“Nem,” the whisper came. But she couldn’t see anyone; the light engulfed everything. The white overwhelmed her senses and touched her but was softened by a far away streak of gold.

“Nem,” it repeated in a hushed, breathless sigh.

She thought she recognized the voice. Yes, she was sure now. Even though she hadn’t heard it in decades, the time between then and now melted, as the moments away.

“Mom? Mom?” she called.

She felt like a little girl again, her body returning to that moment as a child. She reached out her hand as the gold glow came toward her, gentle as a rolling wave. Quiet as a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” Nem said before letting go of everything.

Everything had all seemed so important. But now… nothing.

72

When William opened his eyes, the first thing which entered his brain was that his killer headache was the least of his concerns. His arm had slammed against Orelia’s mother’s gravestone and he knew at once he’d broken the limb.

The sky had cleared by some miracle, and the moon shone bright, as if to say, hey, now it’s my turn. The storm appeared to have traveled on at breakneck speed while he lay unconscious. He pulled himself up to a sitting position and looked toward the horizon. His math wasn’t his strongest point, nor his visual perception, but he calculated the dark, treacherous clouds were a good five miles to the South.

“Ow,” he cried, touching his left arm gently with his fingers to check if his first diagnosis was correct.

Yes, broken for sure, because arms don’t normally sport an s-bend below the elbow. That wouldn’t be of any use for a while. He might need to learn to dictate his work if he was to get anything done. Despite the throb threatening to explode in his head and the fire in his fractured arm, he felt strangely uplifted.

Anything to do with his craft, other than curses, hadn’t entered his mind for months, so that alone made him… happy.

Happy.

Another emotion he hadn’t experienced in recent times. Nothing like a massive bolt of electricity to realign your priorities.

But Orelia? The vision of her hand outstretched demanding the book, her black eyes staring with such hatred, flew at him. Where was she? She had said something about him caring or why he cared about the book. Then, then—oh, he couldn’t remember.

He scanned his surroundings and realized why his change of heart; why he felt lighter, a weight lifted from him. Orelia lay ten yards away, unmoving. She must have taken a direct hit. The impact of the lightning strike had sent her backward where she’d landed on a gravestone.

Even from this sitting position on the ground, he saw her head had broken her fall. Skull versus stone is never a good contest, not for the skull, at least. In her case, it was a fait accompli.

William pushed himself up to standing, careful to move his arm as little as possible. Once upright, he nursed the injury with his other hand, and took small, cautious steps toward her body. Once there, he squatted beside her to check her pulse.