The Dreaming: Dark Star (Book 5)

Into your own hands

Review of recent events: Imorah got severe heatstroke in a suicidal walk through the desert after Tashin was killed. Liran followed her, rescued her and brought her to The Grandmother, an old hermit and healer living in the desert. Imorah has spent the last few days recovering there while Liran went back to retrieve her belongings. He is now walking home while Imorah is gaining full consciousness for the first time in days.

Liran walked all morning and through the full light of mid-day

He arrived home as the sun was approaching its zenith. He was severely dehydrated, exhausted and utterly empty. But what the sun took away, it returned as something different. As a strange relief. Relief from feeling anything at all. The exhaustion dulled his mind, removed his thoughts, his emotions, and brought him closer to nothingness than he'd ever been before. There were moments of glorious freedom.

At some point he realised that he was following exactly in the footsteps of his father-walking like a madman through the desert, punishing himself in some self-hating way. As if the desert, the sun, the sand could wash away his crimes.

He'd become just like his father. But this realisation didn't touch him. It didn't sink any hooks in him. It didn't attach-it slid off of him like water. The sun destroyed it, turned it to nothing.

Liran had never understood his father until now. Now he realised the peace that the desert bestowed. The relief that the sun bestowed. The desert was peace. It was death. It was life. It was everything and nothing. He looked around him and saw nothing. He looked inside and saw nothing.

He trudged, filled with nothingness until he arrived at Grandmother's, fully loaded with all of the girl's belongings. As he neared the yurt, he finally felt something-apprehension. He didn't want the peace to end.

Grandmother would feed him, take care of him, and he didn't deserve it. He would feel guilty. Hannah would look at him with her beautiful brown eyes and ask something from him that he couldn't give. There was no way he could ever give her the love she deserved. He would end up treating her as his father had treated him.

He couldn't bare to face them, so he dropped all of Imorah's belongings outside the yurt and sat in the shade to catch his breath.

* * *

Imorah awoke to the smell of something delicious cooking. It was daylight-was it the same day? Or another day? She didn't know where she was, or when she was, but she didn't really care. Her head was fuzzy with a dull ache, she was thirsty, and her stomach rumbled with hunger.

She stayed absolutely still, not wanting anyone to know that she'd woken up, and surveyed the room. First of all, she looked for the boy, and was relieved to find he wasn't there.

The Elder, for that's what Imorah thought of immediately when she saw the 'Grandmother', was bent over the fire, cooking whatever was making that delicious aroma. Imorah's mouth filled with saliva.

The little girl was playing with some figurines on the dirt floor, humming to herself and eavesdropping on the private conversation of her toys.

Imorah watched them for a few minutes without moving, but the peace was disturbed when the little girl, sitting only a few feet away, looked up from her play and made eye contact.

Her eyes flew wide with fear and she squeaked something and stood up, knocking down her villagers, spilling a bunch of stones and crystals to the ground that were on her lap, and ran to the old woman.