Eluvie wondered if she would see her death coming. Perhaps she would find time to struggle against its impending embrace, like struggling to stay awake late into the night, until sleep finally stole in between snatches of thought. Or perhaps it would happen like a blow to the head; barely felt and never fully perceived.

  Several days had passed, each one a painful cycle of hope, fear, and then despair. Compared with the two potential deaths, a more terrifying possibility had begun to grow in her mind, its horror steadily overshadowing everything else: that she would never die. Perhaps she would linger here for ages, languishing in never-ending solitude as day and night traded places interminably. She could not even tell if the days and nights were real. After all, this world was merely a construct of her own mind and whatever defect had doomed this excursion could have further manipulated her perception.

  She forced the worries away for the umpteenth time.

  "There are worse things than time spent alone," she said. "I mean, Mirab could be here too."

  Those consoling words had long lost their power, but she kept saying them.

  The memories still came. Sometimes, they didn't even need physical triggers. She would find herself thinking of something mundane, like rice, and then find herself in a related memory. She had long ceased trying to suppress them. Whether she regained too many memories was a milder problem than the one she was currently facing.

  She considered rising from the meadow she was lying in and taking another flight around the area. Perhaps she would find a new building to explore. Then, something about the atmosphere changed.

  There was nothing tangible about the change. The sky, ground, and surroundings remained stubbornly the same, but she now felt a heavy presence all around her, as if the very air had been replaced with lead. During her captivity, when she had lived permanently blindfolded, she had occasionally been struck by the irrational conviction that someone was watching her. The feeling had grown so powerful sometimes that it drove her to frantically search the room, despite her ears' resolute testimony that she was alone.

  This feeling was worse than that. It was not her mind manufacturing a narrative due to visual deprivation. She truly did sense someone around her.

  She shot to her feet within seconds of the realization, and stood alert, not knowing whether to run or fight.

  "I'm sorry," a disembodied voice said. "I scared you."

  Eluvie was not relieved. She remained in the same startled pose, waiting for the voice to either attack her or prove itself a hallucination.

  It was silent for a disturbing amount of time. When it spoke again, the voice was gentle and somewhat tired.

  "I would conjure a form," he said, "but the cost is hardly worth the result. I hope you do not mind."

  "Who are you?" Eluvie asked. She searched around for a weapon, but could find nothing suitable. The nearest hand-sized rock was a fair distance away.

  The voice responded with a long pause. Then, before she could question it, a figure appeared in front of her.

  He was a young man. Had he been human, she would have pegged him in his mid-twenties, but the depth in his eyes told her that he was incomprehensibly older - if not in age, then in experience.

  He tilted his head and eyed her with mild curiosity. "Seeing me did ease your worry," he said. "That's a human response, but you're an Illrum."

  "Not anymore," she said. She regretted the words immediately. They made all of her bitterness known to this stranger.

  "You've been forced into a human form," he said, "but you're still an Illrum. Just like wearing this body does not change who I am." He shook his head vigorously, as if clearing away a thought. The motion was sweet and even more disarming than his voice.

  "We have no time for this," he said. "Everyone I can reach seems distressed, but speaking to them would use too much energy. Can you tell me what is going on?"

  "You haven't told me who you are," Eluvie said.

  The man tilted his head again. "You seemed rather frantic when I was watching. Now, instead of trying to quickly escape this place, and despite my warning about little time, you seem distracted by trivial questions."

  He sounded so genuinely confused that Eluvie felt the need to enlighten him.

  "Unanswered questions make me itch," she said. "I probably won't be able to help you with anything until you answer me."

  He chuckled. "Fine. My name is Ettelvwi. Probably few of the living Illrum remember me. If there are any surviving records, they won't use my name. Most Illrum just refer to me as ‘My Lord'." A hint of sadness passed over his face, but was quickly supplanted by a forced blankness. "Do you need to know anything else while your brain slowly shuts down?"

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Eluvie eyed him. "You don't seem to be in a hurry, either."

  "I have excellent control over my emotions," he said, "and I don't need to hurry. You do."

  Realization suddenly hit Eluvie. She could die.

  "You were going to tell me how to leave here," she said.

  He nodded and took on a more relaxed posture. "But first I need to know what is going on. It'll be more difficult to speak to you when you wake."

  "A human poisoned the world the Illrum live in. It's now threatening to fall apart with them inside it. They can't evacuate because -"

  "Arra's injured?! How badly?"

  His face had been completely overtaken by fear. Something about the situation startled Eluvie, but she struggled to identify it.

  "Describe the problem," the man said.

