Rhea turned back to the stream and sighed. "How reassuring."
He wrapped his arm around her shoulder. "Seriously, Rhea. Don't worry about it. It will be all right."
The commander walked up behind them. "Are you ready to go?"
Rhea turned away from the stream. "Yes."
They mounted up and were on their way to face the second half of their day, which turned out to be the same as the first, quiet and uneventful. Rhea continued to practice syncing up her mental visions with what she could see with her eyes. By the time they reached the guard station where they would spend the night, she was starting to get the hang of it.
As soon as they rode into the station courtyard, Commander Nauylor directed the men to the barracks and Rhea to the main building.
Once inside the main building, the commander opened the door to a room on the upper floor. "You'll stay in here tonight. I'll be sleeping downstairs in the front room if you need anything." He pointed to the bathroom across the hall. "You can clean up in there."
Rhea glanced around the room and at the personal belongings displayed on the various shelves and surfaces throughout the space. She stepped back into the hall. "This is somebody's room. I'll stay with the others. I'm not going to put someone out." She turned to go back down the stairs, but the commander intercepted her.
"The only other option is the women's barracks, and they're full. And you aren't staying in the front room when it's my job to ensure your safety."
Rhea wanted to tell him to relax, but she knew he was only doing his job. She sighed in defeat. "Please thank whomever it is I'm putting out."
"That would be me."
Rhea turned to see man coming down the hall towards them. "Then, I thank you. I would have been more than happy to bunk in with the others, but the commander has explained that isn't possible."
"Rhea, this is Captain Aurner. Captain, this is ..."
Before the commander could say whatever name he was going to share, Rhea interrupted, "Call me Rhea."
The captain looked between Rhea and the commander and then nodded. "Rhea, it is. Dinner will be ready in the hall in a few minutes."
"Then I should clean up. If you'll excuse me?" Rhea stepped into the room and closed the door as the commander and captain retreated down the hall. After dinner, rhea climbed into bed, exhausted from the day's journey.
~~~
The hot air swirled around her, lifting the dust and sand from the parched ground under her feet and burning her as it brushed against her bare skin. She struggled to stay upright as the ground shook under her feet. In the distance, she could hear someone laughing. Not a happy laugh, but a wicked, evil laugh.
Rhea battled to keep the sand from her nose and mouth as she tried to breathe, but it wasn't working. She was suffocating. It didn't matter which way she turned, or how many steps she staggered to relieve herself of the constant battering—she was engulfed.
The ground rolled, throwing her to her hands and knees, and the laughter got louder as the winds lifted her off the ground, kicking and flailing to regain control.
"Rhea! Stop!" The commander and his captain tried to avoid Rhea's arms and legs as she struggled against her invisible enemy. "Go get Daen. Now!"
The captain ran from the room, taking the steps three at time before bursting from the building. In seconds, he was in the barracks and at Daen's bed. "Daen," he hissed, wanting to wake him quickly, but not everyone else.
Daen rolled away from the sound that woke him and took to his feet ready to defend. Blinking quickly, the vision of the station captain came into view. "What is it?"
"Come quickly!" The captain ran from the barracks with Daen close behind.
Daen heard Rhea scream, "NO!" as he and the captain entered the building. He bounded up the stairs to her room in time to witness Rhea in a fit.
"What are you doing?" All he could see was the commander standing over her, his hands wrapped around her wrists as she struggled.
"Help me," Huntr pleaded. "She's having a nightmare, and I can't wake her. I'm afraid she's going to hurt herself."
Daen could feel the energy radiating from Rhea. He knew what was about to happen, and it wouldn't bode well if the commander was still holding her when it did.
Daen stopped the captain. "Stay back." He lunged into the room and grabbed the commander, pulling him towards the door.
"What? Wait! We must help her."
Daen twisted his body, forcing Huntr out of the room before him. He reached behind him to close the door just as the wave of energy forced the door closed in a wall-shaking pulse that rattled the building, knocking the commander, the captain, and Daen to the floor.
Silence filled the hall as the three men lay without moving, performing the much-needed body checks to see if any permanent damage had been done.
Realizing Rhea was still in the room when the blast went off ... or whatever it was that knocked him against the wall, the commander drew himself to his feet and stumbled to the door to her room, fearing she'd been attacked and lay dead in her bed.
"Rhea!" He cried out, as he pushed against the door that was stuck in its frame.
Daen heard the commander's struggles as he tried to come out of his stupor. He got to his feet and joined the commander as he tried to open the door.
Suddenly, the door caved in against the weight of both their bodies, causing them to stumble into the room.
Rhea was sitting up, her head in her hands, when the door hit the ground. Startled, her head snapped up to see the Daen and Commander Naylor looking at her.
Rhea's eyes locked onto Daen. Her voice was shaky and quiet. "I'm all right."
Daen looked around the room for any serious damage. The captain's personal items were on the floor, and a chair was on its back. Given what had just happened, all looked well.
"What just happened?" The captain stumbled into the room, his palm pressed to the knot on his head.
