I glanced down at myself and saw that I was wearing ceremonial robes that were a deep blue and trimmed with silver—the Dragon Force colors. The fabric felt weightless against my skin, moving with a life of its own in the cold mountain wind, but I didn't feel chilled or warm, for that matter.
I just was.
I was the shaman.
The thought should have terrified me. I'd been rejecting this destiny with every fiber of my being, insisting that I wasn't cut out for spiritual leadership or any kind of leadership for that matter. I wasn't the type who inspired a following. And yet, standing here in this dream space felt right. Even natural. It was like slipping into the clothes that I'd always been meant to wear.
I raised the wooden staff I was holding, and silence fell across the assembled pilgrims. The aurora above us pulsed brighter, as if responding to my presence and providing the appropriate backdrop for the Fate Ceremony. Even the wind quieted when I spoke, my voice carrying with unnatural clarity, reaching every ear.
Those whose blood whispers the ancient pact and can hear me,come forward, I mentally called to the pilgrims.
A warmth bloomed in my chest, similar to what I felt when communicating with Onyx and the other dragons but magnified a hundredfold. It spread outward from me in invisible waves, washing over the pilgrims like ripples in a pond.
Some began to rise.
One by one, they stood and began walking toward me, some wobbling, unsteady on their feet from drinking the sacred tea, but they all knew what hearing my call meant, and theirexpressions reflected their wonder. There were at least forty of them, far more than the usual crop of a single pilgrimage.
But something else was happening. Something strange. The warmth in my chest hadn't stopped at the edge of the circle. I could feel it spreading beyond the mountaintop, beyond the physical boundaries of the dream itself. The ripples of my call expanded outward, reaching beyond Aurorys, beyond our solar system, and traveling through the galaxy to other worlds.
Through the strange lens of the dream, I could sense the gifted, distant echoes of response from places I couldn't even imagine. Somewhere beyond the portals that dragons had once used to travel between worlds, there were others with the gift. Riders. The descendants of Elucians who must have wandered off our world through the portals their dragons had opened. Or perhaps they were the descendants of the other shamans, those who'd escaped Aurorys to save dragonkind from extinction and had been trapped there.
However those gifted ones had come to be, they now heard my call, or sensed it, perhaps wondering at the strange, inexplicable pull toward something they couldn't understand.
How many were out there? How many descendants of Elu were scattered across distant worlds, perhaps unaware of their heritage?
The pilgrims who had risen reached me, forming a circle within the circle. Their faces came into focus now, young men and women, united by the gift that sang in their veins. I wanted to speak to them, to welcome them to the Dragon Force, but the dream was already beginning to fragment.
The standing stones wavered like mirages, the aurora above faded, but that sense of connection to distant worlds only grew stronger, as if my awareness was being pulled in a thousand directions.
Too much. Too fast.
Wetness on my face jolted me from the dream. A tiny, insistent tongue. I opened my eyes to find Chicha's face hovering inches from mine, her big eyes looking worried.
"I'm okay, girl," I whispered, wrapping my arms around her warm, wiggling body. "It was just a silly dream."
She pressed closer, her small body vibrating.
Beside me, Alar snored softly, one arm flung over his head, his hair tousled, his peaceful expression making him look boyish. The sight of him made the warmth in my chest flare up for a whole different reason and ground me in the reality of who I was—a first-year cadet, a woman in love, and perhaps a future shaman, but not someone who could reach across worlds and call people forward as Elu had done in the myth.
The pretentiousness of the dream made me want to laugh. Here I was, having delusions of grandeur about reaching across the stars when I was still scared of one day assuming the responsibilities of an ordinary shaman.
And yet the dream had felt so real. Not in the way of normal dreams that seem sensible before waking, but with a weight of truth that lingered even now.
What if it wasn't just my subconscious wrestling with my fears and ambitions?
What if I could really call to riders across the stars?
I stroked Chicha's silky ears, feeling the tension slowly leave her body as she sensed that I was okay. "Don't worry, sweetie. I don't usually have dreams about having godly powers. That medal must have gone to my head."
Chicha tilted her head, fixing me with those expressive brown eyes that always seemed to understand more than she should.
"Don't take it the wrong way, but I feel like I should get back to the academy," I continued, keeping my voice low to avoid waking Alar. "I love being here, and I feel guilty saying that, butI miss it. It's like a threshold was crossed, and there is no going back. My life is in the Citadel."
As wonderful as it was to be home, to eat Gran's cooking, hug my mother, and watch my father pretend he wasn't getting emotional every time he looked at me, something fundamental had shifted.
The Citadel had become my home.
I missed being able to make love to Alar without worrying about my brother sleeping beyond the thin wall on one side and Gran on the other. We hadn't dared anything more than a few kisses, and I was hungry for more.