  That's it, Eluvie thought. She rarely saw someone so powerful be so refreshingly honest. Everyone around her - Illrum and human - was hiding their fear, worry, or schemes. With Mirab, especially, every word, act, or expression seemed like a facade.

  "Eluvie," the man said insistently, drawing her from her thoughts, "describe what is happening to Arra."

  Eluvie searched her brand-new memories for information on Arra. When she confirmed that it was the Illrum forming Sanctuary, she responded.

  "The sky keeps forming cracks and healing them," Eluvie said. "There might be other effects, but I don't know what they are."

  The man stood completely still for several seconds, his eyes fixed on the horizon. He opened his mouth, preparing to say something, closed it without a word, and then bit his lip. Throughout the sequence, his expression slowly grew more downcast.

  "Can you do something?" Eluvie asked. "Arra seemed to have a high opinion of you."

  The man continued to think in silence. Finally, his eyes snapped back to Eluvie.

  "I need to go," he said. "Leaving here is easy. Remember how you gave yourself wings. This landscape is just a room in your mind. You have power over it."

  Eluvie huffed in irritation. "You think I haven't tried that? I have no control over it."

  The man shook his head. He seemed impatient, as if he would leave at any moment. "You've simply made a mistake." He tapped the side of his head with one finger. "You have a false conception of yourself. You've spent so long in a human guise that you keep limiting your strength. Even here, in your own mind, you act like one. From what I've seen of your memories, you are an Isei. You passed seven trials, each one difficult enough to crush a grown man. You've run empires and faced challenges greater than this. Even if you can't believe yourself to be that person, pretend that you are, and you won't be so limited. I have to go."

  He gave her a hurried smile, and then disappeared.

  Eluvie stood still for a moment, stunned by the abrupt departure. Then, she sighed and took stock of her surroundings.

  I can control it, eh?

  She stared at the ground in front of her, screwed up her face and tried to encourage it to generate a hole. Naturally, nothing happened. She felt another surge of irritation toward the man, but she put it aside.

  "Pretend," he said.

  There was some sense to the instruction. There was no logical reason why she should be able to give herself wings in this dream, but unable to modify the landscape. His assertion that her beliefs were limiting her made some sense. The thought had even occurred to her. But controlling her mind was not within her abilities.

  Would pretending work?

  She searched through the memories she had accumulated over the last few days, looking for the woman she had been, the person so confident that she had attempted a trial with barely a week of preparation.

  She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and told herself that she was that person again. She stood straighter and held her arms stiffly at her side. An unexplained burst of fear assaulted her, but it was gone before she could engage with it. She opened her eyes, stared out at the grass in front of her, and commanded it to form a door.

  Nothing happened.

  She wanted to hit something, but there was nothing around but herself and a distant building.

  She calmed herself, stuck her thumb's fingernail in her mouth, and chewed on it as she thought.

  I should be in control of this place. I can already control myself. What is going on?

  She paced for a while, then decided to make the attempt again. Once again, she stood still, closed her eyes, and imagined herself as her past self. The burst of fear appeared again, just as short-lived, but more noticeable. Rather than proceed with her plan, she seized the feeling. Now that she was desperate enough to challenge it, it was easy to identify. She was trying to be the woman she was, a woman strong enough to overcome this. But that woman wasn't strong enough. That woman was the sole reason for this fiasco. If she had not been so driven, everyone would be safe.

  Burn it, she swore, I really don't think I'm her, do I?

  But she was. She was the woman who had made so many bad decisions, the one everyone respected, admired, and now pitied. Isei was not a separate person with separate flaws. She thought back over her experiences and compared them with the memories she had gained. They were both equally driven, plagued by tunnel vision, and self-destructive in their pursuit of their aims. The new her was simply ashamed of the old one, but the old one would be disappointed in the new one.

  Stop it, she told herself. They're the same person. The person who made all of those bad choices is me. It's us, not her. Me.

  There was a brief moment of expectation, as if the whole world had gone perfectly still, then memories crashed into her. She saw herself at different times in her life, from taking her first human form, to preparing for her first trial, to receiving her first duties. Centuries of memories overlaid over each other and tried to force themselves into her mind. They moved so quickly, that she could barely understand the rush of pictures. Her head felt as if it would split open.

  Dear creator, I think I just killed myself.

  "Stop!"

  At her word, the memories ceased. The ones she'd already gained did not disappear, however. She felt both nauseous and dizzy. Mentally, she ordered the memories to organize themselves. When her blurry vision finally cleared, she found herself sitting on the floor of a hallway. Doors lined the blank wall on both sides and behind her, as Amu had promised, was the door that led back to reality.

  What would keep you happy during the wait for book 2?