I hardly slept, picturing Forrest and Craig with me again, but the moment didn’t stay happy for long.
They were torn away from me, and I was left running through the darkness alone, hearing that horrible cackling in my mind that I knew belonged to Zohar.
At some point, I’d given up on sleeping, and started out again after dousing what remained of my fire, and packing up my bag again.
As I walked as quietly as I could, I pondered the memories Celandine presented to me last night.
I had not witnessed her handing over the throne, but the wedding that came after was hard enough to see from her perspective, after returning from that first fight and realizing what her destiny had to be.
Part of her heart had broken, knowing she would never be with him, not truly. But her life took her elsewhere, and she needed to know the dragons would be well looked after.
The day he announced his wife had a son, she told me this morning, when I continued to replay the event over and over again, that she had locked herself away and bitterly cursed her father for destroying the life she dreamt of having one day.
“You loved Broden though, didn’t you?” I asked, unable to stop thinking about her situation and my own.
I still had no idea what to do about my feelings for both Craig and Forrest. I’d be an idiot not to admit I loved them both, after all, we’d been through, but each love felt different somehow, like they completed a separate part of me… there was just too much to try and sort out right now.
And all Celandine’s memories did was make it even more confusing.
We cared for each other, but those feelings did not grow until much later in the fighting, when sometimes all we had to keep us from falling prey to our own despair was each other. We became each other’s strength, and in time, my love for him was as strong as any love one soulmate can have for another. But after what happened with the creation of the Vindicar, I wound up with two, and it plagued me every day, almost worse than the fighting did, to know I could never truly be with them.
I wondered at her words some more, worried I’d never be able to figure out where I belonged either.
And I saw plenty of those fights to doubt I would’ve kept on fighting, or not gone insane if I didn’t have someone with me like Craig or Forrest.
That’s why I was here now, to stop this entire situation before it became a war. If I didn’t, I would be forced to watch the plague tear apart the realms, again, and kill everything I cared for.
I was not going to let them get killed, not this time.
Celandine had just fallen silent inside my head again, and I was okay with that, but then I heard something else that made me wish it was my past life still talking to me.
“Kate.”
I froze mid-step, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end as it came a second time.
That voice, it couldn’t be.
I held my breath, waiting to hear it again, but when nothing happened, I chalked it up to lack of sleep and walked on.
“Kate.”
I staggered in the underbrush this time, in my hurry to turn, drawing the Executioner blade as I did.
The voice, it teased me, and I wanted it to go away.
My hands shook as they gripped the sword, knowing this couldn’t be real.
I glared into the shadows as Celandine urged me to keep going, but then I heard my name again, further away this time, barely a whisper and confused tears filled my eyes.
It came a second time, a third, and I couldn’t hold back any longer.
I took off through the trees, chasing after that voice.
I slashed through branches and bushes, sliding in the leaves and hit the ground hard before I managed to find my feet again. The wound on my arm throbbed when I smacked it into a tree, opening it again, so warm blood spread down my arm.
But I couldn’t stop.
It called to me still, and when I burst through the trees, I found myself in a clearing, the grass dead and burnt at my feet, and I was not alone.
Gasping to catch my breath from my dead sprint, I stared at the back of that head, her hair the same color as mine, same height, same build.
At first, I worried I was simply going crazy, but then she turned on the spot, and I sank to my knees in the dirt.
The sword slipped from my grip and my jaw dropped.
“Kate,” the woman whispered lovingly as she approached. “My dear, sweet Kate.”
“Mom?” I gasped in shock.
She was here, flesh and blood here.
Tears shone in her eyes as she stepped closer, reaching out a hand for me. “My girl, I’ve missed you so much throughout the years.”
I couldn’t hold back the tears as they slipped down my cheeks.
I had no strength left from the run, and she fell to her knees before me, hugging me close to her as we cried together. She felt so real in my arms, but it couldn’t be her. She was killed by the other dragons. This shouldn’t be possible, and yet here she was.
I managed to wrap my arms around her and turned my head to breathe her in… when my eyes widened, and I stilled in a panic.
“Kate? What is it, what’s wrong?” she asked, pulling back as she cupped my face in her hands.
It looked like her, the eyes were just like mine, green with a hint of blue from the strange lighting. Her face was an older version of mine and her hair, same as mine.
But Mom, she always smelled of lavender. Always. It was the one memory I managed to cling to when she died. I dreamt of her countless times, and even after Dad was killed, it was Mom’s lavender I remembered most.
“You are not my mom,” I growled, the sound reverberating from deep within my chest.
Her eyes narrowed as she smiled. “Don’t be silly, of course I’m your mother.”
“No, you’re not.” I tried to pull back, but her hands tightened on my cheeks so hard, I waited for my jaw to crack, wincing in pain.
“Clever girl, aren’t we?” she snarled, and fangs sprouted in her mouth.
Her palms pressed harder, and I screamed in pain as her touch burned my skin.
I thrashed and managed to headbutt this monster, rolling backward and away when she was forced to let me go.
My face stung, but I reached for the sword and held it high, glaring at the creature who looked like my mom.
