Premonition

by Rachael Krotec

  Caleb crouches to examine her back. He murmurs something under his breath before asking, “When do you ascend?”

  “Tomorrow,” she says, meeting his wide-eyed gaze over her shoulder.

  “Ah, figures,” he says, smiling. “Nothing we won’t be able to handle, on top of everything else, right?”

  “Welcome to our home,” Dalia says, smiling, but Lilah ignores the gesture. It is a fabrication, and for a moment, Lilah wonders if Caleb is right in believing that whatever she’s involved in is sinister. She has an expression on her slender face that makes her look more innocent than she might be.

  Their familial ties are more apparent through their mannerisms than their looks. Lilah wonders who takes after who. Lilah partially inclines her head, though she doesn’t know why she even bothers with the formality.

  “So, this is who my little brother ran off to?” Dalia’s smile fades to a scowl. Her gaze turns to Caleb. “What do you think you’re doing, bringing her here?” she says between her teeth.

  “Have you made dinner?” Caleb says, ignoring her outright.

  She crosses her arms. “Caleb. Kitchen. Now.” Dalia’s eyes rake over Lilah’s blotchy cheeks and sullen expression.

  “Remember our conversation before? I’m not a child, I’m an adult. I can—” Dalia grabs Caleb’s arm and shoves him into the room behind her, slamming the door in the process.

  Lilah gives them privacy—once their voices raise high enough to where she doesn’t need to adjust her anima to hear—and explores the front room of the old house. The floorboards creak underfoot. Dalia has all the windows open, and a generous breeze filters through the stiff air. Everything is different yet the same from what she remembers. She touches the furniture—an armchair, sofa, desk—but feels nothing toward them. She had thought some great revelation would reveal itself to her once inside, but she found herself disappointed. A bookshelf rests against the long wall, books filling every shelf.

  Lilah reaches out to grab one when Dalia says, “Come. I’ll show you to a room.” Lilah swivels around, angry with herself for being startled, but nods and shadows Dalia up a grand staircase, down a long hall, and into a spacious room. Dalia lowers her gaze over Lilah’s bloodied shirt and pants. “I’m sure you’ll need a new set of clothes, too?”

  Lilah shakes her head. “It’s—”

  Dalia disappears down the hall and reappears with a set of clothes in her grasp. “Here, these should fit you.”

  Lilah smiles tentatively. “Thank you.”

  Dalia sets her jaw and steps closer, her features morphing into a sneer. “My brother—”

  “I don’t need to be lectured about the danger Caleb has put himself in for my sake. I’m well aware of it.”

  “Good.” The tension seems to lift the moment Dalia sighs. She lifts a hand. “Has he looked at your back?”

  “Yes, it’s an incantation. Nothing more can be done until it wears off.”

  “I see.” Her gray eyes twinkle in the lowlight. She taps her foot on the floor. “Well, enjoy the bath and come down when you’re ready.” She pivots on her heel and shuts the door behind her.

  Lilah sighs, curiously perplexed by Dalia’s behavior—shamelessly, she wonders how much of their argument was about her. Did he convince her to help us? Is that why she’s being nice? She makes a turn around the room. It is well furnished with a four-poster bed made of dark mahogany wood. Curtains rise on either side of two large windows. A dresser with an intricate wood design sits on the opposite wall. Tall ceilings finish the overall impression that whoever built this house had substantial wealth. She smiles sadly. At one point, this was her home. Unconsciously, her eyes search the wood flooring and walls for some sign that they were once here, her whole family. But the only thing left of those times remains in Lilah’s nonexistent memory, a dream within a dream.

  Lilah moves into the bathroom, where a sizable tub sits, dazed in thought. Plugging the drain with one hand, she uses the other to reach and turn the hot and cold knob to make the perfect water temperature. Lilah grinds her jaw and stretches her back, against the protestations of the wounds. If I sit in boiling water, will the incantation burn out from my skin? As the tub fills, she decides against testing her theory.

