed the door and listened for a response.
“Carr, bud, I don’t think Alvie’s here. She said earlier that she might go into the infirmary for a little bit. How about I go and get her while you stay here with Prea?” Kael asked Carr. He turned to Prea. “Is that all right?”
“Yes, we’ll be fine,” she assured him, looking from Kael to Carr.
Kael left and rushed to the infirmary, stopping to see Beda on the way. He was out of breath when he arrived at her shop. “Beda, when you get a chance, can you find Dal and both come to the house?” he wondered, the bell at the door still ringing. “It’s really important.”
“Kael, you’re scaring me,” Beda said. “What’s wrong?”
“No, no, nothing’s wrong. It’d just be really good if you could come to the house, good for Alvie and Carr,” Kael explained, making something up off the top of his head. He didn’t want to ruin the surprise. “Just come over whenever you can,” he called as he ran out of the store and onto the infirmary.
A few minutes later, Kael sped through the doors of the infirmary, found Alvie and dragged her out, leading her back home with barely a word. She tried to stop him. “Kael what’s going on? What are you doing? Where are we going?” she inquired quickly. She was concerned and he wasn’t making sense. He didn’t respond, so she dug in her heels until he stopped. “Kael! What is going on?” Alvie demanded.
“You just have to trust me. We have to go back to the house, it’s important,” Kael ordered, tugging her hand to make her move. Alvie just surrendered to his will and allowed him to pull her along. The two entered the house and saw no one, but heard voices floating in from the kitchen.
“Who’s here? Who’s with Carr?” Alvie wondered, extricating herself from Kael’s grasp and followed the voices. She froze in the doorway when she saw Carr wasn’t sitting at the table alone. He sat on the far side, across from a woman with long blonde hair. Be it intuition or instinct, Alvie recognized the woman sitting at the table, but didn’t want to believe it for fear it wasn’t true.
The woman turned and, save for the scar, Prea was sitting before her. The world spun as her mind desperately tried to reconcile what she was seeing. This couldn’t be real, Alvie thought. Kael was there when it happened, he had told them she was gone. But here she was.
Alvie’s legs couldn’t hold her anymore and she fell backwards into Kael who caught her under the arms and lowered her to the floor. She was still conscious, her mind cranking away like the gears of a machine. This wasn’t right. If Prea was here, why wasn’t she kneeling beside her, embracing her after all this time? They may not get along very well, and be as different as two people can be, but they were sisters and they loved each other more than anything.
“I don’t understand,” Alvie whispered when she was able, shaking her head back and forth.
Kael kneeled beside her. “It’s her, Alvie. It’s Prea. She…just…doesn’t remember us,” he explained slowly. She tore her icy blue eyes away from his deep ones and looked to her sister. It was Prea, she was sure of it, and it was clear that she had been through a lot, the scar proved that.
“You don’t remember anything?” Alvie asked Prea incredulously.
“No, I don’t,” Prea responded, eyeing her supposed sister.
“Maybe we should let her tell us what happened,” Kael suggested. “How does that sound?” He looked amongst the three siblings, monitoring each of them in this unimaginable situation. Alvie just nodded and accepted Kael’s offer of help and he yanked her to her feet. They moved to the table and sat down, Alvie next to Carr, Kael next to Prea.
“How did you come to be in Beech today?” Kael wondered.
Prea was nervous and looked around at everyone before speaking. “Well, I don’t remember much of what happened. Eight weeks ago I woke up in a dark room I didn’t recognize in excruciating pain,” she began and heard a sharp intake of breath from Kael at the mention of her suffering. “A family had found me unconscious in the woods, nearly dead, and brought me back to their home where they took care of me,” Prea continued quietly. She sounded strange and detached as she recounted her tale, like it was rehearsed or had happened to someone else.
“But I couldn’t answer any of their questions, and they had quite a few. I couldn’t remember my name, where I was from, what I had been doing or where I was going. I was a mystery, to them and myself.” She paused and her finger unconsciously traced the scar by her eye.
