Chapter 6

Immediately, she knew she was dreaming. Everything felt real enough, but sounds, colors, everything was almost muted, not quite the same as in the waking world. She was on top of a yellow-stone castle, though it was larger than any castle she’d ever seen. The walls stretched for miles. No, it wasn’t a castle. She was standing atop a heavily fortified plateau. The distant sound of yelling brought her attention to something below.

Walking over to the edge of the wall she stood upon, she looked out over the plains below and froze. The entire landscape before her was covered in moving figures. Troops of varying armor were mixed with creatures of shadow, their inky black skin sending shivers through her spine. Millions. Never had she seen so many in one place before.

Below her, men yelled, and archers sent arrows flying out over the battlefield. Neviah almost laughed. Several thousand men were manning the walls below her, but what could they do against so many?

A shadow loomed above the walls. Neviah screamed and jumped out of the way as an enormous, three-headed dragon landed atop the wall near her, shaking its foundation and sending stones tumbling toward the ground. It breathed fire down at the men below, their screams rising, then stopping as they were killed. One of the heads turned toward Neviah and breathed fire at her!

***

She shot up in bed, heart racing as she felt her skin for burns. Breathing a sigh of relief, she looked over at Corban. He was watching her, eyes alert. She climbed out of bed and went to sit on the floor beside his mat.

“Did you have a dream, too?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Mine had a three-headed dragon in it.”

“I think Re’u showed us the same dream,” he said.

“What does it mean?”

“That dragon needs to be stopped,” he said, looking at something unseen. “No matter the cost.”

“Do you ever wish Re’u was a little clearer?”

“Yes,” Corban said with a smile.

“Why isn’t he?”

Corban looked thoughtful. “Your friend Adhira, he can see into the immediate future. If he makes a different choice because of what he sees in that future, he can change the outcome. Likewise, if Re’u knows the end from the beginning, if he can see far enough into the future to write the book of prophecies you carry, then he should also see how your understanding will change the future.”

“Wouldn’t being clearer, therefore, be more effective?” she asked.

“If he showed you the exact time and day Victoria died, what would you do?” Corban asked slowly and quietly.

“I would stop it,” she said.

“What if she needed to die? What if her death played a role in the future Re’u is trying to shape?”

She didn’t know what to say. His words set off a flood of prophetic images she’d been repressing.

“Sometimes the prophecies are clear,” he spoke into the silence. “Sometimes they’re not. In the end, we have to have faith that he knows what he’s doing. I think the strengthening of our faith is what the prophecies are really about. This strength leads us to the perseverance we will need in the coming years.” They continued to talk until the flight instructors barged in.

After the morning physical training, it was sword training time again. Neviah was paired up with a stocky boy of average height. She already had several bruises from their exchanges, he having received not one. No one was ever struck by her.

Whack! She rubbed the stinging spot on her arm and grimaced at her opponent. Why was everyone so much better than she was? Though Asa was regaining mobility in his knee and shoulder, he was still injured, and he was doing better than her.

Corban approached and waved her away from the fight. She was more than happy to postpone her next bruise. When she stood next to him, he said, “How is the sword training coming?”

She scowled at him. He knew full well how it was going. “No matter what I do, I can’t beat these guys.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I practice just as hard as everyone else, but I’m just not as strong or fast as the boys.”

Corban smiled. “Then why are you fighting like they do?”

She opened her mouth with a curt reply but closed it. As the question settled on her, she looked back over to where her opponent waited. How else was she supposed to fight?

“I’ve seen you dance with Victoria each night. You have the grace of a water treader.” She didn’t know what a water treader was but assumed it was meant to be a compliment. “Do not cater to the enemy’s strengths.”

She nodded, though she had no clue what he was talking about. Sword fighting was sword fighting. It was a man’s invention, so it was natural that men were better at it than she was. Walking back over to the patiently waiting recruit, Neviah readied herself for the bout.

The boy attacked, a sideways slash meant for her midsection. She blocked it with her sword, the jolt hurting her arm.

“Graceful,” Corban said from behind her.

The recruit rushed her, using his shield as a ram. She braced herself with her own, but the boy easily knocked her to the ground and tapped her on the shoulder with his sword. She wanted to knock that grin off his face, but he was too good at blocking with his shield.

“Stop catering to his strength,” Corban said. Neviah gritted her teeth and tried to ignore her companion.

The recruit slashed down, and she blocked with her shield and managed to strike back. He easily knocked her blade wide and struck at her midsection, knocking the wind from her lungs.

Before she’d fully recovered, Corban repeated, “Graceful.”

