Sometimes when I dream, I see through someone else’s eyes, and when I wake, mine do not feel like mine anymore.
I see the world in lines.
Lines connecting everything:
blue, calm, and steady;
red, strong, and thumping;
Violet, quiet but alive.
Lines linking me to all things:
the trees, green and grounded;
Ami, a light blue, drifting peacefully;
Castor, the darkest blue, almost violet;
Briar, a beautiful shade of yellow;
Cyrus, a bright orange.
And then one long line, pale lavender, stretching down the road we came.
They glow like constellations. She moves inside my body, slow and deliberate and specific. She rises and walks to a small pond.
When she looks down, her reflection stares back, familiar but wrong.
Brown eyes, now turquoise at the water’s edge.
“No,” says a voice that is somehow two.
I scream, “No! You cannot take me. I am my own!”
Another voice, trembling, answers through my own lips. “I did not mean to. I did not mean to.”
“What is happening?” someone mutters, rough with sleep.
“Sahora, are you okay?” another voice asks, soft and melodic.
“Sahora.” A hand grips my shoulder. “Look at me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. The pain is too much to bear.
Then it is gone, as suddenly as it came.
When I open my eyes again, my vision is mine, blurry and spinning, but mine.
Ami’s face swims into focus.
“Lie down,” she says gently. “You need rest.”
She presses something small and bitter into my hand. I bite down, and the taste floods my mouth, salty and sour all at once.
I grimace. “Why would anyone eat this?”
“It is brabin fruit,” Ami says. “The fruit of seers. It grounds us, keeps us anchored in the real world. Without it, we would drown in our visions. Training helps, but the fruit does more.”
“Oh. So what makes someone a seer?”
“At every birth in Celentra, a seer must be present,” she explains. “They read the life of the newborn, the path the child will take. When a seer is born, they live with their family for five years, then go to Saminda for training.”
Her gaze shifts, distant. “I have already said more than I should.”
Silence settles between us, heavy and still. The world holds its breath, and for a heartbeat, I wonder if it is listening.
The memory of Kathera inside me lingers, wrong and invasive, far too close.
If this is what it means to bring her back, what will it cost me?