The candle threw her shadow long against the wall as she pulled her knees tighter against her chest.
“Tell me your dream,” I said.
She told it straight, the way she always talked: without ornament, without the hedging people used when they weren’t sure they’d be believed. She described the Hall of Lineages the way we both knew it and then explained the cracked tombs, the wrong light. She’d thought it was a dream and not a vision because it had come to her in sleep, but the details were too specific. She’d seen the murals on the walls before she’d ever stood in the actual hall.
“The dragon tattoo on Arthur’s chest,” she continued. “I saw it in the dream before I saw it in...”She stopped. “Before I knew it was real.”
“What else did you see in the dream?” I asked. “Did you see the woman falling, the one with white hair?”
“No, never,” Guin answered, and her voice was flat.
“I want to be clear,” I continued, not wanting to frighten her, “that I’m not certain these are future visions. Some of what I see was from the past. And some of it I assume could be happening now, though elsewhere. I can’t always tell which is which.” I took a breath. “And some of it might be nothing at all, just strange ideas dreamed up by my subconscious.”
The candle guttered. We both watched it settle at the same moment that, somewhere distant, a door closed. Then the sound of a guard’s footsteps passed at the far end of the hall and faded.
“With any of these visions, do you see how they end?” She asked.
“No.”
She nodded, like that was the answer she’d expected.
“What do you need from me?” she asked.
“I need you to tell me everything you see. Every dream, every moment of...wrongness, for lack of a better word. Whatever feels like it doesn’t belong to you. I’ve been keeping a record.” I pulled out the leather journal and held it in the candlelight so she could see how full it already was. “I think we have the same puzzle. We’re just holding different pieces.”
She looked at the journal for a long moment.
“You’ve been keeping an eye on me,” she said. Not accusing, merely observing.
“I see through pretense,” I answered with a shrug. “It’s not a gift I can turn off. I knew something was different about you before I understood what that meant... when you were still Lioran.” I hesitated. “I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Why not?”
I considered lying, considered giving her the diplomatic version, but then decided she’d see through it anyway.
“Because whatever you are or whatever you are not,” I said, “you’re not what Arthur is afraid of. And I’ve spent enoughyears absorbing other people’s wounds to know the difference between a weapon and someone who’s been handed one.”
The silence after that was different from the ones before. Less defended, maybe.
She looked down at her hands in her lap.
I told her the rest of the vision with the dead kings, the two dragons, and the falling woman. I didn’t soften any of it, and she listened without interrupting. She had always been a good listener, as Lioran and... not.
When I finished, she was quiet for a moment.
Then she asked, “What does the dark dragon look like?”
“Dark red,” I answered. “Shading to black.”
She pressed her lips together and looked at the opposite wall. “And the pale one?”
“The white before the snow breaks. Beautiful, but cold and... luminous.”
She was quiet again, and then she just nodded.
We sat in the dark after the taper went out, and neither of us moved to relight it. The room was warmer than it had any right to be with no fire, but it was still cold enough that I could see my breath and hers rising in the same sluggish rhythm.
“I am worried for you,” I said.
