She’d had the same vision so many times, it had almost become normal. But this time there was something more. A throbbing ache spread out from her heart, sliding down her arms, through her veins, like bitter ice.
Fragmented images danced through her mind. David collapsing, James falling, Alasdair lying alone, Kayleigh surrounded by Shadows… their faces blurred and warped, undulating like a migraine’s aura.
Someone lay cold and still, spread out like a sacrifice. But who?
The future seemed to spin, balanced on a fulcrum. Easy to tip in either direction.
Elizabeth blinked away the Sight and pushed up onto one elbow, focusing on David lying beside her.
Her hand still rested on his chest. One of her legs was still draped over his. But something was wrong. His eyes were open, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. And she couldn’t feel a heartbeat.
He was utterly still.
Panic rose in a flood. How could she have gone to sleep? She had been lost in a vision while he was in the real world, taking his last breath.
She shoved herself up to sit. God. So many mistakes, so much lost, and now….
“He’s still here.” Bryn’s voice was thick with exhaustion.
“But we’re losing him,” Ethan added gently even as David took a shallow, rattling breath.
Elizabeth dragged strands of tangled hair from her face and tucked them behind her ears. “Why didn’t you wake me?” she demanded more roughly than she intended.
“We were about to,” Bryn admitted. The quiet despair in his tone told her more about how close they were to the end than any words he could have chosen.
She took it in. Absorbed the blow. Felt it try to cleave her heart apart. And then she straightened, lifting her chin. “No.” It was a whisper. A plea as much as a demand, but it was all she had.
She settled her hands on David’s cold cheeks and rested her forehead against his. “Don’t you dare leave me. Not again.”
His eyelids swept down and slowly back up, his gaze still locked somewhere far in the distance.
Bryn’s hands came to rest gently on her shoulders. His and Ethan’s Shadows swirled, bolstering hers, but she hardly noticed them or the tears that slid slowly down her face.
“You are a fighter, David Griffiths,” she whispered. “You’re a stubborn, honorable pain in my arse. You drive me insane. And I need you. I. Need. You.”
He blinked again, the movement freeing a single tear to run down his cheek, and she wiped it away with her thumb. “Please, David.”
For a moment, she almost thought he was going to wake. That he would look at her and know she was there with him. That he would choose her this time.
But instead, the Shadows in the room stirred.
All the heaviness. All the grief and loss and fear. All the energy in the room spun together in a sudden vortex. A cyclone of charcoal and mist, interwoven with green and red and a faint hint of cobalt blue.
The Shadows rose like a wave, climbing ever higher before crashing violently over her and throwing her into another vision.
Gordon stood in an ancient Celtic holy grove, surrounded by standing stones and beside a low altar. God, she hated him. His arms were raised, ravens pouring through the sky as he faced off against Kayleigh. He was bigger than her. And stronger. He held a blade that bent the Shadows, twisting them.
But Kay wasn’t alone. She was in a mixed triad, their Shadows looping together in an infinite knot, and theyglowed.
The trinity knot pulsed, a rainbow of refracted light. Greens and reds and blues and every color in between filled the air. Shadows exploded outward, surging forward together, and the balance tipped.
And then, beside her, David started to scream.
The agony in his voice ripped her out of the vision and back into the room.
Elizabeth’s eyes flew to Bryn’s, but he wasn’t looking at her—he was pouring Healing into David.
Ethan muttered Kay’s name, half prayer, half plea, and Elizabeth turned to see him rip a pulsing cord of oily Shadows out of David’s chest and fling it away. And then another. “Where is it coming from?” he demanded, his voice low, as if he was speaking to himself.
