Her face became sad though, and she looked down at her lap and I knew I’d missed my chance. I’d already rejected her once, now I was just rubbing dirt in the wound. She probably thought I was just trying to make her feel better because of Agatha.
“Feyra, listen–”
“Dion there is something you should know–”
We both started at once, and then stopped together. We laughed, the silence passing between us now speaking volumes.Maybe I hadn’t lost the chance to initiate a Mating Call?I reached out tentatively with my wolf sense, feeling her presence pulsing beside me. I felt her open up–
Then Roman started screaming.
Chapter 19
FEYRA
Dion disappeared up the rocky stairs before I’d even made it off the bank of the oasis. I scrambled to the desert floor moments later and came upon him kneeling by Roman’s side.
“Don’t touch me,” Roman said. “Don’t.”
“But–”
“No! It’s the only way we’ll reach Jebra.”
I gasped in horror. Roman’s eyes were melting out of the sockets in his face. A twin prong sat by the fire, red hot and sizzling with blood.He’d blinded himself.
Dion yelled in anger and stormed away. Roman was tense, keeping his body as still as possible so that it could begin healing itself. The bleeding had already stopped, and his flesh was now red and raw, stretched over the places where his eyes had been.
“He understands,” he said. “That’s the worst part.”
“The worst?” I asked
He nodded sadly. “Know too little and you’re dead, know too much and you freeze. And knowing enough burdens you with decision.”
“You had to do this?” I knelt beside him, gazing at his hideously burned face.
“If there’s anything I’ve learned in my life, and most definitely raising Dion, what you need to do and what you want to do are two different things. Prophecies make you aware of that.”
“What does burning your eyes out really achieve though?” I asked.
He took a deep breath as his flesh began to scar and pale. “The one to truly find Jebra will never see it.”
“But you said you’d been there?” I said. “You told Dion that!” Anger and betrayal rose in me. My blood started to race.
“I have,” he replied. “In my dreams. One can go many places in dreams.”
He whispered the last part, as if he knew of the odd dreams I’d been having.
“I have crossed this desert many times in my life, and many more with Dion. But the full journey to Malwreith has only been undertaken here.” He tapped his head. “One can live for eternity in a single lifetime if one is willing to live every dayfully. Not all possess the want. The magic of what we are, of what many people were, has disappeared with Lady Skol’s dominion.” He smiled at me then. “You were hidden away for so long. But home you go.”
The anger left me, suddenly it wasn’t the winds of the wasteland that were cold.He had read my letter.“What do you mean?”
Roman took the fire poker and began adjusting the embers without seeing them. He picked up a piece to burn for a long time and crushed the ornate tower he’d built before.
“I was born with the gift of foresight, an odd thing for a werewolf to possess—in any day and age. Under Lady Skol many werewolves have lost their abilities, sheer repression, some have even been unaware of them. You yourself were unaware until your letter.”
“So you read it?”
“I didn’t need to, like I said, my foresight has gifted much about you.” Roman frowned. “But to anyone, any shifter, your presence alone shows the bloodline you’re from. Dion and I knew what you were before you even knew. It was so strong despite being dormant.” He adjusted his seat. “Do you know why Lady Skol has the Hall of Order?”
“It’s not to track dormant shifters?” I said.
