The Price You Pay
"I may never sleep again. Damn the undead!" Sapphire's explosive outburst echoed through the peaceful corridors of the Plumb blossom retreat. "Be glad you weren't there, Hsuan Lin," she continued, more quietly.
"If you say so. It sounds like the most exciting thing to happen since I left Nexus, and I missed it. Even Lu Fei was there! I mean, how bad could it have been if he survived?" Hsuan Lin shrugged.
In the hallway just outside of her rooms, Sapphire stopped. "One of these days, I'm going to have to find out why you dislike him so much. He seems alright to me. Look, it was dangerous, but that's nothing new. There's just something especially horrible about the animated dead. Those zombies- they were human once. And I couldn't forget that. The whole time, while I threw at them everything I could, did terrible things just to make them stop moving, I knew that these were ordinary people. People we had failed to protect." She rested her head against the door, but with her eyes closed it was worse. She could almost see the children...
She opened her eyes, and found Hsuan Lin looking at her, concerned. "Stop looking at me like that. I'll be fine if I can just get some sleep."
Hsuan Lin appeared thoroughly unconvinced as she said, "Of course. Not that that's ever worked for me. Some things only time will fix."
With a joyless smile, Sapphire said, "I know, but it's a start. One tiny step back to normal."
It was early afternoon before she actually fell asleep. She dreamed alone, a dream of comfort, a dream of home.
A child again, she walks the garden of her father's estate. For a moment, she's inexplicably afraid, but then her mother takes her hand and walks with her, and all fear is gone. "Mother," she whispers, "I missed you so much." As she starts to cry, her mother stops and kneels so she can look into Sapphire's eyes. "Oh, Lythia, I know. But I'm here now. Everything will be alright." Sapphire feels the touch of her hand as her mother wipes the tears from her eyes. For a moment, everything blazes with crystal clarity. Her mother, so beautiful, so elegant, blue eyes shining the same shade as Sapphire's own. But as she gazes at her mother's face, she feels something...wrong. A cloud covers the sun, and the garden turns grey around the edges. Darkness begins to flow into the dream slowly at first, as she stands there frozen, but now more quickly, like the racing tide. Soon there is no garden, and even the ground at her feet disappears. Her mother looks on, smile intact. Sapphire wants to scream at her, "Don't you see? Something is wrong here!" but time has stopped, and she has no choice but to see silently. The darkness devours everything before it. Last of all, her mother's smiling face is consumed, as the life disappears from her sapphire eyes.
In the fading light of early evening, Sapphire woke up screaming. She apologized to those who came by to make sure she was ok, and reassured them that it was only a nightmare. Once she is alone again, she runs to the chest where she keeps the little that remains of her past. On the very top, there's a tiny bag made of white silk. Inside that bag is the most precious thing she owns. But when she picks it up, it's obvious that the bag is empty. She starts to shake as she realizes that nothing is ever easy, as she realizes that she's gained the celestial circle, as she realizes that the price is too high- too late.
