Page 5

CHAPTER 5

CLAWDIA

“ A re you well, dear? You look like you’ve had a fright.” She covered my hand with hers, and although her touch was cold and dry, she squeezed firmly.

I forced a smile. “I’m just worried about you.”

“Worried about me?” She leaned back and waved a hand. “Why would you waste time with that? You have much more important things to be doing.”

“I’m an excellent multitasker,” I told her wryly as I stood. “Shall I make us some tea? I’ll update you.”

She beamed, her cheeks darkening with pleasure as she nodded.

Moving things in the dreamscape was still just as magical to me as it was when Baelen first introduced me to it.

I waved the teapot from the kitchenette over to the coffee table, and it moved in a slow bobbing motion as though it sailed on an invisible stream until it landed in the center of the table, pushing books out of the way. Curls of heat wafted from the pot within seconds, and the smell of a warm peppermint tea infused the room.

I created some teacups, ones that looked similar to the china cups my mother housed in a glass cabinet, and poured us some tea.

“I had a vision. The dragon attacked us while we were on the roof of the building we were hiding in. I saw my bonds and the task team leaders get hurt, and Sigurd died. I was on edge all evening after that. I stared at the horizon, looking for when the vision began because I thought if I was there, I could change it so everyone survived.

“But I didn’t see any other versions of the vision, and I didn’t see what would happen if I told my bonds, so I didn’t tell them in case it put them in danger. Instead, I threw myself onto Charlie’s back and told him to distract the other dragon, but it was too late, and the dragon killed Sigurd.”

I was relieved to tell someone everything. Nisha’s sympathetic eyes soothed the loneliness in my heart, and with every sip of my tea, I relaxed a little more.

She understands, and there’s something heartening about that.

“The first time I saw mine in danger, I remember feeling just as terrified. I wish I could tell you it gets easier, but I can’t.” I echoed her sad smile. “Did you see yourself in the vision?”

“No. In the vision, it was only my bonds on the roof when the dragon attacked. Then everyone else arrived, and Sigurd died.”

“So, the reality of the vision was different?”

“Yes. I got Baelen and Zaide off the roof and told Charlie to change so he would be more impervious to the attack. Thankfully, that was enough to protect them, but I hoped Sigurd wouldn’t die too.” I shook my head as the same helplessness I felt then resurfaced. “If I’d seen more than one scenario… If I could see how I could affect the vision…maybe he would still be here and we wouldn’t be in more danger.”

“That remains to be seen.” She sipped on her tea. “You escaped?”

I explained how Charlie and I distracted the dragon and survived its attack. Nisha seemed shocked at my vision and the revelation that Fafnir had separated himself from his dragon and it was dead.

But she smiled and said, “Well done.” I released a breath I wasn’t aware I was holding. I’d been prepared for scorn at my rash behavior, even horror that I killed the dragon, but she seemed glad. “You are surprised?”

“I just … reacted. I didn’t know how it was going to turn out, but I thought if I was with Charlie, I could make sure nothing terrible happened.”

She leaned over and placed a hand over mine. “You did well. For the first full vision you had without my supervision, you pushed down your fear and acted to protect yourself and your loved ones. No one can ask more of that.”

“But Sigurd?—”

She interrupted me with a sharp shake of his head. “Was a casualty but is not the devastation to the realms that would have been had you and your bonds perished. He was probably happy to return to his afterlife.”

“You're probably right,” I replied quietly. Sigurd wasn’t interested in life. He didn’t seem interested in stopping Fafnir either for a while, but I was grateful he stepped up when he needed to.

Nisha turned her head to stare out of the window, her eyes going glassy. “I didn’t see any of your situation. The gaps in my knowledge are getting bigger, it seems. You’ll continue to get visions pivotal to the future of the realms. The rest will come as I decline more.”

“And are you … declining? Do you feel unwell?” Is she aware of her forgetfulness and confusion?

She smiled, and her eyes softened as they focused on me. “I feel fine. The breaks between my visions are rather nice.”

She doesn’t know. I don’t want to be the one to tell her.

So, all I said was, “That’s good.”

She patted my hand again. “I’m not in any hurry to die, Clawdia. Don’t worry.”

I nodded and finished my tea as I debated how to begin my next query.

“I’m going to tell my men about the visions and my powers and everything. They need to know.” I set my cup down. “I’m terrified about their reaction to this, especially Baelen’s, so I need to know what words are going to lead to the best outcome. How can I make myself see the future about this? About their reactions to me telling them?”

She gave me a sympathetic smile that made my stomach drop. “You can’t see the future about this.”

“I’m sorry?” I asked, begging to have misheard her.

“You will only see visions about yourself and your mates if you are in danger and need to be warned. The curse wants to live on and cannot if there is no host. Fate is supposed to be unbiased, so if you are directly involved in a situation, you will not see visions of it unless you are in danger. In those situations, you will be just as unaware of the future as everyone else. It is why the original Fates sequestered in a temple on Tartarus. They didn’t involve themselves with anyone, so they could see everything.”

