21. Twenty-One

twenty-one

“ D o it, Drake,” he growled.

The question would change everything, and not just between us. He’d already admitted he knew Finneus would exile Belinda. What if he knew about the coup beforehand? I couldn’t handle that. Not now. Not here.

But I also couldn’t cower from the truth, not in the presence of my father. He would be extremely disappointed in me for losing my spine when I needed it most.

“Did you know?” I asked in a raspy voice. “Did you know Finneus planned to kill my father?”

He stared so deeply into my eyes that the moment felt more intimate than him undressing me. The dream surfaced. I bit my lip. Talk about wrong place, wrong time. I didn’t need those images clouding my judgment.

“No,” Penn said at last.

For a second, I thought he might say more. The blank mask he wore had slipped, and I thought I detected uncertainty. I tried to peer into the depths of his soul to figure out the truth of his answer. Penn had never lied to me about anything. Like Evera, he was always brutally honest when asked a direct question.

My head caught up with what my heart had already decided.

“I believe you,” I whispered.

A weight seemed to lift from the entire chamber, like Penn’s relief was so great he couldn’t contain it.

“Do we have to go back now?” I asked.

“Not unless you want to.” He gestured behind him, to the sleeping bags and pillows arranged in the corner. “Grace said you could use it.”

Evera’s mother had been sleeping down here?

I slid my arms into the robe and pulled the halves tightly around me. Penn caught the ends of the tie and cinched it around my waist.

“Is this courtesy of Grace too?” I asked.

He nodded. “She was tired of waking up to my naked ass—her words.”

I let him lead me over to the sleeping bags. My eyes were swollen. All the sobbing had drained my energy, and even a bed on the hard ground seemed enticing. These were the last hours I would spend with my father. I would’ve slept in a spiked chair if it meant I could stay close to him.

The sleeping bag was more than big enough for two, but Penn didn’t climb in with me. He crouched in front of me and brushed hair back from my face.

“I’ll be out front.”

I caught his hand as he started to pull it back. “I don’t want to be alone.”

He hesitated before lifting the covers and stretching out beside me. I curled into him and let his heat wash over me. Penn ran two fingers down my tearstained cheek and along my jaw. He pressed a kiss to my forehead.

“Close your eyes, I’ll be here when you wake.” He brushed his lips over each of my eyelids as I let them fall shut.

I felt safe in Penn’s arms, more grounded even. Burrowing closer, I finally succumbed to exhaustion.

I knew something was off the moment the dream materialized. The foot that stepped in front of me was too small. My knees wobbled, as if the muscles were undeveloped. I held up my tiny mittened hands and almost laughed.

This was a first—a dream where I played a child.

“Miss Drea, you stop running right this minute!” a frustrated woman shouted behind me.

I giggled and barreled forward unsteadily. A bush with pretty pink flowers caught my eye. I ducked behind the foliage and made myself very small. When Nanny’s clomping footsteps rushed past my hiding spot, I clapped my hands over my mouth.

“Your father is going to have a fit if you ruin your stockings again!” Nanny cried.

He liked to make threats like this, but Dad never once yelled at me the way Nanny did. Sometimes I wished he would spend the days with me. Instead, I was stuck with Nanny.

“Okay, Drea. I’ve had enough. Come out now.”

I waited until her cries grew faint, then I scurried from my hiding spot and scampered off in the opposite direction. My foot caught on a tree root. I pitched forward into the snow, tearing a hole in the knee of my thick wool stockings. I jumped and kept going as though nothing had happened, determined to win the game with Nanny.

I, Drake, understood this wasn’t hide-and-seek hour. Nanny wasn’t playing. She was scared and worried.

“Drea!” Nanny hollered.

I turned and took off like a wobbly shot, climbing up a small snowy hill on my hands and knees. A layer of ice hid beneath the powder at the top. I slipped, slid, and finally tumbled down the other side, falling for much longer than I’d expected. I landed flat on my back in a snow drift.

The experience robbed my lungs of air for a terrifying moment, and then I started giggling manically.

“Drea!” Nanny yelled again.

A second voice echoed my name, and I was immediately indignant. How dare Nanny recruit a teammate? That wasn’t fair. She was breaking the rules.

A bright red leaf floated by on the frigid breeze. I forgot all about Nanny and scrambled up to give chase. Papa loved bright colors; I could take it to him.

A stronger gust of wind swept through and stole the leaf. I stomped my foot and growled in frustration. Nanny hated when I did that. She said it was unbecoming of a lady.

A snort from the growing shadows in the forest drew my vision. Somewhere in my dreaming brain, I knew to be scared. But fear wasn’t something the child, Drea, understood.

Run! I screamed in my head on the off chance the command might transcend dimensions.

In the dream, I waited with giddy anticipation to see what treasure might burst forth from the darkness. A fluffy black squirrel shot from beneath a bush and darted across my path. I forgot all about the leaf and zeroed in on the rodent’s bushy tail.

The squirrel stopped and looked around, beady eyes landing on me. I clapped my mittened hands together. The animal cocked its head to one side and stared at me with interest. I crouched low and walked toward it. The squirrel backed away. When I stopped moving, it stopped moving.

We continued the back-and-forth until I grew bored of the game and stomped my foot again.

“Come here!” I demanded.

The squirrel looked around, black nose and long whiskers twitching. He scurried to retrieve an acorn. Nanny had told me squirrels like acorns. Instead of eating it, the fluffy black creature lobbed it at me and took off down the path ahead.

My hands clenched inside my mittens. Never had someone or something insulted me so much. I plunged after the squirrel with renewed determination.

