Image (Insight #3)(48)
Marc and Chrispin, they felt that they owed me and Landen their lives; without us, they felt that they wouldn’t have found the one they loved, that Olivia and Stella would have escaped them somehow. It was foolishness that made me angry. I knew that - no matter what - they would have found them; at that moment, I even thought they would have been better off finding them on their own.
Rose...beautiful Rose...though she was my grandmother, she saw me through the eyes of her youth. She’d spent her life waiting for my return to Chara, to watch me and Landen move the universe; my soul grieved, for that dream was dying now. I could only hope that my grandfather, Karsten, would be able to comfort her as she heard the news of my death, that Rose would somehow be able to console our family.
August, a man that had always seemed to be one step in front of me and Landen, showed me his uncertainty for the first time. I could feel how he struggled to let us make our own decisions, that Nyla had been the one who’d held him back when he wanted to tell Landen what to do and how to do it. I could only hope that she could be the source of strength he needed now.
I saw them all standing at the passage in Pelhan’s perfect world. The innocence of Preston, Libby, and little Allie called to me above the memory of the others. I wanted to know that Landen and I had led them far enough, that in a year’s time they’d be able to finish what Landen and I had started.
I got colder, it became darker, and the visions of my family started to fade. I saw Perodine come into view, and the chill around my soul seem to lessen. She wiped a tear from her eye and moved her hand across thin air as if she were trying to undo it all, to let me make choices on my own; she was trying to let me know that she should have trusted me, that a heart can’t be fooled for long. I don’t know how she did it, but she took me back to where it all really began for me.
The day at the lake, the last day I spent in Franklin with my friends played out in slow motion as I lived it through them. They were overwhelmed with a mix of emotions; some of them felt betrayed because I was leaving, some felt jealous of the perfect life they’d imagined me having - but overall, they grieved. They felt like they’d taken my presence for granted; it made them realize that everything ends, that the people in our lives today may not be there tomorrow.
I heard conversations that had escaped me before, centered on them telling each other how much they meant to one another. A pain came though my soul as I listened to my friend Monica, the one who lost her life, telling Olivia and Jessica how much she admired me, how she was going to start living her life as I had - not worrying about what others thought; she said she was going to love herself and let life take its course. I felt a resolve in her, a peace. I was so involved with my own life, leaving them, discovering a new world, that I’d never noticed this emotion. If I had, I would have told her that I was proud of her, that it didn’t matter how long your life was; it only mattered that you were happy.
The moment Drake arrived absorbed me: this time, as he stepped out of his Jeep, I felt him; it was like taking a first breath, seeing a new light. He was human for the first time. When his eyes saw mine, I felt his overwhelming relief of finding me, his faith that I wasn’t lost forever - and yes, I did feel a love from him, a beautiful, imperfect love; it was for someone that looked just like me, someone he’d always known. Drake saw Dane as a devil taking me from him. In his mind, he thought if he took my friends, Dane would be willing to trade them for me, that I was being held prisoner by a web of lies.
Our time together on the night of the blue moon came: I could feel his anxiety, his fear of rejection. He was fighting for what he thought he loved, rescuing me from a life that didn’t belong to me. I felt his desperation and his heart breaking as he showed me the dark images of the ones I loved in pain. In his mind, he was showing me that they were only temporary; his love for me was immortal.
The time I was trapped in Evelyn played out: I saw him standing in his study, Alamos telling him something was wrong, that over half of Chara was in Esterious looking for me. I felt his heart freeze; he demanded that they find out what had happened.
The scene shifted, and I saw a man in a cloak hand him a sketch of Evelyn. When he discovered that Evelyn lived in a town that was almost completely destroyed, he guided over a hundred soldiers, his mother, and Alamos there. They searched though the night, and at dawn when they found Evelyn and Stella’s name recorded at the shelter, abundant relief overcame him. I felt how anxious he was as he waited for us to be called to the place; it took everything he had to not run to me. I felt his rage when he learned that Damein had hurt me and his fear when Alamos told him that I couldn’t have picked a worse body to be trapped in.
He struggled with himself; he thought that if he told me who I was, the shock would cause the body I was in to fail. He reasoned he only had two choices: either take me back to the web of lies he thought I lived in, or win my heart – which was something he thought should only belong to him.
When Landen came for me and I left without a word, I felt it tear Drake’s soul in two. When I arrived with Landen to release the energy that Donalt had trapped, my presence took his breath away. He fought with the emotions of betrayal. He told himself that I only came back to give him a chance to show him how much he did love me, that when I saw our lives together and realized that Landen had held another, I’d melt into his arms and we’d have a fairy tale ending. When I told him that I couldn’t give him what didn’t belong to me, I all but took his will to live away. He’d stayed in his room, lost in lucid dreams, until the darkness had brought him to the palace. He awoke with me in his arms, which was the shock that gave him the power to push the darkness out him. He’d decided just moments ago that the only thing he could trust was the way he felt about me, that he’d love me even if I didn’t love him; when the darkness began to move through him, he held that thought.