I shook my head, confused. “Daithi saw himself rescuing Savida and Zaide.”

She shrugged. “He is not Fate. You have more power and scope, but he can see what affects his own life. It is not a fair curse.”

I blinked and rubbed my head, trying to understand the complications of seeing the future. “So, when the Fates told others what they’d seen, they didn’t know what that person’s reaction would be? Because then the Fates would see themselves in the vision?”

“Yes. They would have already seen multiple visions of this person. Multiple visions of the past, present, and future. However, they wouldn’t know which vision resulted from them telling the seeker. Or if they were all visions that resulted from staying silent. In the end, they gambled on their ability to manipulate titans into following the path suggested. They were good at it.”

I swallowed thickly. Nothing Nisha had said about the Fates sounded like a life I wanted to lead. “I don’t want to be locked away. I’ll go insane. And I don’t want to manipulate people either.”

“Which is why it’s easier to stay silent about your visions sometimes.”

I’d already guessed that much. But she didn’t reply to my comment about being locked away. She hadn’t always been confined to the cottage. It was self-imposed. Perhaps I didn’t want to be locked away yet, but maybe one day I would. It was a cheery thought.

“So, I can’t see my future. Or my bonds. But I saw my children? How could I see them?”

“Childbirth is still a risk to life. You were warned about that or shown them because your children have great destinies in the realms.”

The flash of my children didn’t feel like a warning or a danger. I frowned. “How do I tell the difference? If there’s a person close to me and involved in my life and I see them in a vision, how do I know if it’s just a normal vision about them or if they are a danger to me?”

She seemed as confused as I did for a moment, then her eyes widened, and she leaned forward. “Ah, I understand your confusion. Visions where you or your mates are in danger will show just that. With your children, if you saw yourself giving birth and the complications, that would be a warning. If you saw your friend hiding a knife behind their back as you walked together, that would be a warning of danger.

“If you are in the vision, it is a warning. If you are not, it is about the subjects, regardless of their relationship with you. You will know their future and be just as clueless about whether it happens as a result of you telling that person or because you do not.”

“This is terrible.” But having a vision did just save us from an attack. I thought about that vision of us under attack from the green dragon and how I wished I’d seen another version once I’d settled on how I was going to manage saving us. “How do I see multiple versions of my future when I’m in danger?”

“Titan powers are thread based. You know this.” She nodded at me. “The Fates were titans. The threads of Fate make up the fabric of the universe. You can now see that fabric. It takes some time to learn, but you can follow a thread in a vision, then follow a parallel one.” She must have seen the confusion on my face, because she gave an example. “In the attack's vision, you saw it and decided to change it. Were you still in the vision and more able to control it, you could have followed the thread backward, rewound the vision to another decision point, then followed that thread to a different conclusion.”

“The threads are decisions?”

“Lead off from them. You will see threads leading away from the vision to another one with each decision made. You can follow them forward or backward. You can get lost, so just as you do with the dreamscape, have a way of waking yourself up so you aren’t lost to your mind forever.”

I didn’t have a way to wake myself from the dreamscape, but I was too overwhelmed to ask about it now. I’ll ask Baelen later.

As I processed the information about my new powers, I asked, “Shouldn’t I have seen threads in the visions before now? Why haven’t I noticed that?”

She shrugged again and sighed. “The first time you used your titan power, you didn’t see the threads. This is much the same. You must look. It might take some getting used to it, so be careful.”

I nodded as my mind traveled to the vision I had of Fafnir promising revenge. “How can I tell the difference between the future, past, and present? I thought Fafnir’s warning might have been the present, but I’m not sure.”

“It is the same. Look for the threads and their colors. The past will be bronze, the present will be silver, and the future will be gold.” Nisha smiled, probably glad to have a relatively simple answer.

I found it interesting that gold meant the future, and I was glad they were different colors to the other threads I already saw too, but I didn’t have the energy to experiment with this new knowledge.

My hopes for a way to ease the tensions between my bonds and me once I tell them about the visions began bubbling up again.

“So, I won’t be able to see how to break the news of my visions to my bonds.” I licked my lips nervously and asked, “Do you have any advice?”

“It may not be as bad as you fear. They are good men.”

“They are the best, which is why it kills me to hurt them, to lie to them, to push them into doing things without explanation.” I shook my head. “You didn’t see how mad Baelen was when I put myself in danger to rescue Zaide. Baelen didn’t truly punish me, but I know how worried and disappointed he was in me. I … just need them right now, and I know this secret will not bring us together. It’s going to add a crack to our foundation.”

Nisha sighed and slouched as she thought for a moment, her gaze on the ceiling.

“In the beginning, my mates loved me more than the end of the realms. They understood the toll my visions took on me and did their best to alleviate it. They were amazing, and we worked hard to stop the crumbling of the interlinked realms. Yet as I saw more into the future, I became lost. I didn’t live for them. I lived for a day I couldn’t touch and may not even experience. I don’t regret all of that, but I think it added to the breakdown of our relationship. They became disbelieving, unlistening and uncaring. Unfortunately, Baelen got caught in all of that until I knew I had to leave to allow them to shape him in a way I couldn’t stand to see with my own eyes.”

