The Guardian’s Echo

Fractured Vision: Penny

“Penny, look at me!” Soren’s voice was the only solid thing left in a world that was turning into water and smoke.

I looked. I ignored the beautiful, shimmering version of my grandmother reaching out to me. I looked at the man with the scarred armor and the storm-cloud eyes. I looked at the way his hand shook as held back a force that should’ve erased us both from existence.

“She’s not real,” I whispered, the realization feeling like a lead weight in my stomach.

“Not real,” she agreed softly. “But you are.”

“I am,” Soren replied, his voice a low, fierce promise. “Stay with the real, Penny. Stay with me.”

“Penny,” the voice called, echoing in every corner of the room. It was my grandmother’s voice, I recognized it from my childhood, but it was different. There was a wrongness to it that I couldn’t explain. “Come home, Penny.” Out of my peripheral vision I could see her reaching out, offering her hand to me. “Come to me.”

Her voice softened the way it used to when thunderstorms rattled the windows. “You always hated the dark, Penny. Let me protect you from the dark.”

Soren’s hand was tight in mine, his fingers digging into my skin slightly. It was grounding. His grey magic washed over me, cold and sharp like an ice bath, and cut through the haze of the past.

The Remnant moved closer, gliding. But there was nothing graceful about it. The movements were jagged and flickering, as if time itself was glitching. In the shadows, dark, spider-like appendages of smoke were crawling out of the corners of the Great Hall. “He doesn’t know you like I do,” it insisted. Its voice was closer now, too close. “I was there first.”

They moved toward the Remnant. They weren’t part of the house. They were feeding on the Remnant’s energy, trying to stabilize themselves. Philo’s words echoed in my mind, “They walk through the cracks in the glass.”

The Remnant was a crack. They needed me to make it permanent.

The shadows reached the Remnant and a wave of energy pulsed out from it. The room blurred. When my vision cleared again, I was standing in my living room back in Chicago. Then the world spun, and I was on a battlefield. When it spun again, I was back at the castle. Anya was standing in front of me, a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms. Her face was wrong though. The rose glow of her eyes had been replaced by the swirling galaxy of the Remnant.

“Penny…” The voice echoed all around me, and yet it sounded miles away at the same time.

Then another voice called my name. A man’s voice. It was warm and deep, and there was a desperate urgent tone to it. Soren.

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, I was back in the Great Hall. It wasn’t golden and filled with shimmering tapestries anymore. It was a crumbling, grey ruin.

Soren stood in front of me, facing the remnant and the shadows. His sword was raised high, glowing with a fierce, stormy light. He cleaved through the wave of time, and lightning crackled through the air.

The key was burning in my hand, white-hot. The remnant of my grandmother was crying now, and I had to fight the urge to run to her. “You always ran to me,” it said, almost gently. “Run to me now. Come to me, Penny. You’re tired, let me hold it for you. Give it to me. I’ll keep you safe, like I always did. I can still do that. You don’t have to be brave anymore.”

I felt a pulse, almost like a magnetic pull, and turned towards the far corner of the room. There was a pedestal glowing with a silvery-lavender light. I let go of Soren’s hand and ran.

“Penny!” His shout was desperate and fearful.

I felt the shadows still and then change direction. The air chilled around me as they closed in.

I brushed my free hand over the pedestal’s surface. It was covered in dust and moss, but through it, I saw the light coming from a small keyhole dug into the center. I shoved the key in and turned.

A shockwave of pure silver light filled the room. The Remnant let out a final, distorted scream before it dissolved into stardust. The shadows vanished. I collapsed against the pedestal, panting. I felt as if the light had come from me rather than the pedestal.

The hall fell into silence and I could smell dust and rain in the air. I looked at the rotten wood beneath me and the moss-covered stone walls. The tapestries were dull and moth-eaten.

Soren was at my side in an instant, pulling me against him. He was bleeding from a small cut on his forehead, and I didn’t bother resisting the urge to cup his cheek. We were alone in the house now.

“What was that?” I asked, my voice low and shaky.