“He loves you. I can feel it just like I feel your mother’s love for you and Layla when I touch her roses. Try it sometime. Sit on the bench beside them and close your eyes. Let her love sink into your skin.”
If I could find time for something glorious like that. My future appeared to be full of death, not contemplation.
“I believe I’ll retire now,” she said. “I’m tired. My body tells me it’s not ready for what’s coming, but my mind says I am.” With kindness glowing on her face, she drew me into her arms for a hug. “Rest well. We’ll leave after breakfast.”
After she went inside, I walked to the rail and leaned against it, staring out at the garden, though seeing nothing.
Stay safe, Vexxion.I sent the words out into the world, though I didn’t direct them to him. He told me not to reach out to his mind, and I wouldn’t. When he was ready, he’d call to me.
I’d always be waiting.
Drask landed on my shoulder, and I stroked his gleaming feathers. “Where have you been, little buddy?” Time was slipping past at thrice its usual pace, and very little of it included those in my life who had the most value. I’d barely talked with Layla, and a longing to do so throbbed through my bones. Reyla was the sister of my heart, and I needed to make sure everything remained good between us. I wanted to get to know Airia, because I sensed she might play a pivotal role in my future. Brodine and I were friends again, and I needed to make sure that continued. And Aunt Vera was old, as she kept stating. How much longer before life stole her away?
“I’m going to my room,” I told Drask. “Want to flit with me?” I had a few things to do before everything started heating to a boil.
He cawed, which I took for agreement. A blink, and I stood in the suite I shared with Vexxion. Because it was chilly, I strode to the fireplace and used magic to light the logs placed on the grate many years ago by one of the staff now frozen in the city.
“How can I wake them?” I asked Drask.
He tilted his head, looking at me, before he pecked my cheek, though gently. Then he flew over to the perch near the window and peered out, watching as the horizon swallowed what was left of the blood-red sun.
Settling on a sofa, I tucked my feet beneath me.
I’d dreaded what I had to do.
Sleep would be a long time coming tonight.
I tugged the pouch holding the bones out of my pocket and opened the top, staring down at their bleached, desolate whiteness. Touching them had changed my life, but without thesecrets they revealed, I wouldn’t have the knowledge I’d needed to save Vexxion.
After dumping the bones onto the cushion beside me, I stared at them, my own fingers clutched together against my throat. These things were both curses and saviors, instruments of despair yet also bridges to a future just beyond my reach.
Vexxion’s little boy bone cried out to me in a voice he’d bit back each time someone hurt him. Vera’s fingerbone whispered that it still held at least one more secret. I didn’t know who the third belonged to, but it was the longest and the most fragile. If I didn’t take care, one touch would snap it, and whatever memory it might be desperate to share could be gone forever.
I could ask Vera to tell me everything, but would she? The visions trapped within the bones could be too painful to give voice. Such grisly things. I hated to touch their pain, though I must.
Do it.
I stretched out my hand, but Drask squawked and flew across the room, sweeping past my shoulder close enough to brush his claws against it. He snagged the unknown finger bone and lifted off, soaring back to his perch.
“Give it back.” I leaped to my feet and rushed after him, but he darted out the open window.
“Hiding a memory, are you?” I called after him.
Stark terror shot through me.
What must I wait to see?
I stood with my hands gripping the window frame, peering through the glass, but all I received for my efforts was asteamed-up pane. My crow had flown away and taken the bone with him.
Something bigger than me or my friends was at play here, guiding us all as if we were insignificant pieces on the Wraithweave board.
The true master.
He or she would reveal themselves when the time was right or they’d cackle and slip into the shadows, never to be seen again.
I returned to the sofa and closed my eyes, reaching out to grab one of the two remaining bones. If fate was guiding me onto one path or another, then I’d let it decide if there were more visions I needed to see.
The world roared around me, and I was sucked away.
