Maze of Moonlight by Gael Baudino (read with me TXT) 📕

off the flow of mana to the enhancement all at once, and the world disappeared out from around me once again, although this time my consciousness went with it. When I awoke, I found that I had collapsed against the upturned mattress and was now sprawled out across it. Lia was kneeling beside me and held my face in her hands. As my eyes flickered open, she let out a wordless cry of relief and pressed her forehead against mine.

“Primes, you scared me, Lux,” she said, her voice shaking. “You really scared me.”

“I’m, uhm, sorry about that,” I replied groggily, my head pounding after the intense shifting of mana. “I had a...nightmare.”

“Are you hurt, Lux?” Val’s voice asked. I squinted my eyes and looked past Lia’s head, and found that both Val and Marin were standing in the doorway to the guest room.

“No, I think I’m okay,” I said as I rubbed my temples. “What, err, what happened?”

“You started screaming in your sleep,” Lia answered, sitting back on her feet. “I couldn’t wake you up no matter what I did. Marin and Val came to see what was wrong, and then you…” She looked to the sisters as she searched for the right words.

“You threw yourself backwards in your sleep. It appears as though you knocked yourself unconscious in the process, as you toppled over before you truly gained your feet,” Val finished.

So that whole ordeal took less than a second of real time? The idea was fascinating, but I had a hard time focusing on it over the throbbing headache. Carefully, I rocked forward onto my feet and stood, supporting myself on the wall with one hand. “Sorry about all this, everyone. I’m alright.” I surveyed the wreckage around me and cringed. “Marin, I’ll pay you back for the bed, and anything else I damaged.”

“No, don’t worry about that! I’m just glad you’re okay!” Marin said with a nervous smile. “It was an awful bed anyways.”

I pulled an imperial from my coin purse and tossed it to her. “I insist. I appreciate you feeding and sheltering Lia and me during this whole ordeal, so think of this as a thank you for that as well, if you’d like.” She stared wide-eyed at the coin in silence, turning it over in inspection in her hands. It sparkled in the thin beams of orange sunlight that lit the room, which finally registered in my dulled mind. “Speaking of which, what time is it? How long do we have before we need to leave?”

“The streets will be filled with civilians attending to their evening business within the hour,” Val answered. “We will have the greatest chance of travelling to the Council district unnoticed if we move through the crowd.”

Lia looked me over with apparent concern, so I gave her a reassuring nod. She nodded back and turned to Val. “We’ll be ready,” she declared.

“I will give you time to prepare,” Val said haltingly. She gave an awkward half bow, then turned and left the room, corralling Marin along with her.

As soon as the door closed, I slumped back against the wall and cradled my pounding head. “You think you guys can handle this one on your own? I need another nap,” I joked with a rough chuckle.

Lia didn’t laugh as she moved to my side and brushed the overgrown mop of black hair out of my face with the back of her hand. “What happened, Lux?”

“I really did have a nightmare. It was...” I faltered as an image of the distorted visage of Amaya flashed angrily in my head. “It was about the Dominion again. The dreams have been getting more intense since we entered the city; I’m getting flashes of them while I’m awake now, too.” It felt wrong to lie to her, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of thinking of what I had seen in my dreams, let alone talk about it.

“What about after you woke up? The energy burning off around you was so strong, I didn’t even have to use Detection to feel it.” She looked over to the closed door. “I’m not sure Val actually believes that you knocked yourself out by jumping out of your sleep, and I know that I don’t.”

I sighed. “I think I activated some of my enhancements in my sleep. I think it was my Combat Acceleration, but it was so amplified that my mind was moving faster than the world around me. Coming down from a spell like that apparently has…” I groaned and slid down to the floor. “Ramifications.”

Lia joined me on the floor and intertwined her hand with mine. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Honestly?” I closed my eyes and leaned my head against her shoulder. “I have no idea.”

She rested her head against mine and sat with me in silence. “That’s fine,” she said eventually. “No matter what happens, I’ll take care of you.”

“Thanks, Lia,” I smiled. The pounding in my head had lessened slightly while we rested on the floor, though I attributed most of the recovery to simply being in her presence. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she replied. She slid out from beside me and stood up, bending over to plant a gentle kiss on my forehead. “We should get ready.”

I folded my legs into a comfortable meditative stance and sighed. “You’re right. I’m going to try and do something about this headache, and then I’ll be good to go.” With a deep breath, I tapped into my mana reserves and began the process of channeling it throughout my body, as I normally did in my practices with Lia. As I expected, the pain in my head immediately lessened as the energy coursed through my veins.

Maybe it’s just...mana withdrawals? Although I had no other point of reference to base my hypothesis on, being able to assign a name and explanation to my condition helped to ease my nerves. Until I’ve built up a tolerance to extreme mana usage, I should hold off on