The Premonition
1786 Words
They set up my own, private tent for me, and one, large one for all four of them.
“You’re welcome to sleep in my tent,” I tell Symone meekly as everyone settles in. But she only laughs.
“I grew up with these boys. I have nothing to hide from them, and nothing to fear from them. Enjoy your privacy, Mistress.”
The word has a clear bite to it, but I smile politely, all the same. Frankly, it’s comforting to me to hear that she trusts all three of them enough to sleep in a tent with them. I’m not sure I could ever trust a man that much again after Hunter, but I'm still glad to be traveling in safe company.
It’s surprisingly easy for me to fall asleep that night. As strange and exciting as my new circumstances are, it was also the longest day I’ve ever had, and I’m more than ready to put it behind me. A part of me even hopes I’ll wake up back on Earth… Then again, was my Earth life really any better than this? Vitalia might be more dangerous on paper, but there’s no Hunter here, no corrupt, CEO father, and no jealous, selfish half-sister.
(Did I ever even tell you about sweet Serena? If not, don’t worry; I’m sure the subject will come up at some point.)
Anyway, I drift off to sleep easily, but what comes next isn’t quite so easy.
I’ve been plagued by nightmares ever since my mother died, and even more so since I fell in love—if you can even call it love—with Hunter, but this nightmare different.
It’s… real.
It starts with screaming—agonizing, ear-splitting screaming. When the blurry shape comes into focus, I see that it’s Jesse who’s screaming. He’s keeled over in pain, pounding his head against the wall of a large room I don’t recognize, clutching at…
I gasp when I see it. It’s the wound from yesterday—the one the bear caused when he bit into Jesse’s wolf hide. But it’s festered since then—blackened and filled with pustules and blood—and it almost seems to pulsate with infection.
It’s tripled in size.
“We have to cut it out of him!” shrieks Symone. “Is there a surgeon here?”
“It’s too late,” Briggs tells her. He sounds defeated—heartbroken. “He’s too far gone.”
And that’s when I wake up.
I expect myself to hesitate—to consider my options, and how crazy it might seem if I go marching up to his tent in the middle of the night to tell him he needs to clean or treat his wound better.
I don’t, though. I shoot up, tear through the opening of my tent, and—
“Mistress Echo?”
I freeze in my tracks, blinking into the darkness and raising my eyebrows when I see that none other than Jesse Crimson of the Callade Barrel (why didn’t I ask where that is, anyway?) is standing in front of me, looking as perplexed as I feel.
“Please,” I tell him. “Just Echo.”
He smiles. “As you wish, Echo.”
I let my heart thump on that Princess Bride line for a moment before suddenly remembering that I used a bit of my newly discovered Fae magic last night to change my ridiculous Ren Fest dress into a Clash t-shirt and a pair of plaid pajama pants. Probably not exactly what he’s used to seeing—a little more freak than Buttercup. “What are you doing out here?” I ask him.
“Just keeping watch.” He scans the aforementioned wardrobe with interest. “Is this what your kind wears to bed?”
I glance down at the shirt and laugh as best I can, given the gruesome images I’ve just seen. “Some of us. You guys have music here?”
“Music, sure.” His eyes linger on the t-shirt. “The Clash is a musical group, then?”
I wouldn’t mind schooling him on one of the greatest punk rock bands of all time, but I really need to focus. I can’t shake the image of his festered wound from my mind. “I need to see your injury.”
He blinks. “What?”
“Your wound. From the bear bite. Can you show it to me?”
He glances down at his billowy, white nightshirt, frowning. “It isn't really appropriate—”
I roll my eyes impatiently, stepping forward to grab the hem of his shirt and lift it myself.
I do my best not to focus on the way his torso looks beneath that shirt—I was right about the Jason Momoa comparison; we’ll leave it at that—and instead focus on the injury itself.
He did a pretty shabby job of cleaning it up.
“Can Fae heal?” I ask him suddenly.
He looks even more flabbergasted than he did when I lifted his shirt without his permission. “What? No.”
