Excerpt from Simon’s Journal – August 14, 4-1893

  I failed Dahlia tonight. I never imagined her father would go this far. Her arm was broken and bloody—her face mottled with bruises. And the pain on her face was horrifying to witness. I don’t even know if Ash has harmed her before. I left her here to grow up alone. For all I know, Ash has done this before—hurt her and sent her home bloodied and bruised.

  And her blood—I could smell it from the castle. It seemed to settle over Firen—noticeable only to me. Normally, I could ignore the scent of blood as it bombarded my senses every day in this place. Dahlia was different. As soon as the scent of her sweet blood hit me, I was lost to worry. She’s my charge—my responsibility—and someone spilled her blood on my watch.

  I thought writing through my emotions would help, but I need blood—Ash’s blood, this time. He needs to pay for what he did to Dahlia—for failing as a father. He needs to suffer for both of our mistakes tonight.

  Dahlia

  As I slept, my dreams were a strange mess of scenes I could hardly make any sense of—images of the Reaper’s mask, his voice harsh as he spoke to a dark shadow, the sound of screaming that echoed endlessly in my mind, and many voices and scenes overlapping into a frenzy of color and sound.

  Then the haphazard array of visions faded, and I appeared to be walking through a beautiful, yet entirely unfamiliar forest filled with more color and life than I believed possible. If this forest did exist beyond my dreams, it was not in the Red.

  When I finally awoke, my room was dimly-lit by faint sunlight leaking in through the window at the back of my room, which meant I'd slept well into the afternoon. I looked around wildly—my mind in a haze—and saw Simon deep asleep in a red chair beside my bed—a large, velvet overstuffed chair I’d never seen before.

  His breathing was smooth and unlabored, his face was devoid of any of the tension I’d noticed in it before, and his chestnut hair was tousled as if he hadn’t combed it today. But what really caught my attention was the blood covering his arms and coating his tan tunic. If I could trust my hazy memory, that tunic was the same one he had worn when he found me injured. It seemed strange that he acquired a whole chair to sit in while I recovered, but not a change of clothes.

  But I couldn’t hope to understand the strange man—or any Imm, for that matter.

  I tried to sit up, wincing in anticipation of agony, but all I felt was a slight ache in my left arm where it had broken. I looked at it, and though my own tunic was stained with blood down the left side, all that remained of my injury was a faint, fading bruise on my upper arm.

  It was incredible, really. I was astonished by my body’s ability to recover after such a gruesome injury.

  “How do you feel?”

  I jumped at the sound of Simon’s voice—my eyes flashing to him in surprise that he'd realized I'd awoken.

  He showed none of the same rage from the night before. In fact, as he blinked away sleep, he seemed utterly relaxed as though completely unbothered by the whole ordeal. Maybe this was just another day for the Imms.

  Yet another reason to maintain a human lifestyle.

  “Better,” I stretched out my injured arm and couldn’t help but comment, “Much better—it’s incredible, really.”

  “You heal as well as any Mirnen—especially once that damned poison you use wore off—I assume you didn’t take more before you were…hurt—a blessing, really,” Simon noted, and I watched as his eyes travelled over my arm with something like awe in his voice as he noted in a soft murmur, “Never seen healing like that in a Halfling before.”

  Halfling. How had he known? And how had he known about the poison?

  I felt sick, “Don’t call me that.”

  His eyes flashed back to mine, expression unreadable, and he cocked his head at me, “Why? It’s what you are, Dahlia. Don’t be ashamed of it.”

  “I’m not,” I argued, “But if someone heard—”

  “No one will hear,” Simon shook his head, “And you are ashamed. Don’t lie to me. I've been around more than long enough to know what shame looks like.”

  “I’m not,” I muttered stubbornly.

  He ignored my comment and rose, “You need to eat. You’ve been out for two days.”

  I sat up straighter at the revelation. “Two days! Are you telling me it’s Sunday?”

  Simon nodded in confirmation and cocked his head at me as if trying to understand my reaction.

  Carmen.

  I felt only grief, realizing I missed visiting hours at the Academy. After all these years, I finally missed my Saturday tradition of begging for Carmen’s attention. Would she think I’d abandoned her? Would she even notice?