That was it! If he wanted graceful, she would give him graceful. Clearing her mind of her sword fighting lessons, she picked a tune and hummed it to herself. When her opponent struck with an overhead swing, she didn’t bother blocking it but slid to the side and spun with her sword stretched out. She was doing her best imitation of a ballerina executing a pirouette. The recruit couldn’t suppress a grunt as her sword struck him across his back. She stared at her sword in disbelief. She’d done it! She’d actually hit someone!

A couple of recruits who saw the hit laughed and jeered at the recruit for getting hit by a girl. He squared off with Neviah again, his brow set, determined not to let that happen again. He made a stab at her stomach. She took a quick step away from him, gliding out of reach.

Following, he put his shoulder into his shield to ram her again. Training told her to put her shoulder in her shield and lean into the charge, but she ignored it. Instead, she jumped up and back. This stole all the momentum from his charge and allowed her to rise above his defense and hit him in the face with a roundhouse from her shield. If the leather strap of his helm hadn’t taken most of the blow, he might have lost some teeth. The blow still drove him to his knees.

An instructor told him to go shake it off in the recovery box, where a few other recruits were being tended to by medics. She was assigned a new partner, one of the bigger soldier recruits. Three of the trainees in the recovery box were his doing. Neviah had dreaded facing him. He was a brute.

“You won’t find me as merciful as the others,” he said.

Graceful, she told herself and took the offensive. She stabbed at his chest, which he immediately protected with his shield. She didn’t follow through with the stab but, instead, let the blade turn low toward his knees. He was able to lower the shield in time and swung his own sword. She ducked, and he tried to smash her in the face with his shield. She used the opportunity to drop into a split and as the shield passed over her, her sword flew forward with all the force she could manage, and the point drove up into his groin.

A collective “ooh” came from those who had seen. His eyes closed, and he fell to the ground beside his dropped shield and weapon. She and another recruit helped him to the recovery box.

The rest of the training session was spent with another recruit. He got in some hits but so did she. When it was over, she gave Corban a kiss on his furry cheek and wrapped him in a hug.

“Thank you,” she said into his fur.

He was taken aback by the sudden show of affection, but he did pat her on the back briefly.

In archery training, Asa and Neviah had gotten much better, but Victoria still stole the show. She never missed, not once, any of the days. That day was no exception until she got to her last arrow. The instructors were watching her, critiquing her form, though she hit the bull’s eye no matter what.

She put the final arrow to the string and drew it back. One of the instructors was chatting casually with another. “You know, my father is the former bow master. I should bring him here to see this prodigy before she’s gone.”

Victoria let the arrow loose, and it flew past the target to bury itself in the ground at the feet of a very frightened recruit. They had become so sure of her ability that some of the recruits had gathered around her target to see the impact. Shock was on everyone’s face, including Victoria’s.

After a moment, Asa said, “Well, it’s about time you missed one.” Everyone laughed, and the training continued.

Her miss bothered Neviah, however. The instructors’ conversation couldn’t have distracted her. People talked around her all the time while she shot. If it wasn’t the talking that distracted her, maybe it was something about what they were saying. It nagged at her until they were sitting on the floor of their barracks with Victoria practicing her gift. She was making a small ball of fire hover in the air above the floor. Corban and Enya had buckets of water standing by, just in case.

The girls were dancing for a while before they collapsed to the floor, giggling. The fire remained in the air. It seemed like nothing could break her concentration now. Well, maybe there was one thing.

“You’ve come so far, Victoria. Do you ever wish your parents could see you now?” The air immediately exploded in fiery heat, forcing Neviah’s eyes closed with its intensity. Water soaked through her clothes as Corban and Enya poured their buckets out on the scorched floor.

“I don’t know what happened!” Victoria exclaimed. “I suddenly lost control of it.”

“There’s no reason to apologize,” Neviah said, knowing the fault lay with her, not Victoria. But she had to know, and the burst of fire confirmed it. There was something in Victoria’s past that was haunting her and somehow interfering with her gift. It had something to do with her parents. “Is there anything you want to talk about?” Neviah pressed.

Victoria shook her head. “No, I must have lost my focus.”

They spent the next half an hour cleaning up the water and scrubbing the blackened floorboards. She was returning the cleaning supplies to the closet when the world around her disappeared.

The room was replaced by a vision. She was surrounded by darkness; the only light was a flickering fire to her left. As she approached, the fire grew. She stood as close as she dared, holding up a hand to protect her face from the intense heat.

The sound of crying brought her attention to the center of the blaze. The intensity dimmed enough for her to see Victoria sitting among the flames. She was holding something unseen, rocking back and forth, sobbing.

“This is her past and her future,” Re’u said from behind her. Neviah turned, but all she saw was the barracks. The vision was over.