Visions (Dragon Reign Book 7)

by Kit Bladegrave

  I scrounged for my boots and tugged them on before I grabbed my cloak and sword, darting out of my room and flying through the castle. The halls were empty, minus a few dragon guards. When I was in the courtyard, one of them asked if everything was alright.

  “No, no it’s damned well not,” I snapped as I mounted my horse. “Tell your king I’ll see him in Silver Valley.”

  I kicked the horse into a gallop and took off into the darkness.

  11

  Tristan

  The ride from Gregornath to Silver Valley usually took four full days. I made it in two and a half, stopping first in Boshen, and then Torolf, for a fresh horse before continuing on my journey, not telling anyone a thing except that I needed a fresh horse. By the time I galloped through the gate of the elven palace and slid off my horse, I was beyond exhausted, covered in mud and grime from the road, but none of that mattered.

  “Tristan,” Drake said in surprise as he and four of his guards came rushing out of his palace. “My gods, man, you’re a mess. What’s happened, where are Forrest and Craig?”

  “Catching up. Where is she?”

  He took in my disheveled clothing. “She’s really fine, you didn’t have to rush here.”

  I raised my brow, waiting for him to say anything else except an answer to my question.

  “Inside. I’ll show you to her.”

  “No need,” I said as I pushed past him. “I’ll find her just fine.”

  I swore I heard him laugh behind me, but I didn’t bother turning back to see.

  Once inside the palace, I took a deep breath and picked up immediately on the strong trail of lilac. Sniffing the air every few feet, following the trail, I hurried through twisting corridors and up stairs, across a walkway and into another part of the palace.

  “King Tristan?” a woman called out to me, and I turned enough to catch Ashan approaching. “Someone I can help you find?”

  “I’m doing just fine on my own,” I muttered.

  “I hope you’re not tracking her down to yell at her.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her it was none of her business, but she was smiling. “Something happen I should know about?”

  “No, I am glad you’re here though,” she said and pointed toward my left. “That way.”

  “Thanks.” I ducked down the corridor she’d motioned to and took the stairs two at a time until I reached a set of doors. I raised my fist to knock then decided that was too polite and took too long.

  After the dream I had, I had to see her. Now. I grabbed the door handles and pushed the final obstacle open wide.

  “Tristan!”

  Sabella stood, her red hair loose around her shoulders, near a table with several writings.

  Kate was beside her, as well as Hank and Danielle.

  At the sight of me, those two bowed their heads, Hank looked like he was expecting to be ripped a new one.

  “Later, Hank,” I promised him, not letting my gaze slip from Sabella’s. “I have some unfinished business with my beta first.”

  “Now just wait a minute,” she said, holding up her hand as I stalked toward the table. “I left for a reason, alright? I’m trying to keep your stubborn ass safe. And what do you do? You ignore me, again. I’m the seer, remember? I see things for a reason.”

  “We both messed up,” I told her, moving around the table even as she started to back away. “But that does not give you any right to run away.”

  “Why the hell not?” Her voice shook.

  “You have responsibilities to your pack,” I reminded her. “And before you go into the argument about you not being a shifter, you’re right, you’re not, and I shouldn’t have tried to make you into one. However, you didn’t just leave me, you left them, too. Alone and confused.”

  She blinked furiously, backing away slowly, not letting herself get within arm’s reach of me. “I couldn’t risk hurting them as I hurt you.” Pain filled her eyes as she glanced at my chest.

  “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

  “But at that moment, you didn’t trust me, Tristan. I can’t… I don’t blame you for that either.”

  I paused for a moment, remembering the hesitation I’d felt at that moment, and how now it was overshadowed by the amount of love I had for this red-headed seer who stumbled into my life.

  “I was scared,” I admitted.

  Hank and Danielle’s eyes widen in surprise.

  “Honestly, I still am, for you, for the future of the pack. But Sabella, I can’t do this alone. I can’t fight the darkness without you by my side.”