  If Simon detected my sudden grief, he didn’t show it. Instead, he disappeared through the small entryway and into my kitchen, where I could hear him opening cupboards, cutting something on the countertop, and filling a glass with liquid. I twitched impatiently for several long minutes until he returned with a plate of fruit, bread, and cheese and a glass of fresh water.

  I was hungry. My stomach felt like it was eating itself alive. I eyed the food ravenously, making the corners of his mouth lift in a slight smile. “Hungry?”

  I nodded just once as he placed the plate on the bedside table and handed me the glass of water. Simon said nothing as I ate—he simply watched me. And when I tried to open my mouth to speak, he cut me off with a wave of his hand and grumbled, “Just eat.”

  It was strange to have someone so dangerous take care of me, but I wasn't about to point it out to him—not now.

  So, I finished the food and water in silence as Simon watched with those impassive eyes of his, and as he took the empty plate and glass from me, I finally asked, “How long have you known about me, Simon?”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  He didn’t meet my gaze as he explained, “Since well before you were born.”

  “You knew my mother,” I remembered from the day he caught me and Erich stealing in the market as children, just weeks before the Imms had stolen Erich from his bed.

  Simon had said as much. I just hadn’t really believed it.

  “Yes, but I knew about you long before I met her in the Circle,” Simon was looking down at his hands—once bloody but now spotless from washing them before preparing my food.

  “How?” I whispered, confused by the comment. I hadn't even been born at the time.

  “Abe Redmond told me about you.” He finally met my eyes. “He told me to guard you as if you were the most precious thing in all the worlds—because that is exactly what you are, Dahlia. Precious. Important—far more important than you know.”

  The food I’d just eaten turned sour in my stomach.

  It seemed foolish that he would think that, but Simon really believed his words. I sensed it in the way he spoke. His loyalty to me was plain—from the expression on his perfect face to his open demeanor. And I didn’t know whether to be afraid of Simon’s devotion or grateful for it. I knew there was a fine line between devotion and obsession. Devotion was safe, but obsession could destroy people.

  I wanted to argue that he was wrong about me—that I didn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things. That I was just a pathetic, cowardly Halfling, and I didn't deserve his devotion. But there was something else on my mind now.

  “Simon, Abe Redmond lived and died thousands of years ago,” I shook my head. “Are you saying you spoke to him—that you're that old?”

  Abe Redmond was the founder of the Crimson Council and the most powerful Predictor to ever live. He molded our society into a peaceful world—a world free of war. As such, everyone in the Red had heard of the man—the legend. You couldn't find a city in the world that hadn't erected a statue in his honor.

  “He lived somewhere around twenty-four hundred years ago,” Simon corrected.

  “And you were there?” I couldn’t help the doubt that seeped into my voice.

  He met my eyes and nodded, almost imperceptibly—offering no other explanation.

  “How is that even possible?” I threw my hands up. I knew Imms lived long lives, but could they really live for thousands of years? Could they live that long without losing their minds? Did they have the capacity to remember so far back in time?

  I couldn’t even remember what I ate for breakfast most days.

  Simon shrugged, “It’s a long, terrible story—some I remember and some I don’t. It’s not worth discussing with you.”

  I didn’t push him, sensing he didn't want to broach the subject any more than he already had.

  “Besides,” he added as he strummed his fingers on the side of the chair, “There is something else we must discuss.”

  No kidding.

  “This better be about the Crossroads—or whatever the damned Predictors call it,” I narrowed my eyes at him—remembering Carmen’s letter and the mutterings of the Predictors I had killed, “What in the name of the Imm God is the Crossroads and what does it have to do with me—with you?”

  Simon’s eyes widened. “Where did you hear about that?”

  “So, you do know something.” I collapsed back against my bed and looked up at the ceiling. “I’d really hoped it was all Predictor nonsense. Now it’s Predictor and Imm nonsense. That's just wonderful—great news.”

  “A Predictor told you about the Crossroads?”

  His voice drew my attention back to him, and I saw that Simon had narrowed his eyes and leaned forward, “They swore an oath of secrecy! I’ve spent centuries—longer—trying to get those zealots to tell me anything about what’s coming! I tortured them! Killed them! And nothing! Everything I know is from Redmond—echoed by your mother, but only because she needed my help. The others were useless to me! And you're telling me someone just offered the information to you?”