Huffing and puffing, I followed him up an even steeper hill than the one I’d climbed earlier. I stopped at the top and looked up at the pink and orange streaks in a darkening sky. My breath was visible now. Nanny always made me go inside when it got this cold.

The squirrel doubled back and scampered up the other side of the hill, pausing halfway. I tried to coax him closer.

“Come on, Mr. Squirrel. Sit with me.”

Black beady eyes studied me, but the animal didn’t come closer.

Cold started to seep into my bones. My tights were dirty and torn and wet. Why hadn’t Nanny found me yet? She even had help, which was cheating, and she still couldn’t find me.

My stomach growled. It was suppertime, and I was hungry for Cook’s stuffing. She’d promised to make it for me tonight.

“Do you know where Nanny is?” I asked the squirrel, my bottom lip starting to quiver.

The animal cocked his head toward the bottom of the hill, like it wanted me to follow.

I’d learned my lesson and treated this one like a slide, sitting on my backside and pushing off with my hands. My small body flew down the icy slope and didn’t stop at the bottom. Sharp rocks sliced through my tights. I screamed and desperately tried to grab hold of something to slow my progress, but I couldn’t grip anything with the mittens and my small hands.

My body twisted, so I slid the last bit on my belly. When I finally came to a stop, my heart raced, and I was hoarse from yelling. Without my voice, how would father find me? Nanny clearly wasn’t going to.

I pounded my fists on the ground until the satisfying crack of ice filled my ears. Water leaked through the fissures and soaked my jacket. Then, the ground fractured beneath my stomach. My lips parted to scream, filling my mouth with icky liquid.

The sudden plunge into an arctic bath stole the breath from my lungs and destroyed all mobility in the same instant. I sank like a stone. My eyes were open, and I could see the moon above through a watery haze, growing darker as I sank lower into the depths of the lake.

A peace settled over me when I realized this was the end, a thought far too wise for such a young child. I closed my eyes and welcomed my fate.

Sharp pain shot through my shoulder. My body jerked. Water streamed up my nose as something dragged me back to the surface and across the lake to solid ground. The influx of air made my chest burn. I coughed and vomited water and then burst into tears.

Heat built in my stomach. Spasms rocketing through my body. Everything hurt, even my hair. I writhed in the snow, no longer caring if father or Nanny found me. I would trade this pain for a night alone in the woods.

A cold nose pressed against my cheek. I blinked up at the largest wolf I’d ever seen, even bigger than father. He had thick, red hair threaded with gray and glowing gold eyes. I reached up with a bare hand, my mitten long gone, and stroked his muzzle.

Another wave of dizzying muscle spasms swept over me. Then, the true agony began. Flames twisted around my bones. Tears poured down my cheeks, and I choked on my sobs. Then I heard the first resounding crack. My brain didn’t register the pain until seconds later.

No! I won’t relive this, I thought, forcefully separating myself from the child.

I hovered above the scene. The little girl shrieked as more of her bones broke and her joints reformed. The mahogany wolf laid beside her, as though offering her comfort and lending her strength. I’d never seen someone so young shift, and the full transformation seemed to take hours.

As badly as I wanted to wake up, I needed to see the end of the dream. It felt important, somehow. When her wolf finally emerged, it was white—just like mine.

A man and woman appeared at the top of the hill. He took one look at the small, snow-white pup and shook his head in disgust. He turned to the woman.

“We must kill her before anyone learns what she is.”

I woke bathed in cold sweat, alone on the hard ground. Intense fear had carried over into the waking world, though I didn’t know whether it belonged to me or the child. It felt more real than the rest of the dreams somehow. More important.

Penn burst into the chamber and saw me sitting up, hugging my knees to my chest. He hurried over and dropped to his knees beside me.

“Hey, what’s going on?” He didn’t try to touch me.

I shook my head and tried to formulate a coherent thought. “She was so scared,” I said at last, still not sure who I meant.

Penn’s gaze softened and the tension in his shoulders eased. “You were dreaming, Drake.” He cupped the side of my face and brushed tears from cheeks. “It was just a dream.”

I saw my father behind Penn’s head, his eyes still closed in eternal slumber.

“Was it?” I met Penn’s troubled blue-gray eyes, but the question was meant for my father. “Was it just a dream?”

Someone cleared their throat behind him, and I startled. Grace stood in the chamber entrance with her hands clasped in front of her.

“You two should go. The others will be here soon,” she said. Her kind eyes focused on me. “Why don’t you take a few minutes, sweetheart?” To Penn, she added, “Can we speak outside?”

He helped me to my feet and straightened my robe, so it no longer fell off one shoulder. That was when I realized both Penn and Grace were dressed in real clothes. I started to ask but decided it wasn’t important.

I waited until I heard their footsteps retreating down the tunnel before looking down at my father’s face for the last time. Someone had taken the time to brush his hair until it gleamed. The simple gold crown shone as though recently polished.

“Was it a dream?” I asked him. “Have any of them just been dreams?”

My father didn’t answer.

I wiped more tears as they fell. “Did you lie about the prophecy?”

Finneus was a tyrant with an ego that barely fit through the door, yet his claims had the ring of truth. The prophecy was shrouded with secrecy, and I’d once heard my father tell Tavin only one written copy existed.

“One warrior must fall so another may rise,” I whispered. “That’s what you said to me. What does it mean?” Then, I realized that wasn’t the right question. “ Who does it mean?”

Voices carried down the passage. I heard Grace and another woman talking. My time was at an end.

I bent down and kissed my father’s cold cheek.

“I love you, Papa,” I whispered. Then, like an afterthought, I spoke my parting promise into his ear, one I hoped would give him comfort as he joined Gaia. “I will find the truth. I will make you proud.”