See How She Awakens (The Chronicles of Izzy #4)(59)

I looked up at him, he hadn’t shaved in weeks and was starting to truly resemble a mountain man. He’d also trimmed his hair up. He no longer looked like a samurai. I wasn’t really sure when he’d changed so much. I’d been so lost in myself I hadn’t been paying much attention.

“Your hair is different.” I tilted my head, taking him in. The man was undeniably gorgeous, no one could argue that. But somehow, this look fit him. Decked out in an old fisherman’s sweater, jeans, and work boots, he seemed to belong to this world completely. His eyes twinkled with laughter as he took in my plaid pajama clad body.

“I cut it a week ago. It kept getting in my eyes when I was chopping wood.” He paused to pull a blanket from the back of the swing to wrap around my shoulders. “You know, if we lived in the dreaming, I wouldn’t have to chop wood.”

“I like living here. It keeps me connected to the world. The dreaming isn’t a tangible place. Besides, you could just go down to town and buy chopped wood. No one is making you chop it yourself.” I pursed my lips at him before turning my attention back to coffee in my hands.

“I refuse to pay for something I am fully capable of providing for myself at no cost.” Aberto had begun to change.

I wasn’t sure if it was being in the world and interacting with people more regularly, or the time he spent with me. Somewhere, in the past two months, Aberto had become more human. His guard was falling, and his emotions were easier to read. It was strange to think of how he’d been when we first met. It seemed my remaining in the world had forced him to become of it.

“Why are you staring at me?” Aberto titled his head, creasing his brow in question.

“You’re different.”

“I am an ancient being. I thought we had established I am not like others.” Aberto still had trouble reading between the lines, though.

“That’s not what I meant. I mean you’ve changed. Being here has changed you.”

“And you disapprove?”

“No, not at all. I like the new you. You are more real somehow.”

“I was not real before?”

“Meh, sort of. Before, you were this distant being, almost untouchable. Emotionless. Now you are different. When I first met you, I didn’t think you felt anything. Well, nothing more than anger at me when I would mess up. But now, there is more.” I couldn’t look him in the eyes. I didn’t want to admit his new self was making it easier for me to see a future with him. I wasn’t quite ready to go there yet.

“I have you to blame for that,” he said with a chuckle.

“Pardon?” I wasn’t sure if he was mad he had changed, or if he liked it.

“I’m forced to be more than I once was. The first time you remember meeting me, the day we tattooed your back, I was cut off from the world. I had spent so long in the dreaming, separated from anything real or tangible, I’d forgotten what it was to feel. The more time I spend here, with you in this world, the more I remember.”

“Do you miss it? The solitude, being numb?”

“It was a lonely existence. I much prefer this one.” Aberto clasped my hand in his, and we stayed that way, slowly swinging back and forth watching the fog roll over the mountains.

I knew the town we lived in now was only a temporary reprieve. Soon I would have to face my destiny. Soon I’d have to be what humanity needed me to be. For now, Aberto and I could be the weird tattooed newcomers to the people of Damascus.

It was enough.

I finally understood the truth of my existence. The past years had shaped me and molded me in ways I never could’ve predicted.

I’ve loved, I’ve lost, and I’ve mourned.

I fulfilled an impossible prophecy.

I fell, just as it said I would, and I awoke, irrevocably changed.

I’ve evolved. Into what, I’m still not sure.

Someday soon I will have to face the world again. I am all that stands between the dawning darkness and humanity.

The truth I’ve learned is simple. I know who I am.

I am the balance.

My name is Izzy Boone, and I will never die.



It has taken years for me to recover. I’ve spent them in the embrace of the mountains. Hiking, reading the books Eleanor had sent with me, and getting to know Aberto.

I learned many things in those years. I figured out I wasn’t supposed to exist. A being of my makeup was an anomaly. I like to think God knew what he was doing. Perhaps He knew humanity needed something more, or maybe He just wanted to see what would happen. Either way, I refused to believe I was an accident.

I no longer felt like a pawn in a game. I’d taken my life back, and with it, I’d taken on the task of preventing the darkness from pressing in on the world. Every step I took, I took to prevent the darkness from finding its way in again. I would never let another Seer suffer through what I had to endure, not if it could be stopped.

As for the new Council, well that is simple. Molly, being the brilliant woman she is, swept in and took over easily. I still wasn’t sure if she’d put the whammy on the Seers and Guardians to get them to fall in line, or if they’d just done it because she was so durn likable. Either way, more good was being done now than had been done in thousands of years.

The new motto fell in line with that of the former Order. If a disaster was looming and a Seer saw it, they could act without first having to seek permission. Sure, stuff still fell through the cracks, but I’d been able to fill in those cracks for the most part.