  The reflection appears again and a force greater than Lilah’s will turns her shoulders to face the mirage. The woman standing in front of her is a mockery, and this she feels as keenly as if it is written in her bones, etched on the hard fibers, permanently. Her eyes once held the confidence of a warrior, but now they are dull and listless. With a grimace, she peels the clothes from her body. It seems such a long time ago that she stood in the room of the sanctuary and did just this. But that was only early this morning.

  The soft echoes of the pouring water calm her. Lilah glances over her shoulder to see the seeping wounds, which form a small mountain ridge down her spine. The discharge looks irregular, whereas before it still contained blood, now it has a greenish tinge to it. Her upper lip ruffles. She steps into the water, then fully submerging herself. When she opens her eyes, the ceiling transforms into a watery illusion.

  Lilah pushes up through the water, breathing deeply when her nose pops above the surface. Her back sizzles, but it doesn’t bother her. The pain reminds her that she is not completely numb, not completely lost. I will kill Alessandra. I don’t care what happens to me after. Pushing her emotions down, creating this massive pit of all the things she’s felt the past week, is foolish—or so Caleb says. When she cried, she felt some of the growing mass release like a trapped bird, but there is still something trapped there. It wears a face Lilah refuses to see.

  After soaping herself off and washing her hair, Lilah feels alive again. She pulls the plug from the bottom and listens to the gurgling noise of the water, slowly draining. Her eyes examine the lash marks once more. The skin is pink, but not bleeding. The greenish discharge, gone. Satisfied the hot water might have forced the incantation from the wound, Lilah dries off and dresses in the clothes Dalia gave her, a white shirt and comfortable navy pants.

  Lilah revels in the feeling of a full stomach, something she hasn’t felt in days, as she climbs the stairs next to Caleb. At the top, they part ways. Lilah left, Caleb right. Dalia follows Lilah and gives her a light cotton dress to wear to bed and tells her extra toiletries are in the bathroom cabinet drawers.

  During dinner, Lilah noticed Caleb and his sister have the same laugh. Lilah smiles at the memory, then frowns. She’ll never share that kind of bond with someone. Her throat burns with withheld tears. Verna was her only family.

  Mindless, Lilah goes about getting ready for bed with some semblance of normality. Her mouth tastes like mint and her hair goes easily into a braid, knotless. She sidles to the bed and slips beneath the plush white linens. Despite the weariness of her mind, her muscles itch to move.

  After fighting with herself for sleep, she sighs and throws the covers from her tense legs. Lilah paces, then stops, bends her knees and sits up against the side of the bed, holding herself tight. It has been a while since she has had a moment alone. Even with her eyes closed, she sees Verna’s burning body. Even with her hands over her ears, she hears Aza’s scream and the seer’s prophecy.

  She’s a Warrior. She’s stronger than her emotions, stronger than this pulsing heart. It comes over her in a swell, like a rogue ocean wave come to destroy the lone lighthouse, stranded. All her life, she’s been trained to fight, to push back, to defeat, but this is one fight that she doesn’t have the strength to win. She shivers. She lets herself succumb to the cold.

  All she wants is for it all to go silent—black.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Caleb wakes to the sounds of screams erupting from down the hall. Lilah! He races toward Lilah’s bedroom, throwing open the door. She stands, a shadow in the center of the room, with her back turned to him. He extends his hand out to shake her shoulder, to make her stop shrieking, but as he pulls her closer, he sees her white knuckles clutching a dagger, b
lack blood coloring the silver. Shock causes Caleb to quickly take his hand from her shoulder, grab the dagger, and throw it aside. He applies pressure to the point where blood streams from her wrist. His mind comes to the incantation in an instant. Speaking softly, his hands give off a warm radiance. The glow fades, and he takes his hands from Lilah’s arm, the sliced skin healed.

  “Why did you do this?” Caleb shakes her arm.

  “Do this?” she says dreamily.

  He lifts her chin up to look into her eyes and sees the irises are dark and peculiar, dull. “Lilah?” Is she dreaming?

  Lilah blinks and shakes her head, then takes his hand. “What? Why are here? What happened?” She gazes up at him.

