Where the hell am I?
Something flashed past me. I turned around. Another spark flew in the opposite direction.
Oh. I know what this is.
Before I could formulate my next thought, I got a feeling of déjà vu as words began shaping in the black ether, written in golden light, as if someone had squeezed the sun into a fountain pen. Something was deeply wrong with my brain, though, because I didn’t recognize any of the words.
Some were written over and over, while others were dropped in different sentences. The silence was almost deafening as I tried to make sense of what the Word was trying to say to me. I had to figure out what the message was, because now, more than ever, I wanted to wake up and be with Hunter.
Ugh, I don’t have time for this now.
“What do you want from me?!” I shouted from the bottom of my lungs, putting all the rage I could muster into this one, simple question. “What the hell do you want from me?! Why can’t you just talk to me, like normal people?”
I cursed under my breath. Of course the Word couldn’t talk to me like normal people. It wasn’t… people. It was a mysterious entity with the power to do or undo pretty much anything, if I had the right formula. Its language was unknown, but, in certain instances, I understood it. Its power limits were a mystery, but it felt as old as time itself, and I’d recently offered myself up to it. But I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand where all this was going. Lumi had said it was for me to discover, but, dammit, we were at war!
Was this another violent blackout? Or was it just a brief encounter with the Word, again? Would I remember any of it once I came back to my senses? Or would I forget it all, like before?
No matter what the answer was, I had to admit one thing. I was genuinely tired. This felt less like an apprenticeship and more like a chronic illness—something akin to narcolepsy but able to obliterate dozens of Perfects at once.
It was as if I’d just fallen asleep on top of a nuclear warhead.
I hated it.
Hunter
Kailani’s eyes glowed white.
She’d gone limp in my arms, and I was once again at a loss for words, not knowing what I could do in order to get her back to me. I’d been through the motions before, and, while I was terrified she might hurt herself or all of us, I was also tired of seeing her like this.
I completely understood why she was so determined to go through with this, and I wanted to support her every step of the way, but seeing her like this just cancelled everything out and threw me into complete disarray. We’d spent years being friends, closer than most people ever get in their entire lives. We’d finally found our way to each other in love, too, after all this time. Kailani was intrinsically connected to my very heart, and I couldn’t lose her.
“Kale… Come on, babe, wake up,” I said softly, holding her close and gently shaking her every other minute. “Don’t do this again. Take back control!”
I didn’t need any swamp witch knowledge to understand how dangerous the Word could be in the absence of control. I’d seen it back by the last comms blocker, where Kailani had virtually disintegrated a bunch of Perfects and four innocent Draenir. Had we not dropped to the ground in time, we, too, would’ve been roasted. And I knew she didn’t want any of this.
“Kale… Come on, honey… I need you here, in the real world. We’ve got so many asses to kick,” I continued, whispering in her ear, hoping she’d hear me.
My heart ached to the point where I found it difficult to breathe. But I didn’t even want to imagine what it would be like without Kailani. Panic was already threatening to set in, the hairs on the back of my neck rising and my wolf instincts awakening.
Her entire body hummed, as if she was transmitting a signal into outer space, or something. Her eyes were wide open, shining like headlights. Her breathing was even, and, upon checking her wrist, I noticed her pulse felt normal, too. It was as if she’d just fallen asleep after having swallowed the sun.
I raised my head and looked around, hoping I’d see a familiar face. The Faulties I’d spotted earlier were gone, and the small fire in the middle had died out. We had a couple of hours left before departing. They all needed to rest a little before the next stage of our plan.
I breathed out, wondering how long it would take for Kailani to wake up. Unlike the last time, it didn’t feel like something terrible was about to happen, but I couldn’t know for sure. The sooner she snapped out of it, the better.
Footsteps made me turn my head. I couldn’t stop a gasp from leaving my throat.
“Lumi!” I said.
She stood about twenty feet away from us, clad in a long, dark blue dress with golden embroidery on the sleeves and along every hem. Her bright orange hair was pulled back in a bun, and her neck and face tattoos added a dramatic and unexpected contrast to the existing plethora of visual elements composing her. Her irises, white with blue edges, were fixed on Kailani.
“She’s away,” Lumi murmured.
“She passed out a few minutes ago. She’s been like this since,” I said. “How do I wake her up? What if she lets out another deadly pulse?”
Lumi came closer, concern visibly etched into her features. She sighed deeply as she kneeled by Kailani’s side. “I’ve seen this before, with other witches. I’ve been through it myself, but my circumstances were quite different. We weren’t at war or running for our lives when we fused with the Word.”
“What… What does that mean?” I asked, unable to follow her.
“I’ve said it before, Hunter. The conditions of Kale’s apprenticeship have changed. She was supposed to have done it in peace and quiet, away from family and friends, away from pretty much anyone. Instead, she’s running around and trying to save people by using spells that she hasn’t fully internalized. She’s unstable, Hunter.”
“How unstable?”
“Nuclear-warhead-rolling-down-the-hill unstable,” she replied. I had to admit, her reference game had improved significantly since she’d studied Earth and its history. “These episodes she’s having are supposed to take place under quiet and tranquil conditions, not hidden in a cave and about to become Ta’Zan’s prisoner.”
“Should we have her stay back and hide her here, then? Let her do her apprenticeship in peace?” I suggested, occasionally glancing down at the unconscious woman of my dreams, limp in my arms.
Lumi smirked. “Do you think she’d let us do that? While we go off to Ta’Zan’s private zoo?”
“What can we do, then?”
“Try to rein it in. The apprenticeship cannot be stopped; you know that already. There are only two possible outcomes. Either the Word accepts or rejects her,” Lumi explained.
“What happens if it’s the latter?”
“She’ll live, but she’ll always feel empty on the inside. You see, the Word opens up before you, first. It gives you access to knowledge that has never even seen the light of day. Secrets of the universe. The origins of creation itself. If it accepts you, it will make them available to you, through a series of lengthy meditation processes. Frankly, I’ve only had time for about thirty. Out of approximately ten thousand. Though there could be more, since we can’t exactly put a limit on knowledge. I’m still incredibly ignorant, in a way.”
“And if it rejects her, then what? It closes it all off?”
