by Jada Fisher
It wasn’t like a direct path, or a glowing string between us. Just kind of a general echo. Like I had thrown a stone in the water and could feel the ripples hit something solid. But it was easy enough to follow, so I marched right along.
It wasn’t until I was about ten or so minutes into my trek that I noticed something was different. When I had first arrived at the castle, there had been whispers and looks of contempt. People who were angry that I was there and people who were curious. There had been skeptical mutters that shifters may or may have not cared that I heard, and critical comments about the prince’s judgement.
But now… Well, the whispers and the stares were still there, but they were entirely different. I heard excited exclamations that it was ‘her, the oracle,’ hushed utterances of wonder, or respect. When I did occasionally meet someone’s gaze, I saw admiration, and sometimes even fear.
Fear?
People feared me?
That was a strange concept to wrap my head around. I was just Davie, a barista who liked to make pretty art. I wasn’t anything all that impressive.
But also…I kinda was, wasn’t I? I’d ripped open a portal to another world to try to save their prince, I’d sent him back and sacrificed myself to do so, and then I’d come back, because I apparently wasn’t done yet.
So yeah, maybe those fearful looks were a little warranted.
Still didn’t make me any less uncomfortable.
Thankfully, I found Bronn before too much longer. I came across a closed set of doors with two guards in front, each dressed in black suits and glasses. They were the typical secret service looking dudes, except for the swords attached to their belts instead of guns. Would guns even really work on a dragon?
I stepped up to the door and they drew their blades in an instant, crossing them in front of me. I stopped short and gave them a look.
“Really? We’re gonna do this?”
They shared a glance, having a conversation that I didn’t understand, then returned their weapons to their sheaths. I expected that to be that, but one opened the door for me and spoke.
“Her ladyship, the oracle, has come to see you, Sire.”
Oh geez, that was a very official sort of title. I was a ladyship now? Weird.
Giving him a nod, I stepped into the room and he closed the door behind me. I wasn’t quite sure what I had expected, but it certainly wasn’t Bronn seated at a table with several of his advisors, tons of papers and clipboards all around him.
“Davie, did you need something?” he asked, looking at me levelly. It wasn’t a mean tone, but it wasn’t a friendly one either. I was so used to him acting thrilled to see me all the time that it was a bit jarring. “Or did you have a vision?
“Uh, no, I was just…” Oh boy, I felt stupid now, standing in front of him and his advisors with nothing particularly important to say. But I might as well be upfront about why I was there. “I, um, I missed you. Just wanted to see that you’re alright.”
The corner of his mouth lifted ever-so-slightly. “I’m fine, thank you. There’s just a lot still to work out if we’re going to be under siege.”
“Under siege?” I repeated like a stupid parrot. “You think that’s going to happen?”
He nodded. “Of course. The anti-humanists are intent on destroying us and either taking you and the other seers or making sure that no one can use you against them. War is inevitable, and if we want to defeat them, we need to be prepared.”
I swallowed hard. “I’d hoped that maybe I could discourage that.”
“Those who crave war will always find a way to wage it. You maybe delayed it, if that.”
“Ah. Can I help somehow?”
“Unless you’re able to drum up some sort of vision that would give us an advantage, then no, I would say not,” one of the advisors said, voice gravelly. I was pretty sure I used to know his name and never liked him, but dying and then searching multiple reality hubs for ancient information had emptied my mind of all the superfluous info like that.
“Maybe I can come up with a vision by sticking around. It’s not like we know how this whole oracle thing really works.”
“No, that’s fine,” Bronn said, waving his hand. “Why don’t you have the kitchens make you and the rest of the gang a full banquet and have a night of it?”
“Uh, sure, yeah I’ll do that. You’ll be there, right?”
He shook his head. “Far too much to do, I’m afraid. So go, enjoy it for me.”
“Right. Yeah… I’ll do that.”
I knew when I was being dismissed and awkwardly shuffled out. Yeah, I was aware that a war was brewing and that there was a lot to be done considering the whole first round hadn’t gone so great, but still…something was different.
And not different in a “we kissed and now things are awkward” kind of way, but different as in… I didn’t know. Just different. And I didn’t like it. It didn’t feel like he was angry with me, or that he regretted our kiss. It just felt like he was trying to hold me at a safe distance.
My eyes widened at that personal revelation as I went back up the stairs to my room. Safe. Was that it? He was trying to protect me in some really weird, isolating kind of way? Put me up in some sort of ivory tower where no one could touch me?
I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that at all.
Chewing on my lips, I made it the rest of the way to my room and saw Mickey still sleeping, all curled up and breathing deeply under the blankets that were way nicer than anything that we could ever afford.
It felt like it had been so long since I had really seen her rest that I couldn’t quite bring myself to wake her. Ever since the whole magical business had started, I felt like her lupus had taken a back seat. And while Mickey was all about insisting on taking care of everyone, even while she was sick, I wasn’t about that life. She’d spent most of our childhood taking care of me with all of my various mental issues—
Wait.
Wait a minute.
