I stared up at the sky, looking at the stars and the moon, all of which seemed brighter out here than they ever had back in the Sector. My head was starting to feel like it might explode from stress when I heard a voice.
“You should be sleeping, especially if that is when the visions are clearest.”
I recognized Asis’s voice before I even turned to see him. He was wearing more now than he had before. The nippy night air had forced him into a tan-colored jacket made of some sort of animal skin that lay over his bare chest. Matching pants with dangling fringe hid his legs, but he was still barefoot. The streak of red across his face had been washed off, allowing his eyes to stand out even more against the moonlight.
“I’m not entirely sure how the visions work anymore, to be honest with you. They seem stronger than they ever have before, regardless of what I’m doing.” I blinked at him. “I know the last one was.”
A creeping blush ran up his cheeks as he walked over to me. “We should speak of that, Starla of the Sector,” he said. “I am not the type of man to take advantage of a woman—any woman. Had I had control over my body during that episode, I would have never—”
“I wanted you too,” I answered too quickly, before realizing what I had said. “I mean, in the vision. The person I was in the vision wanted you too. I didn’t have control over myself, either. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t blame you.”
“Nor I you,” he said, looking right into my eyes. “I am aware of my actions earlier and of what I said. The truth of the matter, Starla of the Sector, is that I know you did not do this purposefully or with malice in your heart.” He took a breath and turned away from me, looking up at the sky. “It is hard for me to explain because it is hard for me to comprehend, but, within your vision, I felt many things. I felt physical sensation, of course. I felt what it might be like to lie with you, and I say that with no disrespect. The act of lying with a woman is sacred in my culture. I do not take it lightly. But I also felt something else. I felt as though I knew you. I felt as though I was keenly aware of the sort of person you are, of your gifts, of your limitations, and of your heart.”
He turned back to me, his eyes full of something raw I had never seen in them before.
“I felt as though I loved you then, Starla of the Sector. I felt as though there would never be another who would ever know me the way you did. So, I ask you, and I hope that I have earned enough of your respect for you to tell me the truth. Was that real? Is that person, the person I knew so well and so deeply in that vision, really you? And, if so, how does that person feel about me?”
I looked at him for a long moment after that, trying to figure out the right words to say. What did I need to do here? How did I need to react? What would best serve my purpose?
But the longer I looked at him, the more I knew I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t be cold and calculating, not when this man was so exposed in front of me, not when he laid himself bare at my feet. For whatever reason, I still felt close to him, and that feeling wasn’t something I was ready to give up just yet.
“It was me,” I finally said. “All of it. It was all me.” I looked away from him, staring up at the sky myself now. “And she felt like she loved you too.”
“Then I believe you,” he replied. “And, what is more, I believe in you. The woman I knew in that vision would never hurt another person. She would do everything in her power to make the broken whole again. I am a new leader, Starla of the Sector. You know that. You watched it happen. And that means I must put trust in people, something which has never been easy for me. If I must start, though, perhaps this isn’t the worst place.”
“What changed?” I asked, still looking up at the stars. “You were so cold before, so distant. And now you want to trust me.”
“It brings me dishonor to admit it, but I was afraid,” he said. “I have grown in this place as an outsider. My father was the Shaman, and it has always been known that one day I would become the Shaman. That kept me at a distance from the others. When my abilities emerged, that separated me from them even further. It confined me to the realm of ‘thing’ and not a person. No man can be both, but that is what is asked of a leader. So, that was what I had to become. I’ve kept myself distant for so long, kept myself locked away. When you touched me and opened me up, I didn’t know how to react. I thought it must have been the darkness, that my assumption must have been wrong. But now I see it wasn’t. Now I see that it might save us.”
I felt his hand grasp at mine, and I opened my fingers to allow him to intertwine them with his own.
Maybe he was right. Maybe this was something that needed to happen. Maybe, if we just went along with it, everything would be alright.
And then the vision took us.
We were standing in the same place, still holding hands, still looking at the sky. Except it was daytime now, and instead of the moon and stars, we were looking at weapons of destruction.
Energy orbs were falling through the air, aimed directly at us.
I looked around and gasped in horror at one of the most horrific displays of destruction I had ever known.
The entire village had been razed to the ground. Tents were burning, people were screaming and lay bloodied on the ground, and Roamers were rushing through the place, all of them on horseback and all of them carrying Remingtons.
Marshal Weston was there in front of me, riding through on a huge white steed. He pointed his weapon at an old Savage woman pleading for mercy.
“Where was mercy when you took Starla?” he demanded. “Where was it when you ripped her away from the Outpost in the middle of the night?”
Then Marshal Weston shot the poor woman right between the eyes.
I stumbled backwards, nearly screaming as I took in the horrific scene. Asis held tight to my hand, squeezing it as he looked around, his mouth agape at the monstrosity unfolding around us. This must truly be a nightmare for him, I thought. As hard as it was for me to watch innocent people be slaughtered in my name, how much worse must it be to his eyes? These were his people. This was his tribe and his responsibility, and we were watching it all fall to ash around us.
