Unlikely

by Frances Pauli

The aroma of sage and something fruity wove through her dreams. It lingered after they stilled and settled, soothing the colors away and leaving only sweet, calming darkness. She inhaled it, relaxed and exhaled.

  A sigil floated on a black field. The squiggle vibrated, blue, glowing, very familiar. It was hers, Vision. It grew larger, wafted nearer. She knew it—the menhir had given the mark to her. Could she use it now, so far from the stone that bore it?

  Even as she thought it, the symbol closed in, teasing, asking her to try. Satina reached for it. It dodged once, trembled and threatened to fade. She held still, centered. Vision blossomed once more. This time, she let it come to her. She watched the lines burn and grow until the curves filled her consciousness. There was nothing else. She fell into it.

  Vision flung her up and out, through a familiar thatched roof. She looked down on Hadja’s cottage. The day glowed bright under a cloudless sky, and the field around the house rippled in a light breeze. The whole scene blurred and slipped away to be replaced by the ruins, pocked with Vane’s dig sites and mounds of rubble. Today no one dug in the pits.

  The blacksmith of Westwood stood by the menhir. Around him, the townspeople dragged both Starlight and villager bodies toward a row of open graves. Satina flinched away, and Vision carried her over the trees. For a moment, they drifted. Her thoughts scrambled and dodged, but there was no avoiding the truth. People had died.

  She searched for her memories of the battle and found only a haze of strange, brilliantly hued scraps. Without the mushroom powder to distort them, she managed to piece the events together. Still, questions remained. How had Hadja fared with two Starlights in the pocket? Had Maera triggered the sleeping dust in the wagon? Where were they all now?

  She had a sense, not so much a vision but a knowing, that Hadja had been in the cottage where she slept. Marten would have brought her there. Marten had been with her and Vane in the pockets. She remembered enough of that, opening a gateway to the thistledown patch. Had Vane survived Henry?

  Vision supplied her with an answer. The trees sped by, too fast for her mind’s eye to process. Mountains, more forest and a wide, thrashing ocean flickered before the sigil brought her to a stop. Still, she recognized the place it delivered her to. She’d seen it from a distance many times. She’d seen it from the thistledown pocket, and she’d never once found a way to get this close before.

  She hovered over the castle and, from that height, she could see the blue swath of water that encircled an island, almost a perfect circle of land. The terrain rose from the sea to a sharp forested point, atop which, perched a fortress. Despite the intact towers, the sturdy, unbroken walls, Satina could see that she’d been wrong about the preservation. Time and war had taken their toll here, but only enough to leave the building empty, abandoned and without maintenance.

  Still, the windows beckoned. What could lie inside a castle so well preserved? Secrets from before the Final War? Relics from the Kingdoms? She yearned to fly closer and steal a peek, but Vision shifted and the island spun to one side. The edges blurred and Satina was forced to gaze on one particular, forested slope.

  A man climbed through the trees. He limped and stumbled more than he walked. One of his arms cradled the other, and his clothing was tattered, but Vane was very much alive. Somehow, he’d slipped from Henry’s grasp and landed at the very spot she’d always longed to find. His eyes turned up with each step he took, resting upon his goal, the only goal he could possibly have. The castle at the top of the island.

  Vision stuttered, and the view slid away. It showed her a mighty fire blazing in, yet another, pocket. This one teemed with gleaming, green bodies, with creatures that should be long extinct. Vision supplied the word that she couldn’t summon. Gobelins. Satina’s fear drove the images away and thrust her back into darkness. The sigil glowed steadily before her. Gobelins? And Vane living? She needed to tell Marten, to warn Hadja, the town, possibly everyone. Her panic made the symbol waver and twist. Soon it would throw her back, deposit her in a body that may or may not survive Vane’s poison.

  Except it hadn’t been poison. She fluttered and let her mind chase after the memory. Marten had found her in the pocket. Drugged, he’d said. Death mushroom spores. A new scene sprouted from the sigil’s glow. She hovered inside the imp’s shop. Marten sat on a stool behind the counter, his bottle of paint open on the surface and a glittering mountain of mirror shards piled to one side. His deft fingers turned one of the bits over and over until it flashed rainbows around the room. He dipped a brush like a single hair into the bottle and then stroked his sigils in miniature across the glass.

  Behind the counter, Hadja’s mirror leaned against the wall. Half of the looking glass was gone, and the remainder bore a spider web of cracks. Marten finished painting, placed the newest shard on the heap and then turned to the mirror to pluck another loose. His face reflected across the splintered surface, fractured and skewed by the lines. She loved him.

  Worse than that, she’d told him as much.

  The room filled with heat. She pushed at the Vision, seeking her exit. The sigil ignored her. She remained while Marten turned back to his work. The brush dipped, the shard flashed and he squinted at it and raised the bristle to its task. The swoops were too tiny to follow. Whatever runes he drew belonged to him alone. He labored at them with absolute focus, and she felt that twinge of guilt again. This moment was no more public that the last, and she had no business watching him.

  Marten finished another shard, dropped it on the stack and turned, but this time he didn’t retrieve another. Instead, he reached under the counter and withdrew a familiar object. He held it by the spindle, and his other hand tapped at the top disk. He flicked it into a slow spin, but stopped it just as quickly. His fingers brushed over the design. He sighed and then looked up.

  She wasn’t really there. He couldn’t see her, but his eyes settled on the spot where she hovered, and a wash of fear coursed through her. It ebbed soon enough. Marten’s gaze didn’t focus. He looked, but not at anything in particular. His fingers tapped against the counter, and one side of his mouth twitched with whatever thoughts possessed him.

  She reached for him, but she had no arms, and Vision rebelled at the urge. It whisked her away again, over the still town to drop her curtly through the cottage thatch. Her body groaned aloud when she returned to it, and the curtain to her room flipped aside.

  “You’re back with us, then?” Hadja didn’t wait for an answer. She trundled into the room along with a heavy dose of the fruity smell. It wafted from the mug she carried. “You’ll want to drink this.”

  “Vane got away.” Satina took the cup and inhaled the steam.

  Hajda frowned and then shook her head. “No matter. I doubt he’ll be coming back here anytime soon.”

  “You have no idea.” She sipped the brew. The liquid numbed her tongue and sent a ripple of warmth straight to her head. Strong stuff, Hadja’s magic.

  “We can talk about it all later.”

  “Are you drugging me again?” The numb feelings spread down her back and out into her fingers and toes. Hadja snatched the cup before she could drop it.

  “Better than the alternative,” she said.

  “Which is?” Already sleep fogged her mind.

  “Vomiting, fever, sweating…”

  “Ahh.” She could live with drugged then. It wasn’t so bad, the numbness. It enveloped her in soft tingles, soothed her worries and swept her gently back to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Two