JONAS
AURANOS
After a long day working in the Paelsian vineyard, Jonas’s best friend had always preferred ale over wine when relaxing at the local tavern. Judging by the three empty tankards next to Brion, tonight appeared to be no different. Jonas approached cautiously, sitting in the seat opposite him, next to the fire.
“Good evening,” Brion said with a sloppy smile.
Jonas didn’t smile back. Instead, he stared at his friend, feeling uncertain and wary. “What does this mean?”
“Sorry?”
“Am I . . . dead? Or am I dreaming?”
Brion laughed and drained his fourth ale. “What’s your guess?”
“Dreaming, likely. This scene is far too pleasant to be unfolding in the darklands.”
“So serious tonight.” Brion jutted out his bottom lip and gave Jonas a pointed look. “Hard day on the job?”
A dream. Only a dream. Still, Jonas tried to enjoy being in the presence of Brion Radenos again. He’d been a friend as close as a brother to him, whose death he’d barely had time to mourn. “You could say that.”
“Need some advice?” Brion asked as he signaled the barmaid for more ale.
“Actually, I wouldn’t mind a little.”
“All right, here it is. You should give up.”
Jonas frowned. “What?”
Brion’s gaze returned to Jonas’s, and that familiar edge of humor vanished. “Give up. Anything more you think you can do now? Forget it. You’ve failed as a rebel and a leader, time and time again. I’m dead because of your stupid, stubborn decisions. And so are others—dozens have died because of you.”
Jonas winced as if he’d been struck. He looked down and studied the wooden floorboards. “I tried my best.”
“Don’t you get it? Your best isn’t good enough. All those who’ve put their trust in you have died in agony. You’re pathetic. You’d be doing everyone a favor if you surrendered to the king and joined me on the other side of death.”
This was no dream. It was a nightmare.
But something had changed—during his tirade, Brion’s voice had shifted. Jonas glanced up to look at him and found that he was staring into his own eyes.
“That’s right,” the other Jonas snapped. “You’re worthless. You failed Tomas, you failed Brion, you failed your rebel comrades. And Princess Cleo? She was counting on you to bring her that magic rock and save her from the Damoras. Now, for all you know, she’s dead too. Felix shouldn’t have stopped at wounding you. He should have killed you and put you out of your misery.”
The words were blows, each one a fist striking his gut. Of course he already knew all of this, and now his every failure and mistake rose up before him in a mountain of pain, so high he couldn’t see past it.
But with each failure, he had learned. He had grown. He wasn’t the same person he’d been when he’d foolishly followed Chief Basilius and the King of Blood into a war of lies and deceit, in which he and his fellow Paelsians had been used as nothing more than pawns. He had stormed into battle when neither he nor his rebels had been fully prepared. Now he bore the battle scars in both mind and body, each deeper and bloodier than the last.
“No,” Jonas whispered.
The other Jonas cocked his head. “What did you say?”
“No,” he said, louder. “It can be different. I can be different.”
“Impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible.” He raised his gaze and glared directly into his own brown eyes. “Now leave me the hell alone so I can do what I have to do.”
His mirror image smirked and gave him a shallow nod of approval before disappearing into thin air.
Jonas woke up on a cot, drenched in sweat, and stared up at a black ceiling. The moment he tried to move, his left shoulder screamed with pain.