Trial by Fire (Worldwalker 1)

She had no idea what was expected of her at this point, or more accurately, what was expected of this Lady of Salem they seemed to be confusing her with. Regardless, Lily didn’t want two armed soldiers carrying her anywhere. She half walked, half slid her way down to them. The two soldiers flanked her, waiting for her to take the lead.

“Which way?” she asked in as neutral a voice as she could manage.

The two soldiers shared a confused look, but quickly collected themselves and led Lily around the side of the Citadel to a path that didn’t exist on her version of this beach. She tried to act as naturally as she could, even though she had no idea what passed for natural here. Her eyes darted down to the odd, vicious-looking sidearms strapped to the soldiers’ belts. She guessed that her best bet at making it through this episode was to play along.

It was a long walk around. The Citadel was a castle on top of the highest hill, surrounded by a circular wall that was backed up against the ocean. Ballooning out from the seawall that Lily had walked alongside stretched a much larger wall that seemed to go on forever. Lily tried to see around it and decided that this larger wall must encircle the whole city. She scoured the landscape for something familiar but saw no landmarks she knew. The tallest buildings of a strange city poked up above the massive wall. Looking at the soaring spires, Lily had to forcibly calm her breathing so she didn’t start to hyperventilate. A busy metropolis had somehow sprung up to replace her little town.

From her vantage point on the Citadel hill, Lily could see a section of the city. It was dense and imposing, but the buildings were not the modern glass-and-steel skyscrapers she was used to seeing in her world. There were no rigid pillars of concrete, rising like arrogant middle fingers into the sky. Instead, a congregation of airy hives and nests spiraled and arched into the air in twisting ringlets, dripping green plants off their tiered sides. This city bloomed with vegetation on every available surface. It looked like a latticed bouquet, reaching high into the sky.

“Lady? Would you care to open the gate?” asked the soldier on her left. They had come to a stop while Lily had been gawking and now waited expectantly. She looked up at the massive portcullis in front of her, feeling exposed and vulnerable. Did they expect her to lift it up with her bare hands?

“I c-can’t,” she stammered. Her escort gaped at her, perplexed. The soldier on her right glanced down at her neck and drew in a sharp breath.

“Your willstone. Lady, was it stolen? Were you attacked?” he asked urgently.

Lily touched her bare throat. She noticed that both of the soldiers wore similar silver stones around their necks, and they were staring at her so intensely that it was clear that not wearing one of those willstones was a big deal. Lily had to think fast. The soldiers’ distress was quickly turning to fear, and she knew from experience that people do strange, even irrational things when they are afraid.

“I can’t discuss it with you,” she said, pulling rank for the first time in her life. The only thing Lily had in her favor was their deference to the Lady that they had mistaken her for. “I need to go home. Now.”

The soldiers responded to her imperious tone immediately and yelled for the gates to be opened. The portcullis slid to the side like it was weightless. There was no groaning metal or clanking chains, just a faint whisper of wind as the thirty-foot-high and three-foot-thick wall of latticed metal swept to the side to let them inside. Ignoring that this effortless entry flew in the face of physics, Lily strode forward fearlessly, playing the part of a lady for dear life.

Holding herself to the calmest pace she could manage while her heart hammered away, Lily passed more staring soldiers and entered a large courtyard. Beyond the courtyard stood the keep of a giant castle. Lily recalled the old soldier calling it her Citadel. Forcing her shaking legs to carry her, she clenched her jaw and strode toward the entrance as if she owned it.

The keep looked like an ancient structure with a futuristic makeover. It had enlarged windows and outbuildings that were designed in an open style, as if some brilliant minimalist architect had gotten his hands on an old castle and had refitted it from top to bottom.

The inside was the same blend of old and new. Lily entered and found impossibly large flagstones beneath her and airy skylights above her. There were large, open areas all around, but despite the fact that she found the place beautiful, her throat closed off with disappointed tears. A part of her had been expecting to step inside the keep, fall back through the rabbit hole, and find herself home again. When it occurred to Lily that her Alice in Wonderland moment hadn’t happened and that she had no idea how to get home, she turned to her escort and shrugged.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said hopelessly.

“Lillian?” Juliet’s voice called down from the great staircase. Lily turned to the voice at the top of the stair, sighing with relief.

“Juliet! You’re here, too?” Lily rushed up the stairs, suddenly feeling like it was all going to be okay. Her sister was with her, and together they would sort this mess out as they had a hundred others. But as Lily neared the top of the stairs, her relief faded and she slowed to a stop.

The woman waiting with a frightened expression looked exactly like her sister—from her large, dark eyes to her red heart-shaped lips and pale heart-shaped face. But the ornate gown she wore and the yards of hair that snaked over her shoulder and down to her waist in one long braid were not Juliet’s. Lily’s sister never wore fancy dresses and not once in her entire life had she ever grown her hair past her shoulders. Lily stared at this other woman, this other Juliet, and heard her mom’s voice inside her head.

There isn’t a Juliet who doesn’t love you.

Lily was so desperate for something to believe in that she wrapped her arms around the startled woman’s shoulders.

“I’m lost,” Lily whispered in her ear.

“It’s okay,” the woman whispered back. She wrapped her arms around Lily and held her close. Lily tucked her face into her neck and relaxed. Whoever this other Juliet was, she smelled just right and her hug was full of the same familiar mix of worry and tenderness that Lily recognized as her sister’s. “Let’s get you back to your rooms.”

Juliet led Lily down the hallway to a spiral stone staircase that seemed to lead up to the top of the keep. Lily clenched Juliet’s hand in hers, urging her along. She wanted to wait for the two of them to be alone before she started to speak about what had happened—if she ever found the words to describe it at all.

They got halfway down the hallway of the topmost floor before Juliet stopped. She placed her hand lightly on the surface of a huge door. The small, pinkish stone on her neck flashed, its surface coruscating with lights, and the door, which was twelve feet tall and at least a foot thick, swung open effortlessly. Just like the portcullis had. Like magic, Lily thought.

“How did you do that?” The words flew out of Lily before she could snatch them back. Juliet’s brow furrowed, and she grabbed Lily’s arm with a rough shake.

“Who are you?” she asked, her voice low.

“She is me,” croaked a worn-out but still hauntingly familiar voice.

“W-what?” Juliet stammered. She didn’t understand what was going on any better than Lily did.

“It’s alright. I brought her here, with her consent, of course. Couldn’t do it without her consent.…” The voice trailed off with exhaustion, and Lily saw a slender figure stand up from the edge of a giant gaping fireplace, which was easily larger than Lily’s garage back home. The fire had long since gone out, and the room was cold. Lily froze in the doorway, unwilling to enter.

“What have you done?” Juliet breathed. She looked at Lily, her jaw slack with fear as her eyes skipped over every aspect of Lily’s face and body.