So many of my memories were of Mickey holding me, telling me that I was alright and there was nothing wrong with me even though I saw things no one else could. Of her taking me to therapists and insisting I get help. Of making sure I took my medicine correctly. Heck, she even worked extra shifts at one of her three jobs to make sure she could pay for my prescription at one point. It had made feel guilty, sure, but also loved and protected.
But Mickey was a seer too. While we didn’t share visions, she had to have known there was something different about her. Had to have had supernatural feelings and experiences. But if that was the case…
Why had she let me believe I was insane?
The thought struck me like an arrow and I just stood there, staring stupidly at her sleeping form. She had to have a good reason, right? Maybe she always dismissed her abilities as strong intuition or something like that. Maybe she didn’t connect my visions to her abilities because they were so different. If I didn’t have faith in my sister, in the woman who had raised me, then our love was a shallow one indeed.
But still… I could feel the question rushing to the forefront of my mind. It was so tempting to just shake her awake, but…no. No, she needed her rest. I could be patient.
Kinda.
But also, I didn’t want to just sit around and wait for her to rise either, so I crept to her room where I was pretty sure I had left my sketchbook.
Sure enough, it was right on the window seat, sun shining over the papers and my pencils next to it. I knew whatever I had been working on previously was going to be light-bleached, but it hadn’t been anything important.
But as I sat down and drew my sketchpad into my lap, I remembered why I had only been able to draw hazy outlines and light skeletons. The last time I’d created art, I’d painted my own death. Even though I’d already gone through that and come back, I still couldn’t help the shiver of fear that rolled up my spine every time I recalled that painting.
I’d actually never gone back down…there. To where I knew
it was hanging. To the place that had once brought me so much comfort. No. There was no comfort for me there, just like there was no comfort in drawing.
…except that I wanted to. I really wanted to draw. My fingers itched and that urge to create was so thick on my tongue that I could practically taste it. Maybe if I just could work past the fear, I could have my hobby back. And I needed it, desperately. Something to ground me in reality when it so often felt like I was floating.
“Come on, Davie,” I whispered, picking up a pencil and turning to a new page. “At least try.”
That was right. Even if I failed, I could at least try. That was the first step toward anything becoming normal, right?
It was easier than I thought to settle in and let my eyes glaze over, my hand seeming to move of its own accord. It had been so long since I had just let myself be. Either I was worried about some coming apocalypse, or being imprisoned and threatened or, ya know, the whole dead thing and then alive thing and then declaring war against the anti-humanist things.
There was just a lot on my plate.
So yeah, the drawing was nice. Real nice. And soon I slipped under completely, both feet planted firmly in the ‘zone.’ Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wished that I had music, but I didn’t know where my MP3 player and headphones had gone since I had whisked me and my friends off to another dimension. Maybe I should just ask Bronn to get me one.
Then again, what music would I even put on it? My laptop was back at my apartment, which had been thoroughly ransacked. Or, the slightly better option, packed up when servants had gone to get some of our belongings oh-so-long ago. But I wasn’t in the mood to go searching through all that. I just wanted to draw.
I stayed like that, huddled over my sketchpad, even as the sun began to move across the paper. It wasn’t until there was a gentle hand on my shoulder that I jerked out of my reverie, whipping around to see Mickey there with both hands up.
“Easy there, it’s just me,” she said with a grin, the scarred corner of her mouth lifting.
“You were really concentrating there, weren’t you?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“What were you drawing?”
“I, uh…” My eyes flicked to the sketchpad, which had fallen on the floor. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” She bent down to pick it up and looked over the pages. “Huh. This is…bleak.”
“What?”
I took the sketchpad from her and looked at what I had drawn. There was a whole lot of shading, making the thing quite dark, but that didn’t stop me from making out what it was.
It was our city, but as it appeared in the rotten dragon’s prison. Broken, crumbling, abandoned. But unlike his dimension, everything was on fire or smoking, with bones littering the landscape.
“Huh. That’s pretty depressing. Even for me.”
“Is this a vision?” I could hear the nervousness in her voice, and I couldn’t blame her.
“No. I think my mind’s just filling in some details. I’ve had a couple of dreams about our rotted enemy, and this is where he lives, so…” I shrugged and tossed the notebook to the side. “Wish I could have drawn something nicer, but it is what it is.”
“Are you alright?” Mickey asked, because of course she did. I could never hide my feelings from my big sis. “I’m sorry I napped for so long. I didn’t think I was that tired.”
“No, I’m not mad that you slept, Mickey. I’m not sure if you know this, but you generally need eight hours a night. More when you’re in a flare.”
“What? Sounds like fake news to me.”
We shared a small chuckle, and if I would let it, I knew the moment would fade into pleasant banter. The kind that we hadn’t shared in so long. But I couldn’t just let it lie. Before I could think it through, my mouth was moving, and words were coming out.
“Mickey, did you know that I had magic?”
She stopped short, giving me a quizzical look. “Um, Davie, I think there would be something wrong with me if I didn’t notice that you had magic by this point.”
