Chapter Eighteen #2
“Prophecy and illusions,” said the first. Also male. He was tall with a lean build. Something about his voice seemed… familiar. But like their facial features, their voices had a strange distortion as well, making it impossible to identify.
“Seduction,” the second said in a sultry voice, placing her hands on her curvy hips.
“Green magic,” said the fourth, her gentle voice less confident than the others. Meeker.
The fifth one, a female, stood with her shoulders squared and her head held high. Saying nothing. But I knew who she was. Saint Vera.
However, any attempt for me to speak proved impossible.
It was different than when I’d been in the elixir’s world.
There, I’d been able to move around and talk, even if no one in the visions could see or hear me.
But in this… dream, I guess… I didn’t have a corporeal form.
More like an invisible audience watching a scene play out.
“Destruction and curses,” Saint Vera said, as if spoken through gritted teeth. “Kill all demons. Burn them all. Until only ashes remain.”
Chills wracked me, as though I’d been injected by a thousand needles filled with ice-cold water.
What were they all trying to tell me? Vera had come into power during the human and demon war, so her words made me think about her attack on the Shadow Realm… and what she did to Onyx. Were the others the same then? Telling me what their grand destiny entailed?
The five of them disappeared without another word, and my vision went dark again. But it didn’t stay that way for long.
A handful of beats later, a pair of crimson eyes appeared.
Onyx was smiling down at me, tracing the line of my jaw like he so often did. I had a body now but had no control over it. Couldn’t speak or move. I could only stare up at the heartachingly beautiful face that’d consumed my thoughts for the past two days.
“Silly little bird,” he said, releasing one of his musical laughs. “How I’ve lived without you for all these years, I’ll never know.” He pulled me in closer and nuzzled my hair. “But I never wish to know another day without you by my side.”
It wasn’t a memory.
I realized, with a bittersweet tug in chest, that it was the future I wished he and I could have. The happily ever after that the curse took from him. From both of us.
“The yearnings of your heart,” a disembodied voice said as the image of Onyx faded. The voice didn’t unsettle me though. It felt… peaceful. “You wield the power to make it so.”
The tree trunk reappeared in front of me.
My brain took a moment to process, jarred from the shift in my surroundings. I had come out of the dream and stood back beneath the weeping willow. The chitter of birds reached my ears, as did the chimes from the leaves.
The guardian stood in the same place he’d been before, his attention still unwavering on me. But his black-eyed gaze seemed less intimidating than earlier. A soft clank sounded as he slowly moved, facing back toward the branches as they parted.
My cue to leave.
Stepping back out into the meadow, though, I had to blink a few times. It was nighttime now.
“Good. You’ve returned.” Phantasia stood from where she’d been sitting by the stream. Salem perched on her forearm, his golden eyes faintly glowing in the dark.
“How long was I in there?” I asked, struggling to wrap my head around the sense of lost time.
“Nearly four hours,” she answered, petting Salem’s wings.
“Four hours?” I nearly fell over. “It felt like five minutes.”
“It was the same for me when I stepped beyond the branches once before.” Phantasia retrieved my basket from the grass and approached me.
“She showed me my life’s path. Before then, I spent my days in the marketplace, brewing herbal teas for the townsfolk and the occasional simple elixir for pains and aches.
Then Saint Vera invaded this realm. Many demons were killed and others were severely wounded. My late wife amongst them.”
“Your wife?” I asked.
“It was before I met my Armin. Her name was Belladonna. But I called her my Bella.” Phantasia pressed her forehead against Salem’s feathers, her eyes closing.
“She’s the one who rescued Salem. He was a wee babe who’d been abandoned in his nest because of a broken wing.
We tended to him and set him free, but he refused to leave.
The three of us lived a beautiful life together before it was cut short much too soon. ”
“Kill all demons. Burn them all.”
No need to ask what happened to Bella. And I wouldn’t have asked anyway. The grief in Phantasia’s voice as she spoke of her wife was too great. I wouldn’t ask her to relive that pain for the sake of my curiosity.
“After the battle, those who didn’t succumb to their injuries needed a healer,” she continued.
“Unfortunately, Hektor, the healer before me, had been killed during the attack. The survivors all came together to help the wounded as much as we could, but the situation was grave. That’s when I felt a draw to this place.