  Tears shimmered in her eyes, but she wiped them away, shaking her head vehemently. “I can’t,” she whispered, almost pleading. “I… I’m scared too, of all of this.”

  I reached for her, but she drew back so fast, she crashed into the table and nearly tipped it over. I frowned, glancing at Kate for answers, but she offered nothing. “I won’t let you run away from us,” I swore. “Wherever you go, I’ll find you.”

  “You can’t, alright? You just, you don’t understand.”

  “Then help me,” I pleaded, moving toward her as she backed herself into the wall and froze when she realized she was trapped. “Why are you really scared?”

  I heard footsteps at the door and spotted Ashan and Drake with Forrest and Craig behind them. They must’ve left a few hours after I did to try and catch up. Or Forrest flew them here, the cheater.

  Sabella’s eyes were locked on mine, and I stopped a foot away from her, waiting for her to tell me what I was missing.

  “You won’t hurt me again,” I assured her. “We’re stronger together, we’ll fight this.”

  “I know we are,” she confessed, laughing bitterly. “You keep the insanity away. You and I together… we’re strong enough to block Baladon from using me, but I won’t be the reason you fall to the curse.”

  That I had not expected to hear. “What are you talking about?”

  But she clamped her lips shut, and her hands curled into fists at her sides.

  “Sabella,” I whispered, as I reached out and cupped her cheek, breathing one sigh of relief to have her close again, chasing away the horrible nightmare where I saw her die. “Talk to me, please.”

  She leaned into my hand, her eyes scrunched shut tightly. “I had a vision before I lashed out at you.”

  “And? What did you see?” A dark voice in the back of my mind told me I already knew, but I had to hear the words from her mouth, had to know the truth of why she really ran away from me. “Sabella, what did you see?”

  A single tear slipped from her eye, and I wiped it away with my thumb.

  “I saw death,” she uttered.

  “Mine?” I asked, praying that’s what she would say, but she shook her head.

  “I saw mine… and not just mine,” she murmured, opening her eyes and staring past me to Kate. “Kate’s, too.”

  “What?” Craig snarled from the doorway.

  “Just calm down for two seconds,” Kate told him as he pushed into the room and went to her.

  “Did you see how?” I asked, barely able to keep a leash on my already raw emotions.

  “No, that was the problem. There was you, Craig, and Forrest and then me, Kate, and someone else I couldn’t see,” she explained, her whole body shaking now. “And… ah, I was just dead and then Kate and the third figure, they collapsed. You… you shifted, and you took off, and that’s all I saw.”

  The flood of agony tearing me apart at the notion of Sabella dead was almost too much. I wrapped my arms around her, and she sank into my embrace, clutching at me as if she was going to die today.

  “Nothing is going to happen to you,” I whispered, my lips against her hair. “I swear it.”

  “You can’t know that,” she pointed out.

  “And you know for certain that what you saw is going to come true?” I demanded. “How do you know that vision didn’t mean something else, huh?”

  “Tristan…”

  I pulled back enough
so I could see her face and those green eyes that always saw so much more than just what was on the outside. “I love you,” I said fiercely, “and you and I are meant to be together. Nothing, not even your crazed, demented god of an uncle is going to bring that to an end. Do you hear me? I will not watch you die. Not unless I’m going with you.”

  “But that’s why I left. I don’t want you to die.”

  “Do you know what happens to a shifter if they lose their soulmate?” I asked her.

  “No, but—”

  “Even if you were just to leave me,” I went on, “to try and keep me safe, it would slowly kill me, and that’s not some romantic bullshit. That’s the honest truth, Sabella.” I held her hands in mine firmly, needing her to feel how much she meant to me, visions, insanity, all of it, I would face with her. “You are not a shifter, and I’m sorry it took me so long to figure out that forcing our ways down your throat wasn’t going to work.”

  She laughed through the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Too damned long, but I wasn’t exactly helpful either.”

