He had said he did not want her help. It would be a sign of weakness if he were to turn around now and ask her to come. It would seem as if he were begging, in great need of her company. He would not show her that, no matter how much he suddenly wanted her to come with him. He couldn’t let her win again.
With a final bout of coughing, he pushed through the trees and made his way in the direction of the two highest peaks. He had forgotten to take a last look from the top of the rock in the clearing, but thought he could remember well enough. Besides, he couldn’t go back now, even if it were to know the right direction. It would have seemed an excuse to make sure she was following.
Most of the day passed without sign of Raquel, just a seemingly endless forest with various animals scurrying away from him as he passed. He didn’t notice them though, too lost in his thoughts about what had happened in the clearing. He had felt strange there, not entirely himself. His emotions had intensified, and he had been even faster to anger than he had been in the most important of tennagen matches. There was something more about the woman that bothered him than he first thought, but he was not quite sure what it was. It was not that she was not kind to him, or that she bordered on insulting him at times, but something else, something deeper that he did not like. Her manner was disciplined and her intention appeared good. This was usually enough to earn his respect and praise, but that this woman acted as if she knew him made him tense. She had never met him before, but she spoke as if she had been there at his birth. Was this the way of the Daijuar? Were they able to know a person simply by sight alone? Or had she really been in his mind?
Someday, he thought, if he was ever to see her again, he would ask her. She probably wouldn’t answer him, under the pretext of him not being ready, as she had done with his other questions. How could she know what he was ready for? He knew he was ready. He had lost everything. There was nothing he could not hear anymore. Nothing really mattered. Why would she hold information from him?
Darkness soon fell around him as he searched out a place to spend the night. There were patches in the clouds now, allowing the light of the rings to shine through, and giving him more time to seek out a place he could shelter out of the rain if it were to come. He found what he was looking for a few hours later; a small rock formation that had prevented the trees from covering the area.
He sat on the dirt against one of the rocks that had a ledge, wishing he hadn’t left his backpack and rifle in the clearing, as he was unable to find a smooth surface or a well-sized cave he could use to sleep. He then closed his eyes, letting countless images flow through his thoughts without thinking too long on any.
It was not until the early hours that he became awake at a sound and the strange sensation that he was being pulled toward something. He searched unsuccessfully in the dark for what had caused the disturbance, waiting patiently for his eyes to become used to the night.
Suddenly a blue glow appeared in front of him, shining brightly at first before dimming to a faint light. It revealed Raquel sitting in front of him, holding the strange light in place as if by strings between her hands. Jaden then saw that she held a silver chain that was attached to the light.
‘What is that?’ he asked.
‘It is a crystal that allows you to see,’ she said, focusing on the object that the light seemed to be emanating from.
‘See what?’
‘Anything you wish to see.’
Jaden leaned forward, studying the crystal as much as he could. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
Raquel looked up from the crystal and into his eyes, a devious smile on her lips. She then reached out and fixed the chain around his neck.
‘Place it between your eyes,’ she said. ‘Think of what you would like to see.’
Jaden picked up the crystal to study it. It was fitted inside a diamond-shaped silver casing, but other than that, it was quite unremarkable. He looked back up at Raquel, who reassured him with a nod, and with shaking hands he placed it where she had said.
The instant it touched his skin, he felt a sharp jolt as if he had been thrown back up against the rock he had leaned against. Darkness consumed his world as he was sent spiralling into oblivion. He came to an abrupt halt soon after, landing heavily on a smooth stone surface. His body ached from the impact. It had felt real. His arm was hanging over the side as wind began to blow his hair wildly about, and he looked ahead of him. He was hundreds of feet in the air, almost at the very top of an old building that had been worn down over centuries. The sky was gray with jagged clouds, seeming as broken as the vast city around him. He looked behind him where the moonlight shone down over the building he had landed on, and then he began to question where he was.