“I had scrapes and bruises all over my body. I was weak from starvation and the cold. I had a large gash in my side and my leg was badly broken. They cared for me, nursed me back to health. They didn’t know what to call me so they named me Mirai. It means miracle. I owe them my life,” Prea declared as she looked from Carr to Alvie to Kael.
She took a deep breath and continued. “Once I was well again, when I could walk and take care of myself, I left looking for answers. They explained that I was in northern Nodin, that the River Nairne was close by and that it led to the Bay of Aldin and the sea. They said I could go north over the river into Alder or south which would lead west. I didn’t have any idea where to go when I left, but…the river felt right and something about the Bay of Aldin made it sound like a good place to start. That was a week ago and now here I am, somehow with people that know me and are my family,” she finished. “I guess my instincts were right, after all.”
“This is unbelievable,” Alvie muttered.
“We thought you were dead,” Kael revealed, still in disbelief. “I saw you fall.”
“What do you mean? Do you know what happened?” she asked eagerly.
“I met you a few months ago, when you were traveling,” Kael started and looked to Alvie, suddenly nervous. How much should he tell? What should he tell? Alvie nodded slightly, signaling him to continue. “You were trying to save Carr. He was…well, we don’t know what he was. You were looking for the stone that Aylin and Ciro imbued with their essence. You thought it would cure him.”
“What’s this stone?” Prea interrupted. “I don’t know it.”
“It’s a legend, the story of how Valtera began,” Kael answered. “You can read it later. Anyway, you were looking for this stone by yourself and I offered to accompany you on your journey. I didn’t want anything to happen to you,” he admitted softly, sticking to the story he had told the others.
“We traveled through Alder and Rodor, to a valley in the middle of the mountains and found the stone just where you knew it would be. When we were coming home, we had to go a different way and crossed over the mountains near the border between Alder and Nodin. As we were making our descent over the summit, the ice we were walking on started to crack and it shattered beneath you. You held on for a little while, enough to pass me the stone so I could go on and help Carr.” He hesitated, the memory still fresh in his mind. All he wanted to do was forget that day ever happened, forget what he saw, what he felt. But he was forced to relive it over and over.
“Then the ice broke and you fell. I’m so sorry. I tried to do everything I could, but you made me promise to go on and never come back.” His voice trailed off as he studied Prea for a reaction.
“I can’t help you with what happened after the fall,” Kael added.
“Oh,” she said. Her face was a mask, unreadable as she played with her hands and stared down at the table.
Their four heads spun as the front door opened, voices and footsteps carrying through to the kitchen. Beda and Dal only reached the doorway before stopping dead in their tracks where they stood like statues, dumbfounded, pale and speechless. Beda recovered first, eliciting a scream before she rushed to Prea and grabbed her in a fierce hug. Dal followed slowly as Prea pushed Beda away, quickly retreating to the corner of the room, as far away as humanly possible from everyone else.
Kael held Beda by the arm before she could move any closer to Prea. Meanwhile Alvie took carefully measured steps toward her sister, trying not to alarm her.
“What’s wrong with her? Why did she push me away?” Beda whispered to Kael.
He pulled Beda and Dal back as he watched Alvie make progress with Prea. “She was injured in the fall. She doesn’t remember anything. Not us or home or even herself,” he divulged quietly.
Over in the corner, Alvie brushed Prea’s hair out of her face. “Are you okay?” she asked softly, stroking her sister’s arm.
“Yes, I’m sorry. I just got…a little overwhelmed. It’s just…a lot, you know,” Prea stammered.
“Would you like some tea?” Alvie offered.
“That would be…lovely, thank you,” she responded and Alvie steered her back to the table. Prea sat down next to Carr, who had been watching the exchange carefully. He reached out and found Prea’s hand, holding it tight. She looked at him like she always had.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry,” Kael said. “I should have prepared them, and you, before they came. It’s been a…” He trailed off.
“It’s all right. It’s definitely been a shock. And confusing for everyone. A lot to take in all at once,” she admitted and the others nodded silently in agreement.
