Chapter 36

It was a week later, and I’d taken my father’s advice to heart. I’d spent part of every day nagging the interns in Tower Seven while they fabricated replicas of my Anu.

Now, here we were, standing on the high dunes of Zerssura ready to ride. We’d left most of the gravicycles at the bottom, tripling up to ride to the top.

The gleaming sandboards were finally ready for their first real run. The artisans in the R&D tower had melded the hardest wood in Aeden with a polished golden base and edges. According to their computations, the boards would practically fly on the dunes. They didn’t even need waxing.

Alec, Amber, Claire and Mialloch were all standing ready in a line, waiting for my signal. We’d already spent an hour on one of the smaller, gentler hills so everyone could get the basics of it. Alec had skateboarded as a kid in Boston, so he’d picked it up easily. Amber was a natural with her small, graceful frame, and Claire was dauntless, not caring how many times she fell down.

One of the girls in Tower Four had even copied my goggle designs, creating shock-proof polarized lenses for everyone in the group. So far, they’d come in pretty handy, keeping the dusty sand out of our eyes, and we also had a sand sled, which was basically a large hammered saucer big enough for an adult to sit in cross legged. I’d figured if anyone decided boarding wasn’t for them, they could still have fun. Which was a good thing, since after about ten minutes on the board, Ewan had claimed the sled for his own, claiming that his higher center of gravity made boarding impossible.

None of us pointed out that Mialloch was almost the same height as him, and seemed to be doing just fine. He wasn’t exactly graceful, but he and Claire had become a sort of tag team, helping each other back up every time the other one fell in the soft warm sand. Everyone was busy laughing and having fun. The fine particles clung to our skin and got in our hair, but no one cared. It was the perfect day.

“Okay everybody! Any last questions?” I looked around at the group. Everybody shook their head. “All right, here we go!”

We all hopped forward, allowing our weight to tip the boards and create momentum. I grinned at Alec and blew him a kiss.

“Last one to the bottom has to bring my parents breakfast tomorrow!” I heckled and shot off down the dune as everybody groaned. I raised up my arm and reveled in the feel of the heated wind on my bare arms, the red sun beating down on my skin. I was free. This was home.

I saw a small lip up ahead in the sand and veered toward it, hoping to gain a good jump. Instead, the metal edge of my board caught on something hard, sending me into a spin, head over heels. I flipped, landing on my face. I could hear my friends calling my name, but I couldn’t respond. I was being pulled into a vision, something familiar, dark and terrifying. I watched the scene unfold,

experienced the feelings of loss as I ran, wondering where my friends were. How would I get out of the tunnels? I felt the rocks pummeling my head and back, again. Fell into the wall, bruising my arm, again. And realized that the barrier was failing. Again.

And for the second time, I came to a bitter realization. There was only one thing left to do.

“I have to lead the Shades into Aeden,” I whispered numbly.

“What?” Claire pulled up my goggles, peering into my eyes and checking for a concussion. She looked at Amber. “What did she just say?”

“I have to lead the Shades into Aeden. The barrier is going to fall, and…I don’t know. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how,” I rambled. “I just know that I was running through the tunnels, and the world was falling all around me, and I knew what I was going to do. What I had to do.”

I looked at my friends kneeling around me on their boards, hoping for some sort of answer or explanation, but they all looked as shocked as I felt.

“Why would I do that?” I pleaded.

“I don’t know,” Alec murmured, stroking my hair. “I’m sure if you were going to do it, you would have a reason.”

“Am I going to turn Dark?”

“Did you feel Dark?” he asked.

“No. I felt…desperate. Determined.”

“Then don’t worry,” Amber said. “Look, you’ve had other visions that didn’t pan out, like that one at your school with the tornado. Now that we know the barrier could fail, we’ll let Bran and the Council know, and they’ll check into any possible weak points. Disaster averted. It’ll be okay.”

“I don’t know. My vision of the school…it didn’t come true exactly, but Holly did die, that didn’t change. This is the second time I’ve seen this same vision. I didn’t remember before, but I had the same one when Rowan blasted us. And I’m not sure, but I think it’s connected to the vision I had before we got on the plane in Dublin, remember, Alec?”

Alec opened his mouth, but he didn’t seem to know what to say. Instead, it was Mialloch spoke up, choosing his words slowly.

“I think you should listen to Amber. There isn’t anything you can do about it right now. None of us are planning on going near the tunnels in the next few weeks, so even if it’s a true vision, it’s not going to happen anytime soon.”

“Loch’s right,” Alec said. “This is the happiest I’ve seen you in days. Don’t let the Shades take that away from you. Let’s do some more runs, and when we head back I promise I’ll go straight to Bran. I’ll even go to his quarters.”

That got a smile out of me. “You’d risk running into another make-out session?”

“For you, yes.” Alec stood up and offered me his hand. “Now, are you ready to conquer this mountain or what?”

I took his hand and pulled myself up. “Ready and willing, team leader,” I saluted.

You could feel the tension burning away in the hot sun like water on a skillet.

“Let’s do this,” I smiled at everyone fit my goggles back over my eyes. I watched the rest of the group set off down the dune, Amber punching the air and shouting joyfully, racing Ewan on the sled, while Claire and Mialloch set off more cautiously. Alec hung back with me.

“You know you got this, right?” he asked, wrapping an arm around my waist. My skin tingled where we made contact, and I gazed into his bright eyes, gleaming behind the shady lenses.

“I know,” I said. And I knew we both meant more than just the dune.

Whatever the Shades threw at us, I could handle it. I had the best team of friends a girl could ever ask for. My mom had reunited with the love of her life. Everything was great. Everything was perfect.

The barrier failing? Piece of cake. Shades trying to get into Aeden and dominate humanity? Let them try. The Norns had always told us life was fated. Me, I was going to make my own decisions. My own choosing.

I leaned up and gave Alec a long, deep kiss.

“We got this,” I agreed.

I let go of Alec’s hand and tipped my board down the hill, picking up speed as I carved my future into the surface of the sands.