I didn't understand how. The vision didn't show me the mechanism, didn't explain what she did or said or changed. But I knew, with the bone-deep certainty that only prophecy could provide, that this woman was the key.
Her presence in his life meant he lived. Her absence meant he died.
The vision released me.
I woke gasping.
The darkness of our room pressed in around me, suffocating. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think. My heart hammered against my ribs so hard it hurt.
"Kailin?" Alar's voice was groggy with sleep. "Kailin, what's wrong?"
I tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come. My throat had closed up, locked tight by the terror still coursing through my veins.
The mattress shifted as Alar sat up and looked at me. "Talk to me, Kailin."
I forced air into my lungs. Forced my throat to work.
"I dreamed," I managed. "I dreamed that you died."
His eyes softened. "It was just a nightmare?—"
"No." I sat up, grabbing his arms, fingers digging into his skin. "It wasn't a nightmare. It was a prophecy."
"The sleeping draught?—"
"The dream broke through anyway." I heard the hysteria creeping into my voice and couldn't stop it. "I saw you after bonding. Weeks from now, maybe months. A training exercise, solo flight. You were bonded—I could feel the bond, feel how strong it was. And then something went wrong, and you fell, and you died."
Alar's face had gone pale in the aurora lights combing through the parted curtains. "Kailin..."
"I saw you hit the rocks. I felt the bond between you and your dragon shatter." Tears were streaming down my cheeks now. I hadn't even realized I was crying. "You died, Alar. You died, and there was nothing I could do."
He pulled me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me. I could feel his heart racing, matching the frantic rhythm of my own.
"It was just a dream," he said, but his voice lacked conviction.
"It was prophecy. I know the difference."
He didn't argue.
For a long moment, we just held each other, and I pressed my face against his shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent ofhim, and as I calmed down, I remembered that the dream hadn't ended with Alar's death. His destiny had been altered by the appearance of the Elurian noble.
"There is a way to change this terrible outcome." I pulled back. "The vision shifted at the end." I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. "A woman appeared. An Elurian noble, and she changed everything."
"What woman?"
"I couldn't see her face because she had her back to me, kind of floating above the scene and altering the outcome. She wore high-caste Elurian robes of crimson and gold with elaborate embroidery. She was a noble, maybe even a royal. Once she appeared, your destiny changed, and you lived."
My tears dried out as hope surged in my chest. There was a way to save Alar if I could figure out who the woman in the dream was and how she was supposed to save him.
The color had drained completely from his face. He looked like he'd seen a ghost.
"Crimson and gold?" he asked.
"Yes. Are they significant?"
"Those are the colors of my family. The Catonian royalty."
"It's your mother," I said. "Isn't it?"