I bite my lip, trying to decide what to do. I don’t know much about medicine. I know that antibiotics could probably keep the infection at bay, but I wouldn’t have any idea where to get them.
“Echo,” he says gently. I suddenly feel his hands on mine, and I drop his shirt as if it’s on fire, taking a step back and removing my hands from his.
He doesn’t look particularly discouraged. “Can you please tell me what this is about?”
“I had a… dream,” I admit. “But it wasn’t like a normal dream. It felt real—like it was a warning of what was going to happen.”
Darkness creeps into his eyes at that. It seems to be becoming a pattern lately, and I’m curious what it stems from. “What did you see?”
“You were in a large room—almost like a warehouse, but the ceilings weren’t so high. It was filled with cots, but it wasn’t nighttime—most of the cots were empty. Symone and the others were there, but you wouldn’t let anyone get close to you. Your wound had… festered. You were…” It’s hard to get the word out. “You were dying.”
His eyes grow darker still. “The HQ,” he finally says. “That’s what you saw.”
“The place we’re going to tomorrow?”
He nods. “The HQ is the whole town, but you saw the military barracks inside the fort.”
So it was a premonition, then. At least, all signs point to it. “Is this a Fae thing? Seeing glimpses of the future?”
“No, Echo. Not…” But he trails off without finishing his statement.
I swallow. My throat feels scratchy and dry. Jesse is the only person in this place who actually seems to care about my well-being; I refuse to let him die in a matter of days. I take a step forward again and take a deep breath. “Let me try.”
“Try what?”
“Try healing you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t heal me. It’s not—”
“Jesse,” I interrupt stubbornly. “Just let me try.”
He sighs, taking a seat on the nearest log and removing his shirt altogether. Again, I have to force myself to ignore overwhelming feelings that stir inside me at the sight of him shirtless. I kneel next to him, hold my hands out in front of the wound, and close my eyes.
Yesterday, to change my eye color, all I had to do was think about the color of the tree bark around me. Perhaps, to heal him, all I have to do is think about that perfect, muscled body of his, well… being healed.
When I open my eyes, I actually let out a whoop of joy.
It worked!
His hand reaches out to cover my lips so fast, I jolt back and away from him. I end up falling, then scramble to my feet just as quickly, heart pounding.
He sighs. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to scare you. I just need you to keep it down. You can’t tell the others about this, Echo.”
“About what? About healing you?”
He nods.
“Why?”
That long, hard jawline of his seems to tighten again as he formulates the words he’s looking for. “Falling through time and space; speaking every language without having learned them; having premonitions of the future; having the ability to heal… Those aren’t normal Fae abilities, Echo. They’re abilities our world has never seen them before. They might lead someone to believe…”
Faevara, I realize as I connect the dots of what he’s saying.
This is why he’s looked so dark and ominous lately every time the subject of my abilities comes up. He thinks I’m the Faevara, and he’s afraid for me.
He can’t be right… can he?
“But you trusted them with everything else,” I remind him. “With the fact that I’m Fae.”
“And I trust them with my life,” he affirms. “But this is different. Fae need to be protected from crooked men with crooked desires, but the Faevara…” He looks pained. “Well, there is only one.”
It isn’t hard to connect those dots, either. “Right,” I manage grimly. “So, whether it’s true or not, I’m in even more danger than I was before.”
“Not if you keep silent.” He scans my eyes, frowning. “And stay vigilant. Your green eyes are back.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t realized. I reach my hand up to my eyes to change them back, but he catches my hand with his, stopping me.
I flinch again, but I don’t pull away this time. It feels too good.
“Sorry,” he says with a small smile. “Just wanted to get one, last look at them.”
A blush burns onto my cheeks the moment the words escape his lips. If I’m being totally honest, that’s not the only place that burns. “I thought they were freak eyes. Isn’t that why you’re making me hide them?”
I meant it as a joke, but the sadness in his eyes is unmistakable. “No, Echo,” he says softly. “They’re the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen. And that’s why I’m making you hide them.”
- Writer