I felt a sharp pull and was yanked right out of my vision.
We were still standing, still looking at the same night sky, the same moon. The fire was still burning heartily. We had been gone barely any time at all. That was good, at least.
I looked over at Asis, not needing to ask whether or not he had seen what I had. It was right there, plastered across his face like the paint he had washed off.
Only there was no washing this off. We had seen the future. We had seen the end. It was coming for this place, and it was all my fault.
Chapter 17
“The whole tribe?” Alma asked, looking up at her brother with sleepy eyes and clenched hands.
Believing in my visions had always been something of a roundabout for my family and even me. Seeing horrible things had an effect on me, the same as it might for anyone. Instinctively, I didn’t want to believe the nightmare that had played out in front of me. I wanted to believe I was mistaken, that the visions were wrong, or were misleading me, or, when things were very dire, that I could undo them before they were set into place.
I saw that same hope in Alma’s eyes tonight, though it was lacking the doubt that had always colored my own. The people here, Alma included, believed in my powers without reserve. While the people in the Sector had been taught to treat those with powers as oddities and freaks, it had turned out that the Savages believed witches were people to be treasured and revered.
And apparently believed in, regardless of how dire the news was.
“I saw it myself, with my own eyes. Or my own mind or soul,” Asis said, shaking his head hard. “However that works. It was the entirety of this place. It was all the people. The Roamers decimated it all, leaving nothing in their wake.” He turned to me. “And they did it all for her.”
Guilt sprang up inside of me. I knew the part I’d p
layed in what we’d seen, and it wasn’t good. But if there was something I could do now, something that would undo even a hint of the havoc I had brought to these people, I would do it without hesitation.
“There has to be something we can do,” Alma said. “The two of you have a connection.”
“I’m not entirely sure what that has to do with anything,” Asis said uneasily.
“Neither am I. But it’s true, and it’s undeniable. Has anyone else ever entered your visions the way my brother did?” she asked me.
No one’s ever done anything to me the way your brother did, I thought. Instead of vocalizing that, I simply said, “No, but I’ve never met another witch before, aside from my mother. Still, she couldn’t do it.”
“Then there must be something there,” Alma insisted.
“There’s not,” Asis said flatly.
“But if we just try—”
“I said there’s not!” Asis said. “We’re dancing on the edge of a blade, Alma. We’re a moon’s turn away from dying out, and even if we somehow manage to survive that, we have this to worry about. My people need me to lead them, to do whatever I have to to save them. I can’t risk dropping into another slumber, not when I don’t know if my world will still be here when I wake up.”
“Then what is it that you suggest, brother?” Alma asked, looking hard at him.
He didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. I had an idea, though it was one I wasn’t sure they were going to go for.
“Take me back,” I said calmly.
“What are you talking about?” Asis asked.
“This is about me. We both heard Marshal Weston. What we saw happened because they think you kidnapped me from the Outpost. If I can get back there, then I can tell them you didn’t.” I cleared my throat. “I’ll leave out the part where you actually did kidnap me for good measure.”
“And what of us?” Asis asked. “What of the visions meant to lead my people to a cure?”
“They’re visions, Asis,” I said, moving toward him. “I’ve had them most of my life, and that won’t stop now. I swear to you, if the fates send me a cure, I’ll let you know.”
“How?” he asked, genuinely curious. “Until I found you in the jungle, you had never set eyes on me. After you leave this place, you will never do so again.”
Those words cut into me, driving their way into my heart. The look on his face told me he was having the same reaction.
“Then go with her,” Alma said, pulling our attention away from the electricity jumping back and forth between us. “She will have to have an escort, anyway, and her visions are more potent when she’s around you. It’s her best chance of having a vision that will help us, and, if she does, you can bring the information back with you after you return her safely where she belongs.”
Where she belongs. I knew she meant the Outpost, but I wondered if that was true anymore.
“It makes sense,” I said.
“These are my people,” Asis told me, fire coloring his voice. “I need to be here for them.”
“You need to save them,” I said, setting my jaw. “You’re their Shaman. You’re their leader. You need to do whatever it takes to keep them safe, even if that means leaving them for a time.”
“And going with you?” he asked, his brows dancing upward a little.
“If the idea doesn’t disgust you too much,” I said. “I need to stop this, Asis. Not only to save my father, and not only to save your people and stop a war that will dwarf anything either of us has ever known, but also to stop all of it from being my fault.”
“Your fault?” he echoed. The way his brows crinkled led me to believe he thought the idea was more than ludicrous. “This is not your fault.”
“I set this in motion,” I said stubbornly.
“Just as the rain sets the ground in motion,” he replied. “But without it, the earth dries up and withers away. You may be the rain, Starla of the Sector, but you most certainly are not the flood. And I will not allow you to blame yourself for the machinations of men who wouldn’t care whether you lived or died if it did not further their political ambitions. You may be at the center of this, but that does not make it your fault.”