I twisted my fingers into a knot to stop them shaking. I can’t lose my men. I can’t be alone in the world again. I can’t be confined and tortured by visions.

“How do I avoid that future?” My voice cracked, and tears welled in my eyes. “I am going to have to hide things and live in my visions.”

She stood and sat next to me, then wrapped her arms around me and whispered, “No, you won’t. Because you will touch the change you see. You and your children will change the realms for the better. You need only look a small distance ahead, and you will see that with your own eyes.”

I choked on a sob. “It seems unfair that you didn’t get to touch the change you wanted to see.”

“But I saw it. I knew—know—it will come to pass. I just couldn’t stop looking, I lived in a future that wasn’t mine to experience yet, and I should have concentrated more on the change I could make in my own time.

“I wanted to see the day the ruin I caused was fixed, and I saw it. But it wasn’t me who did it. It took me a long time to get over that.” She wiped a tear from my cheek, and her smile was blurry as she continued, “I thought my purpose was to fix what I broke, but it turns out the great powers were waiting for the right souls to take on the task.”

“I’m sorry.”

She chuckled softly. “Nothing for you to be sorry about, my dear. It’s the way it’s supposed to be. And you are a great soul. I’m proud that my son will be part of this.”

“Baelen is going to be furious. At us both.” I took a deep breath, rubbed my face, and steeled myself. I would have to deal with their anger and pray they forgive me. “You should have a conversation with him. He’s missed you, and if I have to tell him you are dying but still won’t see him, he’s going to be distraught.”

She pursed her lips. “He knows his fathers are dying and that mates die together.”

I couldn’t understand her reluctance. She was dying. They’ve missed each other, and there wouldn’t be a lot of time together to make up for so much time apart. “He hasn’t had a lot of time to process the news about his fathers. I don’t think he’s realized it would mean your death, too. He’s envious I’ve been spending time with you but you won’t allow him to see you. Please.”

Her gaze searched mine, and after a long, tense pause, she nodded once. “I will speak to him once you have told them.”

I sighed and smiled gratefully as I squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”

Before she could respond, her eyes went cloudy, and my stomach sank. She whispered, “You should leave. Someone is coming. You aren’t safe.”

My eyes flew open, and I lay rigid as I listened for sounds of someone in the cabin. Charlie’s soft snore and the wind blowing outside were all I could pick up. But human ears were useless.

I shifted to my familiar form and, in the distance heard someone approaching the cabin. The uncoordinated crunch of branches underfoot, and a loud cough, didn’t suggest hunters, but still … we needed to move.

We must have only had a few hours of sleep, so I didn’t want to disturb Charlie, especially knowing how depleted he was previously, but while cats are mighty and fearless, I couldn’t fight off a person alone.

“Charlie, get up. We need to leave.”

Our bond felt … quiet, as though the connection was smothered, but my words were still loud enough to rouse him.

He stirred but threw a hand over his eyes and said, “Not now, Clawdicat. Sleeping.”

I huffed my disapproval. Then I pounced on him and patted his face in rapid succession. He spluttered awake, pushing me away and hissing, “What the fuck?”

“There’s someone coming. I’m going to distract them when they come in. You run out of the front door, and I’ll meet you there. Then we’ll fly to the office. Are you and Dralie all right with doing that?”

“Yes.” He rolled out of the bed and started putting it back the way we found it. “I don’t like using you as a distraction, though. It threatens my manhood.”

“You, of all people, know how much of a terror I can be. Let me do my thing.” I followed him as he headed to the bathroom.

“That sounds so weird coming from you.” He chuckled quietly as he picked up the towels, mopped up the bathroom floor, and folded them. “Do your thing, Clawdicat.” He picked me up, kissed my head, and placed me on the sofa before going to hide.

The door unlocked, and I mentally rolled my shoulders back, preparing for a fight. The singular hanging lightbulb flicked on, and I stayed still, curled up on the sofa, pretending to be asleep.

The stranger started shouting in Swedish, and I jumped up, turning as though I’d been startled awake. The man was middle-aged, wearing a thin blue raincoat and furious, so I couldn’t catalogue any more of his appearance before he tried to hit me.

What kind of man screams at a cat who could have been looking for shelter? It wasn’t true … but it could have been.

I launched myself at him, hissing and clawing into his face, and I had no remorse. He deserved it.

If he’d come in and been glad to find a cat, things would have played out differently. But now, he was going to pay. His screams were music to my ears, and the lines in his raincoat filled me with satisfaction. When his grip tightened around my body and he threw me off him, I hit the wall and got the breath knocked out of me.

As the man took a breath, the bedroom door cracked open, and I knew Charlie was looking to see what was happening. Then the stranger took a step that seemed to shake the floorboards. I raced toward the bathroom. My plan was to lead him out of the main area so Charlie could escape, and I would follow behind him. But Charlie stormed into the room before the stranger could even turn to follow me.