“That’s not what I meant. When we were growing up and I kept talking about all the things I was seeing, did you know what that was? Because you didn’t seem all that surprised when you were attacked by dragons. And you sealed both yourself and multiple guards in some sort of protective barrier, something that took me months to figure out.”
“I… I didn’t know it was magic,” Mickey said slowly, sitting on her bed and looking at me with resignation in her eyes. “But I couldn’t help but wonder…maybe…if what you were saying was true.”
“You? You… But why did you let me go through all of that then? You let me think I was crazy!”
“The doctors said you were sick! I was just a little girl, what was I supposed to tell them? That I thought that maybe my little sister got premonitions? How well do you think that would have gone over?”
“Well, at least you could have tried! Therapy was hard! Really hard, and so was thinking that I was legitimately insane!”
“Look, I’m sorry, Davie. In retrospect, sure, it seems obvious now, but back then we were both just traumatized orphans hopping from foster home to foster home.”
Right. She may have had a point, but it still didn’t sit right with me. I wanted to be angry, but I also couldn’t blame her. Ugh. It would easier to blame everything all on her, but she was right. We were both kids.
But she kept on. “Do you remember the night of the fire? When we lost our parents?”
I swallowed hard. Mickey and I never talked about that night out of sheer principle. Even after everything I had been through, I was pretty sure it was the most terrifying experiences of my life. Worse than meeting the rotted dragon. Worse than even dying, because that had been my choice. No, that night was pure hell, and I didn’t even want to think about it.
“I, uh… What about it?”
“Do you remember how you were acting up? Being grumpy and kicking up such a fuss at dinner that you were put to bed early?”
“I, uh, I guess? Yeah?” I closed my eyes and tried to think back, but it was so long ago. It was almost like everything from before that point was scrubbed out of my mind to make way for all the trauma that was about to come.
“Well, you kept saying that you were hot. That it was too hot. You wanted water and you kept pouring it over your head. I didn’t think anything of it until…well, until a while after, and by then, you didn’t seem to remember.”
“But…but…if you even had a shred of a clue that I wasn’t crazy, why didn’t you at least talk about it in private with me? Yeah, maybe you couldn’t convince the psychiatrist not to drug me up, but maybe you could have said something, anything, to give me any assurance! Come on, you’re a seer too, didn’t you have any supernatural experiences?”
“Davie, I’m not like you. I don’t get flashes of visions, and I don’t see memories or events that happened before or after the present. I just, uh, I’m really good at reading people, I guess. Situations, maybe, seeing multiple ways it could be solved. And I swear to you that the crystal thing I did was completely on accident. I wasn’t practicing superpowers in some garage somewhere.
“So no, Davie. I didn’t know you were magic. I had an inkling, but it was the same kind of inkling all little kids have that the world is a big, magical place where anything could happen. And the older we got, and the more you responded to treatment, the more I forgot about thinking that maybe, just maybe, you were seeing things that were real.”
“Okay, okay, thanks.” I took a deep breath and went to sit next to her. We were a couple of opposites, her and I. Her slight form, burned all along her right side, her limbs slender, and everything about her delicate. Me, strong and solid, only burned on my left hand and forearm. I was the past and the future, while she was always solidly rooted in the present. “Sorry, I just needed to know.”
“I understand.” She flopped back on the bed and sighed. “I feel like things have been so crazy that
we’ve never had the time to talk about all the peripherals. Maybe we should do that.”
I rubbed a hand over my face, heaving my own sigh. “Can we later? I’ve had enough tense talks and awkward emotions today. Let’s, like, gossip or something.”
“Ooh, want to talk about boys?”
I groaned. “No. Please. Anything but that.”
“Huh, trouble with the prince?”
“And I repeat, anything but that.”
“Alright, alright. I see. You want to ask your big sis all these deep, traumatizing questions but don’t like it when I get a little nosy about your love life.”
“I don’t have a love life,” I countered, grabbing a pillow and slapping her in the face. She laughed, then grabbed two and slapped me in return.
“You do realize, if we continue this battle, we will be heavily playing into certain stereotypes.”
“You’re right,” I said with a laugh before smacking her right in the face. “But sometimes, things are stereotypes for a reason.”
“Alright, you want a war? I’ll give you a war!”
Perhaps it was a bit silly, but it was nice to just have fun. We devolved into fits of giggles and pillow strikes until Mal and Krisjian entered, looking completely confused. What had just been plain tussling turned into a full-on pillow fight, and soon it was like something out of a movie.
By the time we were all finished, laying in various places on the floor or the bed with sore sides and grins, I felt a bit better. Sure, nothing was really fixed, and all my problems were waiting for the morning, but a little relief would be nice.
And who knew, maybe the little bit of reprieve would prepare me for whatever was coming.
…but probably not.
4
More than Semantics
“You’re not where you’re supposed to be.”
I opened my eyes—or had they always been open?—and only a sharp gasp left my mouth as I saw depthless, empty sockets regarding me with irritation. My mouth opened and closed, silly little sounds coming out of it, but nothing that made sense.