  “Running off into danger without a plan is a bit annoying.”

  As we stared into each other’s eyes, all notion of waiting to have our future together disappeared. This, right here and now, this was our present and our future. And I was not going to waste another minute of it.

  “Sabella, I might not be able to see the future,” I told her, “or know for sure we’ll survive this war, but I do know that I love you and these past few days have told me one thing: you and I are far worse off when we’re not together. So, will you do me the honor of officially becoming my queen?”

  “Tristan?” she asked in a breath.

  “Marry me?”

  “Now?” she asked loudly, and those gathered chuckled. “But the war and Baladon.”

  I kissed her warmly, drawing her in close and she kissed me right back, just as fiercely. “They can all wait one day I think,” I whispered against her lips.

  Applause erupted, and Forrest whistled loudly. Behind us, I heard Craig telling Kate this did not get her off the hook for not telling him the truth either. My arms remained firmly planted around Sabella’s waist until Ashan and Kate came over and asked for her hands.

  “Wait, where are we going?” she asked as they tugged her toward the door.

  “You, my dear, need to get ready for your wedding,” Ashan announced, throwing a wink my way as Craig, Forrest, and Drake came in to shake my hand.

  “Nicely done,” Forrest complimented. “Knew you wouldn’t wait.”

  “Cutting it close though,” Craig said, watching Kate through the doorway. I sensed his need to be with Kate now during every second of the day, after learning about Sabella’s vision. I felt exactly the same way, but we both held ourselves back. “Guess we should get ready, too. You stink, man.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t fly here,” I said, pointedly glaring at Forrest.

  “No idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Before you duck out,” Drake said and turned me around where an old elf beamed at me with a grandfatherly smile, “this is Hansi.”

  “Pleasure to finally meet you,” the elf said warmly.

  “Not sure I can exactly say the same,” I said as I shook his hand. “I hear you may have found a way to find Baladon?”

  “Yes, yes, but that can wait as you said. There is a wedding, and I for one, love weddings.”

  He was the next out of the door, muttering to himself about getting himself dressed in his best robes. Greyson followed him after bowing to me. As I neared the door, Hank and Danielle came to my side.

  “Hank, if you ever leave with her again and not send a direct message to me, I’ll have you on manure duty for the rest of your days,” I warned, but then held out my hand for his. As he took it, I added, “Thank you, for keeping her safe.”

  He nodded. “Of course, sire. I wanted to send you word when she let slip about the vision, but she’s more shifter than she realizes.”

  “She put you in your place?”

  “Oh, she did that,” he said with a chuckle. “Damned scary, to be honest with you.”

  “Good, now then, I think I’m being summoned to get ready for a wedding.”

  Craig and Forrest pulled me out of the room as Drake mentioned finding me something suitable to wear that was not covered in mud and muck. All I did was smile, knowing that in a few hours, my soul would finally be complete. Sabella’s possible death hung over my head, but Craig and Forrest did a good job of distracting me from my dark thoughts.

  Today was my wedding day after all.

  There was no room for Baladon or the war.

  There was only room for thoughts of my future with Sabella.

  12

  Sabella

  So, what do you think?” Ashan asked, turning me around, as she and Kate stepped back to admire their handiwork.

  A few of her elven ladies were there, too, and all of them nodded excitedly. “Sabella, it helps if you open your eyes and actually look in the mirror.”

  Slowly and carefully, not wanting to trip and rip the elegant gown, I spun until my face came into view in the mirror. “Oh wow,” I whispered in awe. “Is that me?”

  “That’s you,” Kate assured me. “You’re beautiful.”

  I slid my hands gently down the front of the green and silver fabric that made up the bodice of the dress before it gave way to delicate drapes of darker fabric that trailed behind me in a train. There was beading along the v-neckline, and it was sleeveless. They left my hair hanging, adding a simple crown of delicate, white, tiny flowers from the garden.

  Ashan had presented me with a handcrafted silver and emerald necklace that with a teardrop pendant and matching earrings.