  If I ignored the revulsion I felt at such a casual admission of violence, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the Predictors’ resistance. It wasn’t easy to deny an Imm’s demands, especially when it was a matter of life or death.

  “Tell me what you know,” I demanded, wanting to know everything Simon knew.

  He grew noticeably uncomfortable and refused to meet my eyes. Silence fell between us, and just as I was about to protest, he spoke.

  “The Predictors have seen us coming for thousands of years—a group of us, tied together by a series of events in time they call the Crossroads. It’s my understanding that they can’t see beyond it. The future after the Crossroads simply doesn’t exist. It’s as if God refuses to write our future until the Crossroads is resolved.”

  God.

  The Imm-God was a mystery to me, and I couldn’t help but wonder what role he had in all this—if he even existed in the first place. Why would such a powerful being waste his time with me—with any of us?

  “A group?” I pushed gently, not wanting to ask too many questions and risk getting no answers at all.

  “I’m not clear on the details. Your mother told me I'm meant to keep you safe,” Simon explained before adding with a hand wave, “Plus, I have no doubt your siblings will play a role in supporting you through all this. Other than that, I can only guess what happens next.”

  Siblings. I’d suspected I wasn’t my father’s only child, but no one had confirmed that fact before.

  I sensed Simon wasn’t being entirely forthcoming about the Crossroads. There was something he was hiding from me—something he didn’t want me to know. But siblings? Siblings I’d never met or even imagined beyond childhood musings would suddenly support me?

  I burst out laughing.

  I laughed hard enough to form tears in my eyes and an ache in my side, but I stopped when I saw the sullen expression on my Imm companion’s face.

  He was unamused.

  “This must be a mistake,” I threw my hands up with a laugh—wincing at the tension in my injured arm, “I’m just a Halfling, remember? I who shouldn’t exist at all!”

  "It's no mistake," Simon sighed and leaned back in his chair, “Whatever path you take will decide the future for everyone—for every human, Mirnen, and Halfling in all the worlds.”

  “Like I’m some sort of “Chosen One?” I rolled my eyes and waved a hand dismissively as I remembered a distant conversation I’d had with Carmen about a novel she’d loaned to me.

  She’d complained, “That storyline has been used too many times. Why don’t we try something different?”

  Simon chuckled but shook his head, “No, I think you will do the choosing, Dahlia.”

  “Of what?”

  “I don’t know, exactly.” Simon's face went blank. I knew he was lying now, but before I could point this out, he continued. “This isn’t the first Crossroads, but this one is markedly different than the last. Even I can see that war is coming—change.”

  “There was anoth—”

  Simon interrupted me with a deep sigh as if he’d expected me to ask about this, “The Mirnen broke free of our home world the last time this happened—they created the Seams that connect the worlds. The Predictors didn’t even exist in any organized way at the time as they are today. Still, they saw it coming. Once we were free of our home world, the Predictors could see everything leading up to the next Crossroads—this Crossroads.”

  He glanced at me uncomfortably before adding, “We angered our god last time—I’m certain of it. He doesn’t like what we chose—what we did with the worlds.”

  Well, that was ominous. Simon spoke of his god as if it were a real being—something more than a religious icon. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what he meant by that. Actually, I was certain I wanted to know as little as possible about the last Crossroads. If the last one led to the Imms overtaking the human worlds, I was certain it wasn't a happy story.

  I was quiet for a long moment before deciding, “I want no part in this.”

  “It doesn’t work that way—God will push you down this path whether you like it or not,” Simon rubbed his temples, “Or you’ll simply die. Then, only God knows what will happen to the worlds.”

  “I don’t believe in the Imm-God!” I snapped.

  Simon snorted, “You will—eventually.”

  “You can’t really expect me to believe this,” I shook my head before muttering, "I shouldn't have even asked."

  The Imm didn’t move and simply stared down at my red-painted nails—chipped now, but still striking against my skin. I focused on my breathing—on my racing heart. I was panicking, and any more nonsense from Simon after the fallout with my father would push me over the edge into a mental breakdown.

  But he left me to my thoughts and didn’t intrude as I tried to make sense of everything. He didn’t even look at me, offering space for me to think.

  I was quietly grateful for that space.