Grey Eyes: Book One of the Forever Trilogy

Chapter Thirty Two

I didn’t get all of my memories that night—just the memories from this lifetime that were taken and some that had belonged to my aunt.  They confirmed what I’d already learned, that she’d become obsessed about spending an eternity with Tristan without limits, and that the same crazed version of myself had gone searching for him in the maze the night of my supposed “anxiety attack.”  But having these memories also unveiled the side of her that everyone else seemed to remember, the normal side of her, the confident and determined girl who truly believed that she could change the world.  Part of me wondered if she would have if she never met Tristan, or remembered their past.  Not that he had been any less incredible then.  The weekend they’d snuck off to Times Square was simply beyond words.  Unfortunately, having her memories didn’t help me with figuring out what the deal was with Tristan and the whole “die if you choose me” thing.  Those memories, for some reason, continued to elude me.  Still, it was enough that I no longer dreamed of Tristan, which was fine by me.  How could I disappear into happy memories of him, when the present state of things was anything but? 

Every day for the next eight weeks, I reached out to Tristan, and every day he’d respond.  I wasn’t sure if I could reach his mind the second time I tried, him being possibly anywhere, but our connection was strong, and his voice came to me as clear as if he was sitting on the bed next to me.  However, the conversations were brief, often painfully so.  Surya was right about them torturing him.  Sometimes, I would slip into his mind too deeply, my rush into his mental embrace too forceful, to the point that I could feel what he felt, and the pain that would race throughout my body was paralyzing.  Still, I went to him. I wouldn’t abandon him.  If it meant that I would suffer from time to time, it was nothing to what I would have faced had he not sacrificed himself for me. 

It was my intent that my thirty-second visitations be spent comforting him as best I could, but often times it was the other way around.  The guilt would swallow me up sometimes and leave me unsure of what to say.  He’d tell me not to worry about him, that if I truly wanted to honor his sacrifice then I should just live.  In fact, that’s how he’d end all of our talks.  “Live, Ana.”

So that’s what I tried to do.

Those eight weeks were in many ways a period of adjustment.  For one, I had to get used to being considered a “freak,” and not the “weird kid from out of town” kind of freak that I was used to, but a “freak,” freak.  The news of my being confirmed a conjurer had spread quickly, and witch folk showed up from all over the world hoping to get a glimpse at the “cursed heir.”  The guardians my grandmother still trusted enough to use were turning away people by the hundreds by the time my birthday rolled around.  The local news picked up on the increased number of incoming foreigners; fortunately, they weren’t able to offer up any explanation as to the cause.

However, not everyone who came did so out of curiosity.  A great number of them came to protest my being allowed to keep my “title.” News reached us almost daily about the high-ranking witch folk from other havens speaking out against me.  Most of the world’s witching communities were in an uproar now that it was common knowledge that the ancestors they’d held up as heroes were actually liars who’d lost the war and agreed to a suffocating peace agreement.  Witch folk were now fully aware of just how far beneath the thumb of Daemon they really were, but that wasn’t something they could do anything about, so I became an easy target for their frustrations.

That is not to say that everyone in my own haven had come to accept me either.  The majority did offer their support at the next council meeting, and were willing to denounce Duncan’s coup as being both wrong and illegal, but only under the stipulation that I be placed under near constant supervision. They still didn’t trust me, and honestly, I could have cared less.  I had some of Aleksandra’s fiery temper now (thankfully that was all this time), and I still felt so angry for what they tried to do to me.  I would talk about it with my mother sometimes, and that kept me from doing anything stupid.   She would remind me that it would take a while to uproot the traditional views of what a conjurer was, but assured me that Mrs. Moorer was right—my example could go a long way to doing just that.