Deja Vu (The Wealcere Chronicles)

Prologue

His head hits the ground hard. He feels like he's whirling, like everything is spinning around him, but he stays still, very still.

His breath hitches, reacting to the sudden change of air.

Where am I? he asks himself.

He searches for an answer in the sky, in the clouds that cover his gaze, but everything looks the same to him, even if it is different.

He doesn't know it, but he has travelled between worlds, he has jumped from one reality to another in just a second.

How, will soon become an answer.

Why, may take a little longer.

He tries to get up carefully and that's when he notices that he is completely and utterly naked. The only thing that still makes him him are the red curls that decorate his head.

He is still him, even if he doesn't know where he is.

One foot and then the other, but everything keeps moving.

Where am I? he wonders again, putting a hand to his head, trying to stop it from spinning.

He sees only green and more green, big hills that remind him of the Kingdom of Tellus. But deep inside he knows that this is not that Kingdom, it doesn't really seem to be any Kingdom he has visited with his friends.

The memories suddenly overwhelm him.

A few seconds ago he was trying to hang a chandelier in the Council meeting room in the new castle of the Fifth Kingdom, and now he was here in the middle of nowhere.

Something had happened.

Was this the work of his friend and sister-in-law Gaia?

No, she wouldn't do something like this without telling him. This was something else, something that clearly had an explanation even if he couldn't find it now.

Caelus had trained him for moments like these. First, he had to find a vantage point that would allow him to locate himself, he had already done that and it hadn't worked, he had no idea where he was. Second, he had to find a weapon, something he could defend himself with. He had his powers, but it wasn't something he wanted to use with no clothes on in the middle of nowhere. He had to walk, he had to start moving, even if it was hard, he had to try.

He starts walking down that hill, looking for a path that will lead him somewhere.

The strangest thing he feels is not fear of being lost, but the feeling that this is the exact place where he should be. Ever since Rayn and Isabelle's death, he had felt nothing but a sense of emptiness that he had tried to ignore in silence. It's the first time in months that he doesn't feel it and he's in that situation. What does that say about him? Is he completely lost in his grief?

He finds a stone path and really wishes he had his leather boots. He starts to walk along it as best he can, hopping from stone to stone, trying not to fall or hurt his feet too much.

He doesn't know where he was going, but it's better than staying where he was.

In the distance he finally sees something. Maybe it is a village, a small village.

Confirmation comes when he reads a wooden sign on the ground.

Gravestone.

He had never heard of this village, in all his life, in all his travels.

It's definitely a long way from home.

How will I get home? Finally that question comes into his head and he doesn't know the answer.