Chương 49: Chapter 48: Cold Heart, Cold

As the hours passed, blurred in a head filled with questions like brushstrokes on a canvas far too small, her breathing grew slower and slower. The weight of the day —the revelations, the books, the heresies, and the sealed pacts— sank her into the straw bed like a stone into deep waters. Her chest felt heavy, oppressed by an invisible force, until she was barely able to keep her eyes open. Only then, when her resistance finally gave way, did she sleep.

The dream unfolded before her eyes with the cruel clarity of reality. She was accompanied only by an ominous darkness, a blackness so dense it seemed to have texture, as if she could reach out and touch it. In that darkness: weeping. Hundreds of thousands.

From newborn babies with that heart-wrenching wail that cries for warmth and food; to inconsolable children crying for lost mothers, broken toys, or unfulfilled promises; to youths, women, and men, all joined in a chorus of voices, spreading eternal suffering through the desolation of loss and pain. It was a cacophony of grief, a wall of sound that should have crushed her, but in the center of it, her only guides were lines of vibrant colors stretching through the dark like veins of light.

Intense reds, deep blues, emerald greens, blinding yellows. Each line connected a sound to an invisible source, as if pain itself had a chromatic aura, as if every tear left a trail of color in the void. The sonic abstraction lasted for a time she could not measure. Minutes, hours, eternities. Until, abruptly, a single voice resonated through the entire dream. He knew it instantly. It wasn't Selena who knew, but him. The man he had been.

The voice was his own, the voice of the one who had been, who could now only live in her dream worlds, in these fragments of memory that visited her when consciousness surrendered. Although the voice spoke an unintelligible word —merely a sound, a moan, a lament— a golden light was born from it. A thread of sunlight in the middle of the gloom, a path traced in the dark. And in the dream, she followed it.

She walked behind that light, feeling the weeping recede as she passed, the chorus of suffering fading into the distance. Until she reached the end. The ominous darkness remained, closed like a fist, but once she touched the end of the golden line, a blurry image emerged from it. One face, then another, then a complete scene defined itself with the sharpness of pain. He was there. Kneeling on the floor he could not see, clutching the lifeless body of Rulito.

The black cat lay still in his arms, his fur still silky, still shiny, still possessing that texture he had stroked so many times. But life —that engine of purrs that had comforted him in moments of solitude— had been extinguished forever. The yellow eyes, so familiar, were closed. The body, once warm and vibrant, was now only an empty vessel. A deep and visceral pain, an echo of a loss already suffered in another life, in another world, pierced Selena's chest with an intensity that made her groan in her sleep.

She wanted to weep, to scream, to hold that body and bring it back to life by the sheer force of her will. But she could not move. She could only watch. Then, she saw anonymous hands —dark-skinned with gentle gestures— separate the cat from him with a delicacy that hurt more than any roughness. They placed him in a small box made of light wood, like a tiny coffin for an soul so vast. The scene shifted. Now it was a misty garden, shrouded in fog that hid the contours, blurring the lines between earth and sky.

A hole opened in the earth, small, intimate, waiting. And then, she saw it: the headstone. It was simple, made of polished granite, the kind that doesn't seek attention but simply marks a place, remembers a presence. On it, engraved with clear, deep letters, was not Rulito's name. It said another name. A name she tried to read, that her mind struggled to decipher with desperate urgency. The letters danced before her eyes, refusing to settle, escaping through the dream-haze just as... Chime!

The sound yanked her from the dream-construct like a violent tug. She snapped her eyes open, her heart galloping in her chest, and saw the ceiling beams, the same ceiling as always, with its dark wood and straw peeking through the cracks. Then she looked up, her chest full of a sadness that wasn't hers but which she felt as her own, and there was Anya with her bronze bell, calling them to a new day. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

With a deep, heavy sigh, she could only think of one epiphany that hit her with the force of a sledgehammer: I am afraid of losing those I love now, in this world. The clarity of the thought was a central axis, a revelation that ordered everything. The dream, the pain, the loss of Rulito in another life, it all pointed to the same thing: the fear of loving, the fear of losing, the fear that this cruel world would also snatch away the people she had grown to care for. Immediately, she looked to her side.

