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An enormous tremor rocked the ground beneath me, and my eyes flew open. Before me, enormous plumes of smoke were rising out of the source. The ground trembled again as if it might crumble beneath us. I looked up, my eyes wide, and my mouth falling open.

The sky was black.

39

LONNIE

THE SOURCE

In my dream, I was in a throne room.

Sunlight leaked through the windows and streamed onto the glittering stone floor. Outside, a field of sunflowers danced in the breeze and behind that, a purple mountain rose in the distance so tall it ascended out of sight.

I turned slowly in a circle. The room was familiar, yet not. I’d seen it before, but when?

The sound of footsteps in the hall followed by laughter made me halt. Was I even supposed to be here? What would happen if–

A woman walked into the room, her long purple gown trailing on the floor. In her arms she was carrying a small black-haired child. Her face was obscured, her head turned back, talking to someone in the hallway behind her.

“Come along, darling,” she was saying to the person trailing her. “Let’s go to the window and watch.”

A tiny girl, with curly red hair like the woman’s ran after her on chubby toddler legs. The girl bared her teeth in something between a smile and a snarl, and let out a growl.

“Yes, you’re very scary,” the woman said, turning back around.

I stepped back, startled.

I realized at that moment that I’d expected the woman to be me, but it wasn’t. She had red hair, but the similarities ended there. Her face was more striking, and she was undoubtedly pure Fae.

She walked across the room, passing right by me as if she didn’t know I was there, and stopped beside the window looking out over the sunflower field. She frowned, and hugged her child closer.

I took a step toward them, wanting to see what they were looking at. But before I could reach them the dream changed.

I was in the same room again, but the woman and her children were gone. In their place were three tall Fae males, all dressed in some form of armor.

“We have to close the fucking border,” a cruelly beautiful blonde was saying, pale blue eyes flashing with anger. “I don’t care how many soldiers they send.”

The man to his right–dark skinned and muscular–rolled his eyes. “Of course you don't care.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” the blonde growled, dangerously.

The third man grinned, looking like he’d heard this argument a thousand times before. “Because you don’t care about anything. Obviously.”

“That’s not fucking true and you know it.”

“Fine,” the grinning man amended. “You care aboutonething. But Aisling won’t like this, so if you don’t care about what we think, go ask her.”

The dream changed a third time, and now I was standing beside the red-haired woman on the top of a stone tower, watching soldiers march across the meadow.

“Princess?” a voice called from below.

Aisling turned as the blonde man emerged from the staircase behind her. His face was softer when he looked at her, but retained its cruel beauty. He stopped short, seeing the soldiers all across the field. “So, it’s too late.”

Aisling nodded. “I only hoped we’d have more time.”

The dream changed for a fourth time and I was standing out in front of the castle where Aisling was arguing with a figure in a stag skull mask. She was flanked by the three men from the throne room.This time, all four of them were wearing crowns. One obsidian, one diamond, one sapphire, and one ruby.

A fifth time, and the cruel blonde man was picking up the dead body of the little red-headed girl and sobbing.