Daen helped the captain out of the room and down the stairs to one of the cots they'd set up the night before. He lowered him to a sitting position and looked him in the eyes. "Nothing happened. Do you understand?" The intensity of Daen's look rattled the captain for a moment, before he realized what Daen was really saying.
The captain nodded.
"Lie here. From the looks of it, you're going to have a headache for a while." Daen turned and ran back up the stairs to find the commander sitting in the now upright chair, staring at Rhea.
Daen shut the door as he entered.
Rhea looked up. "It happened again, didn't it?"
Daen nodded.
She moaned and flopped back on the bed with her hands over her face. "How bad?" She mumbled from beneath her palms.
Daen sat on the edge of the bed next to her. "Not bad."
Rhea peeked out from under her hands to see Daen giving her a reassuring smile.
The commander leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Does this happen often?"
"This is the first time since being here, but it was a regular occurrence in the other world." Rhea rolled out of bed to retrieve her journal from the saddlebag. "I need to write it down."
"Was it a dream or a vision?" Daen asked.
"It seemed too real to be a dream." Rhea crawled back into bed and started to write.
Daen turned to the commander. "I told the captain nothing happened, and he seemed to understand. He has a knot on his head from falling against the wall, I assume."
Rhea looked up from her journal and pressed her hand to mouth. "Oh, no. Is he all right?"
"He'll be fine," said Daen.
Huntr glanced between Daen and Rhea. "I'll check on him."
Rhea started to get off the bed. "Maybe I should see if there is something I can do."
Daen stopped her. "It's not that bad. He'll be fine." He handed her the journal. "Write what you remember."
Rhea cringed as Huntr left the room. The captain makes the second person
to be hurt as a result of one of her dreams. She swallowed hard, forcing down the guilt, and returned to her journal. "I thought I was finished with them."
A moment later, Daen read what she wrote.
"Wind, earth. Those are elements," she said. "I can't control the elements." The meaning behind this thought wasn't something she wanted to consider.
Daen's body grew cold as the histories he'd studied came to the front of his mind.
Rhea watched as Daen paled. "You know something. What is it?"
"Tertusa."
Rhea remembered that name. "The Libraim's counterpart."
Daen nodded.
"Are you trying to say the Libraim's counterpart is going to do that to me?"
Daen shook his head. "Not the Libraim's counterpart. Yours." His mind raced through everything he could remember from the histories he'd studied before being thrown into the world of shadows to find Rhea. His duties as a warrior guardian didn't afford him a lot of extra time to study so he wasn't sure exactly what Rhea's dream meant, but his conclusion seemed reasonable.
Rhea blinked a couple of times, trying to process what he'd just said. "Wait a minute." She sprang off the bed and started to pace. "You're telling me there's another channel?"
"I hope not, actually. But from what you describe here, it's either that or it's someone very gifted, someone the histories hadn't reported before I left." Daen stood from the bed and ran his hands through his hair. "We need to go to the guardian headquarters, speak with the elders."
"Queen Jauline is expecting me." She paused to see what Daen would say but decided not to wait. "We will go after we meet the queen."
Before Daen could agree or disagree, there was a knock on the door.
Rhea opened it and found Randell looking worried. "I woke and found Daen missing." He looked to his right to see Daen standing in the room. "Did it happen again?"
They both nodded.
"I suspected. From the look on the captain's face, I'd say he took the brunt of it."
Rhea wanted to see if there was something she could do to help. She wasn't a practiced healer but maybe she should try. "How is he?"
"He's fine," said Randell. 'A little bruised, but fine."
Rhea sighed as she glimpsed out the window to see the darkness was starting to fade to light. "Well. We might as well get ready to hit the road." Her stomach growled in agreement. "You don't suppose the cook has anything I can eat, do you? I'm starved."
Daen started to leave. "I'm sure we can find something. We'll meet you downstairs."
Rhea busied herself getting ready for the day, knowing it wouldn't take her friends long before they were ready to go.
36
Lies
The second day of their journey started out like the previous, except Taulin rode next to Rhea, versus Daen. She wasn't feeling very talkative given the trying night she'd had.
Taulin leaned towards her. "Are you all right?"
Rhea nodded. "Just a little tired." Although she knew she could trust Taulin, she didn't want to discuss her visions with him while the Sentran guards and the commander were so close.
He eyed her, sensing she was hiding something from him. When she didn't meet his look, he decided not to pursue the discussion further, believing if she wanted him to know something, she would tell him.
To pass the time, Rhea practiced connecting her normal vision with that of her mind walks, ignoring the quiet conversations around her.
Several hours into the ride, shortly after stopping at a small guard station for lunch, the familiar smell of seawater greeted their noses, coupled with the sight of an open sky and blue water stretching to the horizon. The road turned southward and bordered a cliff that dropped to waves crashing on the shore below.
As Rhea enjoyed the scenery, she glimpsed something out of the corner of her eye. At first, she assumed it was a bird. What else could appear on the other side of the cliff?
Wanting to see what was in the air, she mind-walked to the edge of the cliff with her eyes still open, but when she tried to look down, she became disoriented. She needed help. "Taulin, please hold my reins while I check something." She handed him Sedare's reins and closed her eyes, reaching out to stand on the edge of the cliff.
