Free Stolen by Melissa de La Cruz

you believe you can cross.” He stared at her for a moment and tapped his chin. “There is a story from your world, a tale of a king who conquered a land and wished to know its people. He wanted to understand their customs, what they would and would not do. He asked about their burial practices. He asked what sum he must pay to induce his new subjects to eat the bodies of their dead.
No sum,
the people said. Their dead were burned. They could not imagine consuming the flesh of their mothers and fathers. This same king asked the opposite question of the barbarian tribesmen that lived outside the kingdom. How much must I pay you to
burn
your dead?
No sum,
the barbarians said. In their culture, they consumed the flesh of their dead. To burn the flesh of their loved ones was inconceivable.”
    Nat saw the images Faix was sending her, of two ancient peoples and their revulsion for each other’s death rites. The dead that were burned and the dead that were eaten.
    â€œDo you understand? The two cultures, the ‘civilized’ people and the so-called ‘barbarians,’ understood their world in completely different ways. You and I suffer a similar misunderstanding. In the gray lands, your people see the material world, the things you touch, the possessions you collect. But in Vallonis, we see the ether, the void. We do not build cars and ships, guns and planes. We build music and theory, ideas and visions, all crafted from the ether. To enter Vallonis, you must believe that the ether, the void, the nothingness, that which you cannot see, is as real as a table or a chair. Trust in your power, Nat, and enter Vallonis.” He held out his hand. “Take your place as a member of the Queen’s Council, a citizen of the White City.”
    But instead of stepping forward, Nat took a step back, fear and doubt on her face. “I can’t. I’m not one of you. Where I come from, nothing is nothing. I’ll fall.”
    â€œYou will not. You must shape the ether into a walkway. Imagine it into being and it will be as sturdy as the stone steps that you stand on. Trust me. Learn to live in Vallonis.”
    â€œDo you eat your dead here?” she asked. “Who is the civilized man and who is the barbarian—the one who takes the leap or the one who does not?”
    Faix stared at her, unblinking.
No one has ever asked me that, young Nat. You have the mind of a drakonrydder. Within and without.
    â€œThat’s not an answer,” Nat said, crossing her arms.
    Faix sighed. “From our perspective, yours is the cruder sensibility. A world that only trusts in what can be seen feels very vulgar to us.”
    â€œWhy am I not surprised?” Nat raised an eyebrow.
    â€œI understand that from your point of view, a world that prizes what is unseen might seem primitive and backward, like the people in your world who believe in nonsense such as astrology. I hope to show you that our world is rich in intellect and history, that there is reason and logic in our ‘magic.’”
    Nat looked down at the gap again. Wind whistled across her face. At this particular moment, she wished to be anywhere else in the world.
Even under the world,
she thought,
with my drakon.
    That would be safer for me than this.
    But here she was.
    She looked up at Faix. “If I were to try—and I’m not saying I am—how would I start? A little help, here?”
    â€œPicture the water that fills the glass, instead of the glass that holds the water. See the shape of nothingness, feel the presence of the void.”
    Nat shook her head. She didn’t understand. She didn’t know how. Her power was unpredictable, uncontrollable. She looked across to the open doorway where Faix stood. There was light beyond, and people, the sounds of a market, the chatter of a crowd, laughter. She had come so far from that living room in Ashes, from her first trip into Garbage Country and her stay at