There, rubbing her arm over her eyes with the clumsiness of one who wakes with difficulty, was her friend. Kaela seemed to emerge from sleep grudgingly, her eyelids heavy, her body still anchored to the straw bed. Relief filled Selena's chest like water finding a dry riverbed. She was there. She was alive. She was okay. Only then did another thought reach her, calmer and more serene: At least if I don't have Rulito, I have Kaela. As she thought it, her body felt it.

Her shoulders, which had been tense since she woke, lost their rigidity. Her jaw relaxed. Her breathing became deeper, slower. The rest of the morning proceeded with the normalcy of other days. The cold bath in the courtyard, the freezing water clearing away the remnants of the dream. The morning task assigned by Anya with her maternal efficiency. Then the steaming porridge in the dining hall, that same taste of cooked grain and salt that was already so familiar, so comforting in its constancy.

Finally, the farewell at the shelter gate by the affectionate sister of charity, each one receiving her own small, personalized ritual. Selena accepted her farewell with a smile and a tilt of her head, but her mind was already elsewhere. As she walked with Kaela through the dirty streets of the West Ward, she knew she had to separate from the tanner. There were things she had to do this morning; things she didn't want Kaela to be endangered by.

And that long-awaited task was none other than the answers only Ralien, and the Black Lock Guild, could provide regarding Bjorn. The uncomfortable conversation happened in the middle of the dirty street, surrounded by the morning bustle of the first passersby. Selena stopped dead, gripping her friend's arm with a strength she didn't know she possessed. Kaela, startled, looked at her with wide eyes, a silent question on her face. Before Kaela could open her mouth, Selena said: —We must separate today.

She saw the tanner frown, worry beginning to etch itself into her features, and quickly added: —I don't want you to go. It's dangerous. The teenager could only make a sour face, that expression of annoyance that Selena knew so well. —Do you remember when we went to the Black Lock Guild? — Selena asked. Kaela nodded, her dark eyes fixed on Selena's, searching, evaluating. —What about it? — Her voice was tense, controlled. —Getting yourself into trouble you don't even understand again.

She sighed deeply, a sound that carried years of accumulated worries. —Selena, give me a break. For Aelthra's sake. Selena felt the weight of those words, her friend's genuine exasperation. But she couldn't stop now. —The thing is... — The words hung in the air, searching for a way out without causing harm. —They were going to get me answers. And today they have them. I already paid in advance. And I don't want to put you at any more risk. Kaela shook her head, a slow movement heavy with resignation.

—You are an incorrigible mule. She sighed again, and when she spoke, the hardness had left her voice. —I worry you, don't I? Selena nodded, wordless, with only that tiny gesture that said everything. —Fine— Kaela said, and there was a concession in her voice, a surrender to the facts. —This time you can go alone. But if anything goes wrong and you need to flee, run to the Temple of the Glowing Moss. She paused, her black eyes locking onto Selena's with an intensity that chilled the blood.

—If you're looking for me, I'll be where you know. And by the way, I'll tell them you'll be late. She looked Selena up and down, a quick assessment, as if memorizing every detail just in case. —That you must arrive— she affirmed forcefully, with that determination that was her trademark. Selena bowed her head slightly, feeling the weight of the trust Kaela was placing in her. —Thank you. Kaela could only make a gesture with her hand, a quick, dry motion that inevitably reminded Selena of Elara.

It was the same efficiency, the same way of saying "it's not necessary, it's done, move on." Only then did Kaela say: —Come back safe and sound, you idiot. Selena ran off. Her feet struck the earth with urgency, kicking up small plumes of dust in her wake. But in her heart, she felt she had been cold.

That she had put herself before her friend, the girl who had supported her unconditionally, who had been there so many times when she needed it most, who had held her while she cried under the coral tree, who had waited with tears in her eyes while she entered the heretics' cave. In her mind, she could only say: Cold, heart. Cold.

Her face reflected the disappointment of her own words as she ran, heading toward where the Black Lock Guild held its white house, toward that place of dangers and promises and answers that perhaps, just perhaps, would finally give her a clear direction in the labyrinth.