“What are you?” I snapped, watching closely as she pushed to her feet. “What? Answer me!”
She smiled wider, and those fangs grew impossibly longer in her mouth. “You know exactly what I am, girl. What all of us are.” She spread her arms wide as more rustling came from the trees.
I needed to look, but only chanced a glance, not ready to take my gaze off her completely.
Until the second figure came through the trees and I had no choice.
“No… no this isn’t happening,” I whispered, horrified at the figure emerging from the shadows.
And it wasn’t the only one. More appeared, stalking towards me until I was surrounded by these creatures, creatures with faces of those I cared about.
Dad cackled darkly at me as he approached, face burnt, and the rest of his clothes torn and bloodied as if he had just been killed all over again.
“You did this to me,” he growled, circling closer.
I shook my head frantically, keeping him at sword point. “No… I didn’t kill you,” I whispered.
“You did. I died to save you, just as your mother did. Just as we all did.”
I grit my teeth, forcing my gaze away from the other faces, of Mama, of the kids at the house, but there were two I couldn’t bear to see though I knew they walked closer.
Their steps crunched in the leaves, and I shut my eyes, not willing to see those dark faces glowering at me in rage.
“It’s not real,” I whispered, repeatedly even as the steps came to a stop, one on either side of me. “You’re not them, you’re not real.”
“Closing your eyes won’t change the truth,” Forrest hissed in my ear.
I flinched.
“You are the reason we died back then,” Craig growled. “You’re the reason we will die again. All of us, because of your failure.”
I scrunched my eyes shut until they hurt. “No, that’s why I did this, it’s why I came here.”
“To do what? Fail again?” Forrest cackled a sound I never heard come from him before. “You are weak, Katherine, too weak to be the Vindicar, just as Celandine was too weak to do what had to be done. She could not kill her father and look at where we are now.”
“I am not weak,” I argued, but the words trembled with my fear. “I’m not.”
“Then why did you run?” Craig challenged. “Why?”
“To save you!” I shouted, and opened my eyes.
It was the wrong thing to do.
Their faces, so handsome and strong the last time I saw them, were now deformed and twisted in anger. Blood covered them, and their eyes were solid black masses, watching me with such malice, my gut felt like it crashed to the ground.
I staggered away from them, but they only followed.
“You won’t save us,” Forrest growled, hands closing into fists at his sides.
“You have only sealed our fate,” Craig added harshly. “Just as Celandine did theirs all those years ago.”
More sticks and leaves crunched behind me, and I came to a sudden stop. Heart pounding, and palms growing sweaty the longer I tried to hold onto the Executioner blade, I gulped as I glanced over my shoulder.
I whipped around, and my sword aimed at Broden and Malcolm instead.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I heard Celandine plead for this not to be happening, and I was in complete agreement.
But there they stood, bearing the wounds that lead to their deaths.
Blood dripped from Broden’s side, and Malcolm’s face was drenched in more crimson, as was his front. When he shifted his head, I saw the gash at his throat and gagged.
The four of them pushed in closer, whispering it was my fault, they were dead, and it was all my fault. I would fail, again and again, they would never be at peace.
Each word was another cut, and though I didn’t bleed, I felt like I was being ripped apart.
The Executioner slipped from my numb fingers, hitting the ground with a dull thud.
I fell with it, holding my hands to my ears as I tucked myself into a ball, willing it all to go away.
Their chanting grew louder until I screamed, feeling my dragon shift and churn within my mind, thrashing to get away from the creatures.
A well of power built within me and as I threw back my head to scream again, it exploded outwards, slicing through the creatures, and they vanished into columns of black smoke, floating away on the breeze.
The runes covering my body pulsed with power as I sucked in a deep breath, my vision blurring, and I waited to see if I was going to pass out or not.
Tears wet my cheeks, mind still reeling from the mocking of the creatures bearing Craig and Forrest’s faces.
Clapping startled me, and I struggled to turn around, reaching for the sword at the same time.
“You are quite the powerful girl, aren’t you?” Allis said, amused, from the boulder he sat on, still clapping loudly. “I am impressed. Not many survive through that trick.”
I growled fiercely at him. “What the hell do you want? Come to get your ass kicked again?”
“You believe you beat me back at the Darrah ruins? Oh, no, my young Vindicar, that was merely a test, as was this.”
“A test? What test? For what, damn it!”
“To see how strong, you truly are.” He hopped down from the boulder.
I braced for an attack, but he only stood there, watching me, a strange glint in his eyes.
“There is someone looking forward to meeting you. Someone I believe that other soul sharing your body would love to be reunited with.”
Zohar, Celandine whispered in my mind, and I shrugged, trying to shake the sudden chill racing down my spine.
“Why doesn’t he just come then, and we can finish this?” I yelled, complimenting myself on sounding brave instead of how I really felt, scared to death that I was going to die very soon and not in a very pleasant way.
“No, not yet, but soon.” He bowed his head and with a snap of his fingers was gone.
I held my breath, ready for the next attack, but it never came.
Exhausted, mentally and physically, I let myself collapse to the ground and laid there, curled up in a tight ball, wondering what the hell I’d been thinking of, coming here alone.