I do follow her, though I’m not sure why. “When did we last meet? I don’t remember it.”
“No, you wouldn’t. But that’spart of why I’m here.”
The landscape changes, and I walk over a slight hill of the softest grass that is coloured gold and green. We’re suddenly on a path, and on that path are golden pedestals with flames shooting out of them.
It’s like a dream I almost remember.
“Where are we?”
“This is your home. Don’t you recognise it?” Her tone is almost mocking.
I stare at it, ignoring her, and, though I feel a flicker of something, I shake my head, defiantly refusing to acknowledge her crazy implication.
“Nope. You’ve got the wrong person.” I walk towards the flames and wave my hand through them. “Not even real fire.”
“Or maybe it’s that fire doesn’t burnyou. And I don’t have the wrong person.”
“Yep, pretty sure you do. If I’d have lived here, I would have remembered it,” I say confidently, flicking her an eat-shit grin.
“Ah, so you don’t remember your sister, Sorcha?”
The name pulls me up. I gaze over her shoulder, my stomach churning, trying to swallow. “How did you know about that?”
“Your sister? Well, I know her.”
“I don’t have a sister. She was imaginary. I thought I did, but I didn’t,” I spit out furiously. “She wasn’t real!”
“You have always had a sister, Alpha. One that you were close with, one who loved you so much she hid the fact that you left and lied to the Petition of Gods to protect you.”
I shake my head, but I hear a laugh in my mind bursting out of memory, a woman’s and not one I know. But then it becomes familiar, rich and warm. I hear her shouting and laughing. Teasing me.
“No!” I say, but I lack conviction.
She extends her arm, and I see a faceless red-haired man running barefoot holding the hand of a woman with hair only slightly lighter than his. She is exactly how I imagined her in my human life. My dad used to get so mad at me for insisting I had a sister, for telling everyone about Sorcha.
The vision fades, and I have to resist shouting at her to bring it back.
“If she’s so real, where is she?” I snap, sure I’ve outsmarted the prophet this time.
“Do you think that love can exist if you don’t remember loving someone?” she asks cryptically.
My chest clenches. “Yes, I know that love can exist if you don’t remember someone. You feel it; it lives inside of you, in your dreams and everything that makes you you.”
She cocks her head to the side. “I was wrong; you have changed.”
“Are you going to tell me why I’m here, with you invading my dreams?”
She sighs, and the world changes again. Now we’re standing inside a building with gold trim that is reflecting the light of a massive fire. The height of the ceilings alone is intimidating, but everything about this place, from the hand-woven rugs, to the gold-shot wooden floorboards speaks of wealth and power.
A version of me that is so much more than I could ever be is sitting on a throne of fire.
“Why should I believe you? What makes you think I would give up all of this to go to the mortal realm?” He snorts a laugh, and I can see myself in his sarcastic and dangeroushumour.
The ageless woman with silver hair in front of him just smiles benignly and lifts her chin a little bit, not at all intimidated even when flames shoot, spilling onto the wood floor and leaving them blackened.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sorcha, a lovely, lithe woman with fire-flecked hair that hangs to her waist, watching from a doorway.
“The world needs you. The humans need you,” the goddess says and stamps her staff, making it ring throughout the hall.
