Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

:They’re ready,: said Coryn in the midst of howling nothingness.

The only solid thing in all that incomprehensible place was an honest miracle. Nerys had fallen on top of a warm and yielding object that protested in Willa’s voice.

The shepherd was alive, apparently sane, and profanely glad to be found. Nerys wrapped her arms around the tall and substantial body. Willa stiffened, then closed the embrace.

If Nerys closed her eyes, she could almost stand to be here. The screaming that was not wind and not voices— at least, not human or animal or anything of earth—still battered at her, but she could focus on the soft voice in her mind and almost, after a fashion, shut out the ungodly clamor.

Coryn’s voice led to something else. It was like an image in a mirror, or another part of herself.

She and Kelyn were cousins. People said they could be sisters—twins, even, what with having been born on the same day.

What if they were more than that?

They could not be the same person. That was impossible. If each had half a soul, she certainly did not feel the lack. Maybe it was that they were meant to be something new, something larger than either of them: something that fit perfectly through a Companion.

Washed in the white light that was Coryn, Kelyn did not grate on her nearly as badly. He softened the raw edges. He muted the dissonance that had always clanged between them.

The fragment of it that was left gave her a foothold in this hideous not-place. The stabbing of irritation helped her focus. Coryn’s presence was a light and a guide. Through it she saw the world she belonged in, and the person she belonged with—kicking, screaming, protesting, but in the end, neither of them could escape it.

There was a wrenching, a tearing, a rending of mind and soul and substance, all the way down to the core of her. She had never felt such pain—nor had the Companion, nor Kelyn whose will and strength were all that kept Nerys’ mind and body from shattering.

The nothingness tore asunder. Nerys fell forever, down and down into endless light.

The rays of the setting sun slanted through the standing stones. Out of one fell a large and amorphous shape that resolved into a slim girl with a glossy black braid and a broad-shouldered, massive woman who levered herself to her feet, looked about her, and said, “Thank the Powers. I was afraid we’d end up in a sorcerer’s lair.”

“Would I lead you that far astray?” Nerys demanded, but there was no mistaking the affection in her tone. She faced the Heralds and the Companions, and last but never least, her rival. “Thank you,” she said, “for both of us.”

Egil moved to respond, but Kelyn was already speaking. “You’re welcome,” she said stiffly. “You’re not hurt? Either of you?”

“We’re well, now we’re out of that place,” Nerys said. She shuddered. “What was it?”

:Gone,: Coryn answered.

“You really do think like a horse,” said Kelyn.

“He does,” Nerys agreed.

That felt strange. Kelyn was not sure she liked it. “Listen,” she said. “I’ve made up my mind. You can have him. Go. Be a Herald. I don’t need the glory, and my family needs me here.”

“And mine doesn’t?” said Nerys. “Go ahead, keep him. You know that’s all you’ve ever wanted.”

“What we think we want isn’t always what we ought to get,” Kelyn said. She had always thought her mother was a sour and cynical woman for saying so, but in that moment, in that place, she understood perfectly.

She slid down off Coryn’s back, though it was brutally hard, even harder than closing a rift in the fabric of the world. “Goodbye,” she said. “I don’t know why you did this, but we’re done now. It’s one Chosen to one Companion. We all know that.”

:Not here,: Coryn said.

“Think!” said Nerys. “What will we do? Ride double? We’ll kill each other. Take turns on patrol? What’s the point in that? Just Choose one of us and be done with it. I won’t die if it’s not me. I might want to, but I won’t.”

:No,: Coryn said.

“Why?” Kelyn demanded. “Why are you so stubborn?”

:Why do you hate her so much?:

“I just do,” Kelyn said.

That was not exactly true. It used to be, but now, instead of the itching and crawling that had always beset her when she was near Nerys, she felt nothing. She looked at her old enemy and through habit wanted to hate her, but it was as if the rift had swallowed up all the hate.

“No,” said Nerys, following her thoughts through Coryn—arguing as always; that was still the same. “It’s him,: Coryn. He’s doing it.”

“I still don’t like you,” Kelyn said. “But I can stand to look at you.”

“Heralds don’t have to like each other,” Herald Bronwen said. Her eyes were on Egil; their expression made perfect sense to Kelyn. “They just have to be able to work together.”

“With the same Companion?” asked Kelyn. “How are we supposed to do that?”

It was Nerys who answered. “I don’t know, but I think we’re supposed to try.”