  He smells the soap on her body and sees how clear her eyes are now, not simply blue, but steel blue in the light of the moon. Her heartbeat quickens, and a current of desire streams from her to him through the bind on his hand. He squeezes her hand is his, her skin warm, and brings it to her chest. She reaches up and touches him just above his eyebrow, then makes a line down his jaw.

  She sighs and whispers, “You should go. I don’t know whether I want to kiss you or kill you.” She runs her thumb across his chin.

  But he isn’t afraid of her. He leans down to kiss her lips.

  “Caleb, it’s just a dream.”

  Caleb wakes with a gasp. He grasps his chest, looks down as if to find something lodged between his collarbone and ribcage, and sighs loudly when he finds nothing there. “Thank goodness.” He looks up at Lilah, then glances out the window and rubs the back of his neck, cheeks warming at the memory of their very real kiss.

  He slept on the floor with a spare pillow and blanket, in case she started that bizarre behavior again, and dreamt of running into her room, only this time, when she came close, she used the dagger to stab him. He shivers. Somehow, the dream feels more real than reality.

  “You really don’t remember?” he says, turning toward her, eyebrows gathered. “You’d used this dagger to cut your wrist.” He holds a plain dagger in his hand like an offering.

  She shakes her head and gazes at the reflective surface of the blade, thinking of the last thing that happened before she’d lost consciousness, but nothing comes. Only darkness remains. Glancing down at the skin, the wound is invisible. “Thank you.” She knows he healed her.

  He shrugs, then brings his legs into his chest. “Does this happen often?”

  “Which part? Mysteriously cutting myself or kissing guys in the middle of the night?” She smirks. She didn’t forget. Another part of her warns of confusion, and she realizes it’s his emotions streaming from him to her through their bind. Right. They can never be together in that way, not now, not ever. There are rules, expectations. But beyond the social laws, there is the fact that he’s bound to her. Of course I would be attracted to him.

  He meets her gaze with a frown, then stands. “What did Deirdre mean when she said, ‘It makes you bloodthirsty?’”

  Lilah blinks and decides not to remark on how he avoided her question, but she thinks she knows why. Anything she thinks she feels toward him is void. The feeling can’t be trusted when the bind has them under its influence. To answer his question, she thinks back to the moment in the woods with Deirdre, right after the three of them left the sanctuary. “I think she meant my ascension.”

  He nods. “So, bouts of strange behavior are typical for Nox ascensions?”

  Lilah raises her hands. “I don’t know. Why does it matter?”

  “Yes,” he answers quickly. “If it’s a symptom of your ascension, then it should go away once you ascend. If not, then—”

  “I’m out of luck?” She grins.

  Caleb shakes his head. He strides to the door, glances at her over his shoulder, and says, “How can you be so unconcerned?” His gaze, unreadable, leaves a bitter taste in Lilah’s mouth, then he leaves the room.

  The sound of the door as it closes ricochets in her ears. She groans and falls back on the bed and stares up at the white ceiling. What am I doing?

  In the morning light, Deirdre lies in the forest and gazes up through the painfully still trees. Exhausted with the effort, she blinks and then sighs. She rolls onto her stomach, smiles a wily grin, and laughs. “Lilah is her mother’s daughter, no mistaking that.” Deirdre finds a moment of clarity and grimaces. The power within her is untested and volatile, seething like a mist from the forest into a meadow. Soon, Deirdre knows, it will overtake her, consume her entirely. “Lilah will be lost—that is, unless Alessandra finds her first.”

  Deirdre stands and dusts the leaves and dirt from her clothes. “Have I done enough yet?” she whispers in the wind, then laughs. “Can’t you hear me? Why won’t you listen!” She prances off through the thickening woods, the rays peeking through the trees turning scarce. The limbs of the trees bind together and create a perfect canopy above. She sinks into the darkness, the ground moist in her clutched hands. The forest stills around her, like death. “Guide, but do not intervene. My. What a waste.”

  Jumping up from the ground, Deirdre swivels around, sunshine no longer dropping through the branches overhead like drawn lines of light. “How long was I asleep?” Inhaling, the air chills her lungs. “I should . . .” She exhales and snaps her fingers, then shifts in space.