“Does that mean you’ll go with me?” I asked, feeling anxiety rise in my chest.
“It does, Starla. That is exactly what it means.” Asis leaned over, grabbed the headdress from beside the bed where he slept, and handed it to his sister. “Until my return, sister.”
“Until your return, brother,” she replied, and placed it on her head.
Chapter 18
Asis had no interest in bringing Chester along. He saw him as an albatross, something of a weight around our necks. I couldn’t deny that my friend wasn’t in the best physical condition, or that our journey probably wouldn’t be made easier without his presence. Still, I wasn’t going to leave him. My vision had shown him stretched out dead on the ground, a ground that looked a lot like this. While he might have already sidestepped the issues that might lead to his death (if my vision had even been accurate in the first place), leaving him here seemed negligent to me, to say the least.
Once I had managed to convince Asis that bringing another Roamer with him might be seen as a peace offering, he reluctantly agreed to free Chester from his cage.
“The chains stay on, though,” he said, swinging the door of Chester’s cell open. “At least until we’re out of view of this place.”
“You afraid I’m going to kick your behind or something, big guy?” Chester asked as I pulled him to his feet.
That was a joke. It must have been, given the battered and exhausted state Chester was currently in, not to mention the fact that Asis had him by a foot and a hundred pounds.
“My people will not agree with my reasoning for releasing you,” Asis replied. “Seeing you in chains might help appease any who might watch us leaving. My people might be desperate, but they still have their pride. I will not take it from them now by allowing them to think their leader is weak enough to run to the Outpost and beg for mercy. I go to them as an equal, with a pair of hostages ready to trade.”
Hearing Asis refer to me as a hostage sent a pang of hurt through my heart. After we’d talked earlier tonight, after all we’d been through in terms of the month-long vision and the way we seemed to be intertwined somehow, I liked to imagine he thought of me as more than that. Perhaps he really didn’t—or perhaps he did, and he just didn’t want Chester to be aware of that fact.
“Hell of a buddy you’ve got there,” Chester said, looking from me to Asis and back again.
“He’s just trying to do right by his people,” I replied, helping him out of the cage.
Green mist formed around Asis’s hand, and I flinched a little. After all, the last time I had seen that, I had wound up getting knocked out. I wasn’t its intended target this time, though. Instead, it swirled around the chains locking Chester’s legs together. When it receded, the locks had sprung open.
“Looks like I spoke too soon,” Chester said, moving his feet around as if to soak up this new freedom. “I appreciate that, Savage.”
“His name is Asis,” I said, pulling Chester forward. “And I appreciate it too,” I added, looking up at Asis.
“He’d slow us down any other way,” he answered flatly. “Besides, I’m not heartless.”
“You most certainly are not,” I muttered in response.
Asis might have wanted to pretend that this was an act based purely on strategy, but I knew better. Something in the way he’d said it, in the way he was looking at me now as we made our way out of his tribal lands, told me there was something else at play.
These sparks I felt for him—he was feeling them too. Fate had brought us here together, and, for the first time since I’d met him, the idea of my vision of being with Asis actually coming to pass didn’t seem so insane.
Of course, that meant the idea of my father being murdered didn’t seem insane, either, and that wasn’t something I could
allow.
As we moved through the tribal lands, I watched Asis closely. His gaze dragged along each blade of grass; his stare lingered on each tent. Undoubtedly, his mind was on the families inside them, on his dying subjects and what they might have to gain from something I might or might not see on my way back to the Outpost.
“It’ll be okay,” I said, taking his hand as we took our last step out of the tribal lands. I could see Chester out of the corner of my eye, and knew that he’d spotted the sign of affection I had just performed with a Savage, but I didn’t care. If he was going to judge me, that was just fine. I needed to be here for Asis right now. “I promise, it’ll be okay.”
I had no way of knowing that, of course. All I had were hopes, dreams, and a power that I had no control over or understanding of.
Still, when he squeezed my hand in response, I felt like we might have a chance. Maybe Alma was right. Maybe the two of us being side by side was the key to all of this. Maybe that was why we had been brought together in the first place.
“She’s sick,” he said flatly. “My sister.”
My heart broke again. As far as I could tell, Alma had shown no signs of sickness, but I must have been wrong. The pain in Asis’s eyes was too raw to be unreal.
“When you and I fell into our…whatever that was, she was fine. She was strong and healthy and vibrant. But when we came back to the land of the living, something had changed within her. The sickness had taken hold. By the old laws and the new, I was not supposed to appoint her my successor. That should have gone to someone else, but there is no one else, Starla of the Sector. None of the others have my blood, and that is everything.” He swallowed hard. “She will die if we are not successful.”
Savage: an Adult Dystopian Paranormal Romance: Sector Seven (The Othala Witch Collection) Page 10
