I blinked, and was no longer in my bedroom, with its dim lighting and subtle, blue, sand and cream color scheme. I was somewhere with dazzling light and pale blue skies and stacked white clouds. But I could only see them as vague impressions out of the corners of my eyes.

Because looking up…

Was overwhelming.

Not just because of the brightness, which surpassed the sun’s cheerful yellow to venture into blazing white. But because of a feeling of power, so much and so awe-inspiring, that I couldn’t look at it or even speak. I couldn’t do anything but lay there, prone and helpless and scared out of my mind.

“Ah, you see me, too, don’t you?” the voice mused. It might have been a man’s—it was deep enough—but there was a hint of many voices, some male and some female, all talking at once, that confused my mind. The others were just echoes, barely-there vibrations on the edge of his words, but enough to make me unsure about who was speaking.

“You know who is speaking, little Pythia,” the voice said, sending vibrations through me. “But you do not know what I can do. It seems only fair that you should, and that we meet before you get in over your head.”

I’m always in over my head, I thought, and heard the voice chuckle. And strangely, it was a pleasant sound, even as it shivered through my body with the same strength as the words. It made me want to quake in fear, and yet to raise my head, too, like a beaten dog still hungry for its master’s approval.

That made me furious with myself, even before the laughter came again.

“Yes, you do see. That is good. Greater souls than yours have bowed before me, and found peace.”

And this time, along with the words came more than power. For an instant, I was suffused with the most wonderful feeling I’d ever known, like warm arms engulfing me, like the world itself embracing me. It was all I’d ever longed for: home, family, love, joy, and yes, peace. A pure, unending flood of it, turning my bones liquid with relief.

I hadn’t realized just how much of a burden I’d been carrying these last six months. Hadn’t known how heavy it had all been, ever since this terrible war started, or seen how close I’d come to cracking. But all of it hit now that I no longer had to carry the load anymore: the desperate fear that I wouldn’t be good enough; the agonizing pain of friends lost; the creeping suspicion that I was going to get even more people killed, perhaps all of them, all of those who had trusted in me, who had dared to believe…

When I didn’t believe in myself.