Because this has happened before.
One spring I dreamt of the river flooding, and father moved the tools before the water could take them.
Once, I told Mother not to let the chickens out that afternoon. An hour later a windstorm threw everything not tethered into the next field.
Last autumn, when I was watching the fire in the hearth, I saw fire consuming Old Merle’s home. We were able to save her life and her home.
Little things I felt, but I couldn’t put my finger on. Never anything I could explain—not so much a premonition as a really intense gut feeling.
But never this strong and sure.
She presses her lips together and nods. “Let’s wake your father.”
She moves quickly across the room. Father is still snoring, unaware.
I sit up in the narrow bed, the covers pooled around my waist, and glance toward him—his figure dim in the shadows, chest rising and falling in steady rhythm.
The room is too quiet.
The dream clings—smoke, shadow, fire, grief. Her voice.
Something is wrong.
We move as one, silent and urgent, and knock on the doors to Lyra’s room and her parents’. They answer a moment later, bleary-eyed and half-asleep, tugging robes around themselves.
I tell them about the fire, the figure and the feeling still curled in my chest like burning coal.
Galen and Tamsen exchange a look. They have known about my dreams since I was young, but I’ve never dreamed anything like this.
Galen speaks first. “If something’s coming, we need to warn the guard post.”
We dress quickly and slip into the night, every step laced with urgency. Outside, the Durnhart porch groans under our weight. Galen holds a lantern, the flame small and stuttering, casting long, warped shadows across the ground.
The village is cloaked in darkness. Not the peaceful kind, but the kind thatwaits.
The stillness is thick, pressing against our skin like a dense fog.
I glance at the sky—cloudless, starless, endless. Even the moon looks different. Duller. Pale.
The dirt road stretches ahead, but every step feels wrong. The way gravel crunches underfoot sounds too loud. The night feels . . . hollow.
Tamsen draws Lyra close. Galen scans the shadows with a soldier’s instinct, hand resting near the knife at his belt.
My mother’s fingers brush mine. She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t need to. We can feel it.
It’s already here.
The six of us move down the path, footsteps muffled by the dirt road. The lantern casts a feeble glow, just enough to light the ground ahead. The edges of the dark seem to press in tighter with every step.
The village ahead seems devoid of life.
Windows are dark. Doors shut. No flicker of firelight. No whispered voices. No clink of a late-night kettle. Just dark houses lined up like silent watchers.
A prickle runs down my spine. I glance back.
Nothing there, but the feeling doesn’t leave.
We pass a well, the rope creaking.But there’s no wind.