When she looked over the edge, she saw the drop to the ocean below was interrupted by a wide ledge about eight feet below where she stood, creating a parallel road to the one they traveled. On the ledge were two women, riding fast. One carried a bow, but the other appeared weaponless. They weren't dressed like warriors, but they weren't shopkeepers either. Hunters, maybe?
They stopped about fifty yards past Rhea's group, dismounted quickly, and began crawling up the embankment so they could see the road and its occupants. The two women quickly prepared for their next move.
"Son of a ... Look out!" Rhea opened her eyes to a world in slow motion, just in time to see an energy ball and an arrow flying straight for her.
Without thinking, she raised both hands and released two energy balls and braced herself. The concussion released when her energy ball collided with the other almost knocked her from Sedare. The arrow was disintegrated in-flight.
In an instant, Daen was on her right, in the path of another energy ball. He jumped from his horse, releasing defensive blasts of his own, causing another explosion in midair as his energy balls met the second assault.
A third energy ball was released along with an arrow. Daen dispatched the energy ball while Rhea reached for the arrow and the two women, suspending their ability to move, just like she'd done to the Sentran warriors. She jumped from Sedare and ran for the cliff.
Footsteps and shouting became clearer as she ran. Randell and Taulin were on either side of her when they reached Daen and the cliff's edge.
Rhea's breathing was fast and hard, but it wasn't from running. It was due to the anger that she felt pulsing through her body. She stood there with her fists clenched, looking down on the two frozen bodies. Their eyes were wide and their mouths gaped as if they wanted to scream.
Rhea stepped closer and raised her left hand, bringing the women to their feet. She was the puppet master as she slowly pushed her hand forward, causing the two women to step back.
"Rhea!" Daen's voice was in her head, a distant plea.
Rhea pushed a little further, until the two women were on the edge of a very long drop to the crashing waves below.
"Rhea! Stop! Rhea!" Voices were yelling at her.
Before she could react, the muzzle of Sedare was on her cheek, and her anger and the pain in her heart eased. She yanked on the puppet strings, and the women fell forward to the ground where the commander's men quickly bound their hands behind their back.
Rhea hadn't envisioned sending them over the edge, but holding them there, scaring the crap out them, definitely felt right. She stepped back from the cliff and wrapped her arms around her big black hairy friend. "Will it never stop?"
Sedare whinnied and shook his head as if he understood and could tell the future, a future she didn't want.
Rhea wiped the tears from her eyes and saw Taulin, Daen, and Randell watching with concern on their faces. "I'll be all right. I wouldn't have sent them over the edge. I just needed to put fear into their hearts without hurting them. I needed them to feel how I feel every time someone tries to kill me or any of you."
Daen took her in his arms. "You're handling all this better than I could ever imagine."
"Thank you for stepping in," she mumbled against his chest.
He gave her a brotherly kiss on the top of her head. "Let's go see what these women have to say for themselves."
"I'm sick of this," said Rhea, as they walked to where the commander and his men were holding the two would-be assassins. "I could have killed them, and he knows it, but he still sends them. What was he thinking?"
"He's testing you," said Taulin. "He's hoping you aren't paying attention. He's hoping that one of these times he's going to fin
d an opening, your weakness, and he'll have won."
"Well, I'd like to get my hands around his scrawny little neck and ..." Rhea pulled her clear plastic water bottle from her saddlebag and took a long drink, not caring who might see. She met Taulin's eyes. "I don't understand why people are the way they are. I don't understand what drives them to murder."
"This doesn't happen in the world of shadows?" Taulin asked.
"It's not that. There's actually a lot of killing in parts of the other world, but I've never been this close to it, never had it directed at me personally."
Haurld and Danbr returned with their captives' horses and started to go through their things, searching for any evidence regarding their identity or who sent them.
"Commander, have you questioned them?" Daen asked.
"I was waiting for Rhea."
The women's hands were tied behind their backs, and the commander held the tip of his sword to the neck of the gifted would-be assassin. "If she gives any hint of using her gift, I'll end her here and now."
Rhea acknowledged his warning before turning her attention to the two women on their knees, staring at the ground in front of them. "I don't suppose you want to tell us who you are and who sent you?"
Neither woman moved.
"Commander, I don't know why I bother. Are your men accustomed to persuading women to talk?" She watched for any sign the women understood what was going to happen next.
"We are, but I'm not sure it'll be worth it. I suggest we take them to the next station and put them on the schedule to be hanged for attempting to kill you."
Rhea leaned down, looking at the tops of their heads, waiting to see their faces, waiting for any kind of response but got nothing. The questions she had asked in the past didn't seem as important as they had before.
"Did he tell you I was an easy mark?" Rhea asked. "Did he promise you power or riches for killing me? Did he say you would be captured and hung or that I would simply kill you on the spot?"
The larger of the two women, the one in the mud-caked wool cloak, shuddered slightly at Rhea's last comment.
Rhea stepped closer, squatting down to make it easier for the captive to find her face. "Did you hear that I either stopped or killed the other assassins that he sent before you? Are you wondering why I've spared you, for now?"
The Channel (The Gifted Book 2) Page 27