  Deirdre puts a finger up to her cheek in thought, then raises both her arms overhead. Blood tinges the air, makes it sour in Deirdre’s mouth. She swallows and takes a step toward the scene. The first body she finds is that of an old woman with a round face. Deirdre used to know her name, and she filters through her memory in search of it. “Channery!” Deirdre calls out, shooting her hands up. Death by asphyxiation. The next body she locates not far beyond the older woman’s. She pokes her own forehead and says, “Then this one is Farah.” She merely glances at Farah’s body before wandering to where the smell of blood concentrates and finds the one she had come for. White hair plasters to his cheeks in dark, dried blood. He stares up, silver eyes unseeing. Her body lies on top of his, her temple against his lips.

  “These two . . .” Deirdre reaches down and closes Ren’s eyes, then kneels for a moment in silence. She stands and shakes her head. Her legs jolt. “We all have our tasks, don’t we? I guess you saved me the trouble, huh?” She turns away from them, puts her hands on her hips, and hums. The night breeze shakes the trees and the dead leaves rattle as they move across the ground.

  She laughs. “I forgot how delicate you are. Like butterflies. I want to ripe off your wings.” Voices filter into her thoughts, and she bats at her head trying to dislodge them but fails. “Come,” she gazes up at the bright sky, “strike me.”

  Alessandra incants over the room, watches as it crumbles and turns to dust, then moves through the empty hallways like a specter. Their presence no longer needed, she had sent them all away. “It is time,” she says, climbing up from beneath the earth and leaving her underground fortress. Snow drifts in the air like ash. She laughs.

  She stands before the tilted entrance, a large oak door covered with years of lichen and vines that leads down into the ground. The moon, a sliver in the sky, emanates the smallest of silver rays onto their handiwork. She focuses and reaches out a hand, then conjures over the structure. Within moments, the structure beneath the ground folds into itself and the land above collapses inward. Alessandra turns away mechanically. Pulling up her sleeve, she notices the bind is gone. A thin smile comes over her lips. “Who killed who, Ren?” But now I have no way of knowing if the Six will try and stop me. She shakes her head, then coughs into her hands black blood. What does it matter? It’ll all be over soon.

  As Lilah paces, the smell of coffee and bacon wafts into the air and the sound of footsteps creak up the hall. When she opens the door, she catches Caleb with his hand outstretched, mid-knock.

  He drops his hand and clears his throat. “Can we talk?”

  Lilah gestures for him to come in. She shuts the door and turns to watch him pace the room, just as she was doing moments bef
ore. He stops, pivots, and looks at her, but then continues to pace.

  “Sit down before I get nauseated from watching you.”

  He sits on the edge of the bed and opens his mouth to speak. He closes it without a word, then stands. “Let’s talk outside, in the garden.”

  “Can I get something to eat first?” Lilah grins.

  Caleb lifts a hand to his forehead. “Yes, of course. I’ll meet you out there then?” He doesn’t wait for an answer before leaving as strangely as he’d come.

  She shakes her head and chuckles. She enjoys seeing him uneasy, rattled, and uncomfortable. It makes her blood boil with excitement. Fighting the urge to let it overwhelm her, Lilah pinches the pink flesh around the black of her brand. A frown nestles into the skin of her cheeks and chin, while a gurgling from her stomach pulls her down into the kitchen to eat the divine-smelling food. It’s the bind. Don’t be a fool.

  “Okay,” Lilah says to Caleb, who sits on a stone bench in the center of the garden. “What’s going on?”

  “Dalia is going to poison you tonight,” he blurts out. He falls forward, letting his arms rest on his knees. He makes a small noise of relief.

  Lilah’s side numbs her body with a torrent of heat, and she stifles a gasp. When she regains some semblance of her composure, she says through her teeth, “Why? How do you know?”

  “I found another letter,” he says gravely. Lilah shoots the house a murderous glance, her eyes black. He paces around the garden, gesturing wildly. “She doesn’t know I know. Maybe we can use this to our advantage.”

  Lilah laughs. He stares at her blankly. “What did this letter say exactly?” she says, emphasizing each word.