  “I have to pay you back somehow,” I said quietly.

  Ashan was already shaking her head.

  “No. Seeing the love between you two is enough. Oh, my dear, you are a vision. That wolf is going to faint when he sees you,” she beamed.

  The others nodded in agreement.

  Kate came forward and held out a simple bouquet of white roses for me to carry. “You ready?”

  Was I? I would be binding myself to Tristan, confirming the love I had for him. If that vision came true, if I died, there was no doubt at all in my mind he would be lost in the curse. But he was right. The future was an unknown. Baladon could attack tomorrow and kill us all, and we would’ve wasted these precious moments stressed and worried, lost in fear, instead of being with the ones we love.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m ready.” I smiled at the confidence in my voice then froze. “Wait, what am I even supposed to do?”

  Kate and Ashan laughed as the latter patted my hand. “Don’t worry. Hansi will walk you through the ceremony.”

  “Hansi’s marrying us?”

  “Yes, and I promise, he will stick to the point and not drive everyone insane.”

  Kate helped me off the short platform I’d been standing on for the last couple of hours while Ashan and her ladies had taken one of Ashan’s gowns and turned it into what was now my wedding dress. Years ago, I’d accepted my fate of being trapped in an asylum for the rest of my life. Never having any real friends, never getting married and having that happy love life. If only my past self could’ve seen this future, she might not have let the darkness in so much.

  We left the queen’s chambers and walked in a procession through the corridors and down toward the heart of the palace. Everyone who was there smiled and then went on their way, walking toward the garden where the ceremony was going to take place.

  “Wait here until you hear the music,” Ashan told me as she wiped happy tears from her eyes. “Right then, Kate?”

  “Coming.” She squeezed my hand one more time then followed Ashan.

  I was left alone, just out of sight of those in the garden.

  My hands trembled, and my breathing suddenly grew ragged. A wave of dizziness hit me, and I sensed the darkness creeping in closer and closer, showing me my d
ead body again. But I pictured Tristan and how he’d come here to tell me he would never abandon me. That no matter what happened, we would face it together. We were stronger together, and after this ceremony, we would truly be the leaders of his pack, one soul.

  Not even Baladon could break that up.

  Beautiful string music flowed out of the garden, and when I lifted my head, the dizziness gone, I smiled and started forward. Barefoot, of course. As soon as I appeared in the doorway, my eyes locked onto the wolf’s down at the other end.

  His back went rigid and Craig whispered something to him, patting him on the shoulder. Tristan was dressed in an elegant green blouse with a silk vest to match, brown breeches and boots. He was handsome, but it was the raw love in his eyes that pulled me to him, and I started through the soft grass, my toes peeking out with every step. His gaze darted down, and his smile widened even more as we grinned at each other.

  The music stopped as I reached him.

  Kate stretched out to take my bouquet.

  Hansi held up his hands, and there were tears shimmering in the old elf’s eyes. Not that I could judge. I was on the verge of crying out of sheer happiness of this moment.

  “We have come together today to join two souls as one,” Hansi started. “Tristan, Alpha, and King of the Shifters of Torolf, to Sabella, Beta and daughter of Crane and Farrah, the Goddess of Light. If you will both proclaim your promise to the other.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked, panicking.

  Tristan laughed warmly.

  “No one said I had to say anything.”

  “Just say what’s in your heart, my dear,” Hansi whispered with a wink.

  “Right, that’s not hard,” I murmured.

  The guests laughed lightly.

  I glanced up and as soon as I saw Tristan’s eyes, my burst of nervousness faded to the background.

  “You saved me the first time we met. And then you chained me to a wall because you thought I was an enemy,” I added, getting more laughs. “But despite our rough meeting, you never once let me down. You’ve been there for me, and you’ve chased away the darkness. Still do. And I can’t imagine moving forward without you by my side, and I swear to stay beside yours, no matter what.”