Welcome back for Part 7 of this random Writing Prompt Wednesday! If you’re just joining us, please check out all of the previous parts of this short story under the Writing Prompt Wednesday category on the This Book Beauty Blog! Only three more parts to see Malia and Sebastian through to the end of their story. Now that Malia has her memories back, what does that mean for their journey?
This is the part where being a Pantser can be dangerous! When I started this random writing prompt, I had no idea where I was going with this. . . and great news, 3 parts from the end, I still don’t have a great idea where we’re going. The great part about being a Pantser is that your characters sometimes take off on a path you never would’ve considered without them hijacking the story. Oh well, strap in, we’re going anyway!
The Night of the Renascent: Part 7
*Copyright 2024 by Kaye Roan & Blue Dandelion Press, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
For the second time in as many days, my clothes were soaked with seawater and clung to me like another skin. If we lived through this, I never wanted to see another body of salt water again, a difficult feat considering my soul-bonded was an energy-sustained vampire pirate. A short time ago, I would have agreed that it sounded ridiculous, in fact, I did believe it was ridiculous not that long ago. Now though, with my memories returning, it made more sense than I wanted it to.
“I hate the ocean,” I growled, facing Sebastian with my hands planted firmly on my hips.
He grinned, though it didn’t reach his eyes; he looked, wary, “No you don’t. You just hate being forced into it.”
Grimacing, I conceded this one. In the past, the long history that we shared reminded me that we had spent some very good moments on the ocean.
“What do you remember?” He was hesitant to ask, I could tell from his tone. Sebastian was worried about what I would remember and how quickly. Time was of the essence after all. Then again, the more quickly my memories returned, the closer we came to being parted again if we didn’t succeed in beating back The Dark.
“The memories are coming back, slowly. On the plus side, I seem to remember all of my training with a sword and a bow, so we don’t need to retrain for that, right?”
A small smile, not a reassured one, “That is good.”
“Regardless,” I rolled my shoulders, “it doesn’t matter what I remember. We need to get going. Mother Belinda is gone now and the only hope we have now is finding the physical form.” I pictured the creature as a wrinkled husk of a being, deformed and broken with a blackened maw. Not that I knew what it looked like exactly. Each time I had been killed; I’d never seen the creature itself. Neither had Sebastian. Each time the Renascent died, The Dark disappeared for the same number of years that the Renascent was gone, leaving the world in peace for that time. Amazingly, no one decided to hunt the Renascent and do the job before The Dark could.
“I’ve got a notion where it is,” Sebastian turned the giant wooden wheel of the ship, angling us toward the shore, back toward my home, where it had stood before it burned to the ground.
“Care to share?” I asked. The more my memories returned, the more I remembered that Sebastian had never been a talker, and likely never would be. Of course, if this all went according to plan, neither of us would be talking much in the near future. That thought had my heart breaking with a resounding crack. I didn’t want to leave again. I wanted to stay and have a chance at a real life with this man.
Maybe that isn’t in the cards, I thought sadly.
Neither of us had ever been the kind to run away from the hard decisions, especially Sebastian. I hadn’t been, at least before I’d left him last time. The time I’d promised to take him with me. That time, I’d balked from the hard decision, I’d run as far away from it as I could because, even if I had to die, over and over again. He didn’t.
I glanced at Sebastian, my soul-bonded, and he was already staring at me, as if he could see everything running through my mind, my heart. Why had fate played such a cruel trick on him? To bond him to a woman who was destined to fail and disappear over and over, leaving him behind each time. There was no way we wouldn’t end up having that conversation again, now that my memories were back and I could be held accountable for abandoning him when I’d promised to take him with me.
“Sebastian—”
He shook his head and turned away, “No, now is not the time. Just, don’t leave me again.” His heart was in that last line, all of it. Every shattered and broken piece.
I swallowed and nodded, what else could I do?
“The Dark is likely holed up somewhere near your home, since it targeted you so thoroughly from the moment it sensed your presence on this plane again. It’s been hunting you for at least six months, if not longer.”
The sea propelled us along, and I watched as Sebastian leaned into the wind and seemed to embrace the waves. He was using the natural energy of the Earth to sustain him, to gather energy in a way that would benefit us both when the time came for the final battle that loomed on the horizon. The Dark was waiting for us, and we’d meet it head-on.
It took a solid 24 hours to reach the shores we’d just left not all that long ago. My mind flashed back to our wild dash through the forest that night. Had it only been two days ago? Not even that? My days were blending together and hours meant nothing. I was exhausted and unable to pull the Earth’s energy into me as Sebastian did. It didn’t seem fair to me that I couldn’t utilize his gifts as his soul-bonded. Being able to supercharge before the battle would be nice. And we wouldn’t need to find a place for me to sleep for the night, or stay on the blasted ship.
Sebastian rowed us to the shore in a long boat and helped me pick my way up the steep cliff we’d jumped from. The rocks were sharp and bit into my palms no matter where I tried to find a handhold.
At the top, I sprawled limply on the ground, a puppet whose strings had been cut. I don’t know that I could have moved if I wanted to. Blessedly, Sebastian could sense how dead on my feet I was. Since he’d been siphoning energy for the better part of several hours, he deftly maneuvered around our makeshift campsite without so much as a tired sigh. I was envious. That type of energy seemed a distant dream at this point. He started a fire and rolled out two bedrolls right next to it. He didn’t try to convince me to eat something for which I was grateful. There was no way I was getting anything down my stomach tonight. Not between the nerves and the exhaustion that weighed heavily on me.
I curled between the layers of my bedroll and felt him lay on the other one, facing the woods and keeping me solidly between the fire and his warm protective body. It didn’t take more than a few minutes of quiet breathing and crackling fire, before I was lulled into a deep sleep.
I didn’t dream, a minor miracle in and of itself. For a moment, I felt relief. The beast that had plagued me for six months had left me be for at least one night. But the nightmare that I startled awake to, was infinitely more hellish.
There were shadows and mist swirling all around, extinguishing the fire and blocking out any hope of light. They slowly receded, creeping away into the woods, laughing mockingly, as if The Dark had already won this fight.
Maybe it had. Maybe The Dark would win this entire war. Because Sebastian was gone. And where he’d been, his shredded bedroll and pooling blood told me exactly where he’d been taken.
Next Wednesday brings us to Part 8 of a 10-part Short Story. Eeks!
Happy Reading!
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