A voice beckoned to me. Once in the willow’s embrace, I was shown a vision. ”
“Of what?” I asked, remembering my own experience in the willow.
The faintest of smiles touched her lips.
“Of my dear Armin. Though, he meant little to me before then. Nothing more than one of the countless warriors who’d been wounded.
He was in the ward and near death. But the willow showed me his face, one not broken and bruised like he was in the ward.
Instead, he was smiling down at me with so much…
life. Warmth. That’s when I sensed a surge of power in my core and a tingling in my palms. When I emerged from the branches, I took my knowledge as a herbologist and became what I am today. ”
“And you saved Armin,” I said, accepting my basket as she handed it over to me. One that was much lighter than it’d been earlier.
“I did.” She looked at the basket. “I hope you don’t mind, but I helped myself to the boar hand pie you brought as I waited. And three of the lemon cookies.”
“That’s okay.” I smiled, though it felt half-hearted. I was still shaken by the fact four freaking hours had passed. “I’m surprised a patrol party hasn’t been sent to find me.”
“I told Briar my plan before stealing you away,” she told me as we started back toward the trees. “He said he’d inform your mates. I was sure to tell him to keep that blundering buffoon away from this sacred place.”
I laughed. “Callum is like a bull in a China shop sometimes. Which is funny considering how skilled he is with a sword.”
Stars danced in the clear sky above us. Not a cloud in sight. We walked back through the woods and found the stone path leading back to the castle. I breathed in the cool night air and tried to process what I’d seen. Phantasia had been shown Armin. Shown the life they could have together.
Just like I’d seen Onyx. My heart’s desire, the willow had told me, showing the happy future I desperately wanted for us.
“You wield the power to make it so.”
But how?
A question that hovered in the back of my mind after I reunited with my men at the castle and scarfed down a late dinner of steamed rice and strips of smoked salmon. They asked what happened at the willow, but I couldn’t form the words. My mind needed time to sit with it before I could tell them.
Only once we were in our room later that evening did I finally open up to them about the strange visions.
“You saw the five saints that came before you?” Briar asked, handing me a steaming cup of honey milk tea from the platter he’d brought from the kitchen. He and I sat at the small table near the lit hearth. The heat of the flames were comforting.
I nodded. “Their faces were all blurred, but they had blue flames in their fingers.”
I shared what each of the saints had said. Combat. Prophecy and illusions. Seduction. Green magic.
“Seduction?” Rowan sat on the window bench, scratching Oreo’s ears as the pup curled up beside him. “As in, using it as a ploy against an enemy?”
“Like a weapon.” Briar stood from the table and slowly paced across the rug. Much like me on the verge of a ramble, I sensed his whirlwind of emotions as he silently deliberated whatever was running through that handsome head of his.
“Specs?” Rowan watched him pace. “You’re gonna wear out the floor.”
“What if…” Briar flipped around and changed direction. He brought a hand to his chin and rubbed. “It would make sense, but without proper analysis of the former saints, it’s only a theory.”
“Physician?” Maddox was in bed, shirtless and resting against the headboard. Candlelight flickered over his toned abs and numerous scars. “We haven’t the ability to read your thoughts. Use your words.”
“Right.” Briar offered us a sheepish smile before stopping in place.
“From the information I’ve gathered on Hallowed Saints, they each share certain powers.
Purification is, of course, one of them.
The ability to destroy dark miasma, chase away darkness, and neutralize poisons.
However, after what Evan shared with us, I have a theory…
what if each saint also has a power unique to them? ”
I paused with the teacup at my lips. A unique power?
“Combat,” Briar added, his excitement building as he further explained. “The saint who spoke that word must’ve been quite the exceptional warrior on top of his saintly gifts. Prophecy and illusions as well. Imagine being able to predict your enemy’s movements.”
“That would certainly help turn the tide in a war,” Maddox said, brow furrowing. His blue eyes flickered to me, and that frown deepened. “They were revealing their specialty in the battles they fought.”
I nearly spilled my tea. “Vera said destruction and curses. So much darker compared to the others.”
“Perhaps because, like your father said in the memory from the elixir, she chose dark instead of light,” Briar suggested, returning to the table and sitting beside me. “Her power became corrupted by that darkness.”